The Outer Limits

In which The Author ventures past the point of no return

Just under four hours after leaving the house on Saturday, I was sipping a glass of Coke in front of a roaring log fire. It doesn’t normally take me that long to get to the pub, but this was a special occasion.

I was in the south Herefordshire village of Kilpeck.

I first heard of this place nearly thirty years ago, when I was working on the Cynon Valley Profile. Kathleen, our photographer, mentioned Kilpeck a few times; she was intrigued by its rather unusual church. Apparently it was famous – or infamous – for its medieval carvings, an odd mixture of Christian and pagan symbols. As with most things in those days, I made a mental note to visit it when the chance arose. The chance never seemed to arise.

On Saturday morning I was awake at the crack of dawn (again), so I switched on Radio 4 to catch the morning news. The weather forecast seemed fairly promising – bright sunshine for the weekend, with rain moving in on Monday.

After enduring half an hour of school shootings, Syria, Jeremy Corbyn and rugby I switched over to Radio 2, where Brian Matthew’s Sounds of the Sixties was just getting under way. One of the first discs he played was the Beatles’ ‘Day Tripper.’ Talk about a subtle hint – it could have been my last chance for an excursion from Aberdare before the autumn really set in. I ate breakfast, got some cash out, and headed to Merthyr on the 0900 bus.

In Merthyr I bought a paper and caught the X4 towards Hereford. I’ve done the journey through the Eastern Valleys plenty of times, so once I’d finished the crossword (in Tredegar) I sat back and made notes of things to include in the Vanishing Valleys project. When we reached Blackrock Hill, I got my first look at the huge road improvement scheme some of my friends are working on.

We sat outside Abergavenny for ages. The town centre was a real logjam for some reason, and it was a good while before we emerged onto the A465 to Hereford. The promised sunshine had failed to materialise. The sky was overcast, and the early morning mist seemed to be lingering on the hillsides. I toyed with the idea of staying on the bus and spending a couple of hours in Hereford. While I was trying to make up my mind what to do, the bus pulled up just past Wormbridge to let a teenage girl get on board. On the spur of the moment I decided to jump off and make my way to Kilpeck.

It took me a little while to walk back to the junction. There are no pavements along the road, so I had to stay on the verge and hope for the best. If I’d got off the bus a couple of stops earlier I’d have been in the right place to start with. I knew I’d reached the junction because a roadside sign announced that the Kilpeck Inn lay a mile to the east, down a narrow lane.

I set off and within a minute I spotted the bulky outline of a sandstone church behind a field of placidly grazing cattle. Straight away I had a feeling it wasn’t the right church. As soon as I stepped into the tranquil churchyard I knew I was right. The exterior was quite impressive, but there were no carvings.

It turned out to be the church of St Devereux. I took a number of photos all the same, as the Norman churches strewn along the border really cry out to be captured on film (or SD card). One peculiar feature was the filled-in doorway in the north wall. I found out later that, according to folklore, the Devil lived to the north. Apparently a large number of churches in the Marches and elsewhere exhibit this charming nod to tradition.

Back in the lane I was soon reminded that I was deep in farming country. Herefordshire is known for – among other things – its cider. The land alongside the churchyard is lined with apple trees, and they’re heavy with ripe fruit at this time of year.

I was starting to wonder how long it would take me to reach Kilpeck. The flat fields stretching in all directions didn’t give me any clues. I hadn’t gone far when a brown tourist road sign assured me I was heading the right way. I’ve mentioned before that I love the strange place names along the border, with their mixture of Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and French elements. This signpost is a great example, with a bit of everything.

A little further on the road rose gently but abruptly, and I guessed – correctly – that I was approaching a railway bridge.

Just below the bridge is the former St Devereux Station, now converted into a boarding kennels called Barkers Dog House. On the bridge itself I spotted this curious hangover from a bygone age.

I suppose it made sense to have a postbox as near the station as possible, so that mail could be loaded straight onto the next train. In the Sherlock Holmes stories, the great detective can post a letter at lunchtime and get a reply before supper. In the Year of Our Technology 2015, it took nearly a week for Mother’s birthday card to travel five miles. Progress, eh?

I wondered how long I’d have to wait until a train came along. It’s the main route from Cardiff to Holyhead and Manchester, but the trains run hourly in each direction. I doubt if there’s much freight on a Saturday afternoon. I could have been there for ages before a photo opportunity presented itself.

I decided to push on towards the pub. The church was signposted off the lane, but I’d earned a glass of Coke before heading that way. Needless to say, I’d only walked for another minute or so when I heard a train pass through the cutting.

The rich red fields suddenly gave way to a large red-brick house in substantial grounds. The sign on the gate identified it as Kilpeck House. I’d been expecting to see a sprawling Tudor manor behind the railings, but this looked remarkably modern. Only the chimneys hint at its true age.

An old-school phone box marks the edge of the village. There isn’t much besides the pub and a cluster of red-brick cottages.

I made my way into the pub and had a quick look around before approaching the bar. I was greeted by a cheerful lad in his early twenties. A waitress of about the same age was serving a family in the dining room. It was fairly quiet, but it was still quite early.

The pub itself is large, comfortable, welcoming, and seems to attract locals and tourists alike. A number of old signs inside and outside indicate that it used to be called the Red Lion. Renaming it was probably a sound decision – there are literally hundreds of Red Lions throughout England, but there’s only one Kilpeck Inn.

Unlike many rural pubs, it’s weathering the economic storm without too much difficulty. Having a minor tourist attraction on their doorstep probably hasn’t harmed business. Plenty of people came in for lunch while I was warming up by the fire. I felt as though I’d stepped into an episode of The Archers as the unmistakable border burr reached my ears from the small group by the bar. (There was a even a chap named Brian in the group. I decided against asking him if his surname was Aldridge.) The only incongruous element was an American barbint, whose accent certainly stood out above the rest.

In Foxglove Summer, Ben Aaaronovitch’s latest novel about the adventures of occult detective Peter Grant, our hero finds himself investigating a case in deepest Herefordshire. One of the aspects of rural life that baffles him is the large number of gastropubs. He asks his local liaison, Dominic Croft, about the situation: ‘Dominic blamed Ludlow which, having become a major foodie centre, had raised the pretensions of all the eateries within a fifty miles radius.’ I think that probably includes the Kilpeck Inn – there’s certainly no pie and chips or microwaved vegetable lasagne on the menu. In fairness, their prices are reasonable and the food certainly smelt tempting. If it didn’t take all day to get there, I’d be very tempted to call back and sample the fare myself.

I left the pub and retraced my steps to the crossroads, pausing only to let a tractor pass me at a sharp bend. Harvest is in full swing, and farmers have been taking advantage of the sunshine to cut some late hay. At the side of the lane I found an information post half-buried in the hedgerow, giving an outline of the archaeology of the sites nearby.

I must have seen a castle marked on the OS map, but it hadn’t registered with me. I began to wish I’d picked up the map before setting off. As things turned out, I needn’t have bothered – the church was dead ahead of me.

I’d expected Kilpeck Church to be a tiny chapel, tucked away among farm buildings and probably quite hard to find. Instead, I found a large and eye-catching building with a beautiful cottage (or pair of cottages) opposite.

This is the church of St Mary and St David, and it dates from the first half of the twelfth century.

In their book Exploring Churches (Lion Publishing, 1993), Paul and Tessa Clowney described St Mary and St David’s as ‘one of the most perfect Romanesque churches in Britain.’ Alec Clifton-Taylor (in the BBC book Spirit of the Age) called it ‘the most enjoyable of the small Norman churches.’ The reason it’s so highly acclaimed, and forms such a draw for sightseers, is obvious as soon as you enter the peaceful graveyard above the lane. You can’t help gasping at your first sight of the south door. My photos don’t do it justice by any means.

These wonderful carvings have survived nearly nine centuries in such good shape because the doorway was once enclosed by a porch, protecting the stonework from the ravages of the weather. Apart from resisting the forces of nature, Kilpeck is remarkable in having survived both the Reformation and the Puritan era unscathed.

The exterior of the church features the celebrated corbel table – a row of carved figures along the line where the walls meet the roof. (The leaflet I picked up emphasises that they’re corbels, not gargoyles. Gargoyles were designed to channel rainwater away from the masonry. These are purely decorative.) Kilpeck’s masons were able to let their imaginations run riot, and the results are simple, beautiful, amusing, intriguing, and bizarre. I didn’t photograph them all (there are nearly a hundred, running the whole perimeter of the building) but here are some that caught my eye.

In the classic British black comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets, Louis Mazzini’s quest to murder the entire D’Ascoyne family leads him to a parish deep in rural England. The Reverend Lord Henry D’Ascoyne, played (as are the rest of the family) by Alec Guinness, gives the scheming Louis (Dennis Price) a guided tour of his church. As Henry points out the west window, he says proudly that it ‘has all the exuberance of Chaucer – without, happily, any of the concomitant crudities of his period.’

A small number of corbels are missing. The story goes that a Victorian lady was so offended by the concomitant crudities of the period that she ordered the carvings to be knocked off. The leaflet says, ‘Perhaps it is just as well that she either did not see or, more likely, understand the Sheela na gig.’

This was the particular piece of stonework Kathleen had in mind when she first told me about Kilpeck. Brace yourself for one of the concomitant crudities of the period.

This ancient symbol is found frequently in architecture, especially in south-west France, across Ireland, scattered around the Marches, and in the Caucasus. It’s interesting to read the competing theories about its meaning (discussed in James Jerman’s book Images of Lust). You have to wonder why it features so prominently here.

Back at the south wall I had a sudden idea to try the door. To my surprise it opened easily, and a light came on as I stepped inside. The first thing that caught my eye was the enormous stone font. It crossed my mind that the locals must have gone in for adult baptism.

The interior is fairly simple, with white walls and relatively little decoration. Two rows of wooden pews line the aisle, and the small gallery (accessed via a creaking timber staircase) can accommodate about another thirty worshippers; a hundred people would fill the place to bursting point. There’s a plain lectern with a well-worn Bible close to the pulpit, and some lovely carvings on the uprights of the arches separating the nave from the chancel. There are some large memorial stones set into the floor, and plain timber vaulting supports the roof. It was difficult to get decent photos, as the interior was so dimly lit, but they didn’t come out as badly as I’d feared.

At the back of the nave there was a table of information leaflets, booklets and guides. I bought the leaflet about the corbels, putting 20p in the honesty box set into the wall. The visitors’ book is full of signatures and comments. I scanned the recent entries for a few moments – people come from all over the country to see this medieval marvel. Only one name had been filled in under that day’s date. The address was ‘House of Commons, London’ and after a moment I was able to decipher the signature. I read it in disbelief before adding my own name to the list.

I think this is probably the first and last time my name will appear beneath that of a sitting Conservative Member of Parliament and Privy Councillor – former Attorney General, the Rt Hon Dominic Grieve MP. Quite why he’d have been in this neck of the woods was a mystery. The party conference started in Manchester this weekend, but as he’s the MP for Beaconsfield, he’d have had to make a huge detour to stop at Kilpeck on his way there.

I left the church, cut through the graveyard, and followed a narrow path through a burial ground which is still in use. The ground rises sharply behind it, leading to the site of Kilpeck Castle. Hardly anything remains of the motte and bailey structure, apart from two sections of the outer wall and a trench surrounding the small hill. You can still see a recess in the thick and gently curving north wall where the fire would have been set and the chimney above it. The views from the top stretch for miles in all directions, and it’s obvious why this site was chosen as a good spot to build a defensive base.

Not surprisingly, Kilpeck has attracted countless pilgrims, artists, writers, architectural historians, and even dowsers and ley-line enthusiasts. Alfred Watkins, the author of the classic book The Old Straight Track, lived in Herefordshire; according to his research, the church and the castle both lie on such a line.

I walked back to the church, where I met a couple walking their dog around the graveyard. It wasn’t their first time in Kilpeck, but they’d decided to have another look at the church while they were in the area. The sun made a brief appearance while we were chatting, so I took a few more photos before heading back into the lane. I knew I had plenty of time to kill before the next bus, so I decided to investigate the surrounding area a bit further.

As it turned out there wasn’t much to investigate. I’d taken the long way round to get to the church by following the brown signpost, instead of my nose. The narrow lane beside the church curved sharply southwards, and at the end of it I could see the distinctive red rectangle of a wall-mounted postbox. I walked towards it and less than a minute later I found myself back at the pub; the postbox is actually built into the side wall.

I decided to have another glass of Coke and write some notes before making my way back to the main road. I found a small table near the front window, and spotted the rather eccentric opening hours in the doorway. If you’re tempted to check Kilpeck out for yourself, it’s probably a good idea to bear this in mind.

The pub’s weird hours are nothing compared to the bus service through the surrounding villages, though. There’s one bus to Hereford, which leaves mid-morning and returns early in the afternoon, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays only. My two-hourly bus back to Merthyr suddenly seemed quite civilised.

I followed the lane back towards the main road, crossed the railway line again, and came to a fork in the road. A signpost pointed towards Wormbridge and Pontrilas, so I decided to go that way instead of retracing my route. There was a chance I’d find something interesting in Wormbridge, and I could easily catch the bus from there. It didn’t take me long to walk the length of the lane, and I looked back at one point. Through a gap in the hedgerow I could just about make out the wall of Kilpeck Castle below the horizon. The sun had gone in and it looked as if rain might not be too far away.

I didn’t wander from the main road, so I assume there must be more to Wormbridge than a church, a petrol station-cum-shop, a ‘business centre’, a nursery, two bus stops, and a few houses lining the road. The church is quite impressive, though. It’s built of the same red sandstone as its neighbours, but it looked grey in the late afternoon gloom. Unusually for a village church there was no information board, so I can’t even tell you its name. There are some grand tombstones in the graveyard, but one of them is badly damaged. I assume kids or teenagers are to blame; if that’s the case, it was the only sign of vandalism I saw while I was walking around that afternoon.

It crossed my mind to press on to Pontrilas, which we’d come through on the way out. It has a couple of pubs, a village shop, and a fairly large railway bridge, all of which would have worth checking out. The problem was that I didn’t know exactly how far I’d have to walk. I had a nightmare vision of being between bus stops when the X4 roared past. I pressed on until the verge became too overgrown for me to walk any further, then turned back to wait at what must be the most bizarre bus stop in the whole of England.

While I was walking I’d been amused to see single potatoes scattered at the edge of the road. There was one lying in the gutter just opposite me. I wondered for a moment whether I’d stumbled across a strange rural pastime – Chuck the Spud at the Cow. The mystery was solved when an open truck thundered past, full of freshly dug potatoes. Herefordshire is famous for its spuds as well, of course, and the harvest is in full swing. That lorry was the first of a number that passed me while I was sitting at the roadside, all brimming over with the latest crop. I suppose the odd one must bounce out and end up lying on the side of the road. Every so often on the Radio 2 traffic bulletin there’s a reference to a ‘shed load’ of cargo. Ken Bruce usually teases Lynn Bowles about whether it’s one word or two. Well, for the first time in my life I’d actually seen a shedload of potatoes. Several shedloads, in fact.

The bus arrived just as I was starting to get chilly, and I climbed aboard gratefully. We passed through Pontrilas again, and I knew that I’d never have been able to walk from Wormbridge – the verges are much too overgrown and the bus stops are few and far between. We ploughed our way through Abergavenny again, finally arrived at the bus station, and then the driver announced that we had a twenty-minute wait before the next stage of the journey.

I suddenly realised that I was heading into the Twilight Zone – the last bus to Aberdare would have left before we arrived at Merthyr. I wasn’t even sure if there’d be a bus to Aberdare from Pontypridd, the next stop on the X4 route. I had to bite the bullet and ring Mother to ask her to meet me in Merthyr.

I’d like to revisit Kilpeck in the spring, but I know now that it lies beyond the Outer Limits of a sensible day trip from Aberdare. It’s a shame that public transport in the Valleys is so hopelessly limited – after 1800, pretty much every bus heads back to the depot. What would be an easy journey in a car – less than an hour from door to door – had taken me four hours on the outward leg and left me five miles short of my destination on the return leg.

Then again, it had only set me back £7.50 for an Explorer ticket on Stagecoach. A return train ticket to Hereford would have cost me about four times that, and I’d have still been nowhere near Kilpeck.

I’m glad I finally made the effort to get there, as it was definitely worth seeing, but I’ll try and rope in some friends with a car for my next visit. You live and learn, don’t you?

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Life in the Slow Lane

In which The Author makes it up as he goes along

On Tuesday I made another of my semi-regular visits to London. Unlike my previous trips, I didn’t have anything specific in mind this time. That turned out to be a good thing, as nothing went quite according to plan.

When my alarm went off at 5.00 it was pitch dark, and the rain (which had started the previous evening) was still hammering down outside. For a minute I was tempted to say ‘Fuck it!’ and go back to sleep. Then I realised that I’d only had about half an hour’s sleep anyway, so I might as well get up.

I had a quick bath and listened to the early weather forecast while I ate breakfast. The south-east of England could expect heavy showers in the evening, apparently, while South Wales had experienced ‘showers’ overnight. (Showers? Yeah, right!)

When I did venture outside, just before 6.00, the rain had actually stopped. I walked through Robertstown and got to the station just before quarter past. The train was already in, and I grabbed some shut-eye once I’d bought my ticket. I got into bad habits when I was commuting to Cardiff, sleeping on the train there and back a lot, and my sleep routine hasn’t been right since. I jumped off at Cathays and made my way to the bus stop just opposite the station entrance. I was the first person there, so I read a few pages of my book before the coach arrived. It was a few minutes later than scheduled, and that turned out to be the order of the day.

Last time I travelled up, it was the first week of the school holidays and the weather was glorious. I’d been fairly confident of arriving at Earls Court before eleven, as I did last time, and making it to the Wetherspoon pub in Hammersmith in good time for second breakfast.

I was given some discount vouchers a few weeks ago, and they’ve been burning a hole in my pocket since. Since a breakfast for £2.69 represents particularly good value for London, I’d tucked the vouchers into my bag before setting off.

I don’t know if the adverse weather had affected the traffic flow, or if the journey into London was hampered by other factors. We made pretty decent progress until we reached Slough, but crawled the rest of the way. We eventually reached the stop ‘near’ Earls Court a full hour later than last time.

Luckily for me, the rain had stayed away, so I walked back towards North End Road. I was on the right side of the road to check out the very complex railway interchange hereabouts. If I ever get the money to restart work on my model railway, it’ll probably look something like this.

I topped up my Oyster card at West Kensington Tube station and caught a 329 bus to Hammersmith.

(Incidentally, I’ve just received a survey from National Express, asking for feedback on my recent journey. I’ve suggested that dropping off at Hammersmith, where there’s a Tube station and a major bus interchange, rather than on the A4 – where there’s nothing – would probably be much for convenient for passengers. Let’s see what they make of that!)

By the time I reached the William Morris, breakfast was long past and the lunch menu was in full swing. I used a different voucher and got a veggie burger, chips and a pint of lager for only £3.99. You’ll be lucky to buy a pint for four quid in London, so I was quite happy with that. When I checked my receipt, it seemed that the voucher was part of a ‘student promotion’ scheme. It’s good to know I can still pass for a student.

Fed and watered, I headed back to the bus station and jumped on a number 10, heading for Kings Cross. I was aiming for Goodge Street, from where I could head across Bloomsbury to the British Museum. This was the second public transport SNAFU of the day.

The bus made reasonable progress through Kensington High Street and Knightsbridge, went up Park Lane in fits and starts, rounded Marble Arch, and then inched its way along before grinding to a halt entirely near Oxford Circus. I don’t know many times the traffic lights in front of us cycled from green to red and back again, before we made it past them and into the next stretch of nose-to-tail traffic. I grew accustomed to the stop-start progress of London buses back in the old days, but I’d never seen anything like this.

Then again, I was on the upper deck, so I was able to check out thousands of gorgeous women from all parts of the world as they strolled past. It would certainly have been far quicker to jump off and walk the length of Oxford Street, but I’d have missed the unofficial Miss World contest going on below. Swings and roundabouts.

I’d also have missed out on seeing the reason for the hold-up: the latest phase of the £15 billion Crossrail project, redeveloping Tottenham Court Road station. I was able to grab some decent photos from my vantage point high above the safety barriers. I dare say it’ll be nice when it’s finished.

There was another massive building site on the north side of Oxford Street, too, but that turned out to be nothing to do with Crossrail. Rather disappointingly, it’s going to be part of a new Primark store.

We eventually reached Goodge Street and I headed straight to Torrington Place. The flagship Dillons bookshop opened here, way back in the 1930s, and it’s still closely associated with the University of London and University College Hospital. I thought I’d call in and check out the new academic stock, just for old times’ sake.

The prices of textbooks had been shooting up for a couple of years before I left the trade in 2009. Now they’ve gone through the roof. For example, I looked at Rang and Dale’s Pharmacology, and it was nearly fifty quid! That was one of the cheaper books I glanced at. The long-awaited third edition of The Art of Electronics will set you back nearly sixty quid. (When I say ‘long-awaited’, it had assumed almost mythical status by the time I finished work. As with the Messiah or the Twelfth Imam, a lot of people had begun to wonder if it would ever materialise.) Having had a foot in both camps, I can see why students tend to look for second-hand editions, or buy online. On the other hand, you have to wonder just how many thousands of pounds’ worth of sales Waterstones has thrown away over the years, simply by choosing to neglect the huge student market.

I was glad to see that the latest editions of Molecular Biology of the Cell by Alberts et al, and their cooked-down Essential Cell Biology, have continued the tradition of the authors recreating Beatles’ LP covers, as I told you in Adventures in the Book Trade (Part 9). The current editions are clever pastiches of the A Hard Day’s Night cover and the famous ‘balcony shot’ of the Fab Four. Who says scientists don’t have a sense of humour, eh?

Back in the fresh air, I found my way to the rear entrance of the British Museum, heading (I thought) for the new exhibition on Celtic art. Then I spotted a small poster on the wall outside. It didn’t actually open until Thursday. At least I’ve got an excuse to pay another visit soon.

I made my way to the Egyptian gallery again, and this time I found the Rosetta Stone. I’d missed it last time because it had been surrounded by hundreds of sightseers. It’s much smaller than I’d imagined, too. I wandered past some more incredible statues and pieces of wall art before heading for the gift shop. Rhian and Steff have just moved in together, so I picked up a little housewarming present for them.

Back in the daylight, I walked along Museum Street to the famous Atlantis Bookshop. It’s often been described as the home of British magick, and I wanted to have a browse around inside. The window was full of books on arcane subjects, and just inside the door was a bulletin board full of ads for meetings, talks, events, and workshops. The shelves were crammed with books on all manner of obscure topics, and I could have spent a lot of money given half a chance.

I came across two volumes of Robert Anton Wilson’s Historical Illuminatus trilogy, a couple of books by Timothy Leary, a whole raft of books by or about Aleister Crowley and Austin Osman Spare, and some eye-catching books on ‘forbidden archaeology’ and UFOs. I couldn’t help thinking about my old friend Carl Blewitt, and reflecting on how much he’d have loved to spend a couple of hours browsing in Atlantis.

On the way out I checked the bulletin board again, and noticed a poster for a conference about William Blake. I should have known then that a spate of weird psychogeographical synchronicities were about to kick off (see Limehouse Blues and Twos). I walked as far as Bloomsbury Way and straight away stumbled across St George’s Church. It’s another of Nicholas Hawksmoor’s designs, needless to say. Unfortunately it’s too big to try and photograph in one go, especially with heavy traffic passing in both directions. These’ll have to do for now.

Just to complete the triangle, I’d only walked for another few moments when I spotted this in a side street.

Once again, my random wanderings through the side streets of London had managed to connect William Blake, his spiritual guru Emanuel Swedenborg, and Nicholas Hawksmoor, the anti-hero of Peter Ackroyd’s eponymous novel – a bizarre triangle if ever there was one.

I’d only walked a little bit further when I came across a small gang of guys in high-vis gear, directing traffic past a building site in the middle of the road. It turned out to be another part of the Crossrail scheme – but look at the railway tracks leading into this mysterious subterranean passageway. They weren’t laid yesterday, were they? This access portal to the underground railway probably dates from the early days of the cut-and-cover system. I’d have loved to get closer to it, but I settled for a photo instead, after explaining to one of the guys that I was interested in railway engineering. He very kindly told me go ahead. That doesn’t happen often.

Not far from there I found a nice piece of street art left over from the 2012 Olympics. It was a ceramic tile, cemented onto the side of a building after being decorated.

I walked along Theobald’s Road as far as the northern entrance to Gray’s Inn Gardens. Then I stopped to try and get my bearings. Even though I’d taken my trusty A-Z with me, I don’t like to consult it in the street; it makes me feel like a tourist (or a murder suspect in an episode of Sherlock). To try and make things easier for visitors, London is dotted with little ‘You are here’ posts, each of which indicate a five-minute walking radius from your current location and a fifteen-minute stroll on a less detailed map.

Unfortunately, they’ve obviously been designed with the satnav generation in mind. Instead of having north at the top (in common with 99.9% of maps made since the Middle Ages), they seem to be oriented as though you were facing in the direction of travel.

I consulted one of these ‘handy’ posts and found that (according to the little map) Gray’s Inn Road runs from left to right. I knew full well that it’s aligned approximately north-south, so I ignored the map and headed off along Gray’s Inn Road by dead reckoning instead.

I arrived at High Holborn a couple of minutes later, and was greeted by a pair of the strange dragon-like figures which guard the portals of the City of London. I’m not going to go too far down the David Icke ‘reptilian’ route here, but it’s difficult to walk around the City of London without wondering about the occult symbolism you find everywhere. One day I’ll take a proper walk around with my camera and see how many things I can spot for myself. Maybe I could start work on a kids’ book called I-Spy Occult, Masonic and Satanic Conspiracies.

Most of the City of London was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, of course, and the majority of the old buildings date from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. There was a second wave of devastation during World War II, and it was substantially rebuilt in the 1950s and 1960s; a third phase of demolition and rebuilding got under way in the 1980s, and is still going on. Everywhere you look there are cranes towering above the skyline as architects and developers vie to outdo their rivals down the road. That’s probably why I was so surprised to see this fantastic half-timbered structure next to Staple Inn.

Just opposite it is the astonishing frontage of the Prudential Building. It’s actually much longer than this, but I couldn’t fit the whole thing into the frame.

I was only a minute or so from Holborn Circus, which was my next destination. To tell the truth, the place I was actually heading for is even more peculiar than half the things in the City of London combined.

This is the entrance to Ely Place, which isn’t technically part of the City of London. It’s an enclave of the Diocese of Cambridge, which I first heard about several years ago (and I thought at the time it was a joke). Then I read about it in Vitali Vitaliev’s entertaining book Passport to Enclavia. He starts his book in Ye Olde Mitre Tavern, and explains the strange history behind this obscure corner of London. St Ethelreda’s Church, which nestles halfway up this little cul-de-sac, was built as a chapel of ease for the Bishop of Ely when he was visiting the Smoke. Consequently the land stayed in the possession of the church, and apparently the whole place remains outside the jurisdiction of the City of London Police. Mr Vitaliev had started his journey around Europe’s enclaves in this most unusual of London streets.

I made a mental note to try and find it when I had the chance. On Tuesday I found Ely Place without any trouble, but the pub was more elusive. I walked the length of the street, wondering whether it was concealed behind one of the grand frontages. The church was tucked away between two large buildings, but there was no sign of a pub.

At the far end of the street I came to a wooden gate, and stepped through it to see if the pub was tucked away behind it. Instead, I found myself in the even more cunningly concealed Bleeding Heart Yard. It takes its name from the pub at the other end, on the corner of Greville Street. There’s a restaurant here, and a couple of buildings seem to be homes to offices. If it hadn’t been for my research before setting off, I’d never have even suspected it was there.

The Bleeding Heart was all very well, but it wasn’t Ye Old Mitre Tavern. I wondered for a moment if Mr Vitaliev had been pulling his readers’ legs. I walked back into Ely Place and checked out each building carefully. They were all fairly nondescript offices. I was about to concede defeat and ask the chap at the gatehouse for help. Then I passed a tiny alleyway between two buildings and heard cheerful voices coming from the far end. I know the sound of a pub crowd only too well, so I walked up the alley. A group of smartly-dressed City types were standing outside the pub, holding pint glasses and chatting. I made my way into the remarkably small lounge, where two middle-aged women were sitting in one corner, a bearded chap in a suit was using a laptop in the other corner, and a shaven-headed guy in an Iron Maiden T-shirt was sitting at a table in the middle. It was my kind of place.

I was greeted by a friendly barmaid who reminded me of my friend Josie, and had a quick look at the range on offer. I erred on the side of caution and ordered a half of Kronenbourg. £2.05 isn’t bad for London. I explained to the barmaid that I’d read about the pub in Passport to Enclavia, and she was quite surprised that I’d made a special journey to check it out. They had a decent selection of real ales, and I decided to text Rowland to tell him about my discovery. (He spends a lot of time in London, and likes to check out new pubs.)

I also texted Gaz, who borrowed Passport to Enclavia from my Lending Library a while back, to tell him where I was. Needless to say, he’d beaten me to it – he’d stopped in for a couple of pints on his way back from Israel earlier this year. The exterior was too small to photograph, but the interior was full of character and crammed with pub memorabilia.

The pub was starting to fill up (which didn’t take a lot), and time was getting on. I finished my drink and headed outside. Back in the alley, I turned right instead of left, walked for a short distance, and emerged in the middle of Hatton Garden. I wonder how many thousands of people pass this tiny gap between jewellers’ shops every week and never suspect that there’s a pub within easy staggering distance. It’s an old-school City pub, too – only open from Monday to Friday. I’ll definitely be going back next time I’m in town.

I returned to Holborn Circus and made my way east. A minute later, quite by accident, I found myself on top of Holborn Viaduct. Built in the 1860s, it was designed to span the valley of the Fleet and make it easier for horse-drawn traffic to enter the City. It’s a very busy road now, and there are some great statues on either side, representing the four elements on which London’s wealth was built: Science, Commerce, Agriculture and Fine Art. (Needless to say, the dragons are there too.) I only photographed two of the statues before heading down a flight of wide stone steps into Farringdon Road. You get the idea, though.

I’d accidentally found myself at the site of the original Smithfield Market. It’s in a sorry state now, and there doesn’t seem to be any work in progress on it. I found a builder’s notice on a nearby building, but the old market hall is slowly falling apart. Just across the road is the new Smithfield Market, the main meat wholesaler in London. I’ve been a vegetarian since 1987, so I was quite relieved to find that they’d closed up for the day. I took a short cut through the covered hall, where I found another war memorial to add to my collection.

I emerged at Farringdon Tube station, which has retained its original frontage and looks pretty impressive.

I was really just following my nose by this point. I knew that if I headed down Farringdon Street, I’d eventually arrive at Blackfriars and the Thames. I’d completely forgotten that Ludgate Circus is in the middle. When I arrived there, I had a choice of three routes: south, to the river; west, along Fleet Street and into The Strand; or east, up the gentle rise of Ludgate Hill to one of London’s most distinctive and impressive buildings. I went east.

I’ve seen it before, of course, but St Paul’s Cathedral still manages to take my breath away. It’s not just that its sheer size staggers your imagination; it’s also a stupendous piece of architecture and engineering. I’ve never been inside, but that doesn’t matter. Its colossal dome, towering over the massive structure and topped with a cupola which itself was a daring and visionary piece of engineering, is one of the things that the word ‘London’ immediately brings to mind. Even though it’s surrounded by some of the bravest pieces of modern architecture, they don’t detract from the magnificence of St Paul’s.

In a BBC book called Spirit of the Age, published in the 1970s, the architectural historian Sir John Summerson states that nobody alive has seen St Paul’s in the way that Sir Christopher Wren intended – totally dominating the skyline of the city. That may have been true forty years ago, but now the southern aspect is pretty much unobstructed (apart from the occasional bus, of course).

When nearby Paternoster Square was listed for redevelopment, HRH Prince Charles memorably weighed into the argument. That spoke volumes about the importance of St Paul’s, not just a place of worship but as a piece of our national heritage. It’s an enduring symbol of London, and undeniably one of the West’s most recognisable and iconic buildings. It’s little short of a miracle that it survived the Blitz almost without a scratch.

It’s almost impossible to get a sense of scale from these photos. You really do need to see it for yourself to appreciate just how vast it is.

As well as his most famous work, there are numerous other Wren churches peppered throughout the City. Everywhere you turn you can see a spire poking up from among the tightly packed buildings. You have to wonder just how many people lived here back in the day, to need so many churches in a relatively compact area.

A short distance from St Paul’s is the National Firefighters’ Memorial. It’s an impressive bronze sculpture of three men during the Blitz. London is brimming with interesting statues and monuments like this one; I just wish I had the time to photograph and catalogue them all.

The City of London is full of intriguing street names, too. As well as Bleeding Heart Yard, while I was walking around I found (among others) Turn Again Lane, Wardrobe Place, Pageantmaster Court, and this flashback to a cheesy 1980s SF TV show.

(Incidentally, trivia fans, the City of London features a myriad of ‘hills’, ‘lanes’, ‘streets’, ‘alleys’, ‘courts’, ‘walks’, ‘places’ and so forth – but not a single ‘road’.)

A short walk south from St Paul’s led me nicely to the Millennium Bridge. I hadn’t seen it before, and it’s more impressive than I’d thought. It no longer wobbles under the feet of its many thousands of users, but you can feel it gently undulating if you stand in the dead centre. It’s a bit unnerving at first.

From here, you get a fantastic view along the Thames, past Tower Bridge and as far as Canary Wharf to the east. What was London’s tallest building is now overlooked by Europe’s tallest structure, The Shard. Did Sir Christopher ever imagine that St Paul’s would be dwarfed by these later skyscrapers, I wonder?

As you can see from that last batch of photos, the weather had followed me from Wales. I made my way to the South Bank, emerging just outside Tate Modern, and decided to stroll along the Queen’s Walk towards Waterloo. It was thronged with trendy restaurants, small shops, takeaway food stalls, buskers, and thousands of tourists. I hadn’t been in that part of the city for years, and I was amazed by the way it’s been transformed. When I first explored there, it was seedy and run-down (to say the least). Now, it’s a buzzing hub for tourists.

Sure enough, just after I passed Blackfriars Bridge, the heavens opened. I took one photo of the left-over columns from the original bridge before shoving my camera in my pocket. I learned a couple of years ago that water and cameras don’t mix.

It was pointless trying to find somewhere to shelter, so I kept on walking. The shower was quite heavy, but short-lived, luckily. I passed the South Bank Centre, skirted around Waterloo Station, strolled past County Hall and St Thomas’ Hospital, and crossed the river again at Lambeth Bridge. Halfway across, I realised that I wasn’t the only person who’d been caught out by the sudden downpour. I had to feel sorry for this poor couple, who were trudging across on the opposite pavement. I bet they felt as if they were in a Richard Curtis comedy film.

There’s a fantastic view downriver from here, so I grabbed a final photo before heading into Horseferry Road and the 507 bus back to Victoria.

More by luck than judgement, we arrived back at Cathays with two minutes’ grace before the Aberdare train departed. I was back home just after eleven o’clock, which made for a long but very satisfying day. In spite of rumours to the contrary, I’m definitely not tired of life yet – as I’ll certainly never tire of London.