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Where do the City’s extremities lie?

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London North, South, East & West
Where Do The City’s Extremities Lie?

By Pete Stean

Have you ever thought about London’s farthest reaches?

Where it extends to in the north, how far east it goes, where its centre is?

Well Pete Stean has and writes about it in the Londoneer.

[I]f so, I have the answers to those questions – combining some map study and consulting various online and offline resources I can give you the definitive run-down on London’s exact dimensions:

  • London’s northern-most point is in Enfield, on a rather unassuming stretch of the M25 between junctions 24 and 25. It lies just to the west of a feature on the map rather romantically called Tilekiln Osiers
  • London’s eastern extent runs as far out as North Ockenden in the London Borough of Havering – specifically, the boundary is about halfway along a charming narrow road lined with trees called Fen Lane.
  • To the west, London’s boundary is again marked by the M25 – to add some spice however, the boundary actually runs around Junction 14. This spot lies just to the west of Heathrow Airport in Hillingdon.
  • London’s southern boundary can be found in the London Borough of Croydon,  and if you want to visit the exact spot it is on Ditches Lane, just to the north of the village of Chaldon in Surrey. The nearest geographical feature happens to be Happy Valley Park – one can only assume that this is so named because you only have to walk a hundred yards further on and you’ll be blissfully happy that you’re no longer in Croydon!

In terms of miles, between its eastern and western extremities London is 35.8 miles across as the crow flies, and 27.9 miles in length from north to south. This brings us to the vexing question of where London’s centre is – in the strictest geographical sense it should be where lines drawn between the four locations I’ve set out intersect which would, surprisingly, make the centre of London the Shell Centre buildings on the Thames riverside just outside Waterloo station.

London's centreI don’t have to tackle this problem however, because there’s a long-standing convention when it comes to the geographical point that marks the centre of London. When you’re driving along the motorway and a sign says ‘London – 10 Miles’, what it actually means is that there are 10 miles between your vehicle and the statue of Charles I, who sits on horseback just off Trafalgar Square – this was the original site of the ‘Eleanor Cross’, or ‘Charing Cross’, which were a series of monuments that commemorated Eleanor of Castille, the wife of King Edward I.

Today the Charing Cross is marked by a Victorian confection in the forecourt of Charing Cross railway station, although as we’ve established it isn’t in the right place . . .

Do you disagree with Pete’s calculations? Do you know of another historic centre for London?  If so, do feel free to pop any thoughts into the comment section below.

One of the resources Pete has utilised to create this post is an interesting hidden feature of Google Maps – if you go to a UK map and type ‘Greater London’ into the search box at the top, the map will zoom down to London and a thick pink line will appear denoting the boundaries of the city. You can do the same thing with other cities and towns – look at this link to see how it highlights London.

 

PeteThis post has been shamefully pilfered from the Londoneer who rather magnanimously publish under a creative commons licence – Thanks Pete.

A window on My World

Mr. Ormes’s parrot

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This time of year many are nervously in the throes of examinations fever. It’s an annual ritual performed for generations. Today with nothing better I can think to write about I’ll return to being examined while studying ‘The Knowledge’. Unlike tests set by examining boards it was a rather fluid system with each Carriage Officer putting their own – and unique – interpretation on how the process should be conducted.

[U]ntil recently all appearances [exams] were held on a one-to-one oral confrontation with examiners putting their quirky slant on how the process should be conducted. A favourite ploy to test the mettle of candidates was to adopt the old practice of good cop/bad cop – well they were ex-police. Mr. Lippitt would be civility itself “Is your father in the trade?”/”Have you come far?” before giving you some apparently easy questions. Mr Ormes, his nemesis, would say on a subsequent appearance that your previous answers, with the implication that the questions were easy, were not up to his high standard.

John Mason Head of Transport for London’s Taxi and Private Hire recalls that examiners would place the chair in the appearance room facing the wrong direction so that the candidate was facing the wall and not the examiner, and would give an automatic fail to the student who dared to turn the chair around. I once was reprimanded for moving the chair closer to his desk when finding it positioned in the opposite corner of the room.

At an appearance you are given places in London [points] that you have to identify their exact location, if you give the correct answer you are invited to describe, road by road, the shortest route to be taken from one to the other. Dean Warrington who runs the WizAnn Knowledge School remembers one examiner who decided the start and end points of his questions by throwing darts into a map. Should the student feel this was unfair he would offer to let them throw the darts instead.

Another ploy was to be seemingly engrossed in some urgent paperwork leaving the hapless student waiting sweating wondering when (and what) the first question would be. As an alternative to that Robert Lordon recalls at View from the Mirror being asked a question in the corridor before even entering his office and on another occasion the examiner – Mr Ormes – walking so slow that he walked into his back and having to apologise for treading on his heels. The opposite would be the order of the day for Mr Price who one student recalls as putting his feet on the desk and proceeding to read a copy of The Sun.

Mr Ormes

A BBC Modern Times documentary focused on the climate of fear created by the examiners. And the most feared of all examiners was the aforementioned Mr Ormes who had a life size toy parrot sitting on its perch in his office. It was the stuff of legend that if the parrot was facing you Mr Ormes was in a bad mood. He was a lugubrious character with a bone-dry delivery, and in the documentary was seen asking one nervous candidate with a criminal record how to get to the Penal Reform Society.

He looked and sounded like a copper who had seen it all and didn’t believe your story. He once asked me The Adelphi Building to The Royal Society of Arts. When I queried that they were opposite each other on John Adam Street he replied: “It’s raining, I’m pregnant and I’ve got a wooden leg”.

When a Knowledge boy left his office he wouldn’t even remember his own name – a truly terrifying experience. “You can smell if people have what is needed”, Mr Ormes would say.

When I left Mr Ormes that day I couldn’t recall which way the parrot was facing either. Now the parrot has retired and now resides at another cabbie seat of learning the Knowledge Point School.