Episode 9: The Outer Circle – from Brent Cross to the World’s End Causeway

In this final episode of the series, John Rogers and Nick Papadimitriou take us on a lop-sided perambulation through ‘remote London’ from the north-west passage at Brent Cross to the eastern Gateway on the Thames Estuary at Tilbury. On the way they take in a jaunt along the buried and forgotten Philly Brook in Leytonstone, the Middlesex Tertiary Escarpment, the Southern Outfall Sewer, the Ilford of Thomas Burke’s Outer Circle and the lost pleasure gardens of Finsbury and Pentonville.
With music by Europa51 and readings by Heidi Lapaine from The Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin, The Outer Circle: Rambles in Remote London by Thomas Burke, and The Kings England: Essex by Arthur Mee.

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Episode 8:  An Estuarine Odyssey- Tilbury

This week John Rogers and Nick Papadimitriou head down the A13 to Tilbury led by geologist Dr Kate Spencer from Queen Mary, University of London and musician Andy Ramsay from Europa51.
They walk the foreshore of the windswept Thames Estuary between the two Tilbury forts,  over the cracking surface of an historic the 1930s landfill site pushing up Shippam’s paste jars through the flaking clay cap which also sprouts poisonously hallucinogenic thorn apple plants.

With readings by Heidi Lapaine to music by Europa51

Watch a video from the walk here

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Episode 7: London Topographical Bookfest

Nick Papadimitriou and John Rogers discuss a selection of their favourite London books with readings to music by Europa51.
They delve into Montague Sharpe’s Middlesex in British, Roman and Saxon Times (1919); William Margrie’s The Diary of a London Explorer (1933); Gordon S. Maxwell’s Highwayman’s Heath (1935) and HV Morton’s London (1926).

Read more about the show here

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Episode 6: Finsbury and Pentonville

This week Nick and John take a languid winter stroll along the arbours of the pleasure grounds and spa resorts of Finsbury and Pentonville.

Heading by way of a dank Saffron Hill with talk of Oliver Twist and the Sabini Gang they take in Coldbath Square, The Islington Spa, Bagnigge Wells, St. Chads and others mentioned in Old London’s Spas, Baths & Wells by S.P. Sunderland (1915).

They discuss the cluttered local history of the area now under the auspices of the London Borough of Islington and some of the more imaginative mythology concerning the Penton Mound.

With reading by Heidi Lapaine and music by Europa51

Read more about this episode here

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Episode 5: The Eastern Queen (Ilford)

Inspired by Thomas Burke’s The Outer Circle: Rambles in Remote London, Nick Papadimitriou and John Rogers explore the far-lying eastern suburb of Ilford.
Burke , like other writers of the early 20th Century, was disdainful of Ilford. Writing in 1921 he said of ‘the Eastern Queen’ that, “After Walthamstow it comes as tepid soda-water upon an August noon. Ilford wears an expression of unfulfilled desire. It hungers for colour. Even the rush and turmoil about the Broadway have a frigid tone.”

Nick and John ignored his advice and headed out along the Romford Road to find a visionary landscape, optimistic and vibrant, ‘rising from alluvial Essex’.
With reading by Heidi Lapaine and music by Europa51

Watch a video from the walk in Ilford here
Read more about this episode here

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Episode 4:  Plumstead to Cross Ness along the Southern Outfall Sewer

This week John and Nick follow their noses out along the Southern Outfall Sewer or the ‘Bazalgette Express’  across the marshes from Plumstead to Cross Ness.

Guided by The Lure and Lore of London’s River by A.G. Linney (1920’s) they perambulate the raised path that follows the final journey of south London’s sewage to its terminus at the sewage colony at Cross Ness Point, ‘the place where all things end’. John and Nick cast this 32 acre site as one of London’s most significant sites, sat at the river’s edge at the end of the marshes.
The flat expanse of Plumstead Marshes now accommodates Belmarsh Prison and Thamesmead Estate, with the dark ridge of Bostall Woods rising above. This is a classic and landscape.
With reading by Heidi Lapaine and music by Europa51.

Watch a video Nick and John’s walk from Plumstead to Cross Ness here
Read more about this episode here

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Episode 3 – Scarp

This week John Rogers and Nick Papadimitriou head out onto the North Middlesex/South Hertfordshire Escarpment, subject of a forthcoming book by Nick.
Scarp is a conspicuous but broken ridge running from Batchworth Heath, near Harefield, on the Middlesex-Buckinghamshire border, via Oxhey to Elstree and thence eastward to High Barnet. Further east, the ridge runs through Hadley and Enfield Chase, widening considerably north of the former place towards Shenley and North Mimms. The eastern edge of Scarp curves north and then north-east, following the River Lee upstream into Hertfordshire, until it diminishes in height in the region of Hertford and Great Amwell. Much of the land is green belt broken by small clusters of dwellings, old farms and ribbons of Victorian suburban houses. Scarp attains its greatest height at Stanmore Common (480 ft).
With a reading from the book by Nick Papadimitriou and music by Europa51

Read more about this episode on the Ventures blog and watch a video of the walk on Vimeo

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