A Saturday walk

Hammersmith Bridge

Did something a bit different today.  Hubby and I went on a free guided walk with 'I Love Hammersmith' led by a Blue Badge tourist guide.  We met at Olympia tube station at 11am and began with our guide giving a short history of  the area where the big Exhibition Centre is and where in 1934 Oswald Mosley held his big rally which turned violent as it was infiltrated by protesters posing as 'black shirts'.  Next we went to see a house rumoured to be the London home of Maeve Binchy (fiction writer - one of my favourites!) who died last year.  Here  young Irish youths stayed so they could get to experience London.  There was a pinball machine in the front room and the young people were given money to go and buy a decent meal.

As we walked our guide pointed out a building where Aleister Crowley went to recover some ritual chalices, etc., from the Rosicrucian Fraternity and was accosted by the poet W.B. Yeates.  Crowley was known as the 'wickedest man in the world' and was proud of it.  He was an occultist, dealt in Black Magic, drugs and depravity. He became associated with the 60's culture when experimentation with drugs. meditation and the mystic was popular and his face appeared on The Beatles 'Sgt. Pepper' album.

Bythe House is where the V&A Museum store their collection of objects and is also the scene of 'the Circus' from  Gary Oldman's Tinker Tailor movie.  We also saw the site of Cadby Hall where Lyons made their cakes, pies and biscuits (also the Lyons corner house tea rooms)  It's all gone now but our guide has the top piece of a column which he took from the skip when the building was demolished.  He has it in the front garden of his basement flat (which he showed us!).  Finally we passed the building that was Lyons laboratory where Margaret Thatcher worked as a domestic chemist for a couple of years.

After the walk we ended up at the Hop Poles pub on King Street, Hammersmith where we received a free
cup of tea or coffee.  It gave us a chance to socialise and I got chatting to a lady who often comes on these free walks so maybe we will meet again sometime.  It made a very interesting morning and so much better than Saturday morning food shopping!