Walking with friends: Finsbury Park to Highgate... and beyond

Sunday July 26, 2026.

Partly cloudy with a high of 24°C (75°F) with the chance of light rain in the morning.

I had arranged to meet up with my friend Steve for a walk in London, so I was up, ready and out of the house by 08:30, making the short walk to Watford Underground station. Steve had arrived just before me, so there was no waiting around. We headed through the ticket barriers, down the stairs and boarded the Baker Street bound train that was preparing to leave from Platform 2.

Soon we were speeding through the Hertfordshire countryside towards London. Approaching Northwood a few spots of rain began to pepper the windows of the train, but it didn't last. As we pulled into Harrow-on-the-Hill station, the heritage railway locomotive 'Sarah Siddons' was waiting to take passengers to Amersham. Unfortunately, because of where we were seated, and the fact that another train was at the next platform, I was unable to take a photo. 

Arriving at Finchley Road we exited the train and waited 6-minutes for an Aldgate train. When it arrived it was almost full to capacity, filled with foreign students and teachers. Fortunately, we were only going as far as King's Cross St Pancras, so we were happy to stand. At King's Cross St Pancras we left the train and headed along the platform, following the signs for the Victoria line. Up countless stairs, along corridors, down escalators we travelled, until we finally reached the Northbound platform, where the train pulled away right after we boarded. The train whisked us north-eastwards below the streets of Highbury & Islington, before turning north beneath Canonbury and Highbury, before we arrived at our starting location of Finsbury Park.

Our first stop was at the 'Portrait Bench', which consists of three silhouettes. DJ, record producer and founder of Soul II Soul, Jazzy B. Florence Keen, who founded the North Islington Welfare Centre and School for Mothers, in 1913. At that time over 10% of local children died before their 5th birthday. Her work reduced that death rate considerably. Edith Margaret Garrud, who was born in 1872. She was a member of the Suffragette movement and taught the women martial arts, specifically Ju Jitsu, so that they could fight off police officers. She was the first British teacher in the art of Ju Jitsu and the first female martial arts instructor in the western world. She died in 1971. It was the latter statue that I was most interested in, having studied Ju Jitsu myself.

Sustrans Portrait Benches

Keilyn with a traditional canal horse, in Mile End Park.

Wandering through London as I do, I often see remarkable architecture, hidden gems, and places not written about in any guidebook. It was during one of these walks, from Aldgate to Canary Wharf, that I saw my first 'Portrait Bench'.

These installations feature functional benches placed alongside life-size silhouettes crafted from weathering steel, which slowly develops a beautiful, rust-like patina over time. This particular bench featured the likenesses of footballer Ledley King, suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst, and a traditional canal horse.

Cormorant and bicycle.

On another more recent walk, where I walked from Canada to Russia, I discovered a second installation. The figures here depicted Phyllis Pearsell (creator of the first A-Z map of London), actor Michael Caine, and a cormorant and bicycle representing Barry Mason, a local cycling campaigner and birdwatcher.

The Docklands Light Railway

The Docklands Light Railway is the unsung hero of London transit, and I shall prove it.

Today, it is a sleek, driverless marvel handling over 100 million passenger journeys a year. But back in the 1980s it was a low-budget experiment that critics confidently predicted would be an absolute disaster.

Here is the story of how London’s futuristic "toy train" grew up to save the East End.

1987: The "Toy Railway" Opens for Business

By the early 1980s, London’s historic Docklands were in a sorry state. The shipping industry had moved downstream, leaving behind miles of derelict, silent quays. The government wanted to transform the Isle of Dogs into a shiny new financial district, what we now know as Canary Wharf, but there was a massive problem: nobody could get there.

Building a standard Underground line was deemed way too expensive. The solution? A cheap, cheerful, "light" railway utilising abandoned railway viaducts.

When Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the DLR in August 1987, it was... modest.

• It had just 11 trains and 15 stations.
• The trains were tiny single-car units that were compared to 'Lego' blocks.
• The original stations were so basic they didn't even have roofs to protect passengers from the classic British rain.

The media immediately dubbed it the "Toy Railway," and sceptics laughed at the idea that bankers would ever swap their black cabs for a glorified rollercoaster.

Chinese Summerhouse, Victoria Park

From the early 18th century through to the late 19th century Chinese fashion, or Chinoiserie, was extremely popular in English gardens and parks. 

Two famous examples of Chinese-style pagodas that are still standing, are the Pagoda at Kew Gardens, built by Sir William Chambers, in 1760, and a cast iron Chinese Bell Tower, built between 1826 and 1832 by the Coalbrookdale Iron Company, which was installed as a fountain in the gardens at Alton towers.

The Chinese Summerhouse, at Victoria Park, was built in Knightsbridge in the traditional manner and was installed within Hyde Park as part of the Chinese Collection Exhibition of 1842. It cost £800. The 'Illustrated London News' described it as,

"It is of two stories; the veranda roof of the lower one being supported by vermilion-coloured columns, with pure white capitals, and over the doorway is inscribed, in Chinese characters, "Ten Thousand Chinese Things". Such summer-houses are usual in the gardens of the wealthy, in the southern provinces of China, often standing in the midst of a sheet of water, and approached by bridges and sometimes they have mother-of-pearl windows. Although this building is raised from the pathway, whence it is approached by a flight of steps, it is somewhat squatty proportioned. But such is the character of Chinese buildings."

Metro-land

Metro-Land: Modern Homes in Beautiful Countryside

Imagine escaping the choking smog, dense crowds, and relentless noise of 1920s London. Now imagine wrapping up your workday in the heart of the city, stepping onto a steam train, and being whisked away to a brand-new, semi-detached villa nestled in the rolling green hills of Buckinghamshire or Middlesex.

This wasn’t just a daydream for thousands of middle-class Londoners, it was one of the most successful, romanticised, and brilliantly executed marketing campaigns in British history. Welcome to Metro-land.

The Birth of a Suburbia

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Metropolitan Railway was expanding northwest out of central London. But unlike other railway companies, the Metropolitan Railway possessed a unique legal privilege: it was allowed to retain surplus land alongside its tracks.

When the railway extended deep into the countryside of Middlesex, Hertfordshire, and Buckinghamshire, the company realised they had a golden opportunity. They didn't just want to transport people who already lived there; they wanted to build the communities that would populate their trains.