A child’s map of Crystal Palace Park, or panic fear in the unwild.

Is it acceptable to call replica Sphinxes ‘The Guys?’ Who is The Headless Lady with no arms (who has arms)? What terrors await when you stop paying attention in the maze?

All back to Asselega’s place

Is it possible to be haunted by a place? I think that I may be. In this case it is Ashley Vale in Bristol – an exceptional urban oasis caught between the tracks, containing allotments, woods, hilltops and a pub next door to a farm.

Along a side street Somewhere: In search of an anonymous suburb

I recently went in search for an ‘anonymous suburb’.

This is what I discovered.

No one should mourn a coffee shop

Today a coffee shop near where I work in Clerkenwell disappeared…

A time for shelf analysis: New Year reading resolutions

It’s dark. It’s raining. January is upon us and the season of reflection, projection and resolve is underway. For voracious readers, this means that the perennial question: what to read next will be nagging at their shoulders more urgently than ever.

The Impossibility of Worthington lakes

Let’s say I was there.

For work.

In a hotel near three reservoirs for Wigan.

Let’s say I slipped out back on an unexpected walk,
on a circular path…

Under Norwood: West Norwood Cemetery’s catacombs

Norwood is yawning but awake: shopping, grabbing coffee, heading for breakfast, haircuts, workouts, dates. Watching Saturday unfold beyond the cemetery gates, it’s a little difficult to picture a time when almost none of this was there.

In 1837 London was growing rapidly and expanding at the edges. The city had an urgent need for space and not just for its living. Traditional city centre churchyards and dissenters’ burial grounds were full to bursting – the metropolitan dead also needed somewhere to go.

Up Brandon Hill!

Wherever you find yourself in Bristol, a hill will be lying in wait. South Bristol even has a whole area seemingly named in jokey reference to its steep streets – Totterdown.

My favourite though, will always be Brandon Hill – scene of public protest, fake duels, restrictive carpet beating and for a long time, hermit’s cells.

Common Ground or Private Park: Whose Nature (writing) is it anyway?

This post originally began as a rant about ‘gatekeeping’ in so-called ‘New Nature Writing’. Since then, I’ve tightened it up a little, and updated some of the links, esp. re lack of diversity in nature writing, creeping nativism and more.

On the listening ridge

I’m back. It’s been a while. The woods behind my parents’ house on Tickenham Ridge haven’t changed hugely in the last few months – the seasons have cycled through and for now the hill is a shining riot of green in a dozen shades.

An hour earlier I was in these woods in company with my two boys, my sister, brother-in-law, two nephews and my Dad, but this time I am alone and things feel different.

A Stray Field in South London

An ordinary looking grassy field, at the foot of Gipsy Hill in South London, turns out to be anything but…

Here’s Where The Story Begins: The Sundays’ Reading, Writing and Arithmetic at 25.

In my teens being there mattered. Having, or at least knowing about, the latest album RIGHT NOW was crucial. To my shame I was late to the Cure and late to the Smiths and countless others. But with the Sundays I got there bang on time. As soon as their first album was released in early 1990 I went out and bought it. That made them mine.

(I don’t want to go to) #Midtown

Not far from where I work in Clerkenwell, a series of large orange and white flags fixed to lampposts line the major thoroughfares running through Holborn, Chancery Lane, Bloomsbury and St Giles. They state blithely that you are InMidtown, before in tiny print, grudgingly acknowledging the actual names of the places they are attempting to reinvent.

Waiting in the boneyard: Abney Park

Stamford Hill Motors is not the most romantic of destinations, but I always feel a frisson of excitement when I have to go there. I used to live nearby but no longer, so the annual MOT has become an excuse to visit one of my old North London haunts. It also gives me a legitimate reason to simply…

In The Shadow of the Library: Terror and Wonder – The Gothic Imagination

Crumbling ruins, moonlight, tree-lined walks, bats flitting, owls hooting, wolves howling, trapdoors and darkling cellar stairs…

Ever since I can remember I’ve been attracted to things that might be termed ‘Gothic’. For that reason I have been looking forward enormously to the latest exhibition at the British Library: Terror and Wonder – The Gothic Imagination.

A chamber of magic beneath the A212: The Crystal Palace Subway

Crystal Palace, geographically at least, is defined by its height: Palace = Hills.

But, hidden beneath busy Crystal Palace Parade, there is something else, a stunningly beautiful place that is usually inaccessible to the public.

Ten Books

I was recently nominated by a friend on Facebook to post a list of the 10 books that had made the most impact on me. It was a lot harder than I thought and I’ve had to miss out some real favourites. I could have written ten lists, let alone ten titles, featuring almost entirely…

Escape to a wilder city: London as National Park

I must admit that when I first heard about the campaign to make London the world’s first National Park City, I thought it was a joke.

And yet the more I thought about it, the more interesting the concept became.

Make a break for the trees: Crystal Palace’s Stambourne Woodland Walk

It gives me hope a place like this. A small brown sign outside the Queen’s Hotel, Church Road the only local clue. Stambourne Woods this way, down that gravel drive and through the gate. On the house next door another sign gives red framed warning of a moose who isn’t there. This sliver of…