The Oyster is Your World

In which The Author makes up a bus tour as he goes along

As I said previously, I was awake at the crack of dawn on the Monday morning. From the outset I decided to forgo breakfast in the hotel. There was no guarantee that there'd be anything more than cornflakes as a vegetarian option (as I found out in Putney in 1991), so I decided to eat out for the second morning in a row.

I had a quick shower, gathered my things together, and checked out at about 8.30. I walked up London Street as far as Paddington, then made my way past St Mary's Hospital. There were plenty of cafes and coffee shops open, but they were packed with people on their way to work. I bought a paper, then headed down the Edgware Road, more or less retracing my steps from the night before.

This is an area I'm not very familiar with, even though it's where the mainline trains from South Wales arrive. On the handful of occasions I've travelled to London by train, I've usually gone straight onto the underground from the concourse at Paddington. In most cases, I was able to get my fare refunded afterwards, so the train was a viable option. Nowadays, I get the coach and hit the tube network at Victoria, Earls Court or West Kensington – purely on the grounds of cost.

There's some amazing architecture in these parts, including some of the oldest Underground stations. Look at the above-ground part of Edgware Road, for example.

There are little side streets and mews tucked away, and it's a very cosmopolitan area. I passed no end of restaurants, some of which were open until the early hours of the morning during Ramadan. I thought that was a brilliant idea – I could have had a very late supper/early breakfast if I'd felt like it. There's a fantastic old pub in Praed Street, too, which has been converted into a Greek restaurant. At least it's still there, and retains much of the original design.

A couple of minutes away I came to St Mark's Church, tucked away in Old Marylebone Road. I can't tell you very much about it, but it's obviously Victorian and probably much bigger on the inside.

I made my way down the Edgware Road, and after a few minutes I arrived at Marble Arch. I'd seen a couple of statues in the vicinity when I was passing on the bus on Sunday, and I wanted to check them out in more detail. I can't explain anything about them, but they're intriguing works of modern art nonetheless.

I don't think I've ever paid much attention to Marble Arch itself, in spite of passing it many times. On the Monday morning I decided to investigate it further, and was amazed by the intricate carvings at the top of the arches. It's probably possible to walk around London with a camera for the whole of one's life and not see all the interesting and intriguing statues and monuments for oneself.

I walked into Hyde Park, purely to kill time. There were plenty of walkers, cyclists and joggers around. I haven't been into the park for years, and it took me a while to get my bearings. With Marble Arch behind me and Park Lane on my left, I knew I could walk diagonally to the Serpentine, and from there make my way to the museum area. The sky was fairly bright to the west, but there were dark clouds everywhere else. I set off towards the Serpentine, and then felt a couple of raindrops. I didn't fancy getting caught in a sudden downpour, so I turned back towards Park Lane and checked out the bus routes.

The beauty of the Oyster card is that the daily fare is capped, depending on how far you've travelled across the city and how many modes of transport you've used. If you combine buses and tubes, and stay in Zone 1 and Zone 2 – which encompass most of the tourist spots you're likely to want to visit – the most you'll pay is ₤6.50. On the other hand, if you stick to the buses, the daily maximum is ₤4.50. (By way of comparison, a Day Rider ticket on Stagecoach in Aberdare costs ₤4.80, and is next to useless after about 6.00 p.m.)

[A digression: If you're planning a trip to London, bear in mind that the iconic red buses don't accept cash. You can pay by Oyster or by contactless bank card, but cash has been a no-no for about a year or so. The daily caps also apply to contactless payments. It's a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a one-day Travelcard, and much more convenient.]

Anyway, I found out that there was a bus to Camden Town from Portman Street, a couple of minutes' walk along Oxford Street. It sounded like an interesting journey, too – route 274 takes you through St John's Wood and skirts Regent's Park. I was just in time to jump on, and sat back to enjoy the view.

My cousin Mary lives in St John's Wood, so it's an area I know fairly well. I wondered how close we'd get to her flat, but the bus doesn't go into the heart of the village. Instead, it follows Prince Albert Road and curves around the northern edge of Regent's Park, with the Regent's Canal between the two. Primrose Hill is just to the north; my friend Paula H. lives in a tower block on the other side of the hill, with breathtaking views across the whole city. (I'd swap with her tomorrow, if she ever fancies moving back to Aberdare.)

From the bus you don't get to see very much of the sights, though. Prince Albert Road boasts some stunning John Nash villas, but – perhaps fortunately – he didn't get to build along the whole of the thoroughfare. You can have too much of a good thing. We passed the Anglican church and the London Central Mosque, but the view of Regent's Park was obstructed by hedges and fences. (Watch this space for some more photos of the area in a forthcoming project, though.)

There seem to be a lot of bus diversions in force at the moment, so we entered Camden Town by a side road. One passenger didn't know about the detour, and complained loudly to the driver when she missed her stop. She should have spent ten years trying to commute to Cardiff when Shambles Shamrock Coaches were still in business, that's all I can say on the matter.

I jumped off near the tube station and walked to Camden Lock, where there's a pleasant Thereisnospoon overlooking the canal. By then I was ready for breakfast, and while it was cooking I logged into my emails and sent the edited manuscript of Christian Cameron's forthcoming book back to my contact at Orion Books. I checked out the weather forecast – heavy showers all day – and ate my breakfast while watching the first fat raindrops splashing against the window. I'd got to the pub with a few minutes to spare, and that was to be pretty much the story for the rest of the day.

I finished my breakfast and decided to check out the market stalls at Camden Lock. I was there on a Friday afternoon in March, but it was thronged with tourists and not the ideal time for browsing. First thing on a Monday morning it's a completely different story. As I left the pub a narrowboat was making its way out of the lock, and I stopped to take a couple of photos. This is one holiday idea which I've fancied for many years, but I've never been able to interest enough of my friends in joining me. Perhaps one day I'll do it for real.

On my last visit to Camden Lock I’d spotted an interesting second-hand bookstall tucked away among the noodle bars and racks of t-shirts. At the time, it was packed with tourists (which doesn’t take much – more than about six customers at a time would probably constitute a fire hazard), so I decided to have another look now that I had the place to myself.

I hadn't been browsing for long when I came across the screenplays to Dennis Potter's last two TV dramas, Karaoke and Cold Lazarus, in the original Faber paperback bind-up. That was a bargain, so I snapped it up straight away and carried on browsing. I didn't find the elusive Thucydides (was everyone copy-editing Christian Cameron's latest manuscript that weekend?), but I was tempted by a good many books on the shelves. After about ten minutes I found a copy of Ginger Geezer, the biography of the cult musician, artist, broadcaster, piss-artist and all-round English eccentric Vivian Stanshall. Two books for under a tenner? Don't mind if I do, guv'nor.

I made my way back to the canal, and just as was I crossing the bridge the rain returned with a vengeance. I dived back into the pub, ordered another glass of Pepsi, and settled down to read about Mr Stanshall's remarkably conventional childhood. When the downpour ended, as suddenly as it had began, I walked back to the main street and jumped on a 134 bus to Bloomsbury.

I'd taken that route into town on my birthday, so I wasn't surprised when the recorded voice message announced 'Mornington Crescent' as we approached the station. It comes to something when the bus beats the human players in an absurd panel game, doesn't it? It was drizzling again when I jumped off near University College Hospital, so I didn't take any photos of the amazing Cruciform Building – yes, that's what it's called – or the other fine buildings in the area. I know this area pretty well now, so I made my way towards the British Museum with a little detour past Waterstones. That turned out to be a good decision. They had a box of clearance stock outside the main door, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr's novel Breakfast of Champions was reduced to a whole pound. I needed a replacement copy, so I snapped it up and then headed for the back entrance of the museum.

That turned out not to be a good decision. As with the Science Museum, they've recently instituted bag checks. As with the Science Museum, there was one person doing the checking. As with the Science Museum, there was a queue of schoolkids out of the door. I decided to leave the exhibition on Egypt’s sunken cities until I'm travelling more or less empty-handed (as usual) and concentrate on exploring instead.

I walked down the side of the museum into Russell Street, made my way past the Museum Tavern, and called into Atlantis Books for a good look around. The place has been rearranged since my last visit, and looks a lot more welcoming. There was plenty there that caught my eye, too, but I decided that buying five books in one visit to London was enough to go on with. In particular, I was shocked by how expensive the New Falcon list has become since I finished in the book trade. I don't know whether Airlift still handles their UK distribution, or whether Atlantis were sourcing them directly from the States – either way, I might try and plug the gaps in my collection via the second-hand market.

At the corner of New Oxford Street I made my way to St George's Church (again) and had a quick look at the buses heading east. The 55 to Leyton was just pulling in. While I had no intention of going that far, it would take me into Clerkenwell – a part of town I don't know at all, and according to Peter Ackroyd's London: the biography (Chatto & Windus, 2001), a psychogeographer's dream.

I have been to Clerkenwell twice before. The first time was late in 1984, when I went in search of a unisex hair salon which – according to Time Out, anyway – offered a student discount. (I found it, but it was closed on the afternoon I was there.) The second time was late in 1991, the evening after I'd recorded Fifteen to One. Ross D. was a student at the London College of Printing, and his after-lectures local was in Clerkenwell Road. Clerkenwell doesn't even feature in my little Dorling Kindersley pocket guide to London. It's not part of the City of London, as it lay just outside the city walls, but it's got a rich and varied history dating back to medieval times. It's also got some quite amazing architecture, and fascinating nooks and crannies which are definitely worth a return visit.

I jumped off the bus immediately after we'd crossed a fairly obvious bridge and retraced my steps. I'd guessed straight away that we'd crossed a railway line, and I decided to try and photograph the infrastructure below. The walls enclosing the railway cutting were easily my height, and I had no idea how thick they really were until I looked at the photos afterwards. I suppose they have to be relatively unclimbable to prevent people jumping onto the tracks. If ever a selfie stick was called for, photographing this little gap north of Farringdon Station was the time. I was lucky to get one half-decent shot while a train was coming through, but that was about it. If you've ever been on a tube train when it breaks cover for a couple of seconds, this is probably the sort of thing you're surrounded by.

I was able to get another half-decent shot of the approach to Farringdon Station itself, with two iconic London buildings – an enduring symbol of post-Fire reconstruction, and the ultramodern – side by side. (I know they're on opposite sides of the river, but you get the idea.) It's not often you get to peel back the layers of history like this, and even though it's not a great photo I quite like it.

The cutting itself is lined with some beautiful old buildings, which somehow survived the Blitz (and the sixties) relatively unscathed. In fact, Clerkenwell is crammed with unusual and eye-catching architecture. I came across a poster advertising guided walks, so I'm going to try and join one next time I'm in the area.

I wandered towards Clerkenwell Green, which Mr Ackroyd has described as 'a small area enclosed by buildings with a disused public lavatory in the middle. On both sides are narrow streets which in turn lead off into alleys or other streets, The green has its restaurants, two public houses, commercial premises and offices for architects or public relations consultants. It is, in epitome, a typical area of central London' (Ackroyd, 2001, p. 461).

Its history is much more intriguing than that, though, as Mr Ackroyd explains in the pages following that brief introduction. Wat Tyler and his rebels gathered here in 1381; in the centuries after that a whole host of proscribed (or barely tolerated) religious, political and occult-tinged groups have made it their base, just outside the City and therefore beyond the long arm of the law. It's been a notorious haunt of criminals and prostitutes until comparatively recently, too.

There's little sign of its radical history now, but just to the north I spotted a lovely church. I knew it wasn't one of Nicholas Hawksmoor's, and I didn't think it was a Wren design either. It turned out to date from quite a bit later – the end of the eighteenth century, in fact. St James's Church was designed by a local man named James Carr and built on the site of a medieval nunnery dissolved by Henry VIII.

I took a few photos of the exterior and then noticed that the door was open. I made my way inside and was struck by the perfect interior, the beautiful stained glass, and the quaint little organ in the gallery. My camera isn't best suited to interior photography (especially in low light), and I remembered – again – that I need to buy a new tripod for this sort of thing.

The churchyard seems to be a popular spot for people to sit and relax on their lunch breaks, and there were quite a few locals using it as a short cut across this mysterious district of London. I took a few more photos and then headed back towards Clerkenwell Green. Here's a fantastic street name, one of the many you'll find in this part of town.

A green plaque on a corner caught my eye. Unsurprisingly, Mr Ackroyd can shed some light on this curious character:

He was an itinerant vendor of coals who lived above the coal-shed in Jerusalem Passage … despite his humble trade, in the words of Walford's Old and New London, he 'cultivated the highest branches of music, and drew round him for years all the great musicians of the day, including even the great Handel'. … Britton's death was no less fanciful than his life. A ventriloquist named Honeyman or 'Talking Smith' 'threw' his voice and announced that, unless Britton recited the Lord’s Prayer immediately, he would expire within hours. Britton fell on his knees and prayed 'but the chord of his life was unstrung by this sudden shock'; he died a few days later … It was rumoured that he was a Rosicrucian, one of the sects which haunted Clerkenwell, and naturally believed in the efficacy of invisible spirits. So the trick of the ventriloquist, or the atmosphere of the area, deeply affected a credulous mind (Ackroyd, 2001, pp. 471–2).

I decided to walk along Jerusalem Passage and came out in St John's Square. Here I found a fantastic shop which seems to have fallen through the Rift and planted itself in modern London. I could almost picture Charles Dickens coming out of the door, armed with a ream of foolscap and some Indian ink.

I turned around and then stopped in my tracks. I must have seen it marked on the map, but I had no idea what it was, or even that this remarkable place existed.

This strange structure turned out to be St John's Gate, a remnant of the Grand Priory of the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem. This building dates from the early sixteenth century, the original having been destroyed during the Peasants' Revolt, and contains a small museum which is open a couple of days a week. However, I wasn't in museum mood after the past couple of let-downs, so I've added it to my 'to-do' list for a return visit. I decided to just wander on and see what else I could find.

I followed my nose back to the main road and found a couple more eye-catching buildings before getting slightly lost and emerging at Smithfield Market. I'd found my way there last time I was exploring the City of London, too (see Life in the Slow Lane). Why someone who hasn't eaten meat since 1987 keeps getting drawn to that spot is another peculiarity of the area, I think.

One of the beautiful things about London is the way that many buildings were fitted into the street layout, rather than the streets being designed around the buildings. Look at this fantastic space-packing exercise in bricks and mortar, for instance.

A few yards along the lane I found one of the unusual pub names that also pepper the oldest parts of the city: the Fox and Anchor. It was open, but I decided against a pub crawl – that could have turned into a lengthy and expensive exercise. Instead, I walked on and (somehow) emerged in the middle of Charterhouse Square. There's a big restoration scheme in progress at the moment, and many of the medieval buildings are hidden behind fences and sheets of polythene. Even so, I managed to get a couple of photos of this remarkable hangover from bygone days. Like St John's Gate, I'd seen it marked on the map, but I had no idea what it looked like on the ground.

I was going to carry on exploring, but as soon as I got to the Barbican the rain returned with a vengeance. I jumped onto the first available bus (which, oddly enough, was going to Liverpool Street) and took advantage of an effectively free ride along the northern perimeter of the City.

That was the end of the photographs, too. The weather was too wet for me to use the camera outdoors, so I criss-crossed the City back as far as Tottenham Court Road, walked along Oxford Street in a gap between showers, then cut through Soho (via the Coach and Horses) to Piccadilly Circus, and down Charing Cross Road to pick up a bus to Victoria Coach Station. I've written about these areas before, so I won't recap them here.

The good news is that after many years, I'm starting to know my way around the City of London. This fascinating little square mile is rich with centuries' worth of history, packed with unusual buildings, and contains surprises around every corner. Thanks to my ever-growing knowledge of the place, and armed with Tom Bolton's handy little book, I can plan systematic walks through London and bring the results to you here. Watch this space …