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Memories of Broad Street

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WesternLancer

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...creating a system that means a percentage of the traffic is people driving round and round for even longer, trying to find obscure nooks and crannies that were overlooked when the restrictions were made and therefore can still be parked in without exposing yourself to the legalised extortion racket (or, having already found them on previous occasions, driving round and round to find ones not already occupied by other people who have found them too). Also, dropping someone off and then driving round and round the block to wait for them while they "just pop in somewhere for five minutes" and end up taking half an hour over it, and other similar rip-off avoidance stratagems on the same principle.
Indeed elements of all that.
I had a former colleague who just parked in a 2 hour space at 8am in the morning and left his car there till he left work at 5ish. No enforcement ever taken, no one else could use the space, so the driving round or looking elsewhere for anyone else would still happen.

Never understood why people think parking should be free. Land is not free, and can be used for more productive purposes. Parking is often a very cheap use of prime land.

But this is off topic.
 
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Andrew1395

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As a schoolboy in the 70s with grandparents in Harlesden and cousins in East London, the DC lines were my main highway. Until the austerity cut backs in 1974, the B1 Watford Euston were every 15 minutes, and operated on Boxing Day. I don’t remember B2 Broad Streets operating in Boxing Day, but we used the line to Broad Street most Sundays to wander around the markets and the Houndsditch Warehouse. Inevitably a cousin would recall the story about Grandad crying when BGate (Bishopsgate Goods) burnt down. You could see the remnants as you went down Club row market. Broad Street and the staircase to street level was so familiar, that moving away to come back and finding it gone was a shock.

Travelling to Broad Street was a part of my life, but as a railway London Underground showed how it should be done. The 378 were fabulous replacements for the 313s. If Broad Street had survived to the start of LO, I think it would have made it a neat and tidy gateway to the city.
 
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ChiefPlanner

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As a schoolboy in the 70s with grandparents inHar,Essen and cousins in East London, the DC lines were my main highway. Until the austerity cut backs in 1974, the B1 Watford Euston were every 15 minutes, and operated on Boxing Day. I don’t remember B2 Broad Streets operating in Boxing Day, but we used the line to Broad Street most Sundays to wander around the markets and the Houndsditch Warehouse. Inevitably a cousin would recall the story about Grandad crying when BGate (Bishopsgate Goods) burnt down. You could see the remnants as you went down Club row market. Broad Street and the staircase to street level was so familiar, that moving away to come back and finding it gone was a shock.

Travelling to Broad Street was a part of my life, but as a railway London Underground showed how it should be done. The 378 were fabulous replacements for the 313s. If Broad Street had survived to the start of LO, I think it would have made it a neat and tidy gateway to the city.

Nice memories - and I recall the hard advertisng for the Hounsditch warehouse ! (but never went there) .....in the poor retail of the day , it is interesting how people travelled relatively far for the East end markets.
 

Taunton

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Inevitably a cousin would recall the story about Grandad crying when BGate (Bishopsgate Goods) burnt down. You could see the remnants as you went down Club Row market.
The abandoned substantial remnants of the fire-destroyed Bishopsgate goods depot are, extraordinarily, still very much on site, more than 50 years later. See here A1202 - Google Maps
 

thedbdiboy

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And there were also the Bakerloos that ran through to Stonebridge Park, Harrow or Watford, which I think were peak only in those days (mid-1980s), with the possible exception of a few to Stonebridge Park that were really stock movements. Stonebridge Park was not a place to be enjoyed by a trainload of passengers on a wet evening.
The 'peak' Bakerloo service to Watford Junction consisted of four evening peak workings to Watford Junction that berthed in Croxley sheds; they then formed 4 peak Elephant workings in the am. My primary school was the other side of the bridge next to Hatch End station and often if we arrived early we'd see the last of these morning workings go past. Also, very occasionally on the way back from a day out in town during holiday weekdays we would find that our train back was one of the evening through workings - always exciting back then! These workings ceased in 1982. Harrow was not used as a scheduled terminating point for Bakerloo trains until the reinstatement of services that far in 1985. Stonebridge Park only began to be used from the late 70s when Stonebridge Park depot opened - this was needed when the Bakerloo Stanmore branch became part of the Jubilee line and meant that Neasden could no longer be used as the Bakerloo depot.
 

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urbophile

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Travelling to Broad Street was a part of my life, but as a railway London Underground showed how it should be done. The 378 were fabulous replacements for the 313s. If Broad Street had survived to the start of LO, I think it would have made it a neat and tidy gateway to the city.
Possibly. I understand the nostalgia for the architectural monuments to the steam age. But as you say, London Overground shows the way forward. Suburban and local train services are much more effective if they can deliver passengers where they want to be, not at an arbitrary terminus. When the vast majority of the North London's commuters worked in the City it made sense for trains to terminate in the City. Nowadays, and especially post-Covid, travel patterns will be much more varied, and if passengers can easily travel around a metropolis-wide web of interconnecting routes, the better for them, and the better for relieving congestion on the mainline termini.
 

edwin_m

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Possibly. I understand the nostalgia for the architectural monuments to the steam age. But as you say, London Overground shows the way forward. Suburban and local train services are much more effective if they can deliver passengers where they want to be, not at an arbitrary terminus. When the vast majority of the North London's commuters worked in the City it made sense for trains to terminate in the City. Nowadays, and especially post-Covid, travel patterns will be much more varied, and if passengers can easily travel around a metropolis-wide web of interconnecting routes, the better for them, and the better for relieving congestion on the mainline termini.
It does in any case stop at the old Bishopsgate goods yard site, a short walk away, and people wanting to travel further in can interchange at Whitechapel.
 

frodshamfella

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Nice memories - and I recall the hard advertisng for the Hounsditch warehouse ! (but never went there) .....in the poor retail of the day , it is interesting how people travelled relatively far for the East end markets.
I remember the advertising the advertising for The Houndsditch too. Open on a Sunday.
 

EbbwJunction1

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"and a season ticket loan (a Londonism which those from elsewhere may not know)."

Thanks, Taunton, but it may well be more widespread than that. I work in the Civil Service in Cardiff, and had an advance to buy a season ticket for something like 15 years. I did this until about five years ago, when I became eligible for free bus travel and stopped regularly travelling by train between Newport and Cardiff.

The system is still in existence, and is very good; it involves a monthly repayment at source, so the payment is not really missed. Another advantage of being able to buy an annual season ticket is that you're protected from price rises - one year, I remember, the prices went up two or three times, but it didn't affect me, thank goodness.

Anyway, that's enough off topic chat ... back to Broad Street.
 

Djgr

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I remember the advertising the advertising for The Houndsditch too. Open on a Sunday.

To be honest I think there might have been so much advertising for the Houndsditch (and I remember the radio jingle!) because there weren't enough customers heading so far east!
 

Taunton

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I remember the advertising the advertising for The Houndsditch too. Open on a Sunday.
There were a whole group there open on a Sunday, Houndsditch, Goldrange (another heavy radio advertiser, "The big red building ..."), Petticoat Lane market, etc, plus all the small shops and cafes. There was some local authority loophole that allowed them to be open on Sunday when most were actually prohibited from doing so. It had a transport impact. The Shoreditch extension on the East London Line of the Underground, weekday peak hours only except it also opened on Sunday morning. And it must have had an impact on Broad Street usage.
 

S&CLER

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There were a whole group there open on a Sunday, Houndsditch, Goldrange (another heavy radio advertiser, "The big red building ..."), Petticoat Lane market, etc, plus all the small shops and cafes. There was some local authority loophole that allowed them to be open on Sunday when most were actually prohibited from doing so. It had a transport impact. The Shoreditch extension on the East London Line of the Underground, weekday peak hours only except it also opened on Sunday morning. And it must have had an impact on Broad Street usage.
Could this have been a result of the large Jewish immigration to East London in the late 19th century? The East London line advertised in Yiddish in some of its posters. The Jewish traders closed on the Sabbath (Saturday) instead.
 

frodshamfella

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To be honest I think there might have been so much advertising for the Houndsditch (and I remember the radio jingle!) because there weren't enough customers heading so far east!

Yes quite possibly, I think I may have gone there once as a kid, but not entirely sure, my grandparents used to mention it. I think it was a bit on its own.

There were a whole group there open on a Sunday, Houndsditch, Goldrange (another heavy radio advertiser, "The big red building ..."), Petticoat Lane market, etc, plus all the small shops and cafes. There was some local authority loophole that allowed them to be open on Sunday when most were actually prohibited from doing so. It had a transport impact. The Shoreditch extension on the East London Line of the Underground, weekday peak hours only except it also opened on Sunday morning. And it must have had an impact on Broad Street usage.

I had a feeling it may have had something to do with the local Jewish community, could be wrong. Goldrange yes recall that now, and yes I always thought it was funny the East London Line went to Shoreditch on A Sunday Morning, but I see why now . I think some bus services were extended to the area on a Sunday, the 78 possibly.
 

delt1c

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Yes quite possibly, I think I may have gone there once as a kid, but not entirely sure, my grandparents used to mention it. I think it was a bit on its own.



I had a feeling it may have had something to do with the local Jewish community, could be wrong. Goldrange yes recall that now, and yes I always thought it was funny the East London Line went to Shoreditch on A Sunday Morning, but I see why now . I think some bus services were extended to the area on a Sunday, the 78 possibly.
Bus 78 terminated at Shoreditch Church Monday to Sunday as did the 47
 

Taunton

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Yes quite possibly, I think I may have gone there once as a kid, but not entirely sure, my grandparents used to mention it. I think it was a bit on its own.



I had a feeling it may have had something to do with the local Jewish community, could be wrong. Goldrange yes recall that now, and yes I always thought it was funny the East London Line went to Shoreditch on A Sunday Morning, but I see why now . I think some bus services were extended to the area on a Sunday, the 78 possibly.
Yes, after a lot of run-ins with council officials the "Shops Sunday Trading Restriction Act" of 1936 regularised it for specific local areas of East London, but only until 2pm (as mentioned above), and as long as they were closed on Saturdays. Previously in Petticoat Lane, as the boundary between the City of London and Shoreditch council (nowadays Tower Hamlets) runs up the middle of the street, Sunday traders would stand in the middle and, if approached by officials from either side, would make one step to the other side.
 

frodshamfella

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Bus 78 terminated at Shoreditch Church Monday to Sunday as did the 47

What I was trying to remember was one of the roads in the Petticoat Lane area which was used on a Sunday, I thought it was the 78, but its so long ago I can't really recall.
 

delt1c

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It was the route that the 78 took between Aldgate and Liverpool St. think it was Middlesex St and the 78 used Hounsditch and Sundays
 

frodshamfella

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It was the route that the 78 took between Aldgate and Liverpool St. think it was Middlesex St and the 78 used Hounsditch and Sundays
It was the route that the 78 took between Aldgate and Liverpool St. think it was Middlesex St and the 78 used Hounsditch and Sundays

Yes something like that, I was too young to go and find out why !
 
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