Tag Archives: grand union canal

A church beside a canal in London’s Paddington

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THE GRAND JUNCTION café is a peasant little place in a modern building a few feet away from the footpath that runs alongside the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal, not far from Little Venice. This refreshment place is attached to a much older building, the church of St Mary Magdalene Paddington. It is a gem of Victorian gothic architecture. This is what I wrote about it in my book “Beyond Marylebone and Mayfair: Exploring West London”:

“[the church] … was designed by George Edmund Street (1824-1881), and completed in 1878. It was built in what was then an area with poor quality housing, where often several hard-up families used to live crowded together under a single roof. The parish in which it is located began life as an offshoot of All Saints in Margaret Street (near Oxford Circus). Like All Saints, St Mary Magdalene’s was established as an Anglo-Catholic church. Its website (grandjunction.org.uk) revealed that Anglo-Catholicism:

‘… emphasises the Catholic heritage and identity of the Church of England. In the mid-nineteenth century Anglo-Catholicism was very controversial and provoked riots. Anglo-Catholic churches were often built in very poor areas, and their clergy believed that their services, full of light, colour, music and ritual, were likely to appeal to the poor.’

Like All Saints Margaret Street, the interior of St Mary Magdalene’s is a masterpiece of Victorian gothic extravaganza, a glorious riot of colour. The nave has a magnificent painted ceiling which includes faces of various saints. This was painted by Daniel Bell, a Victorian artist. Sculptures of saints carved by Thomas Earp (1823-1893) look down on the nave. The floor of the vast nave is decoratively tiled. Street did not believe in fixed pews such as are found in many other Victorian churches and were rented out to parishioners to raise money. He believed in ‘free seating’, especially in a church like St Mary Magdelene’s that was built to serve the poor. The apse is unusual in that it is polygonal, reminiscent of apses that the widely travelled Street had seen in mediaeval French and Flemish churches.

An unusual feature of this out of the ordinary church is that although the nave is flanked by a south and a north aisle, the latter is barely wide enough to accommodate one person, whereas the south one is almost as wide as the nave. The reason for the narrow north aisle was related to building regulations in force when the church was being constructed.”

We entered the church recently (in October 2025), after not having seen its interior since one quiet day in about 2021 during a respite in the covid19 lockdown regulations, and it looked as glorious as I remembered it. The church is still used for religious services and often as a centre for many local community events. Both the church and the café attached to it are well-worth visiting.

PS my book about west London is available from Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/BEYOND-MARYLEBONE-MAYFAIR-EXPLORING-LONDON/dp/B0B7CR679W/

Works of art flating on a canal near London’s Paddington

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EVERY FEW WEEKS, we walk along the towpath of the Grand Union Canal (Paddington Arm) between the Meanwhile Garden in North Kensington and Little Venice near Paddington station. About 1/3 of the way along this route, we stop at the pleasant Grand Junction Café. Many canal narrow boats are moored alongside the towpath. Most of them are floating residences. Today, 31 August 2025, we spotted a narrow boat that we had not seen before. Moored between the Meanwhile Garden and the café, it is a floating, mobile art gallery.

Below the words “Canal Boat Contemporary” attached to the starboard side of the boat, there was a large glass-covered frame facing the towpath. This contained about 15 paintings. Next to the frame, there were notices giving information about the gallery’s concept and the works of the artist being displayed. There was also a whiteboard on which viewers could add their reactions to the art, using the marker pen attached to it. Between 27 August and 2 September, works by the artist Henrietta Roeder are on display.

Also attached to the boat and visible to passersby was the ‘manifesto’ of Canal Boat Contemporary, which can be read on a website (www.canalboatcontemporary.com). It refers to the ‘box’, by which they mean the display containing the art. Here are some excerpts from the manifesto to illustrate what the organisation is trying to achieve:

“Opera sings to chandeliers. If art wants to matter, it has to leave the palace … We moor up. We don’t ask for permission.We resist fixed power structures and take art to different places and contexts … We’re all speaking, nodding, showing – but always to each other. The Box is a window turned outward – away from the art world – for new eyes. It’s for someone walking their dog … The Box is modest, but powerful. A single painting on the towpath can shake you to the core … We don’t want your submissions. We want doppelgängers. Copy us. This idea wants to spread like moss. All you need is a frame no one’s using. A window everyone passes.”

Seeing the boat with its artworks, appearing as if from ‘out of the blue’ was a lovely experience. I think it is a wonderful idea to bring contemporary art outside of great institutions and commercial art galleries to make it available for anyone to stumble across unexpectedly.

A lovely garden just east of a huge supermarket in North Kensington

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IF YOU WALK EASTWARDS from the canal side of Ladbroke Grove’s huge Sainsburys supermarket, the towpath alongside the Grand Union Canal (Paddington Arm) next runs alongside Meanwhile Gardens. There are several apertures through which one can enter the gardens from the towpath, and you can also gain access to the place from the streets that surround it.

In my book “Beyond Marylebone and Mayfair: Exploring West London” I wrote:

“In 1976, the Meanwhile Gardens were conceived as a green space for the local, then generally low-income, mixed-race community, by Jamie McCollough, an artist and engineer. They were laid out on a strip of derelict land, which once had terraced housing and other buildings before WW1. The garden received financial assistance from the Gulbenkian Foundation and other organisations. The garden was, according to circular plaques embedded in its pathways, improved in 2000.

The Garden and the Sainsbury supermarket are in a part of London that used to be known as ‘Kensal Town’. Residential buildings began appearing in the 1850s and many local people were employed in laundry work and at the gasworks of the Western Gas Company that was opened in 1845. In the 1860s and 1870s, there was much housebuilding in and around the area now occupied by Meanwhile Gardens.Golborne Road was extended to reach this area in the 1880s. Many of its inhabitants were railway workers and migrants, whose homes in central London had been demolished. The area was severely overcrowded and extremely poor. Few houses had gardens and the population density was high.

After WW2, many of these dwellings were demolished and replaced by blocks of flats, including the impressive, Brutalist style Trellick Tower (designed by Ernő Goldfinger [1902-1987], opened in 1972) and smaller but salubrious shared dwellings.

A winding path links the various parts of the lovely garden including a sloping open space; a concrete skate park; a children’s play area; several sculptures; small, wooded areas; some interlinked ponds with a wooden viewing platform; plenty of bushes and shrubs; bridges; and a walled garden that acts as a suntrap. Near the latter, there is a tall brick chimney, the remains of a factory. The chimney was built in 1927 near to the former Severn Valley Pure Milk Company and the Meadowland Dairy. It was the last chimney of its kind to be built along the Paddington Arm canal and is completely dwarfed by the nearby Trellick Tower.

The Moroccan Garden, an exquisite part of the Meanwhile Gardens, was opened in 2007 by Councillor Victoria Borwick on behalf of the local Moroccan community. It celebrates the achievements of that community and is open for all to enjoy. A straight path of patterned black and white tiling leads from the main path across a small lawn to a wall. A colourful mosaic with geometric patterning and a small fountain is attached to the wall, creating the illusion that a tiny part of Morocco has been transported into the Meanwhile Gardens. Nearby, there are a few seats for visitors to enjoy this tiny enclave within the gardens.

Words are insufficient to fully convey the charm of the Meanwhile Garden, one of west London’s many little gems. If you can, you should come to experience this leafy oasis so near the busy Harrow Road.”

If this short extract from my book that explores parts of west London – both familiar and unfamiliar – head for Amazon, where you can buy the book as a paperback and as a Kindle:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/BEYOND-MARYLEBONE-MAYFAIR-EXPLORING-LONDON/dp/B0B7CR679W/

A bridge, canals, and a church in west London

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THE GRAND UNION canal meets the River Thames at Brentford. From there, it runs towards the Midlands where it meets other waterways in England’s extensive network of canals, which was built for commerce, but is now used mainly for pleasure.

Six miles along the canal from Brentford, there is an important junction. Here at Bulls Bridge, the Paddington Arm branches off the main Grand Union canal. From beneath the bridge, the Arm runs 13 ½ miles to Paddington. Near its destination in central London, the arm flows through a large body of water, known as Little Venice. From there, two canals, the continuation of the Arm and the Regents Canal, link Little Venice to Paddington Basin and Limehouse Basin respectively.

The Paddington Arm was opened for use in 1801. The Bulls Bridge is a single-arch brick bridge spanning the Paddington Arm a few feet east of its junction with the Grand Union Canal. It stands amidst a dull landscape filled with industrial units and large supermarkets.

Following the towpath along the Grand Union Canal away from Bulls Bridge in a north-westerly direction for 177 yards, we reach a bridge that carries the canal over a narrow stream, the River Crane. a tributary of the River Thames. According to a website, touristlink.com, the course of the Crane is as follows:

“The River Crane is 8.5 miles (13.6 km) in length. Its source is taken to be a point south of North Hyde Road in Hayes, Hillingdon, from where its course is generally in a southerly, if near semi-circular, direction, before it joins the River Thames at Isleworth. Its name is a back-formation from Cranford, London. Formerly it was called the Cranford River. The River Crane creates the boundary between the London boroughs of Hillingdon and Hounslow.”

What could be seen from the bridge carrying the canal over the Crane was a deep weed-filled fissure in the depths of which there was a narrow stream. This lies in the shadow of an elevated road, the busy Parkway (A 312) that links both the A40 and the M4 with Heathrow Airport.

Continuing north-west along the Grand Union, the canal passes beneath a series of railway bridges that carry trains to and from Paddington Station. Nearby is Hayes and Harlington station, which stands in a part of Hayes, which was once the village of Botwell. This is now a shopping area with supplied with lavishly stocked fruit and vegetable shops and a branch of Lidl’s supermarket chain. Lidl’s faces a Roman Catholic Church, Immaculate Heart of Mary, built in 1961, which according to Pevsner, contains a painting by Pietro Annigoni (1910-1988). Near the station is a less attractive church, St Anselm, built between 1926 and 1928.

Even at the beginning of the 20th century, Hayes in Middlesex was a village north of Botwell and separated from it and other neighbouring settlements by open countryside. By 1940, Hayes had begun to be engulfed by London’s western spread. The village was, according to James Thorne, writing in 1876:

“… quiet and respectable, and chiefly dependent on the wealthy residents … consists of a few ordinary houses and shops.

Today, it is still quiet, the commercial district being in Hayes Town, the former Botwell, near the railway station.

There is one good reason to visit what was old Hayes. That is to see the parish church of St Mary the Virgin. It stands on the eastern side of Barra Hall Park, which are the grounds of the former manor house, now much modified. The church is mediaeval. Its lychgate is probably early 16th century.  Its chancel is late 13th century, the tower and the north aisle are 15th century, and the main aisle is 16th century. The church has beautiful timber ceilings and a 12th century font. On the north wall there is a large wall painting of St Christopher carrying the Christ child. Pevsner did not consider this image was painted before about 1500.

The church is full of fine funerary monuments. These include elaborate memorials for Sir Walter Grene (1456); the judge of the King’s Bench Edward Fenner (died 1612); Roger Jenyns (died 1693) and members of his family; Richard Lugg (1697); and Thomas (died 1576) and Elizabeth Higate. There are plenty more monuments to be seen as well as several fine brasses. Fenner’s monument consists of an effigy of Fenner lying recumbent supporting his head on his right hand. This is framed by marbled pillars supporting an elaborate carved stone semi-circular canopy, which is flanked by a pair of sculpted figures.

Although Hayes is not high on most tourist’s lists of what to see in London, the old church parish church of Hayes is certainly worth a detour. As for Bulls Bridge, visiting it is only for dedicated enthusiasts of  desolate landscapes and inland waterway history.