12/04/26 - London's Hidden Walks - Mayfair

Rock and Roll, Suicide

5 years of walking in London, on an ever more distant spiral. It's time to reacquaint myself with the City.

I know just the resource to use.

There are four volumes of London's Hidden Walks. I start posh. Book 1, Walk 1 is Mayfair. The guide is superb - packed with information, with pages of data on a relatively short tour of the capital's most opulent area. 

Mayfair is one of London’s most affluent and fashionable districts, occupying roughly the area between Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly and Park Lane. Developed largely from the late 17th century onwards by the Grosvenor family, it became associated with aristocratic townhouses, exclusive clubs, embassies and grand squares such as Grosvenor Square and Berkeley Square. Today, its elegant Georgian streets sit alongside luxury shops on Bond Street, art galleries, expensive restaurants and some of London’s most famous hotels, while a handful of old pubs and historic buildings provide reminders of its less polished past. Despite its reputation for wealth and exclusivity, Mayfair has a surprisingly colourful history of aristocrats, artists, writers, politicians, gamblers and notorious characters.

Mayfair

I'll pick out the bits from the book that are of most interest to me, otherwise I will have the world's longest blog. The streets of London are paved with stories and Hidden London likes to tell them.

I emerged from the tube at Piccadilly - finding my bearings at Eros.

Eros - was meant to be Anteros, the Greek God of unrequited love

At the edge of Park Lane, I hunted for the flat at Number 9 Curzon Place. In 1974, Mama Cass died in a flat there, to be followed four years later - but incredibly in the same bed - by Keith Moon.

Behind the window at the top right hand corner

A little further on at Audley Square - an innocent enough looking lamp post was a dead drop location for Soviet spies in the 1950s. Letters stored behind a little opening at the rear, with chalk marks on the pavement indicating that there was a hidden message. WhatsApp is more efficient, but not as quaint.

Spy lore - now home of not one, but two Geocaches

Around Berkeley Square to find the nightclub that provides the redtop with so much ammunition. Annabel's used to be in the basement of 44, with the Claremont Club (Lord Lucan's gambling den) above. Number 50 is rumoured to be London's most haunted house - with tales of suicides, madness and toffs with shotguns.

Annabel's is now at 46

And this is as close as I will get to a Private Club

For reasons that may make it into a future blog, I am having an Evelyn Waugh cultural moment. In preparation for a visit to Madresfield Court, I am working my way through Brideshead Revisited. Smack bang in the middle of Mayfair is the Church of the Immaculate Conception. Mr Waugh converted to Catholicism there in 1939. Much like Rex in Brideshead. 

As pretty as a picture

To give you an idea as to how much material route planners have to work with in the Smoke, two adjacent houses in Brook Street both have blue plaques. The first, the home of Handel and next door, a couple of centuries later, Jimi Hendrix.

Jimi - Left; Handel - Right

And finally, Heddon Street - a little alley off Regents Street - was the location for the cover shot of Bowie's Ziggy Stardust. A little imagination is required to make the connection.

Ye, Who was K West? 

A Sunday morning too early for pubs, but there were some beauties along the route. Ye Grapes in Shepherd's Market needs a revisit.

Every pub's a beauty in London

Walk Details

Distance - 4.5 Miles

Geocaches - c30

Walk Inspiration - London's Hidden Walks - Book 1 - Walk 1

11/04/26 - A Kentish Town Pub Crawl

Return of the Mapp

The CAMRA Pub Crawls in London has been a rich source of inspiration. This is my first tick from the Second Edition. A quick check of the first edition shows an identical route - completed in my pre-blogging days. 

October 2007.

In many ways, it is comforting that the pubs remain.

The Assembly House - is not worth the inclusion, unless you are a fan of 1970s British Gangster Films. Let me count the ways. Greene King, with a poor beer choice. Terrible service. Exterior covered in so much scaffolding, it makes a photograph redundant. The interior has been stripped of everything that made it pretty - bar the billiards room skylight. Of course, the billiards table has been replaced by big screen football for the Arsenal fans to worry into.

We tried - and failed - to get served and that was for the best.

I'll leave you with Richard Burton as your guide;

Over the road for the Bull and Gate. 

Nowhere does handsome quite like London

In the second edition - this is filed under "Try Also". For fans of 1990s Indie Music, it is a Pilgrimage. The bands who played upstairs reads like my end of year Spotify list - Blur, Oasis, PJ Harvey, Suede, Manic Street Preachers and (er) Coldplay.

A far more sedate affair today - a nice place to sit in Chesterfields and ponder that a pint of Landlord is now £7.25. Alas, my record keeping 19 years ago does not allow me to show percentage inflation.

The ghosts of drinkers priced out of London drinking

Higher expense was to come at The Junction. With no cask on, I was forced into a £7.50 Staropramen. This, after working out how to get in. In a terrible case of burning bridges, the main front door has been seriously damaged by a drunk driver.

Up the Junction

The Pineapple to bring a sense of order to the day and reduce the overall price per pint average. Mrs M is watching the joint account being depleted in real time thanks to message alerts to wearable tech.

This is a classic back street local and regular in the Good Beer Guide.

Successful 2001 campaign to stop it being converted to flats

Even as a veteran pub goer, I occasionally get challenged by British Pub Customs. There is no cask on the heralded antique bar. Communication only works so well - and it takes a lot of walking around through narrow alcoves and little drinking rooms to find a beer festival in the tiny pub beer garden. A lady hiding behind the barrels tells me all beers are £4 but I have to buy a disc token from the bar. I am not suggesting you take part in counterfeiting, but if you have Connect 4 at home, you could get very, very drunk. With the added benefit that you would never have to play Connect 4 again.

Eventually we settle down in front of one of the two magnificent Bass Mirrors.

Zoom in to see the horror damage

The guide goes on for the compulsory Southampton Arms (recently visited) and optional Bull and Last (we don't need Gastro). So, we leave it at that and head for...... guess where?

Camden of course!

There won't be a blog - but I doubt there is a better pub experience than the Hawley Arms after dark. Superb people, music and now with added Harvey's Sussex Best.

08/04/26 - The Slow Way to Bewdley for the Black Boy Hotel

Political Correctness gone Madri

An easy and often completed walk, which would normally not register on the blog.

But it was completed on the first day of the year when the central heating didn't need to spark up and there was a visit to an Historic Inn of Interest - a 1960s Guide Book to booze.

Plus a chance to review another Slow Way.

From Stourport bridge to Bewdley bridge on the Severn Way. Keep the water to your left and all is good.

Start at the River King

Unnecessary

The End

 Onto the pub; 

1960s Ticking

Those that know Bewdley will know two things. This is not the Black Boy that requires a team of sherpas and oxygen to reach. In some ways I am grateful, but in others sad. That Black Boy is a cracker.

And this Black Boy was renamed as the Bewdley Inn in 2021.

The Bewdley Inn, the sunshine

A Royalist stronghold during the Civil War, history and pub enthusiasts will know that the name Black Boy refers to King Charles II rather than anything more controversial. While I’m on the subject, the Black Bitch in Linlithgow was named after a dog – but that didn’t stop the inevitable rebranding.

There’s little sign of its seventeenth-century origins now, though it still has separate rooms and a few inviting nooks and crannies.

First in, I was greeted with a bit of bad news: the landlord was waiting for a delivery. Given the choice of Madri or Carling, I made a quick exit and headed to the George.

There, a suntrap beer garden, table service, and a £2.35 pint of Redemption Big Chief IPA made up for it nicely — with a view of the church clock to keep an eye on the return bus time.

Walk Details

Distance - 3.75 Miles

Geocaches - 0

Walk Inspiration

07/04/26 - Slow Ways - Highley to Cleobury Mortimer

My Kingdom for a Pint

There was only one way to approach this Slow Way. Highley has only one pub, and I think it is a dead pub. The Bache Arms, a wild experience, whilst it was open. Cleobury has four. One of them must be open on a Tuesday lunchtime, surely?

The Slow Ways web site is an excellent resource, aiming to connect every major town in the UK through walking. I am unsure as to who creates the routes. This route was unreviewed (until I came along) and was fine apart from a couple of lengthy road sections. One such section is avoidable. My feedback has been submitted.

Overall, a fine walk, completed is Spring sunshine across rolling agricultural landscapes.

Highley Church

The Walk looked mainly like this

My diversion to Cleobury Lodge Farm

Cleobury's Twisted Spire

Into Cleobury - with an hour to wait for the bus. I made the mistake of ignoring the Royal Fountain. The best pub in town, based on my previous Slow Way. The others - The Kings Arms, The Talbot and the Stables - all closed up on a Tuesday lunch time.

What's that I spy opposite the bus stop? Bargain Booze for a trampy wait in the sunshine.

Walk Details

Distance - 8 Miles

Geocaches - 0

Walk Inspiration