The 38 to Clapton Pond

HappyNewYear ... a New Year’s Day wander... to  Clerkenwell  and my favourite London tree... the tree is finding its way toward the light despite difficult circumstances - a good metaphor as 2021 begins… ❤️🥾❤️🥾 In the picture just beyond this magnificent tree stood Clerkenwell Prison – or The House of Detention. Torn down in 1890, the vaults still exist, beneath what was the playground of the Hugh Myddleton School, now flats. They were once open to the public - I last visited back in 1994/5. ❤️🥾❤️🥾 The building on the left of the tree is a former ink factory - I worked here back in the early 1990s when it housed a P.R company. It was from here that I first explored historic London on foot - stumbling upon countless  Dickens  locations on my lunch hour rambles… it was in Clerkenwell that I first fell in love with London. This blog features photos snapped with either a Canon 500D or an iPhone6 or an iPhone11 as I make my way Londoning around leading & research...

"Daddy, why's there a big red cupboard in the middle of the street?" An instructional scene on Clerkenwell Green as a dad tells his daughter how we used to live.

Coach and Horses. Geddit?

Still our favourite – London's best pub sign on one of London's best pubs, the Three Kings of Clerkenwell.

The sequel to our Lambeth Citroen the other day – we think this Mercedes Benz look deliciously sinister against the backdrop of pretty Clerkenwell Green. (We do London pictures here: check out our mouthy sister blog Northern Lines for words.)

The sickly sodium glow casts its pall over the LU roundel at Farringdon (no effects added). We suppose this unique lighting state at Farringdon by night will be replaced when the Crossrail changes kick in. A pity. By dark Farringdon station always looks otherworldly in its perpetual yellow dusk.

Getting to look a lot like spring in Clerkenwell – at Pear Tree Court, the Peobody Trust estate, the architecture of which was once described by the great (but often infuriatingly snobbish) Nikolaus Pevsner as "detestable". (See The Buildings of England: London Vol. II Except the Cities of London and Westminster , 1952.)

Tasty Cafe. Not as prissy as The Yummy Cafe. Not as sanctimonious as The Nutritious Cafe. Tasty. Nicely done. (St John St, Clerkenwell EC1.)

A patriotic mini in Little Italy. Where else?

By the former House of Detention, one of London long-forgotten gaols, a tree strives for the light in its own urban prison, Clerkenwell Close EC1.

Artists to have recorded We Three Kings include: The Beach Boys, The Barenaked Ladies, Harry Connick, Burl Ives, Patti Smith and Tori Amos. Is The Three Kings in Clerkenwell the best pub in London? Damn near. Does it have the best pub sign (above)? Easily.