So, what should we see while we're in London?

Jeg har et meget nært forhold til London. Jeg boede derovre for en (hel) del år siden, og har været tilbage mange gange siden. I takt med at jeg er blevet mere landmus end bymus er der en tendens til, at jeg mest er på gennemrejse i London, men jeg har i hvert fald fablet så meget om byen, at folk tror, jeg er sådan en der har Gode Tips til deres London-tur.

"Hvad skal vi så se derovre?" spørger de glad og forventningsfuldt.

Og jeg svarer: "I skal gå på kirkegården".

Hvorefter de spørger en anden.

Jeg ved ikke, hvorfor de bliver overraskede. I det mindste lagde jeg da ikke ud med at anbefale et besøg på London Transport Museum (det ville jeg have nævnt, hvis de var blevet hængende).

Det er ikke en hvilken som helst kirkegård, jeg sender folk hen på. Det er Highgate Cemetery  i det nordlige London - og på en solrig dag kan det med stor, stor fordel kombineres med dels en tur på Hampstead Heath og dels med en pub lunch, som er en del bedre end det, du opstøver omkring Oxford Street (hvor jeg nødig sætter mine ben).

Highgate Cemetery er faktisk et fantastisk sted at spadsere en tur -formedelst £4, hvis du kan holde dig til den østlige kirkegård. Den vestlige er kun med guided rundvisning -£12- og min timing er altid helt i hegnet, så der har jeg ikke været inde. Endnu.  

Kom, så skal jeg vise dig hvorfor jeg synes det er fantastisk.

@ N ~whenever people ask me what sights I suggest they include in their London itinerary, I always wholeheartedly recommend a visit to Highgate Cemetary.

I don't think anyone has ever followed my recommendation, so now I try to persuade The People by means of a blog post.

Because it's one of my favourite corners of London.  I like cemeteries in general; especially if they're a bit overgrown or has some interesting history, and Highgate has both. Plenty of it.

There are half broken statues of angels, there are head stones covered in lichen, there are old old graves right next to fairly new ones, there are mausoleums and there are definitely ghosts and vampires.

(I would like one of these, when my time comes)

As mentioned, not all the graves are hundreds of years old:

Quite cool, I think.

And then, there's this one  -  not entirely 

without humour ...

To the right, we have the darling wife -

loved by many.

And to the left, deceased one year later:

the beloved husband -

loved by all.

I guess he wins?

Mere nørderi (ja, jeg kan sagtens blive ved)

Da jeg lagde linket til indlægget om IoW på facebook i går, skrev min ven Jens i en kommentar "er med i vognen, men en anelse bekymret".

Det er min mentale tilstand han hentyder til, går jeg ud fra, og den skal han naturligvis ikke gå og bekymre sig om helt uden grund, så jeg haster med at bringe endnu et indlæg, som kan skubbe mig langt ind i rækkerne af Håbløse Tilfælde.

I dag skal vi nemlig besøge Leinster Gardens i Bayswater, London.  En rimelig kedelig gade - med et særligt herligt fænomen ...

@ N ~ aye, we continue down the old railway tracks. One of my friends (only the one friend. I swear ...) thinks I may be a little nuts, and I don't want him to think that for no reason. So, here is a(nother) reason.

Today, we're on a little excursion to Leinster Gardens in Bayswater, London.  It looks an awful lot like most other streets in that part of the city, except for the houses at number 23 and 24 ...  Notice anything special?

Dette er nr. 23 & 24 Leinster Gardens.

Kan du se noget særligt, hva'-hva'-hva'?

Det er bare en facade - vinduerne er

malet på!

They're "dummy houses"!

Scroll down for an incredibly

fascinating explanation.

Hvad er nu det for noget sært noget, tænker du nok. Da især hvis du kender kvadratmeterprisen i London. Hvis du kender den, sidder du faktisk nok og dåner lidt lige nu, for TÆNK hvad en bygning kunne generere af lejeindkomster i det område - og så står der bare en pap-facade. Well, pap og pap. Jeg tror muren er over en meter tyk. Men ikke desto mindre en facade.

Det skyldes - og her giver vi så fri luft til begejstringen igen - at undergrundsbanen kører lige nedenunder!!!

Og her taler jeg ikke om de små tog, som kører i ægte "tubes" meget langt under jorden. Jeg taler om en af de første linier, som køres med det, der kaldes surface stock. Vi afbryder lige med en meget kort teknisk forklaring. Kig på toget til venstre herunder - noget større end det til højre, bemærker den kvikke læser straks. Det tog kører på en af de første linier, hvor konstruktionsmetoden i grove træk gik ud på, at man gravede gaden op, lagde jernbanespor ned i en "grøft", byggede tag henover, og gen-anlagde gaden ovenpå dét.  Og i starten - tager I noter, drenge og piger? - var det damplokomotiver, der trak hele herligheden.

(from wikipedia)

On the left: SURFACE STOCK.

The first underground lines were built

using the "cut and cover" method. They dug

up a street, put down railway tracks, roofed

it over, and re-paved the street.

Originally - and this is important - the

trains were pulled with steam locomotives.

Like this one:

Picture borrowed with kind permission

from Going Underground

(the best blog about the London Underground)

Damplokomotiverne var udstyret med noget kondensator af en art, men af og til skulle de af med dampen, og derfor har undergrundsbanen (the surface lines) kig til himlen hist og pist.  Og altså blandt andet bag den falske facade i Leinster Gardens.

Men pænt skulle det jo se ud, så derfor byggede man de nydelige dummy houses som falder smukt i med bygningerne ved siden af.

Og nu tænker du nok: og hvad så??? (eller også er du allerede gået).  Og jeg kan ikke helt forklare, hvorfor det gør mig så begejstret. Men jeg kan bare så utrolig godt li' at vide, at de er der. Og vide hvorfor de er der.  Baggrundsviden er meget sexet, i min bog.

Hvis man går om i gaden bag ved, kan man faktisk godt se ned til togene. Hvis altså man har en lille trappestige med eller er en hel del højere end din ærede blogger, for der er en mur langs fortovet (højst generende hvis du spørger mig).  Så jeg stillede mig på tæer, straaaakte mine korte arme alt hvad jeg kunne, og knipsede løs når jeg kunne høre at toget kom.

@ N ~ so, the thing about Leinster Gardens is that the Underground passes directly underneath! Needless to say, this thrills me to bits.

The first Underground trains were, as mentioned above, pulled by steam locomotives. They did have condensers to reduce fumes in the tunnels, but there had to be open-air sections to allow the trains to let off the steam, and behind Leinster Gardens is one such section.  (There is another reason and that is that people generally weren't keen on living right on top of the railway lines - hence the cut-and-cover method, where the lines generally followed the roads on the surface. The London Underground has some incredibly interesting curves in places, I can tell you)

And to keep things looking neat, they built the facades to match the buildings to the left and right.

I walked over to the street behind Leinster Gardens, and had I been a lot taller than I am (or thought to bring a step ladder) I could have peeked directly down on the tracks. As it happens, they've put a wall there to block my view, so I had to stand on my toes and just point my camera when I could hear a train.

It worked sort of okay - you can just see a train disappearing into the tunnel on the left-hand track :-)

I'm not 100% sure why I find this so incredibly exciting. I think it must be something to do with my love for trivia - I just *heart* knowing that this exists, and knowing why it's there.

Also, it's one of the countless, charming little quirks that make London, well,  London.

Kan I se toget, der lige forsvinder ind i 

tunnellen i det venstre spor? :-)

Jeg kan i øvrigt berette, at huset til højre har ét vindue, der vender ind mod åbningen. Jeg forestiller mig, at der sidder en støvet gammel mand deroppe og kigger ned, mens han på sit lommeur holder øje med, om togene nu går til tiden ...

Så, Jens - er du nu for alvor bekymret? :-)

@ N ~PS: I cannot make up my mind about what works best - having the Danish text + pictures first, and then the translation (or rather; your custom made version) at the bottom, or mixing it all up like this.  I imagine it must be a bit tedious to look at the photos and then having to scroll down to see what it was all about   -  but doing it this way does make for rather a schizo reading experience.  What to do, what to dooooooooo?

For it's a jolly good fella

My beloved LONDON UNDERGROUND turns 150!

Yes, the very transport system that unleashed my Inner Nerd celebrates a very significant birthday - the first passengers boarded an underground train (minding the gap, of course) in 1863.

When I lived in London, not only did I commute on the London Underground, I worked under the London Underground. No, it was not in a dungeon - exciting though that might have been - it was in a railway arch, because at that location the Underground is actually running overground.  Every few minutes, the trains would pass directly over my head.  The noise was loud, but it only took half a day to get used to it.  I remember a few days, when there was a tube strike - it was so eerily silent in the office.  

On weekends, I travelled the entire network - and alighted at stations with weird and wonderful names,  like ANGEL and COCKFOSTERS and BARKING. My nose was pressed against the window when I travelled north of Baker Street on the Metropolitan Line, because I liked to spot the remains of the abandoned "ghost" stations there. I visited the London Transport Museum (you should go, too), and bought books about the history of the Tube Map.

I should go to London again. Soon. It has been much, much too long.

Anyways: Happy Birthday LU!