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Greater London


It's London, with red buses and everything. Perhaps not quite the inner city yet though. A park. In the park. My first view of the Docklands skyscrapers. I would see some horses in this place. These plants aren't normal for London. This is on a bridleway and there are plenty of hoof prints in the mud so horses must come this way. ... It doesn't say what shellfish they sell. I hope it's the East End classics, like cockles and eels. Part of Dagenham and Redbridge's Victoria Road ground. This little street is Victoria Road. First game 1917. Capacity 6078. Record attendance 7200.... 63. Dagenham and Redbridge.... This is the first ground whch has specified that the car park is where ball games aren't allowed. Victoria Road. Another view towards the city. An ugly flyover. This cemetery looks very regimented. According to a sign, there are some Commonwealth war graves her... East Ham, which seems to be where West Ham United's ground is actually located. East Ham. That fruit looks appealing. I would later buy a bag of plums and a burger, not from the same place, ... Upton Park, also known as the Boleyn Ground because it occupies the site of a house where Anne Boley... A lot of local businesses have adopted the club's colours. Upton Park. Upton Park is on my list of 1995-1996 top division grounds. West Ham are still in the top division. ... 64. West Ham United... NO NOT £1 !! Ham butchers. A wedding near the ground. There are little castles to emphasise the Boleyn Ground's historical links. This will be West Ham's last season at Upton Park. Their new stadium is pretty much ready to move in... Near Upton Park. 65. Leyton Orient... Bristol Rovers fans arriving at Brisbane Road, Leyton Orient's ground. The first game at Brisbane Road was in 1937. The blocks of flats which surround the ground are clear... Current capacity 9271. Record attendance 34345.... A chance to see what's behind the nose of a Eurostar. This is where I've just collected my ticket for tonight's match at White Hart Lane. To ensure that I... Outside White Hart Lane. I saw several mounted police out here but surprisingly few police actually ... I locked my bike there while I went to collect my ticket. I'm glad I've moved it further down the ro... Tottenham Hotpur are in the early stages of building a new stadium next to the existing one. I can s... Like Upton Park, this ground was in the top division in 1995-1996 and is still in it now. First game... 66. Tottenham Hotspur... Like Notts County's Meadow Lane, this ground is pretty poor at directing people to their seats. I th... A view from a window. White Hart Lane. That looks like a strange place to have to sit. There's one at each end of the pitch. That looks like some kind of control room. The bronze cockerel on the roof was made in 1909 by a former player and has become the emblem of the... White Hart Lane. There's a lot of messing about going on behind a banner which says "Get on with the game".... Everything I've read has implied that the higher up the divisions you go, the more separation there ... Just before the game starts. I know I have at least one follower who is an actual Everton fan and do... That's all the matches that I'm intending to watch on this trip, and possibly ever. Here's a summary... My hotel. It's a bit of a maze inside but, to my surprise, it has stairs.... The roads were pretty wet on the way back from the ground and the mudguards had fallen off my bike b... This is an unusual sundial. I'm not sure what the point of it is if it only works for five hours eac... The building with the dome is the Angel, Islington. It's currently a bank but gets its name from the... Ashburton Grove, sometimes known by its sponsor's name instead, the home of Arsenal. It's the second... There are some other tourists at this one. Ashburton Grove. Arsenal's men's and women's teams are both in the top few in the country. If this trip continues far... 67. Arsenal... Some of the other people here knew who the statue was but I didn't recognise the name and I couldn't... The flats on the left are newer than the stadium so you used to be able to stand back from it more t... In 1893, Arsenal became the first team from the South of England to join the Football League. Origin... Arsenal. The building on the left is the Arsenal Stadium, more commonly known as Highbury, which is where the... The modern development includes a large green space which space pretty much replicates where the pit... Highbury. The front foor. Another look inside. Because I'm in an area of good mobile phone coverage and I don't really know how much I'm going to b... That looks like a bit of clumsy parking. 68. Barnet... The Hive Stadium in Harrow, home to Barnet Football Club. It's one of the newest grounds on my list,... I took this picture because there was a tube train going past, visible through the gap between the t... As I was in the area, I couldn't resist visiting this spot. Have a look at it and see if it looks at... Or starts, if you're going in my direction. The arch of Wembley Stadium. I do like these wide staircases that you get near football grounds. The windows in this hotel are all angled to give a view of the stadium. Wembley Stadium. It's not the home to any club but this has been the site of 81 scheduled FA Cup fin... This is the largest stadium in Britain and the second largest in Europe. Its current capacity is 900... That appears to be an entire retail park just for selling beds. I'm seeing a lot more tourists today that on most days. Wembley. Wembley. The base of the arch. Although Wembley is best known as a football ground, there was a major rugby match on here yesterday... At 133 metres high, Wembley Satdium is the second tallest stadium in the world and the 24th tallest ... Wembley. You can see a few of the seats from here. The North Circular Road. Power cables for the Underground line at Park Royal station. I've emerged from an alleyway into this mock-Tudor estate. The floodlights of Brentford's Griffin Park. Griffin Park is noted for having a pub at each corner, although one of them has now closed and two o... Two. It looks to me like there is access to the football club. We're not going to get a very good view of Griffin Park. Its first game was in 1904, its capacity is... 69. Brentford... Another stand. Three. Four. The boards upstairs above the door are supposed to say when the next game here will be but the... Straight on to another ground. This is Loftus Road, the home of Queens Park Rangers. First game 1904... 70. Queens Park Rangers... This is on my list of top division grounds from 1995-1996, although QPR are in the second division t... Is that what Batman's doing now? Oh, I didn't realise the dismantling of Television Centre had already started. It looks like a scene from some kind of post-apocalyptic film poster. This bit is still recognisable. An entrance to an Underground station. I remember seeing a video once which showed a special wide en... The bus station in Hammersmith. Underneath the Hammersmith flyover. Hammersmith Bridge on the Tideway, the section of the Thames used for the University Boat Race. Looking downstream with the Harrods Depositary on the right... ... and Fulham's Ground, Craven Cottage, ahead. This primary school has separate gates marked "boys" and "girls". I doubt whethe... Craven Cottage. First game 1896. Capacity 25700. Record attendance 49335. This stand was built in 19... Craven Cottage is currently the only club ground in Britain to have a designated area for people lik... It's got the noisiest floodlights I've encountered so far; they're covered in squawking birds. The original Craven Cottage was a royal hunting lodge, situated roughly where the middle of the pitc... 71. Fulham... Johnny Hayes. The Empress State Building, a little bit of the Earls Court Exhibition Centre, and the Lillie Bridge... ... Lillie Bridge, the site of the 1873 FA Cup final. The FA Cup competition began in the 1871-1872 ... The Lillie bridge sports complex was closed in 1888, after part of it was destroyed in a riot. Since... I didn't realise until now that Earls Court is also being dismantled and turned into housing. Lillie Bridge. These seem nearly as complicated as Australian parking rules. There must be a story behind this. A smart-looking estate near Chelsea's ground. Chelsea's ground, Stamford Bridge. First game 1877. Capacity 41798. Record attendance 82905, the hig... My, I am visiting some popular places today. An interesting thing about this ground is that it isn't owned by the club, but a separate company wh... 72. Chelsea... The slightly delipidated wall is part of one of the original stands, known as "the shed" The photographer seems to be doing more of a pose than the subject. There's one electric car charging point in the staff car park. I wonder if it's for somebody in part... One of the gangways used on matchdays. Stamford Bridge. A hotel, or possibly even flats, adjoining the ground. Isn't a mini megastore just a store? Also, why the American spelling of "metres"? Opposite the ground. The side of Stamford Bridge. As I move away from the ground, I enter Chelsea. Chelsea's ground is actually in Fulham. Barnet's is... It's a posh neighbourhood but those flats look a bit depressing. I wonder how much they cost. A restaurant in Brompton featuring stained-glass advertisements for Michelin tyres. I would guess th... The Brompton Oratory, a church. Oh, there weren't meant to be two pictures of it. Brompton Road, looking towards Harrods. The junction of Bromton Road and Knightsbridge. Piccadilly, seen while stuck in traffic, which is how I spent much of the evening. Archways through the terraces along both sides of Regent Street, which is where the bus is. Piccadilly Circus. The statue of Eros. The column is the memorial to the Crimean War. Part of Houses of Parliament can be seen in the dista... Shaftesbury Avenue. I recognised this as the Google building but in fact they are just one of the companies with offices... Just some buildings made visible because there is a cutting containing a railway line in front of th... Farringdon station, with St. Paul's Cathedral and the Shard in the background. London. London. One of the little dragons marking the boundary of the ancient City of London. The City. The road where I am standing now is the boundary of the City. Here's the City of London street sign ... ... and the Islington sign on the other. Little knitted cycling jerseys in a bicycle-themed cafe within walking distance of my hotel. I was t... While I'm in London, we have to have a picture of some Boris Bikes in their new red livery. This isn... It's not raining particularly hard but, as predicted, there will be some rain throughout most of the... Outside my hotel. On the large brick wall is a very faded advert for cigarettes, featuring what look... New buildings going up on the City Road. This is an interesting archway. It looks like the rough bits and the smooth bits are actually all ca... This road has a modern Islington sign like the one I showed yesterday, but also this much older one. As will surprise nobody, The Bicycle Man is shut. I didn't even bother bringing the bike with me to ... The dome of St. Paul's Cathedral. St. Paul's Cathedral. Looking along Cannon Street towards St. Paul's. The view from London Bridge. Another view from London Bridge. Some construction work, with part of Tower Bridge in the foreground. For some reason, these traffic lights have a mirror so you can see what's in the queue behind you. I came to Zampa road once years ago, on a little tour visiting all the roads in London which begin w... Outside Millwall's ground. The Den, which was opened in 1993 and is sometimes called the New Den to distinguish it from the clu... 73. Millwall... The document taped to the fence is notice of Millwall's application to start selling alcohol here. S... The Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. Charlton Athletic's ground, the Valley, also known as Floyd Road. First game 1919. Capacity 27111. R... The Valley. The Valley. 74. Charlton Athletic... I have bought a new handlebar mount for my camera but it isn't as easy to use as the old one. It has... This was actually the first hotel of my 2011 trip, five days before the photographs started. A Docklands Light Railway station and a tower block in Deptford. On the right, at the base of the Shard, is an entrance to London Bridge station. Near London Bridge station. Here's another of those dragons. The whole of London Bridge is in the City of London, whereas the ri... The Thames by London Bridge. The view upstream. Looking along the bridge. I think what we can see on the left here is what's going to become the new cycle superhighway. The monument to the Great Fire of London. One strange fact that I learned recently is that more peop... Tower 42, originally called the National Westminster Tower. The Bank of England. While doing research for this trip, I found that there are a few amateur-only l... Until recently, I thought the building in the middle here was the Bank of England but it's actally t... The back of the bank. A building in Finsbury Square. A close-up of the figure on the pinnacle of the building from the previous picture. There's nothing to explain what that big rock is. The grounds of the Honourable Artillery Company. I thought I was going to be able to get through London without mentioning that programme, whose pres... As I half suspected, the tower blocks which I photographed yesterday are in fact part of the Barbica... A roof garden. My hotel is in two parts, on opposite sides of a road. This is the smaller part, where I am staying.... I didn't particularly want my room to be cleaned but I'm still impressed that I wasn't disturbed at ... The sign on the corner of the pub says that it is "Opposite the site of the Blackfriars Ring Wh... The obelisk in St. George's Circus. The orange thing bears the logo of a company called E-Toilet Services. I don't know what an e-toilet... A coach party heading into the Imperial War Museum, while I shelter from the rain shower under a tre... The Kennington Oval, famous these days as one of the grounds for test match cricket but also the sit... The Oval. The Oval. People arriving for a cricket match. When I checked later, I would find that it is the first day of ... I'm on one of the recommended main arterial cycle routes out of London. They're not exactly cycle la... We've seen plenty of football grounds, some cricket grounds, some horse racing courses, a motor raci... These 570 flats are just a few hundred metres away from the dog track, on the site of the Plough Lan... When the new safety regulations for football grounds were introduced, it was decided that Plough Lan... In 2003, in the view of the club's management, Wimbledon FC was renamed Milton Keynes Dons and reloc... This isn't quite one of London's lost rivers but it's well hidden. Kingsmeadow is where AFC Wimbledon currently play but they have ambitions to eventually move, or as ... The best part of the stadium that I can reach is this part, which contains the bar and some offices.... I believe that John Green, the author and presenter of several popular YouTube channels, is actually... 75. AFC Wimbledon... I can't reach the brown stand. That's a strange name for a pub. I've come to Burger King instead, mainly because I need the toilet. Mitcham. I saw some pictures recently of some of my work colleagues passing this roundabout as part ... This morning, I put some more air into the back tyre to make it look something half approaching norm... Selhurst Park, which is the home to top division team Crystal Palace. They were in the second divisi... It doesn't look much like a football ground from this angle. This is the ground where the incident with Eric Cantona kicking a spectator took place. Some of the features of this ground look a little bit out of place. Selhurst Park. 76. Crystal Palace... The Crystal Palace transmitter mast. Whay caught my eye about this church was a notice outside saying that it wuld be holding a celebrati... Crystal Palace station. The Crystal Palace was a huge wrought-iron and glass pavillion built in Hyde Park in Central London ... The athletics stadium is looking a bit dilapidated now. I have now visited all 11 FA Cup final venues in England. There is still one more to see though, bac... The mast and a plane. Part of Crystal Palace Park. Bromley Football Club is in a posher area than many I have visited. The Conference South was the Southern half of the sixth division, before it was renamed. As winners,... Hayes Lane. Opened around 1938. Capacity 6000. Record attendance unknown. 77. Bromley... A horse in the field next to the Hayes Lane ground. Another horse having a good feed. One of the best views I've had all day. 78. Welling United... This is Park View Road, the home of Welling United. I'm afraid I don't know much about it except tha... It doesn't have the facilities of most of the grounds. The entrance to the ground. Almost as soon as I left the ground's car park, two men in suits wandered into it from the car showr... One more look at Welling United. The shop next to the ground. That's all the London clubs done. Here they are on one chart:...