We are starting our UK visit with a two night stay at the Grange Wellington. This is a rather charming establishment with beautiful rooms located in darkest Westminster.
Still being a bit jet lagged from our flight, we decided on a low key first day just having a wander, getting our bearings and exploring a part of London which was new to us.
Jeanette was as always thrilled to be back in London and the weather was lovely and balmy.
We first walked down to Victoria Station of which there turned out to be three: the underground one, the normal rail one and the bus one, all located relatively near to one another.
From there, we just headed where our fancy and the prettiest rows of Georgian houses beckoned us, until we came to the Thames and walked along the riverbank down to the Chelsea Bridge, which we crossed.
Near here is the site of the old Battersea Power Station which is one of the largest brick buildings in the world. It ceased generating power in 1983 and is now, with a workforce of around 3,000, said to be the largest building site in Europe. A Malaysian consortium is converting the old Power Station into offices including Apple’s UK headquarters and, would you believe, 4,239 luxury apartments. Looking in the real estate agents’ windows nearby, a small 2 bedroom flat in this area seemed to have an asking price of around 1.2 million pounds so you can see this project is going to eventually generate a substantial amount of change.
We lunched alfresco on the river bank at Wilson Brothers Seafood Merchants. Great food and only a few people there so we had a very nice and relaxing time.
Looking back across the river we got a great view of an Italianate style tower which we had been seeing from a number of different points on our walk. Built in 1875, it turned out to be the chimney of a sewerage pumping station. You just have to hand it to the Victorians, those guys had real class.
To prove that the modern English architects aren’t all that bad either, here’s a shot of an apartment development we passed on the Chelsea Bridge we thought was rather nice.
As the afternoon was getting rather hot, we headed back to our hotel around 3:30pm. Tomorrow we head off for Cornwall.
Hardys’ Travels 