Often its an image, or sense, of the physical presence of a place that draws me to it, but in the case of One Tree Hill, it was the name that attracted me.
A name that seemed so impossibly resonant that I had to see for myself whether the actual hill could ever live up to it.
Some places just sound better than others. Whatever they may actually be like on the ground, there are places with names that seem to possess an inherent resonance and romance.
Others however, just sound a bit crap.
Yesterday, the St Jude storm sent me on something of a dérive within a small area of Lambeth. There were no trains due to the winds, so instead of standing on Tulse Hill’s platform 1, I made for Brixton, but wanting to avoid the main roads, headed up a road I’d never walked along before.
As a reader some books are inevitable. This one had nagged at me for years, before finally, I plunged in and it felt like meeting an old friend.
The pervading spirit of some places hangs quite obviously in the air. Even if you’re only passing through and not looking very hard, the distinctive atmosphere will soon make itself apparent.
West Norwood isn’t one of those places.
It seems ridiculous now, but until I set out on this walk it hadn’t occurred to me that Wallsend, is literally the Wall’s End. As you follow the course of the walk, there are plenty more Wall inspired place names like this to take in, such as Walltown, Wall and Heddon On The Wall.
Islington is not exactly blessed with parks and green space. This makes one of the borough’s great unexpected treasures all the more delightful.
From the top deck of a bus on Moorgate, on the facade of a bank, I once saw a lighthouse sculpted into the corner of the building. It seemed strikingly beautiful and strangely out of place. I couldn’t help wondering who put it there and why…
In every city I’ve lived in, I try finding alternative routes through them that avoid streets where possible and move through parks and other green spaces instead. Here’s a short, but worthwhile one for Nottingham.
Between the back gardens and traffic jammed streets of North London runs an extraordinary green path: Parkland Walk, once a rail line to the suburbs, now a tree-lined escape from the city, in the middle of a city.
A new way to go behind the scenes of some of Bristol’s most historic buildings.
In a park near Ely Cathedral is a strange, tree-covered little bump in the landscape. For a long time I had no idea what it was.
A ‘spotter’s guide’ to some of the more common themes, obsessions and clichés to be found in non-fiction ghost books.
All book lovers and avid readers, whatever type of book or subject matter they’re into, are faced with one great big non-negotiable truth – YOU’LL NEVER READ THEM ALL.
A little beyond Highbury Corner, just off the traffic jams and restless hustle of Holloway Road, are some silent giants. The giants in question are trees – any mental association with Arsenal, The Emirates and hushed crowds, or the sylvan stiffness of certain Germanic central defenders, is entirely in your own imagination. Trees, on the…
Magpie Tales blog invited people to submit a poem or vignette based on this picture. Here’s mine: The moment never stops, its memory left breathlessly hanging, catching witnesses endlessly off-guard Bewildered in half-sight they hear the blood noise spatter before an uncertainty of silence, A chaos of imbalance twists into canvas Polishing a darkened crimson history until it shines A formless…
Every area of urban green space has it’s own particular history. However, in a general sense, it’s probably true to say that the reason for a specific site’s continued existence will be one of three: it’s a cherished survivor, it’s hung on by chance, or it’s been deliberately created in a spot that was previously home to something else.
I’m doing Movember this year. For those of you who know all about it, please hurry along and make a donation here: http://mobro.co/mattgilbert1 For everyone else, here’s a bit more information: During November each year, Movember is responsible for the sprouting of moustaches on thousands of men’s faces in the UK and around the world.…
This sleeve is a genuine piece of history, and in it’s own stiff way everything it says about the value of LPs still holds true…
Far more than Judge Dredd – old stone face himself – it was Mega City 1 itself that caught my imagination as a child reading 2000AD.
There’s something both thrilling and terrifying in the idea of this vast, anarchic, dirty, urban sprawl, that’s the size of a state.
Richly Evocative 