London Loves and Oxford Street Blues

I have written here previously about my love for London; it is, if you will, a muse that I believe I have inherited from my father, himself the son of a true East-ender. London never ceases to amaze and intrigue me, but I appreciate that I’ll never know everything there is to know about this most intricate of cities, yet I seek out and absorb masses of information on London’s history, architecture and geography in much the same way as I have collected various things over the years.

One of the things I find most intriguing is that I can take a gentle stroll around the City at lunchtime and literally will never need to follow the same path twice; there will always be a hitherto undiscovered alleyway or lane, invariably leading to a hoary old boozer tucked away from all but the most learned City worker. Even treading my regular walk into work can yield surprises; even though you think you know every single footfall, metre and mile, a glance above a familiar shopfront could introduce you to fascinating, beautiful buildings that you feel you could not have failed to notice before.

A few months ago I met a colleague at Paternoster Square, a beautiful open space adjacent to St. Paul’s Cathedral with modern offices butting up against this familiar London landmark; the landmark which had for centuries – until very recently – dictated the maximum height of City buildings so as not to obstruct views of Sir Christopher Wren’s magnificent construction. The current Paternoster Square was completed in September 2003 after 17 years of planning, revision, numerous architects and delays due to the recession. The square, built on the site of Paternoster Row, a medieval street along which the clergy of St. Paul's would walk whilst reciting the Paternoster prayer, has been redeveloped many times over and was bombed during the Second World War, in destructive Blitz activity that mercifully missed St. Paul's itself. The design of the square is in many respects sympathetic to the cathedral and, via the straight alleyways dividing the outer offices, actually creates stunning views of Wren’s cathedral, albeit of a ‘peepshow’ variety – looking straight ahead you will see the familiar white stone profiles between the buildings, prompting you involuntarily to raise your eyes skyward where the immense lead dome renders all of Paternoster Square’s architectural success instantly subservient.

My colleague and I chose Paternoster Square because it was en route to work for both of us, he in Holborn and me in the City; a convenient halfway house. I pass the entrance to the square on my way into work every morning, and would have to cross Newgate Street to reach it. However instead of doing this I crossed High Holborn well before the viaduct and walked the rest of the way on an unfamiliar side of the road. This may sound dull as dishwater to you, but just the act of walking part of the way on the other side of the road revealed new buildings, views and vistas that I’d never even seen before, even though I walked next to these same things every day. The way the capital reveals itself to you in these ways is one of the reasons that I enjoy working and walking in London so much.

By pure chance, on a lunchtime wander I found myself unintentionally forced overground after taking a wrong turn out of one of Liverpool Street station’s arcades. Not sure where I was headed, I followed the path to the end, which opened out into Exchange Square, another of the City’s ‘green lungs’ incorporating a cascading courtyard, green areas, fountains and several bars and cafes, surrounded by modern office structures. I had worked in nearby Old Broad Street for the best part of four years and yet had never stumbled across this hidden treasure of a location before. Judging by the lack of other people in the square, it seems I am not alone in not coming across this. Even during the recent heatwave, Exchange Square is far less busy of a lunchtime than nearby Broadgate Circle with its many sun worshipers perched on its central stairs, or the comparatively austere Finsbury Circle.

Only after a good ten minutes or so of wide-eyed wonderment did I realise that the old-fashioned cantilever-roof structures on the south side of the square were in fact above the platforms of Liverpool Street, that Exchange Square in its entirety is built on a platform built across the tracks running into this London terminus.

The City alone is full of such gems, adjacent to but also hidden by buildings. Previous to Old Broad Street, my company’s offices were in Eastcheap. At either end of Eastcheap are great tourist structures and historic locations – Wren’s Monument and Pudding Lane are at the western end, while the Tower of London and Tower Bridge can be reached by following Eastcheap to its easternmost end, where it flows into Great Tower Street. Yet near as damn it equidistant between these two ends lies one of the City’s serenest spots – the bombed-out church St. Dunstan's In The East, wherein the cloisters and roof hollowed out during the Second World War have been replaced by sympathetic greenery and benches arranged in a circular, inward-looking and reverential fashion. If you are ever in need of quiet solitude among one of the busiest financial centres in the world, you should seek out this easy-to-miss location. There is something so beautiful, breathtaking but also sorrowful about the way the sun plays through the glass-less stone windows onto the lawn, creating shadows in a space which once was shielded from the sun’s rays; the outside, via a direct hit, allowed to reclaim the inside once more.

This evening I checked into a hotel on Oxford Street for an event my company was hosting at the Royal Academy of Arts on Piccadilly. Herein lie two totally contradictory sides of London, pratically within the same postal code. On the one hand you have the opulence, riches and distinguished face of the West End; Fortnum & Mason, The Ritz (one hundred years old this year), tailors, shirt-makers and generations-old tobacconists. On the other you have the crass face of commercialism, the average provincial town high street magnified, a totally characterless shadow of its former self with splendid buildings put to poor use at ridiculous rents. And yet Oxford Street is still the busiest of London’s thoroughfares, a mecca for visiting tourists; remove a flagship store like Selfridges or Niketown and what exactly is Oxford Street? Nothing at all special, that’s what, especially compared to some of the streets which intersect and peel off from either side of its wide carriageway.

Mayor of London Ken Livingstone has indicated plans for a total overhaul of this shopping haven, which appears long overdue and should hopefully smarten up frontages and clear out the incomprehensible array of small, tacky shops wedged uncomfortably next to ugly department stores. I discovered a takeaway bar on Oxford Street that I’d never seen before – all of Britain’s favourite junkfoods (burgers, kebabs, fish and chips) available from one multi-cultural hole at the very centre of this ridiculously tacky road.

Every year of my childhood I would badger my mother into taking us Christmas shopping on Oxford Street. Each year she would tell me of how horrible it would be, detailing horror stories of shoppers forced into tight rivers of forward walking motion unable to get from one side of the pavement to the other, either to cross the road or walk into a shop. Whilst that may have been a slight exaggeration, there is no denying that Oxford Street, at pretty much any time of year, is hellish. Today was the hottest day of the year so far, and the brief walk from Oxford Circus to the Radisson Edwardian Berkshire – tucked away like a guilty secret next to Debenham’s – which should have taken no more than five minutes at the most proved no less nightmarish than any other time I've been there. Tourists plus intense heat plus a trolleycase do not make for an enjoyable walk on Oxford Street.

Returning from the corporate bash at the Royal Academy just before 10.00, with the tourists petering out but still meandering past the now-closed shops, revealed Oxford Street in its true colours. Like some aged courtesan, Oxford Street’s makeup is removed at nightfall as the shutters are pulled down, cleaners begin the thankless task of removing chewing gum trodden into doormats and rubbish bags are thrown haphazardly to the pavement’s edge for the enjoyment of vermin; Oxford Street may be a tough, ugly place during the daytime but by night this potentially majestic street is nothing but a withered old hag with a cracked voice begging for love and tenderness, a pitiful, sorry black sheep in London’s family.