urban meanders through the unsung quarters of Europe’s most incorrigible city; because when a man is tired of London, he’s probably just never spent an afternoon in Penge
“Or a woman, Samuel, or a woman – women get tired of things too, you know. Many, many things.”
[Mrs Johnson]
UNCHARTERED STREETS is a series of book-length walks around some of London’s less celebrated neighbourhoods – though I’m hoping there’s enough in the text and photos for you to be able to enjoy them from the comfort of an armchair as much as from a rainy pavement. The plan is for roughly three books a year, though only one, the Leyton one, has been published so far; book number two, Deptford, should have been out last year, but I ended up moving house instead which, along with various health-related bouts of non-activity, slightly complicated things. It’s all written, though, and will be available this autumn. Vauxhall and Brentford are also in the pipeline, and if you’d like to make sure they emerge – and get them at a special discounted price – our shop page has subscription deals. If you’re not feeling that flush or trusting, a single book will set you back a tenner, or less than the price of two pints of beer. Or twelve pints of milk, if you buy them in single-pint cartons. Or six large bulbs of fennel.
Each book contains 92 colour pages with plenty of photos and maps. The walks themselves are roughly six miles long, so a couple of hours plus stops for beer and buns and pointing excitedly at things. They’re also circular, so you can join at any point, with no annoying step-retracing. And directions are always on the same page as the relevant map, so your non-book-holding hand is left free for your umbrella. For a peek inside the Leyton book, click here and then on the magnifying glass and left-right arrows.
OCTOBER 2023
Please note: the books aren’t available from Amazon for the same reason that you shouldn’t buy books from Amazon.