The Golden Jubilee Bridges - utter filth

If you are planning to go to the Southbank or come to the market in Embankment Gardens this weekend (see my last post below) you may need to cross the Thames on foot. The obvious choice for the pedestrian is to use one of the Golden Jubilee bridges that run either side of Hungerford Railway Bridge.

Ooh, isn't it lovely!   But look closer....

These elegant foot bridges are reported to carry approx 8.4 million people every year so it disappoints me that they are not being maintained as well as they should be. I wonder if anyone is looking at or checking anything other than the fine views because whenever I begin to climb up any of the four flights of stairs that lead to one of the pair of elevated footpaths I am appalled at how dirty and unkempt everything is – layers of filth on the verticals of the steps, in the corners, near the lifts, and all the way along the edges. Everywhere, really except for the handrails which have been buffed clean by people's hands and clothing over the years.
And the glass side panels on all staircases are dull and/or dirty in large patches – surely these cannot have been designed to end up looking like this?
It sends a terrible message about how we, as Londoners, disrespect our environment.

The stairs outside the Royal Festival Hall and a close up of them.
The metal that runs all the way along is grubby and could/should just be wiped clean. Ditto the area by the lift.

The approach from Embankment tube station is just as bad, perhaps worse. On exiting the station one can easily see the ugly side of the foot bridge, and it's not a pretty sight. Again, lots of filth, scuffed paint and ingrained dirt. What do visitors to London make of this? 

I already wrote about this issue in March 2012 and made some other suggestions – read it here.

On the day I took these photos the eastern bridge (13 May 2015) I spotted a man in a Veolia Environmental Services hi-vis jacket scraping out the moss that had grown between the paving stones and the metal edging. Perhaps this was a precursor to some proper cleaning. I hope so.

The metal signs giving information about the views are also in a sorry state – a buff with a soft sander or a cloth shouldn't be that hard to do. Or better still, get a new sign made!! After all, this must need updating by now considering the amount of new build in the past 10 years. http://www.janeslondon.com/2015/05/cityshowcase-market-at-embankment.htmlhttp://www.janeslondon.com/2015/05/cityshowcase-market-at-embankment.html

Update October 2025: I have noticed that this bridge has been cleaned. In fact last month I saw a small team of contractors busy with jet washers and sponges. That's good. 

John Maine's Sea Strata at Green Park Station, Piccadilly – Utter Filth!

In 2011 a marvellous work by John Maine was opened to the public. Wonderful carvings within the rock evoke fossilised rock and the rolling sea. I was really impressed with it. Well, I still am impressed by the artwork.
But six years on it's filthy, and that's far from impressive.

It's been looking icky like this for at least the past year. Hardly a nice welcome for people entering the Royal Park behind. A plate within the pavement shows that this is Transport For London's private property.
Come on  TfL, get your jet washers out please.
John Maine's subtle pieces are inspired by nature. His other London work includes the war memorial within Islington Green.

More filth here.

Patchwork platforms and utter filth on the London Underground

From delightfully intriguing glazed tiles in my last post to shoddy in less than a mile... 

Holborn station is the next station along the Piccadilly line from Russell Square, but it no longer retains any Edwardian era Leslie Green designs having been upgraded in 1933 when it became an interchange with the Central Line and then, in the 1980s, the platforms were remodelled to reflect the antiquities at the nearby British Museum. 

As I stepped off a westbound train last week I noticed that the larger segment of a black tile has been replaced with a grey one:

Why? Surely black tiles aren't in short supply or difficult to source?! 

Worse... a few metres along there's this horrid patchwork mess:

Eurgh! If these yellow stripes were installed as a H&S non-slip zone, then why does it not continue all the way along the platform?!  

Plus, it's filthy. I occasionally see London TfL promo about how they keep the network clean. Hmm, do they? Really?  

At the risk of coming across a bit Daily Mail Handbags At Dawn, here are the dirty walls along the Central line platforms at Oxford Circus where (and it wouldn't have taken a genius to work this out) small tiles = more grout = more places for muck to cling:

I suppose TfL's logic was that sheets of small squares are easier to apply around curved walls. But they seem to have overlooked how these products will be maintained going forward.

Similar examples can be found across the network, mostly in the central zone, such as at Kings Cross where a contingent of fools decided to wipe away any historic value by replacing the lovely pale yellow tiles with black and ultramarine borders. Here's how one section of the interconnecting tunnels used to look in December 2008 just after some old ads were revealed that had been hidden under multiple layers of paper and paste:

A few months later this was all gone. 

And... don't get me started about the products used along The Elizabeth Line – read about more filth here! 

The V&A's new Sackler Courtyard and Sainsbury Gallery – I'm not impressed at all

I was invited to the press preview of these spaces and had been quite keen to go. On Wednesday morning, the day of the event, I put on the TV and saw it on BBC news. Oh ugh! How disappointing. I considered not bothering to leave the house after all. But then I thought, c'mon Jane, it's probably much better in the flesh, go take a look. So off I went.
As I approached the gates my heart sank and, as they say a lot these days, I am not going to lie to you – I really don't like it. Any of it. By which I mean any of it being here in this location. The elements are OK but just not for here. It reminds me of the Daniel Libeskind university building in Holloway Road which looks like some kind of malfunction happened and it was dropped from the sky into the wrong location.

Exhibition Road – the new entrance and the cafe just inside. 

Let's start with the gates on Exhibition Road. The Aston Webb Screen has been designed so that people can see through the gates when they are closed and have better access to the museum when they are open. All well and good, but the new gates are horrible.
As I approached them, I really thought they were temporary. The shade of grey is just like those corrugated panels that go up around building sites. A dark grey would have looked much better here. Apparently the barely noticeable patterns within the mesh is meant to echo the shrapnel damage that was on the walls they replace. Call me weird, but I preferred the walls – did we really need so many gates?

Architectural features; curves angles and reflections. Yawn.

Inside the gates it's all geometric shapes and mad curves over a courtyard paved in ceramic tiles. The cafe building (shown bottom left, above) looks to me like it could be part of Crossrail's scheme; the sharp angle on the roof resembles those vile geometric greenhouses we now see at the entrances of Tott Ct Rd station.
But it's the colour of the courtyard floor that concerns me most. It hit me hard as I arrived as it is completely the wrong tone. The tiles are a basic dead blue-white with added colours in stripes which, being mostly blue, further add to the coldness of the white and jar with the natural earthy tones of the older buildings. It was explained that these coloured lines tied up with some elements in the gallery below but try as I might I could not find the visual connection (see pics further down). This brings to mind Enzo Piano's explanation for the bright colours he used on his large constructions at St Giles, near Centrepoint; that they were to echo the colours of the guitars sold in Denmark Street. Really? green, yellow and orange guitars?!
But, back to the V&A courtyard floor – it was also explained that because tiles can be slippery (no shit Sherlock) it took a lot of time and effort (and money?!) designing them such that the fired coloured stripes sat within recesses. I really don't know why they bothered. I wonder if the whole thing is just so the V&A can say they have the first porcelain courtyard...?
Some sandstone or Yorkstone paving would have worked a treat here, even with all the other new elements, thereby mixing old and new.

Porcelain tiles – filth and a accident waiting to happen

The first two pics above show how the porcelain tiles are already filthy. Also worth mentioning is a triangular sloped section between the main flat area and the access ramp shown in the second two pics. In these days of Health and Safety madness I am quite surprised at this – see how the tiles have been placed with the design flowing downwards to further aid anyone who puts a step wrong. I reckon a guard rail of some kind will be added along the top after a few sprained ankles occur.

To the left of the courtyard near the cafe entrance, come carved lettering and leafy motifs on the old building has been re-gilded. All well and good but look how the new floor, which is metal here, obliterates WING and V&A.
Moving inside the building... The Sainsbury Gallery is a vast unsupported gallery space beneath the courtyard and is accessed via a staircase of glossy black and red (architects' orange). I was completely non-plussed on seeing this space – it's just a big dark empty room waiting for an event to arrive. It felt a bit like a underground car park with not columns. I suggest only architects and engineers who will be impressed by it. The general public will only appreciate the exhibitions that happen here.

Staircases, 1980s colours, wooden floors (nice touches) and the huge gallery

In conclusion, it's a mish-mash of ideas brought together in the wrong location.
And it cost £48M – yes, that's forty eight million pounds.
I will stop now.

Thought: Have I ever written about how I don't rate Tate Modern and it's damn Turbine Hall commissions either...?

Some lovely tiled panels in Hornsey High Street have been lost to us

Here we go again. As I am often to be heard saying, nobody demolishes or changes something with the intent to upset us – they really do believe they are improving things. Bless em. 

But once it's gone, it's gone. I'm not asking that we keep everything, that would be daft, but when lovely hints of history that have hung on for over 100 years are suddenly removed and replaced with unsympathetic and often cheap products that surely themselves will not last 100 years, I get a little despondent.

In the last few months I have seen the demise of many lovely old shops fronts that have been stripped of their heritage and replaced with modern flat glass or plastic panels. I hate to point fingers, but I am going to, and not in an accusatory way. Having spoken to many of the owners of these buildings whether during or post-renovation I have often discovered that these people are in the most part from other countries, mainly Turkish, and they truly think that they are doing us a favour by removing what they consider to be dirty, old or as one man said "too much historical". They are not trying to upset us. They want spaces that are clean, modern, boxy and shiny, preferably in white, grey or black, perhaps with a bit of gold lettering added.

Last week I delivered one of my Janes London prints to a house in Hornsey, London N8, and I used the opportunity to investigate the local high street, remembering that when I'd gone through there on a bus one late dark evening earlier this year, I was convinced that I'd noticed some changes to an old shop front.

Yep. Sad to report that the only shop that retained its original floor-to-ceiling tiled walls has had a make-over – the two facing panels, either side of what was a recessed window, have been obliterated. On the day I visited there were too many parked cars in the way to take decent photos so these next pics are screengrabs from Google streetview – top 2022, middle 2023 and bottom 2024 (how it appears today):

Boo hoo. I loved those tiles. They were wonderfully mad, evoking OTT Victorian gin palaces and luxurious hotel lobbies. Much of 1890's North London is beautifully littered with entranceways that resemble tile shop catalogues, showing a variety of patterns that to the modern eye look like they don't belong in the same space – but the chaos works. 

Here's a selection of my own pics to show how the shop in question used to look:

Back in 2012 I wrote a specific blog post about the lovely tiles in this part London. Let's hope that they managed to chip off and sell the tiles and they weren't simply smashed and skipped.

When this terrace was constructed there were tiled pilasters between each shop at street shop – more of my own pics: 

Today, of the few tiled pilasters that remain, they covered in stickers or filth, obliterated by downpipes, or overpainted, whether fully or in half vertically – this is my side! 

The green plaque on the wall above the hairdressers is for David Grieg (1865-1952), grocer and local benefactor. I stood and wondered what he'd make of how this terrace looks today, indeed the whole street. 

Let's look at some other things... I backtracked to No.20 to take pics of the lower half of the gate which bears the name VIVA. I have no idea what sort of company this was, but I always like a bit of bespoke metalwork.

It seems to me that the high street here has changed very quickly in the past decade or so. There's been a change in the type of shops. I used to love going in the auction rooms (they were between the Tesco and the Three Compasses pub, ditto a couple of little antiques and bric-a-brac stores on the opposite side of the street. Many of the shops are today either empty or being revamped, complete with UPVC plate glass fronts. 

However, it's ice to see that, the ghostsign for J.Salmon the grocer is still clinging on, as is the little upholstery shop in the terrace adjacent to The Great Northern Railway Hotel 

An old sign for the Smithfield Refrigerator Works still hangs above the lane at the side of the pub, giving a glimpse towards The New River and a bygone world. Nice to end on an evocative image.

More on lost shop fronts here.

Dirty Millennium Bridge – here we go again

Just like the Golden Jubliee Bridges, the Millennium Bridge's handrails are the only clean bits to be found along the structure as people take in the views left and right.

View from Millennium Bridge looking east

Beneath the rail, previously shiny areas are now really grubby, and dirt sits tight in the textured metal underfoot. Filth! 

Chewing gum has been trodden into the grooves onto which Ben Wilson paints his wonderful little designs. Indeed, he was busy creating a new one on the evening I took these photos.

And now they calculating the cost of a bloody garden bridge... what kind of state will that be left to get into?

Oh... re chewing gum, and the disposal thereof... #GUMDROPLTD have come up with this clever recycling solution which turns discarded gum into plastic receptacles for disposal. There are many pink recycle points across central London already.

The Elizabeth Line wins The Stirling Prize 2024 – but how?! It's like a grubby version of Orwell's 1984 down there

When London's newest transit line first opened back in May 2022, some of my friends were quick to travel on it and kept asking me why I hadn't used it because, they said, it was marvellous. My reason was not that I was avoiding it, more that I didn't need it. Living in Holloway, North London, my most convenient rail routes into central London are the Victoria and Piccadilly lines and, as I explained, until I needed to travel to the eastern or western extremes, the Elizabeth line was of scant use to me. I am here using a cap E for Elizabeth only, as per other lines on the TfL network, yet I often see it written as 'The Elizabeth Line' which seems a bit much.   

My first experience of was from Stratford to Romford, having reached the former via the Overground line from Highbury and Islington. On that occasion, with my iPhone low on juice I was keen to recharge it and so I walked up and down the carriages scanning the walls and seat backs for charging points, a facility that is easily available on many other train lines including Thameslink and the Overground line, albeit not on the tube lines. But I couldn't find any sockets at all on the Lizzie line. I have subsequently discovered that there are a few USB ports on some of the trains – they can be found under the windows between the pairs of front and back-facing seats, as shown above = four ports per carriage. 

A second thing I found disappointing was the colour used for the interiors of the carriages, which is shades of gloomy grey. It's not so noticeable when travelling above ground in daylight but after dusk and/or when train goes underground within tunnels, it's gloomy. London is grey grey grey these days – I have often written on here about buildings being painted grey. 

Last year, I was near in near Cabot Square, Canary Wharf, when I saw a directional sign to the Elizabeth line so I thought I'd go and check out the station to see what it was like, and to and take a speedy route into town. With hindsight, I should have stayed above ground and walked to the nearest DLR station because it took ages to get anywhere near the trains. I had to navigate corridors, tunnels, stairs and escalators to finally reach a crowded dimly-lit platform where people queued at the door openings waiting for the next train to take them to their destiny (or doom), like living in a dystopian nightmare or being part of an immersive theatre production of Orwell's 1984* or Fritz Lang's Metropolis. I couldn't understand why there were so many people using the service at 4pm on a Wednesday afternoon? Did they do this every day?! It was horrible. Once on the train, it was packed with people, and dark and foreboding. I felt like I was being taken to an abattoir.  Oh the joy when I escaped at Whitechapel. Phew!  

But back to this year's RIBA Stirling Prize where the Elizabeth line is described as "flawless, efficient... beautifully choreographed solution...". Efficient perhaps, but 'flawless'? 

Earlier this year, on 17th May 2024, I used the service from Farringdon station, a few days before the line was approaching its 2nd birthday. I'm here using the pics I took on that day to tell the story from street level to the eastbound platform. 

As you enter from Cowcross Street, go through the ticket barriers and take the escalator to your right (not the escalator ahead of you unless you want to get a Thameslink train, the two lines not being interchangeable at lower level). At the bottom of the [correct] escalator you'll see that there is another escalator to the left of you, but a freestanding temporary signboard directs you to the right around a lightweight curved railing. 

If you look closely at the floor you can see that this curved railing has been installed as an afterthought, probably after they suddenly realised the clash of people on this concourse. Flawless? Efficient? I see poor planning, no forward thinking.

Then, as you approach the second escalator, there are dirty marks on the walls. Why? How? Do passengers (customers/clients/whatever we are these days) reach out and touch this, or is this mess made by maintenance staff?:

Down into the depths of the beast and, if you are in a hurry or have never been here before, it's hard to ascertain which way to go, left or right, to East or West? All it says is 'Elizabeth Line' in both directions, which is unhelpful to say the least. Certainly not efficient or beautifully choreographed. Only at the far end, beyond the people in this photo, will you finally find the information you seek:

People often tell me I am moaning or complaining. This is not so. I'm all for improving things, making them better. If a job's worth doing it's worth doing well, and all that. I am simply disappointed, especially as, in the case, the creases could have been ironed out before the project was completed. I am simply disappointed. This could have been so much better with a bit of forethought. 

Signage is key. Especially for the uninitiated, the one-time user, the visitor, the confused soul who has lost his way. But, here, the designers do not seems to have looked at these environments from the viewpoint of a user. Nor have they adequately tested the products used to see how they will fare going forward, never mind how they will be cleaned/maintained, evident by the many dirty, smeary marks along the corridors and platforms that it seems will now be with us until the station gets a complete makeover. Perhaps they'll simply paint it grey.

The walls panels are simply the wrong products for this environment. There are two issues here. First, the surface makes them perfect for holding onto dirt and, secondly, the dirt is therefore difficult to remove for the same reason, hence we see unsuccessful attempts to scrub away the filth by hand. 

Note that we are looking at just two years of grime and degradation on a product that should have never made it through all those years of R&D. I mean, jeez... Crossrail, as it was back then, was over ten years in the making, let alone the pre-planning. One would surely assume that they tested many different surfaces to see which would best suited for this situation. Also, what about all these silly undulating curved walls! How did the designers think these would be efficiently and adequately maintained? 

On the platform at Farringdon, you can find examples of ghostly shadows of people who have sat on the seats. I recall when this 'phenomenon' hit the news last year, thinking, 'er, wrong product, stop scrubbing, simply replace the wall panels.  

It's clear that they also didn't look into how this surface texture might also be problem in conjunction with their own self-adhesive information signs. Next time you are a platform, look out for strange stone effect patches of varying shapes and sizes that aren't quite the same as the walls, such as the one shown below right. This, I am reliably informed, is their solution to covering up the gluey mess left behind where a sticker has been removed. Efficient? I think not.  

In conclusion: Disappointing. Not flawless. Efficient as a train service, but not in the respect of interior design. They should look to the past to see that there is nothing more suitable than ceramic tiles, as within the old Victorian and Edwardian stations. 

*This is a reference to a version of 1984 now on at Hackney Town Hall. All I can say is, don't expect too much, because it's disappointing. The word 'immersive' is misleading, the condensed storyline is poorly imparted and the sound and visuals are hard to comprehend. You'll bet to walk up some stairs, put on an armband, walk back down the stairs, strain to see the 'stage' and then "bang!" it's over, please return your badge and armband on the way out. It was nice to see the inside some of the fabulous town hall though.