Resisting the temptation of
full-time work has an unexpected benefit: more time for walking. I don’t mean those carefully planned long
distance treks, or day trips to the countryside which take place at weekends or
during vacations. I’m referring to the regular
trips to shops and friends’ houses for which I would normally hop on a bus or a
tube. When free time is hemmed in by
work, the maximum acceptable foot journey for such errands is about an
hour. Marooned on the Isle of Dogs, you can’t
get far on that basis. But extend the
limit to two hours and Shanks’s pony is more serviceable. Tower Bridge is only five miles away along
the pleasant Thames path, amply furnished with distracting pubs and cafes. Swivel the compass north and my regular
weekly destination, the Arcola in Dalston, is in range.
Once off the island, most of the
six mile jaunt to Dalston follows the Regent’s Canal, passing Mile End Park and
Victoria Park and culminating in the quirkiness of Broadway Market and London Fields. A more delightful urban walk is difficult to
imagine.
The environs of the canal are almost
as desirable as the banks of the Thames and development proceeds apace. Since my last expedition, a narrow weed-blown
isosceles triangle of ground bordered on one side by the canal and on the other
by a railway track has been invaded by earth-moving behemoths and lanky cranes. This unpromising fillet of land will have
been crouching on a developer’s balance sheet for years, awaiting the moment
when the critical factors – development costs, property prices, business rates
– converge and the dormant asset is awakened to generate profit. In a few months, a tower of apartments, many
sold off-plan to eager investors, will arise.
Weeks of rain have topped up the
canal and it is now perilously close to overflowing the towpath, or bursting
its banks to use the meteorologists’ dramatic language. If it became the first infinity canal, it
would be unlikely to increase the value of those new apartments.
Until the industrial revolution,
most people passed their lives within walking distance of their place of
birth. Except for the affluent, there
was neither the necessity nor the means to do otherwise. Today, the desirability of locations is
largely defined by their transport connections.
Until the advent of the DLR, the Isle of Dogs was accessible only by
unpredictable and infrequent bus services.
In the bleak days following the closure of the docks, none but the most
intrepid taxi drivers would accept fares there.
The DLR, and to a greater extent the Jubilee Line, have transformed the
area. The impact of transport is not a
new phenomenon. In his book A Good Parcel of English Soil, Richard
Mabey recounts how, using an associated company, the Metropolitan Railway was
“prudently buying up parcels of pleasantly rural land around the line far in
excess of what was needed for the permanent way itself” in anticipation that
the railway would stimulate a development bonanza in its wake.
Getting to, or away from,
localities is not the only factor influencing property prices. Job prospects, schools, pollution levels and the
ineffable dictates of fashion all contribute.
Ironically, while modern communications have made proximity to the workplace
optional rather than essential, gritty post-industrial city centres have become
even more popular. Many have adopted
models of neo self sufficiency with community shops and pubs, urban gardens,
allotments and time banking schemes enabling participants to trade skills
without the bother of cash, whether the national currency or the local variants
introduced in many of the early transition towns.
The redevelopment of the canal
illustrates the vitality of regeneration.
The waterway itself has been cleaned, although even the hardiest are
advised against swimming, and water sports blossom. Along the eastern reaches of the Regent’s
Canal, patchy development is punctuated by derelict factories and warehouses. As well as the new apartments, there are
older blocks of council flats. Even
without the clue of their age, each is instantly identifiable. The council blocks, set well back from the canal
edge, are imprisoned by sturdy metal fences and thickets of bushes. When they were built, the canal was merely a
grubby and unpalatable reminder of the industrial past which many of the
tenants had lately fled, so efforts were made to conceal its proximity. The new apartments embrace the canal as a
valuable sales feature. The blocks
nestle as close as they dare to the waterside and bristle with balconies
cantilevered over the water. If they are
so minded, the new east enders can drop a fishing line directly into the limpid
waters below, although they would unlikely to snag anything more toothsome than
a rusting bicycle or discarded boot.
Canal barges converted to
houseboats cluster together in the more scenic stretches: next to Mile End Park
and Victoria Park. I fail to grasp the
attraction of living half under the waterline, but if the rain continues much
longer we’ll all have to get used to it.
The boats are a microcosm of the land-based disparities of prosperity. Wealthier residents have renovated their craft. They are freshly painted in unfetching naval
grey and sport solar panels on their roofs next to traditional smoking
flues. Old tubs, with flaking paint and
boarded windows lie askew in the water and are freighted with piles of wood,
old bikes and other detritus. Whatever
their state of repair, they all have permanent moorings and the only vessels
which seem to use the canal as a thoroughfare are the rented leisure craft, easily
identified as their owners’ names are emblazoned on the side and encircled by
painted posies of flowers.
In Hackney, the canalside carnival
reaches a discordant climax. Looming
gasometers, the Victorian filigree of their steel girders silhouetted against
the sky, are cheek by jowl with modern office blocks. Office workers in shirtsleeves are visible
through vast plate-glass windows. I
wonder whether they tire of the novelty of the canal view or whether, occupied
in the creative industries, it is a constant source of inspiration. Do they speculate what empire-building enterprise
previously occupied the site as they generate web copy and video games, or
simply gaze vacantly at the water as they drink their morning coffee?
An enduring index of the
desirability of an area is the proportion of period properties. Although houses
in Victorian and Georgian terraces and squares are less commodious than their
modern counterparts, they will always command a premium. No one nowadays would
consider demolishing these gems and London’s gap-toothed terraces are largely
the legacy of wartime depredations.
Decades later, it is still the Luftwaffe’s errant bombs which have shaped
the finances of London’s property demographic, especially in east London.
Attractive architecture is a necessary
but not sufficient metric of an area’s allure. Across London, there is an invisible meridian
dividing the undesirable from the aspirational zones, palpable to any property
owner. This border gradually moves
eastwards, like mist being burnt off a field by early morning sun, revealing
fresh pasture below. On my walk, it is
currently paused in Broadway Market, a short thoroughfare linking Regent’s
Canal and London Fields and creaking with bookshops, gastropubs and the other
services essential to the daily life of hip professionals. Estate agents surely use an algorithm to
track the progress of this boundary. It must include the increase in density of
coffee shops, wholefood retailers and independent video stores and the
corresponding decline in the number of charity shops. These are the vanguard marking the first
tentative stages of gentrification. The
final transition to established middle class, when property prices are
unaffordable to all but heiresses, is marked by the arrival of Waitrose.
© David Thompson 2014
