Paris! 🇫🇷

😂

Actually the single best terrible response I've ever received is a simple laugh followed by "but why?"

Hi John - apologies, let me check!

Don’t get me wrong - it was quite a nice day out, apart from near the end when time was against me, schoolkids were swarming the streets and buses and the sunlight was beginning to fade.

I may do this again with another borough. Maybe.

You can read more about all of the places I’ve been to today plus hundreds more across all 32 boroughs in the capital in our book The Boroughs of London, available now in all good bookshops!

www.batsfordbooks.com/book/the-bor...

I’ve done the hard work so you don’t have to 😉

Thanks for following me on this journey! My feet ache and I’m not entirely sure whether this was worth the effort, though I hope anyone with an interest in what London has to offer — other than the famous sites, especially in its outer boroughs — got some enjoyment out of it!

Haha I hope it was all worth it in the end 😅 I may or may not do this sort of thing again…

Thank you DG!! Sutton is certainly not boring, I can say that for it 😅

Never in my life did I think I’d be so glad to be at Hackbridge station. My ride back north awaits

Here I reach the end of my Sutton odyssey, and somewhere entirely 21st century: the BedZED estate, designed to be the first zero-carbon housing scheme in the country, and its distinctive ‘wind scoops’ on the roof (also drawn by me for the book).

Penultimate stop: Carew Manor, with its Grade I-listed hammerbeam-roofed great hall somewhere inside.

Bonus: Beddington Church next door, very old, very flinty

One location to go!

Honestly starting to question my life choices at this stage in the journey, as I hotfoot it along a traffic-clogged street from Roundshaw to Beddington late on a freezing November afternoon

Roundshaw, a largely 1960s housing estate built on part of the site of Croydon Airport (London’s original airport) where all the streets are named for aircraft and aviators. 🛩️

Two left…

Next: Little Holland House at Carshalton Beeches - home to Frank and Florence Dickinson for nearly 60 years, and *every* item of furniture and decor within was handcrafted by them. Grade II listed! Sounds amazing. Sadly also closed today (only open 1st Sunday of each month)

Heartily recommend the all-day English breakfast at Spilt Milk cafe in Carshalton, by the way

6 locations down, 4 to go 😅 Time for a break, and an opportunity to recharge both my and my phone’s batteries!!

Touch-and-go whether I’ll have enough time to complete the tour before I head back north…