If you turn left as you exit the old Farringdon Station, there's a pub called the Castle, which was the only pub to have a pawnbrokers licence, granted by King George IV
Farringdon station, being the Eastern terminus of the original Metropolitan Railway, existed well before what we now think of as Holborn station proper - thus, at the time of its opening, it probably was the nearest station to High Holborn!
Back in the day, a lot of Metropolitan Railway stations were given these compound names after two local areas, seeking to attract twice the traffic. Now the only one left is Chalfont & Latimer.
Under that part of High Holborn/Holborn are, as well, as sewers, the Central Line, the former Kingsway exchange, the Post Office Underground Railway and it's predecessor, a Pneumatic Railway which ran from Eversholt Street to the General Post Office building near St. Paul's Cathedral.
@@Puckoon2002 The BT (was Post Office) deep level tunnels are around there somewhere with Telephone exchanges, food and water stores, it's own electric generators and so on. Think They closed them approx twenty years ago.
I agree. It is immoral naming something after a district a distance a way... a bit like when they build new flats somewhere seedy like a back street in Pimlico, and call it Buckingham Palace Mews...
Farringdon opened in 1863, Holborn in1906, so not so strange to let people know that Farringdon was the station to alight at to be closest to Holborn for about 40 years
I was one of the earliest people to have braces on my teeth in the UK as a schoolboy, around 1950-51. I lived at Morden and went to Eastman Orthodontic & Dental Clinic in Grays Inn Road (originally Lane) every three weeks. It took all day because, afterwards, I went into High Holborn and Gamages store with its toys etc. My mother used to work in Hatton Garden in the twenties/thirties.
I used to go to Eastmans as a kid in the fifties. I used to hate the endless drilling with those old drills driven by strings on an arm. I worked in High Holborn in the sixties as an insurance broker and I would never have gone to Farringdon to get to work. I'd walk down Grays Inn Road from where I used to live near the other end of it. My dad used to work in Saffron Hill and through the war where his firm used to make torpedos instead of it's usual catering equipment. It seems all so different now and I haven't been down there for years.
Hi folks. I used to work opposite High Holborn tube station. Wonderful location for lunch times. The old Beaties model shop, British Museum, a wonderful Russian optics emporium - great glass, rubbish cameras - a very good Dutch pancake house, Leather Lane and Covent Garden Market - so many attractions within easy walking distance. Ah, those were the days. Even had a very nice and interesting job!
Could that mysterious 'pole' in the middle of High Holborn actually be for an old gas street lamp? Hard to think what else it could be....but if it is, I'm glad someone had the foresight to leave it situ knowing that it would be a source of fascination for future generations.
Hi Jago Well, you’ve done it again, taken me back to my early days of employment back in 1968-1977. The blue/gray building on the right-hand side at the end of Saffron Hill used to be the UK office of the Omega Watch Company, later rebranded SSIH, Societe Suisse pour la Industry Horolger. Sadly now, no longer in residence, they move to Eastleigh in Hampshire, along with myself and seven out of the other 246 employees but another memory of happy times. David
Me too, in the late sixties i had a summer holiday job working for a school chum's father in a company importing Russian watches not far from Farringdon station. Used to lunch at Billie's Baked potatoes, whatevrr hsppened to them?
My dad used to work in William Still's catering equipment company near there and he got made redundant when they moved to Hastings. Even that factory eventually shut down and the site is now housing like a lot of our once thriving industry.
This reminds me of some of the quiet Sunday walks I used to do in the City of London decades back. If you have an eye to see, there's plenty to explore.
Funnily enough it really _isn't_ massive - thanks to tube travel people often have very little idea how compact central London really is, and it's also not the shape that people think it is either, thanks to the angular geometry of the tube diagram (not "map"). I wouldn't bother taking the tube, at least not in central London, for less than two or even three tube stations distance, because walking is quicker, and there is so much to see! In fact Paddington is only a short walk from Marble Arch whereas on the tube takes a detour, a change to a second line, and _five_ stops to make the same journey. For the cental touristy-area of London, Buckingham Palace is in the SW corner, and the Tower of London and Tower Bridge are at the eastern extremity, but only 4 miles apart, so a distance you could walk in about an hour.
This is a fair point. It’s possible to walk from Waterloo to Camden in well under an hour and even journeys like Holborn to Waterloo are often quicker on foot.
@Mark Griffin yep. The built environment will change. Anyway how about a walking challenge. Strand Savoy hill. To blackfriars station. Three routes. Via strand fleet street. Via the embankment or over Waterloo along the south bank and back to south entrance to blackfriars.
Buses are contactless and you see loads; and as long as you use the same card all day, all a day's Tube, bus and overground travel will be capped at the standard daily fare. More importantly check if you can buy even cheaper tickets if visiting from abroad. There were National Rail period tickets that were more than 50% cheaper than I can buy living here. I think similar offers were available for London. If you get confused just go on the latest Jago Hazzard video and ask advice.
This is the historic version of how airlines advertise flights to cities that are nowhere near the airport you end up at!! It's almost comforting to know this has been going on for so long!!
Dent, of course (4 miles and several hundred feet above the village). Beaulieu Road - the "Road" is the warning. Fochabers in Scotland once had two stations, both 4 miles away in opposite directions.
Get a train to New Pudsey and try and walk to Pudsey. Before mobile phones you were doomed. There was a telephone box with a broken telephone; no taxis; and a street with nowt but despair. Pudsey was a mile away via a urine washed underpass and a field full of cow pats. The cows have gone but neither New Pudsey Station nor Pudsey has moved since.
Away from London and into the New Forest one of the stations on the line from Southampton to Brockenhurst used to be called "Lyndhurst Road". Yes the road past the station does go to Lyndhurst but it is about two miles. It has now been re-named "Ashurst New Forest", which is actually where it is. "Beaulieu Road" station is another story. No doubt there are other examples of stations that are nowhere near the the place that those "not in the know" might think.
There were any number of 'Road' stations though of course many have closed over the years. Generally speaking, they were so named because they were on the road to a certain place, so the name was geographically correct. To get to the place in question you would get out and walk up the road. One exception where you would not get out and walk up the road is Liverpool Road station in Manchester (now the home of the Museum of Science and Industry, and until a few years ago, the oldest station still connected to the network). When the station was open for passenger use, it was the place where you would catch a train to Liverpool! Another oddity in Manchester is Oxford Road, which possibly was once on the road from Oxford to Manchester (though these days the A34 which connects the two cities is the next road over). Again, it would be quicker to catch a train from Oxford Road to Piccadilly and then change for a train to Oxford, than to walk from Manchester Oxford Road to Oxford!
Dent Station is notorious. 5 miles from the village because they chose to put it on the railway and not in the village. Highest main line station in England (it's on the Settle & Carlise) and if you walk from the village you won't be surprised to learn this.
Worse than this is "London Ashford Airport" in Kent, it's in Lydd on the south coast, closer to Calais than Ashford and almost 74 miles from central London
How about "Frankfurt Hahn" airport, which is 75 miles from Frankfurt proper and actually closer to the borders of Belgium and Luxemburg than to the nearest large German city (depending on how you reckon, Mainz, Koblenz, or Wiesbaden--Frankfurt isn't even in the Top 3). Perhaps Ashford and Hahn should consider twinning ;)
Ah, such carefree pre-lockdown street scenes! Happy days! As it happens, you retraced the exact steps of my only visit to central London in the past 20 years a mere two months previous to your explorations: Since you penetrated as far as Bleeding Heart Yard, there is a snicket there which lets you straight through to Ely Place and directly on to Holborn Circus without having to drool at the trinkets. There's a sign on the black wooden door threatening death and destruction if you use it and PRIVATE! and such gubbins, but operation of the latch sees you without further ado in the splendrous tranquility of Ely Place and in a jiffy (it's short) on Holborn.
High Holborn was a title in common use, for a time at least, for the Bridge over Farringdon Street - or at least that seemed to be in common use when I worked in the common, guttersnipe riddled, normal Holborn 2 doors down from the Cittie of Yorke (every luchtime and many and evening - I, too, was well luvved up by the place). That was 40 years ago. Bugger, I'm ancient
I lived around this area for a year or so, and I've learned far more about it in the last few minutes, than I did during that time :) Also +1 for the Arthur Machen quote. It's the weirdest area during the weekends. Almost completely deserted. It's like living in a necropolis.
The Conway hall in red lion square is interesting in history and in normal times events The london bus group meet once a month with the summer one being the bus hires and tour of part of london.
Did that walk only last Wednesday from Farringdon to The Hoxton Hotel . Should have stayed on the Northern line to Tottenham Court Road its a sight shorter walk !
I,live in Aus, but a London boy even though I have lived here for almost 50 years. Remember the old Elizabethan buildingssr Chancery lane used to. Be a tobacconist called Brumfits that my manager sent me too to pipe his pipe baccy. Farringdon was a favourite of mine too. Remember the old widened lines from Moorgate up to KX and the midland at Kentish town
Thank you for another informative and highly entertaining walkabout, although I am a little surprised that when in Hatton Garden you did not mention The Mitre which is worth a video itself.
There's also the lovely pub off Hatton Gardens that can only be approached via an alleyway. Getting the beer in must be a nuisance. But I am sure you know all that.
I think it's pronounced Leeyin-sterr Gardens btw. The pole is probably a listed 19th century 5G transmitter mast but I couldn't be certain about that obviously. More excellent work Mr Jag. 👍🍻
Perhaps you have already done a video on it, but was surprised you didn't mention that Chancery Lane Station used to be a little further up the road - almost where your "pole" in the middle of the road is situated. The newly refurbished building is named Chancery Station House.
Yep, I enjoyed that having worked around the area in the ‘60’s; “What?” I hear you murmur, that’s a decent time ago! Indeed it is, I used to love walking down Leather Lane in my lunch hour and listening to all the stall holders and Spivs slagging off their ‘Clientele’ (Lol)
I’ve done that walk before a couple of times as I used to work in the glass building at High Holborn Circus for Sainsbury’s - used to be very confusing as their address is 33 Holborn but it’s not even in the City!
At 3:30 you mention a pole. It's just a guess but perhaps it was a pole to let out some of the foul odours from the sewage system below. There are plenty of those poles around London.
It's not unusual for stations tobe named after somewhere close by. The typical reason was a land owner wanting a railway station but not near there house. For example Levisham station now on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway is closer to Newton under Rawcliffe than it is to Levisham, but not by much. I worked for a while at RAF Oakington but the address was Longstanton.
You could have done an Italian Catholic tour. The current Italian Church is at the top of Hatton Garden. You can reach it easily from Faringdon Road. The Sardinian Chapel was demolished to build Kingsway, but the coat of arms can still be seen in its replacement St. Anselm and St. Cecilia's on Kingsway.
There is, or used to be, an Italian Driving School and a noted Italian deli cum cafe nearby, and there's a magnificent plaque to a hero of the Italian Unification too (Mazzinni?)
The nazis didn't miss a lot my dad worked in Saffron Hill and did fire watching on the roof at night. He said it was terrifying and showed me a picture in a copy of his firm's magazine he kept. There was little standing around it.
Yes I think the film shot always shown of the burning city was not too far from barbican . There used to be lots of furniture makers there so it all burnt well.
@@highpath4776 My mother used to sometimes take me on the train to Shoeburyness from Fenchurch st I remember the view of the devastation from the carriage still being attended to in the fifties.
You walked past Ely Place, once owned by the Bishop of Ely; which City of London Police had to ask permission to enter; which had a chapel for the Portuguese Ambassador, which was the only place in London where Catholic Mass could be legally celebrated for a century or more; and Ye Old Mitre; the only pub I know with a dead tree standing where it grew, in the bar.
@@JagoHazzard I went into the Mitre looking for space to do a show. It has a tiny upstairs room. I ended up downstairs at the Betsy Trotwood, where you could hear the passing trains the other side of the wall. I've also done things at the Horseshoe and the Jerusalem Tavern; both great boozers.
Freights between Ferme Park and Hither Green and possibly other Southern destinations used to go via Kings Cross and the Widened Lines in pre-Thameslink days, when there were no passenger trains over the Faringdon-Blackfriars section.
I work in that office next to what you said was a nuclear bunker in Furnvial street always wonder what it was, there is also a camera in that street does anyone know why?.
I have to laugh everytime listen to the break you take to have a look at the shiny things , the only part left to us to imagine what you are thinking...
If you like a pint of Sam's, perhaps you enjoy a wee dram, in which case, when next passing by Hatton Garden, if you're acquainted with a member of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, you might get them to guest you in to their members' rooms in Greville Street. Not exactly a night down the boozer and hardly cheap, but there's potential for a good evening. So much Scotch, so little time! Worked for me! In addition, if it's still there - could be - a pukka old tobacconist is situated in that big old Tudor building, wherein is to be found a sign, thanking you for smoking. Good times!
Given the distance from Farringdon to where High Holborn Starts its not too misleading, but you could call the station strand - carry accross Holborn Circus down Fetter Lane and you will enter Fleet Street (in the City) near where it becomes Strand (in Westminster)
At this point, it seems like poor old Strand is in danger of becoming a placeholder name. It's already been Aldwych and Charing Cross (and even got demoted to being in brackets for a while).
You mean so he can do a video on how there were even more Strand stations?!!! I think you have a devious nature here!!! As for Farringdon, it's not that far from Holborn Viaduct is it? I used to work in Holborn and we sometimes used to head over that way for a post work drink. I can agree that the Cittie of Yorke is a fine drinking establishment, as is Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, which I'm shocked didn't get mentioned, with all its literary links!!!
Railways are notorious for naming their stations for something in the far distance. They can't put the station next to where it's supposed to be, because that would be convenient.
If you think calling it High Holborn is bad, lookat the Tyne & Wear Metro. Seaburn station is actually in Fulwell, and miles away from Seaburn, and St Peter's station is closer to the Stadium of Light (home to Sunderland AFC) than Stadium of Light station.
Yes, I noticed that St Peters was closer to Sunderland’s ground than the Stadium of Light Station when I visited. However, because of the very large crowds Sunderland attract (48k when in Premier League, 30k even in League One) it is probably useful to have two separate stations serving the stadium.
Here's a Question (I should ask Jay Foreman, Tom Scott and Mr Marshall), There are 32 London Boroughs. With the Reduction of MPs pending to 600 in the House of Commons, for the sake of saving public money, the number of Boroughs should be 30 (because it divides neatly into 600), Which Two Boroughs should be abolished, And Why ? And Where would you allocate the communities to ? I Suggest Brent and Camden as being the two least useful councils in London ( though I am not fond of Lambeth and Merton Either)
Interesting question. I’d probably merge Westminster with the City of London and RBKC with Hammersmith & Fulham. RBKC because it would improve the balance of power between rich and poor and City and Westminster because I believe the City’s economic importance is likely to decline in coming years and I don’t much like Westminster.
@@JagoHazzard Given half the city has gone east to Docklands that sounds good, but as the Corporation is not a Borough I excluded that from the count noting its special status
Finally, someone agrees with me that Camden are one of the shittest councils in london!! Not the borough itself and the places though, some of the best in london probably
Still don't know why the 1865 station was renamed Farringdon and High Holborn in 1922 since Holborn is you say half mile away. The present Holborn was opened in 1906. You say you didn't know the Griffins were made in the 60's and thought they were older... you did know it. See... we are watching and listening! Really like your videos. What number was the Routemaster? Was it RML 2405?
This might be a dumb question, but whenever you put up a street sign on the bottom right of the sign is red numbers and letters. Is there a history behind those numbers? For example, you have a street sign above saying Gray's Inn Road with a WC1 in the bottom right corner.
Postcodes for addresses. Also look at the Borough of... names on the street signs - some are the pre-1965 boroughs (so very well made to survive several decades.
Could the pole be a “stink pipe”. I’m a Yank but I’ve be watching a lot of videos of your fine city and have heard of them. Some sort of ventilation 🧐. Bravo Zulu sir 😎
And of course if you had gone the other way at Chancery Lane you would have eventually got to the site of the former Holborn Viaduct station, which was also famous for not being Holborn station too !
Is Aldwych near Holborn. Plus not do a video of Thameslink with the Class 700s and how Thameslink was first established. And even the Elizabeth Line when it opens next year and Class 345s operating the Abbey Wood and Shenfield-Reading and Heathrow Airport Terminal 4 and Terminal 5. By starting at Farringdon or at London Bridge, St. Pancras Thameslink, Elephant and Castle, Blackfriars or City Thameslink. And not to mention Kings Cross Thameslink before it was closed and replaced by St. Pancras Thameslink. And probably do Bishopsgate where Broad Street station used to be that was close to Moorgate and Liverpool Street.
Holborn re development may be the cause it supose to be the new Holborn oposite the old cramp street commercialy more iviable !Wonder why the kingsway tunnel cut wa never filled up so you have more road space available, do they still use it for somekind of use ? Holborn by Chancery lane ? That would be more discriptive or High Holborn Thameslink !
So you get off at *Farringdon & High Holborn* and walk to *Holborn* one effectively gets *highly educated* on British literary history, among other things.
Hate to join the perfectly correct Minories-moaners, but Caerleon-born author (pronounced orthor) Arthur (pronounced ar-thar) Machen's name is pronounced Mac-en rather than Matshen
I only know Furnival Street as the location of the former and original offices of the Jewish Chronicle from it's foundation in the 1700s until just a few years ago when it moved to to the suburbs.
At 2:50 you mention Grays Inn Road. I had a high-tech job in an office there for a few months in 1985. I was placed in a desk by a window which looked out into a courtyard, shared by, shall we say, a "Gentlemen's club"..eh heh! The, shall we call them "waitresses" (to be polite), used to stand outside in the courtyard during their coffee and cigarette break dressed in what can be best described as Victorian ladies underwear? (It must have been a very traditional club). Being an Orthodox Jew, this was NOT the best environment to be in, yet back in those days, straight out of university and before the Stock Exchange Big-Bang, (does anyone remember that?), jobs were very hard to come by and programmers with less than three years experience, back then were two a penny. So, on my first day, I requested to swap with another more senior programmer and he was more than willing to oblige. However, the boss took offense for some reason and our relationship never improved from there. I was glad (actually elated) when I finally found a far better job at four times the salary. Actually I did miss something about that area. Grays Inn road, as you mentioned, is right around the corner to the jewellery centre of Hatton Garden, where many Orthodox Jews work. By asking around, I soon found secret hidden synagogues with fake shop fronts to pray in as as well as kosher sandwich / Beigal bars at the back of some of these shops. It was 14 karat gold gem stone diamonds at the front and tables and chairs selling salmon and chopped herring beigal sandwiches at the back. Now Jago, I can say with some confidence that this is a part of London which I am sure you know nothing about!
@@JagoHazzard These hidden but vital places to the Jews working in that area, had been in existence in Hatton Garden (as well as other areas of London) since the 19th century (some much earlier), but sadly, it seems, (after doing a Google), disappeared at the beginning of the 21st century. I remember quite a few synagogues and Kosher cafes and sandwich bars scattered around commercial districts in London, all hidden away in order not to draw attention and invite possible attacks. For a classic example of a large synagogue that still exists and in daily use today, how well do you know Heneage Ln, London EC3A 5DQ? Did you know that there is a very synagogue hidden away behind a façade at No 4 called "Bevis Marks"? It has been there since 1701.
