To Boldly Go Where Some People Have Been Before, To Seek Out New Life (between Stoke Newington and Wapping)

Our walk begins with the discovery of an alien civilisation on a far-flung planet, somewhere in the N16 system ...

Thence down to Dalston, where some lovely hinges can be found at Cholmeley Boys Club (appears currently to be an arts venue) ...

And opposite some lovely polychromatic bricks on the railway bridge. The purple ones are a real treat for us brick-lovers (we are not ashamed) ...

The Castle on the Crown and Castle pub at Dalston Junction is rather pretty ...

And I just like this number, every time I see it ...

Down to Haggerston, to an area I've somehow never managed to wander through before, Albion Square. It's a remarkably well-preserved mid-Victorian garden square, with a remarkable range of period houses. You see the same styles in many other places, but the square and immediate surroundings has a great range of mid-Victorian mid-income properties compacted into a small space ...

And even a lovely mid-Victorian street sign (note the telling NE postcode) ...

Some nice window-guards, too ..

Back to Kingsland Road ... vague memory that there was a twitter discussion about what building was here, to boast such nice gates ... anyone know?

This one, although simple, always seems splendidly gothic in flavour ...

Then swiftly on to canal side gentrifucation. Do the residents of these flats know that they live so wondrously close to Eclectic Boutiques and Art Galleries? 

A sad site is the lingering relic of Haggerston Public Baths, long-closed and awaiting a saviour.  Here's the forlorn rooftop galleon ...

Down to Columbia Market, with its spectacularly quaint alley ...

Then a deserted laundrette on Ravenscroft Street. To be honest, I took these photos for the shop front and 'VALET SERVICE' sign (rather nice) ...

but then, on coming home, realised I should have zoomed on the newsprint, which apparently stretches back over twenty years ...

Can someone pop back there and fully document these unique relics? Ok, it won't be me. But still.

Back on Bethnal Green Road, a pub converted into a dry cleaners ...

And surely a converted deco cinema, or I'm a Dutchman ...

I don't much like the STREET ART fad, but I will make an exception for this Python-esque effort lurking in the Brick Lane hinterlands ...

These is the top of the ?200ft? tower that graces the London Hospital site ... warning lights and something else on each side - not cameras - what?

This is still in the precincts of the hospital, and possibly the best pub sign in London ...

Then, almost full circle, more fabulous hinges ...

And a green vertical estuarine world in Wapping ...

From Holborn to Aldersgate

We begin with steel and glass, a new, quite pleasant building, on Great Turnstile, the north-east corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields.

Remarkably, a few doors down, on Holborn, a derelict plot of land, open for redevelopment, for anyone with a few dozen million to spare ... a reminder of post-war dereliction, glimpsed through a gap left open in the hoarding ...

And here, at the Holborn entrance to Staple Inn, a barricade to dissuade people from urinating at the gates ... Staple Inn's complaints on this subject appear in my forthcoming book Dirty Old London, as it happens, but this is the first time I've noticed the measures on this side of the buildings ...

A nice bit of deco on the entrance corridor to Gresham College

And a very decorative fire escape at the back, too ...

The view looking out of the gates at the college ...

Further down the road, I always notice the copper facing on the City Temple's rooftop ...

At Holborn Circus, for the first time I noticed the detail beneath Albert's equestrian statue, with the writing (in shade here) 'Exhibition of All Nations 1851 Britannia Distributing Awards' ...

Lovely old bricks.

William Walworth stands guard on Holborn Viaduct ...

 Together with a rather dashing Hugh Myddleton, in much better condition than his twin at Islington Green ...

Never noticed the rather Chinese look of these dragons before the recent repainting/restoration ...

And here's a modern excrescence, blighting yet another sight-line ...

A lovely double-act, on Snow Hill ...

Meanwhile, past and present collide in various ways, in the Victorian-columned windows of a certain betting chain ...

Finally, white-out in concrete on Little Britain ...

With this surprising flourish on the same wall, further along - Egyptian?