Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of gentility), and topics. Among the locals, a natty character in a bowler hat fingers a tray
of medals, and somebody buys
The Romance of Primitive Methodism
…
Now we are heading for Paddington and the reaches of the Blue Lamp area. I claim to
write on it with authority, since I tramped nearly every inch of it when I lived in Gloucester
Place - and that reminds me of a characteristic London feature, the quick transition from a
well-off to a seedy area at the drop of a hat. A single street becomes a sort of Mason-Dixon
line of demarcation. You could spend a lifetime nosing round Paddington, and still make
discoveries. There are the churches, a synagogue, scores of pubs, terraces peeling like the
bark of plane trees, Kensal Green … one could go on forever. Paddington Station can be
omitted from this survey, but Praed Street is worth a glance. It is unpleasantly named, I
think, and is gradually changing its architecture - or what little it had. Jazzy fronts are
replacing the decrepit nineteenth-century façades, but the general character of the street,
slightly furtive and flashy, remains. Here are wireless shops, gift shops, shops offering you
birth-control requisites, and shops for the sale of novels with lurid covers and titles. One
can be antiseptically tattooed or can admire the sign of the false-tooth hospital - a curved
mouth possessing a personality of its own, twisting into a rubbery smile.
In Edgware Road, the old houses have almost gone, but there is a rich supply of delights,
architectural and otherwise, as, for instance, Smiths the Butchers, where they take the meat
away after the close of the day's business and sell hot salt beef sandwiches and lemon tea
until midnight.
No visit to the Edgware Road could be complete without an inspection of the market in
Church Street. A third of the way down on the right-hand side is the portico of a one-time
music-hall - The Royal West London. The name has now gone from the cornice along
with the royal arms. People used the royal coat of arms pretty freely in the nineteenth cen-
tury; stricter regulations now prevail. The old Metropolitan has vanished from the Edg-
ware Road. 'The Met.' was pure late Victorian music-hall architecture, with a light touch
of arabesque and a hint of Edwardian
art nouveau
in the female figures outside.
