West Ruislip to North Acton
A beautiful day when the niece and I decided to knock off a few more stations on the Central line. We stopped for breakfast, and very jolly man thought we were a mum with her 11 year old daughter. Kaitlin admittedly looks very young for her nearly 23 years but 11 was pushing it.
There was a tube strike today so we had to take a bit of a roundabout route to get to our first stop, West Ruislip. A train, the Elizabeth Line line, then a bus. On the way, we spotted a little library at Abbey Wood station and a Fairey Corner.
Close to our first station, the western terminus of the Central line, was Remi’s Gentleman’s Lounge. I think it’s a barbers but they advertised ‘good times’. We were intrigued, but not gentlemen so I guess we’ll never know.
Ruislip (pronounced Rye-slip) appears in Domesday Book as Rislepe, thought to mean ‘leaping place on the river where rushes grow’, in reference to the River Pinn. It is formed from the Old English ‘rysc’ and ‘hlȳp’.
A fairly long uneventful walk to our next stop, Ruislip Gardens. Its claim to fame is that it got mentioned in the John Betjeman poem, Middlesex. It’s also close to RAF Northolt.
After a quick pit stop to get Kaitlin some sweets we walked on to our final Ruislip of the day, South Ruislip. Originally called Northolt Junction, it was renamed in 1947. Next was Northolt, close to a very good leisure centre, with a pool, gym, studio, soft play area and A LIBRARY!! Genius idea!
A stroll past the Grand Union Canal took us to Greenford.
Like me, Kait also thinks about her stomach so we’d already planned to stop at a pub for dinner near our next station, Perivale. We’d been walking for about 3.5 hours at this point so we were ready for a drink and a sit down. I don’t usually do dessert* but it was an important day; it was the eve of my boss’ 40th birthday. How better to celebrate the last day of Dave’s thirties than having a Yorkshire pudding filled with cream and chocolate?
*This is a lie. I dessert frequently and happily.
Perivale station next, then we headed onto Hangar Lane, home of the famous gyratory. We made a quick diversion to look at what was once the Hoover Building, part of which is now a rather attractive Tesco.
It was at about this point we started to get really tired. We’d sung Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ several times on this walk, and it wasn’t helping us much by now. So we were happy to see our last station stop of the day, North Acton.
It’d been a long day, and we were ready to go home. It was odd to see the underground stations so deserted, but that’s tube strikes for you. The lengthy journey home gave us plenty of time to think about all the self-storage and cardboard box companies there seem to be in that part of London; the beauty of the Hangar Lane gyratory and ample opportunity to digest our wonderful dessert.
Hoping to finish the Central Line on my next walk, but then I was also hoping for financial security and a womanly figure and we know how that turned out.
Many Strides and Bus Rides 