Sat, Apr 11 · 12:00 PM BST
(pictured: the Overground tracks crossing the Grand Union Canal, officially the 'Kew Curve Grand Canal Bridge'. Behind, on L, in Victoria Road, is Nash House, now 'The Collective Old Oak' co-living project)
Around a new station, to be called 'Old Oak Common', where HS2, the GWR main line and the Elizabeth Line will interchange, is planned a new extension of London, called Old Oak Park Royal.
They're saying it'll be the 'Canary Wharf of the West'!
It's got a canal running through it, the Grand Union, remarkably unchanged since its opening in 1801, and an extraordinary number of railway lines.
Starting in the 1920's Park Royal became the UK's largest area of industrial estates: distribution depots, sorting offices, factories, warehouses and breweries, at London's doorstep for goods to and from Bristol, Liverpool and Manchester.
On 27th January this year, Karen and Madeline*, hero TBM's** of the Elizabeth Line campaign, set off on a new 7 km journey, from the underground 'box' in the future interchange, toward Euston in Central London.
The extension will upgrade and diversify the area. Let's see it before that happens.
We'll meet at noon on Saturday April 11th at Willesden Junction Station, and see the area once intended to be 'Old Oak North'***, then along the Grand Union Canal to 'The Collective' co-housing development, and Old Oak Common Lane, passing the HS2 station box, into Wormwood Scrubs, seeing the LCC's Old Oak Estate, past the eponymous Prison, then the LCC's White City Estate ('where their chickens came home to roost', architecturally speaking), QPR's stadium, and so to 'The Hoxton Hotel' at Shepherd's Bush, where our table will be waiting!
Hope you can come!
Andy
*named for Karen Harrison, the UK's first female train driver, and Madeline Hobbs, former President of the Women's Engineering Society.
**Tunnel Boring Machines
*** abandoned in 2018 after the attempted Compulsory Purchase failed.
