One of west London's most important roads is 100 years old today, the Brentford By-Pass or as it's better known the Great West Road. Hounslow council are making a big thing of it. The new dual carriageway swept through fields and parkland to the north of Brentford and Hounslow, starting where the Chiswick Roundabout is today and ending eight miles away in East Bedfont. Brentford High Street had long been an appalling bottleneck for westbound traffic and planners recognised that the increasing popularity of the motor car was only going to make congestion worse. The new road was duly opened on the afternoon of Saturday 30th May 1925 by King George and Queen Mary who joined local dignitaries in walking along a short stretch and making speeches. You can see a few photos of the event here, here, here and here. This is what the Middlesex County Council spokesman had to say... "Of the numerous arterial road schemes promoted by the Highway Authorities of the country in conjunction with the Ministry of Transport, the road now to be opened is one of the earliest in its origin, the Act for its construction having been passed in 1914 to alleviate the inconvenience caused by the narrow western exits from London. Progress was delayed by the Great War, and the magnitude of the scheme has since been increased by an extension to the Staines Road, and by an addition to the width of the highway. Much work has thus been found for the unemployed, and it is hoped that the road in its present form will add to the dignity as well as the convenience of the Metropolis, beside promoting the orderly development of the County of Middlesex." [30 May 1925] The final section to open was the eastern end between Syon Lane and Chiswick which includes the section now known as the Golden Mile. Businesses flocked to this part of the new road, attracted by excellent connectivity and plenty of space, building factories that very much reflected the aesthetic of the day. One of these was the Gillette Factory, a landmark Art Deco building on the corner of Syon Lane whose lofty brick tower is topped by four neon clocks that can be seen for miles around. Not only was this Gillette's European headquarters but also their chief UK factory for the manufacture of razor blades, at least until 2006 when production moved to Poland and the place emptied out. The Gillette Factory endured several vacant years while investors decided no, arterial Brentford wasn't a great location for a luxury hotel, then creative types moved in and filmed a few low-key productions for lesser-watched streaming channels. It's recently been decided that the premises should become a full-on six-stage film studios, indeed Hounslow council are very keen, plus it makes sense because the site stretches all the way back to the rainbow-topped headquarters of Sky TV. When I came to walk the Golden Mile earlier this week I was pleased to see the scaffolding had been removed from the clocktower, the outer brickwork had been scrubbed up and that the cherubic lamps around the perimeter still glow. I wasn't impressed by much else though. Alas only a few buildings from the Golden age of the Great West Road survive. There's the Coty Cosmetics factory at number 941, a squat block with white walls and strip windows which looks like it could have been a 1930s air terminal, but which is now occupied by a tech-heavy private health clinic. There's the Pyrene building at number 981, designed for a fire extinguisher company by the same group of architects who conjured up the glorious Hoover Building in Perivale. It's very white and very long with a thin central tower, and is now an office block substantially occupied by students on skills-based courses who cluster on the elegant front steps for a vape. And there's also the former Currys head office at number 991, another sleek white beauty with flag-topped clocktower, which since 2000 has been home to outdoor ad agency JCDecaux. Their name was in the corner of the digital billboard in my first photo, if you noticed. Firestone Tyre Factory. Of all the buildings along the Golden Mile the Firestone was by far the longest, fronting a 26 acre site, but also the most rapidly undone. When the business closed in 1979 the new owners exchanged contracts on a Friday, then sneakily demolished the ornate frontage on the Saturday before a civil servant could get round to signing a preservation order. On the positive side this triggered the 20th Century Society to campaign more vigorously for the preservation of modern buildings, and on the downside the bastards totally got away with it. In 2025 the Firestone building is being replaced again, this time by "A New Iconic HQ Distribution/Logistics Warehouse". The architects have at least gone for an Art Deco-inspired design solution, although the artist's impression looks more slatted plastic than iconic glass and the currently reality is a half-clad functional lattice. If it improves the backdrop to the Firestone's surviving front gates and chunky lanterns, however, good luck to it. The really big redevelopment story along the Golden Mile is currently the transformation of GlaxoSmithKline's enormous ex-HQ, a futuristic upthrust which opened in 2002 on a landscaped site beside the Grand Union Canal. All the staff moved back to central London last year and the latest plans foresee a "housing-led mixed-use redevelopment" of tightly-packed polygonal towers, one 25 storeys high, delivering upwards of 2000 new homes. It's by no means the first Golden Mile site to pivot to boxy residential and it won't be the last. The best way to see the Golden Mile thus isn't really on foot because the surviving treats are too sparsely spread, it's from the road itself. I recommend boarding the road's bespoke red double decker, the H91, a route which conveniently runs along five miles of the Great West Road from Gunnersbury to Hounslow. For the first mile the M4 shadows the A4, quite literally, passing directly overhead on a four lane viaduct supported by an sequence of chunky concrete pillars. Only on reaching Brentford does the motorway veer off, bombarded by elevated advertisements, leaving the way clear down below to enjoy what remaining treats the Golden Mile has left. "The unavoidable transformation of the country surrounding London needs to be carefully guided and controlled. Haphazard growth has inflicted irreparable damage on many parts where, instead of preceding it, roads and communication have lagged far behind industrial development. Your council, I am glad to say, have boldly grappled with this problem, and this spared their successors the costly and wasteful experience of making new roads through congested areas." [King George V, 30 May 1925] To celebrate the 100th birthday of the Great West Road an anniversary website has been set up at goldenmile.london including historical links and modern stories. It is perhaps a tad commercial, overplaying the interest anyone might have in bold redevelopment visions and Brentford's vibrant cuisine, but it does include details of a number of special commemorative events. Chief amongst these are a GM100 Public Exhibition at Boston Manor Park this weekend (10am-4pm Sat, Sun; free entry) and a Classic Car Cavalcade departing Boston Manor Road at noon tomorrow before heading to Gillette Corner. Later chances to look inside some of the Art Deco treasures appear to be sold out, but all the good bits are in a new illustrated book The Great West Road: A Centenary History written by James Marshall and purchasable from the Brentford & Chiswick Local History Society. The road that unchoked Brentford and transformed Hounslow, the Great West Road, is thankfully 100 years old today.

London's Natural Landscape Hierarchy National Parks National Nature Reserves Richmond Park: Charles I's royal hunting park, an enormous roamable oasis of ancient woods and wide-open grasslands, perhaps best known for its historic herds of deer but also home to a multitude of birds, fungi, wildflowers and looping cyclists. Also a European Special Area of Conservation and listed at Grade I on Historic England's Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. [2500 acres] Ruislip Woods: The largest block of ancient, semi-natural woodland in Greater London, including one of the most extensive oak/hornbeam coppice woods in southeast England. The UK's first urban NNR, designated in 1997. Busier near Ruislip Lido, blissfully quiet out west. [755 acres] South London Downs: An arc of dense woodland and chalk grassland, designated in 2019, stretching from Coulsdon to Sanderstead via Farthing Downs, Happy Valley, Kenley and Riddlesdown. London Loop section 5 threads though most of the NNR so if you've ever walked that you'll know how uplifitingly gorgeous it is. [1030 acres] National Nature Reserves within 10 miles of London [map N] [map S] Ashstead Common (Surrey) [495 acres] Broxbourne Woods (Herts) [590 acres] Burnham Beeches (Bucks) [540 acres] Chobham Common (Surrey) [1620 acres] Swanscombe Skull Site (Kent) [10 acres] Sites of Special Scientific Interest (map) The NNR SSSIs Richmond Park Ruislip Woods Croham Hurst Farthing Downs & Happy Valley    Riddlesdown The grassy SSSIs Bentley Priory Frays Farm Meadows Saltbox Hill Wimbledon Common The woody SSSIs Crofton Woods Denham Lock Wood Epping Forest Hainault Forest Hampstead Heath Woods Oxleas Woodlands The geological SSSIs Abbey Wood Elmstead Pit Gilbert's Pit Harefield Pit Harrow Weald Hornchurch Cutting Wansunt Pit The birdy SSSIs Barn Elms Wetland Centre Kempton Park Reservoirs Mid Colne Valley Ruxley Gravel Pits Walthamstow Reservoirs The marshy SSSIs Ingrebourne Marshes Walthamstow Marshes Local Nature Reserves here, a Wikipedia list here and a map here (the local nature reserves are in blue). The map works outside London too. Tower Hamlets' local nature reserves are Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, Mudchute Park and Ackroyd Drive. Merton has the most local nature reserves (15), followed by Kingston (12), Sutton (11) and Ealing (10). Seven boroughs have only one local nature reserve, and Newham and Kensington & Chelsea have none. London's largest local nature reserve is the Ingrebourne Valley (362 acres) and smallest is Burnt Ash Pond (0.3 acres). 13 reserves are inaccessible to the public and six only open at limited times. Four are islands, four are cemeteries and seven are on former railway land.

Back in January I spotted an original 40 year-old poster at Leytonstone station. "I hope someone preserves it," I wrote, and what do you know they have! It now has a secure glass frame across the front and also one of the London Transport Museum's blue heritage posters alongside. This is a bespoke poster, specially devised for this location, showing three examples of what a Capitalcard used to look like. I'll only show you two, so as not to ruin all the delight if you go to Leytonstone and look. But how wonderful that sometimes creative cogs whirr and the unexpected is preserved, adding a splash of delight where you least expect it.

45 45 Squared 19) MARWOOD SQUARE, N10 Borough of Haringey, 120m×90m just north of Highgate Wood in the hinterland between Finchley and Muswell Hill, sometimes known as Fortis Green. It's relatively new with old bits, and occupies the final site of a former hospital that started out in Moorfields. And just to confuse things the housing development is called Woodside Square but the road that threads through it (and thus everyone's address) is Marwood Square instead. St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics was founded in 1751 and was London's second asylum for the mentally ill, targeting patients who might be curable rather than locked away for ever. Its main premises were on Old Street, roughly where Aldi and Argos are today, but were sold off to the Bank of England in 1916 who used it for the printing of banknotes. In the 1920s the hospital's governors bought up land on Woodside Avenue for the construction of a 50-bed facility for treating mental disorders called the Woodside Nerve Hospital, later St Luke's Woodside Hospital for Functional Nervous Disorders. Three existing Edwardian mansion blocks were repurposed for staff use and are still present on site. But everything else was demolished after the hospital closed in 2010 and the site then sold to a housing developer who replaced it with a loop of upmarket townhouses, which'd be Marwood Square. Development of the Year (More Than 100 Homes) category of the Sunday Times British Homes Awards in 2018, thus as you can guess they don't come cheap. And therein lies the sadder and greedier side of this story. co-housing. This is where the elderly choose to live in close proximity rather than move into a retirement home, supporting each other and sharing key facilities like laundry, thereby keeping costs down. It's been done successfully elsewhere in London and the hope was to follow that example and integrate co-housing into one corner of Woodside Square. Dozens of people expressed an interest, even setting up their own blog to explain the potential benefits and encourage others. 2013: Cohousing Woodside met again on Sunday March 17 and welcomed around a dozen visitors who came for the first time to enquire into the project and have supper with us. In an informal get-together it became clear that most were looking both to downsize and to find congenial neighbours and a sense of community. A number said that this would be their final move and last home if they join us. They succeeded in getting a communal 'Common House' incorporated into the design with space for meetings and food preparation, also the provision of tiny allotment strips in raised beds. They debated how best to set up a car share scheme and strongly supported the developers with their planning application. But when it was finally revealed how much each flat would cost they got a shock - it was a third more than expected - and most of the group realised they could never afford the flat and the service charge. 2016: As the number of members dropped, the apportioned cost of our Common House became correspondingly more expensive for those that held fast. Reluctantly the residual membership recognised that Cohousing Woodside was no longer a viable venture. By July only one member had reserved a flat on the site where we had hoped to establish our community. We have all gained from the experience of working towards our cohousing goal and regret that we have been priced out of achieving it. So was utopia dashed. A wealthier group of over 55s moved in and the Common House became a hireable meeting space rather than a daily focus. At present it's yoga on Tuesdays, gardening on Wednesdays, bridge on Thursdays and art on Fridays, plus a library that only opens once a month. Meanwhile at the other end of the development one of the 4-bed townhouses is currently on the market for over £2m, which to be fair is also the going rate for one of the Edwardian terraces on the avenue round the back. It does feel wrong that a prime development site on former NHS land has ended up this way, but that's 2013 land sales for you. redeveloped into '32 council homes and 9 private sale homes' as Haringey council now have a better grip on housing tenure hereabouts. But Woodside Square stands as testament to profit-focused acquisition, most definitely somewhere nice to live but a dream snuffed out all the same.