Not far from Archway tube station, just off the Holloway Road is a street named St. John’s Villas lined with imposing early Victorian houses on one side and a later, more run-of-the-mill terrace on the other. The street is a cut off Holloway Road heading towards Hornsey Road and like many 19th century city streets […]
Tag: london
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Persian Silk in Globe Street
I was transfixed by the charms of a Persian Silk Tree (Albizia julibrissin) in Southwark today. A most majestic and unusual (for England) street tree, in fact a rarely-planted tree anywhere in the UK, street or otherwise. This is perhaps a cautious test planting to see what happens – the tree has a reputation for […]
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A Tree Grows in Bermondsey
The Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima) is a common tree of street plantings, parks and gardens, in fact it pops up everywhere. It has a curious habit (in London at least) of blending in, it has a passing resemblence to the Ash (Fraxinus excelsior) or the Walnut (Juglans regia) and seems inoffensive when it first […]
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Field Maple’s urban resilience
I admire this gawky and unloved Field Maple – acer campestre – on the Hornsey Road in north London. It couldn’t be further away from the bucolic landscape implied by it’s name. This one fills a space on a busy main road by a row of local shops soaking up traffic fumes and witnessing round […]
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Bedford Row Robinias
Bedford Row is a very handsome eighteenth century London street, in some ways more handsome than it’s Bloomsbury neighbours north of the Theobald’s Road divide. It is wider than Great James Street and softer than Doughty Street, it is lined largely by fine Georgian terraces, (the exception being a post-war infill half way up on […]
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Barnsbury’s golden tree
I cycle past this very fine Robinia Pseudoacacia var. Frisia in Barnsbury on my way to work. It always gladdens the heart with its magnificent golden foliage. Not strictly a street tree this one as it is in a private garden, but it is most definitely part of the urban landscape rather than a garden […]