Up The Cally

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After yesterday’s violent deaths on Westminster Bridge, over which I have walked many a time, it has been difficult to take my mind off London. I’ve always found a productive routine task to be therapeutic. It seemed therefore appropriate to continue yesterday’s North London perambulations through the medium of scanning the next dozen of my Streets of London images made in August and September 2004.

Euston Road N1 8.04 1

I begin with this corner of King’s Cross station on Euston Road, N1. Purely by coincidence the picture contains a reminder of another disaster experienced on 18th November 1987. An accidental fire in the Underground cost thirty one people their lives. The following month I began daily trips through King’s Cross when I would use those underground lines. The walled commemorative area in the foreground was filled with floral tributes over the following days.

Alongside the station, Caledonian Road runs up towards Holloway. During the late ’80s and ’90s, when, in sports gear, carrying my working clothes in a back pack, I commuted from Newark, I would run up The Cally, as it was known to the locals, for a few hundred yards, turn into a pocket park on the left, and continue along the Regent’s Canal towpath, past Camden Lock to my counselling room in Little Venice.

Omega Place N1 8.04

The first turning on the right is Omega Place N1. Tony’s Organics, at 10 Caledonian Road, in 2009, was considered one of the best raw food cafés in London. It is now reported to be closed.

Keystone Crescent N1 8.04

The next turning is the one-time picturesque Keystone Crescent. At that time, a plastered wall with bricked up windows unwittingly invited graffiti.

Twyford Street N1 8.04

Beyond the above-mentioned pocket park lies Twyford Street. Cally Pool has its entrance further up Caledonian Road. I hope the gentleman in the foreground didn’t have a cold.

On this particular day I must have been walking up to Parents for Children in Islington, for I continued on along Richmond Avenue on the right. Tarmon Free House is at 270, Caledonian Road. Perhaps the same florists decorated the establishment as did The Exmouth Arms featured yesterday.

Cloudesley Road N1 8.04

At the far end of Richmond Avenue we find Cloudesley Road N1. As with a number of our 19th century buildings, this one bears the freshened up slogans of  a shop that once operated on its site.

Dowrey Street N1 9.04

In nearby Dowrey Street, shadows of leaves do their best to take our minds of an uninviting stairwell.

Lonsdale Square N1 9.04

Lonsdale Square in Barnsbury needs no such distraction,

Liverpool Road N1 9.04

although, just around the corner, Liverpool Road, one of the main routes from Holloway Road through to Islington, could have done with a facelift at this point.

allinlondon.co.uk’s page on Alan Cocks’s shop demonstrates that it has received one. London’s central area telephone numbers are now prefixed by 020 7, so if you need a quotation don’t forget the addition to the prominent number in my photograph, which remains otherwise unchanged.

This evening we dined on pork chops marinaded in mustard sauce and coated with flaked almonds, piquant cauliflower cheese; sauteed potatoes, carrots and cabbage. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Collin-Borisset Beaujolais Villages 2015.

50 comments

  1. I wish I took more photos of the streets of London when I had a month there in August/September 2003. I did walk a lot. Pork chops in mustard sauce sounds yummy but I am still catching up on the Roast Lamb.

  2. Derrick, I am so sorry to hear what happened in London. My heart goes out to the injured and the relatives of those killed. These are turbulent times we are living. Hope peace and love prevail. Blessings to you and your family!

  3. Thank you for another London tour, Derrick. I was only in London once–a trip when I was 10–but London is larger than life, in a way, so important in history, commerce, and in fiction and art, too.

  4. Wouldn’t that be something if you and Mary Tang had actually crossed paths back then, just strolling the streets of London on a beautiful day!!

  5. So sorry about the attack in London! I know very well how something like that can rattle the nerves. Terrific photos of a great city.

      1. Such a terrible thing to do! I was especially moved by the couple celebrating their 25 wedding anniversary—Clif and I just celebrated our 40th. Now, he is dead, and she is critically injured.

  6. Do I see dissipating contrails in the sky in the first image? Those are fascinating street views, Derrick. I wonder whether it will be possible to shoot sections of a city these days without inviting the unwelcome attention of the police or anti-terrorist squads.

    1. You do see the trails, Uma. I have taken so many pictures on and around the bridge. It has always concerned me that the policemen on those open gates can be approached by anyone with whom they happily chat. That at least may change.

  7. I wish you’rd be more explicit when telling what you ate! ” pork chops marinaded in mustard sauce”;
    Now I don’t know about anyone else, but the type of mustard could just as ruin as make the dish. Typically we, or more particularly, I , am not told!

    Is it ‘hot English” ? Dijon? Wholegrain? Sweet?

    What mustard was used in the marinade? Please!

    1. A blend of Dijon and English with brown sugar; but the Culinary Queen thinks she should have just used hot English with a spoonful of brown sugar. Cooked long and slow. Thanks, Brian

      1. I shall give it a try,I rather enjoy Dijon in a marinade, wonder how honey would go rather than brown sugar, give a nice sticky texture, which I’m fond of.
        My thanks to the C.Q. XD :bear:

          1. I shall be trying this dish this week sometime, I’ve put my order in for the ‘PorkChops’,
            The War Office thinks the Culinary Queens brown sugar, is the right way to go, so I’ll probably do half and half.

            Long & slow, was that in the oven about 150°C?

  8. Your pork meal sounds even more delicious than your usual elegant meals prepared by Jackie.
    The situation in England was such a horrifying crime! I was appalled at the news with scene description. Who becomes these monsters? As a Mom and Nana, I ponder on these awful grown people who were once precious children, too.
    Thank you for the most lovely images, including stone arch, vines trailing across bricks and the lovely flowers dripping under the window sills. Superbly taken shots, Derrick!

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