Residential areas within walking distance of Central London

Most of you who are moving to London will have to rely on the transport system in order to get from A to B. Sometimes our transport system lets us down, for instance if there is a tube or rail strike, bad weather conditions or terrorist threats. On these occasions, London descends into chaos as Londoners do everything they can to get from home to work and back again using as many inventive methods of travel as is humanly possible.

So how can you get around this?

Well many of you will just learn to live with it and not worry yourselves about something that only happens on a few random days of the year. Others will decide that they’d rather live somewhere within walking distance of Central London, so that they can travel to work on foot on either a regular basis (it’s a great way to exercise and to see our great city) or in case of a travel emergency.

Whilst many areas within easy reach of Central London are understandably expensive, there are other more affordable areas that are well worth a look at if you have your heart set on donning a pair of trainers every day.

Here are 10 areas within walking distance of Central London that you might want to consider living in:

Bethnal Green
Bethnal Green is situated in East London in the postcode area of E2. Famed for it’s association with the Kray brothers, it’s extremely handy for nearby Shoreditch and of course the City of London. It’s approximately 1.5 miles from Bethnal Green to Liverpool Street making it perfect for those who want to work in the country’s financial capital. If you’re more brave and fancy walking to the West End, then it’s about 4.5 miles away.
For current rental prices and rooms to rent, please visit Easyroommate .

Kennington
Kennington is situated in South-East London in the vicinity of the Oval Cricket Ground. It’s a reasonably trendy area to live in with some good local pubs. In terms of walking distances, it’s a brisk 2.5 miles across the river into Victoria where there are plenty of offices located. If you need to get to the West End, then that will take you a further 20 mins.
For current rental prices and rooms to rent, please visit Easyroommate.

Islington
Islington needs no introduction. It’s an extremely popular area for graduates and young professionals to live in. The area is centred around Upper Street which is lined from top to toe with trendy shops, bars, restaurants, pubs and cafes.
The distance between Islington and the City is approximately 2 miles.
For current rental prices and rooms to rent, please visit Easyroommate.

Bayswater.
Bayswater is situated in West London approximately 2.3 miles from the West End, which is perfect if you happen to work on or near Oxford Street or Soho.
A walk between the two usually involves walking through Hyde Park, so it really is a lovely commute.
For current rental prices and rooms to rent, please visit Easyroommate.

Stepney Green
Another area located in the East End of London is Stepney Green. Although it could arguably be described as being historic more than it is glamorous, it is in a perfect location sandwiched between the City and Canary Wharf which are both 2 miles away.
For current rental prices and rooms to rent, please visit Easyroommate.

Battersea
Battersea is located in South London. As it’s only a short distance across the river from Sloane Square, parts of the area attract the wealthy, although you can also find some decent, affordable flatshares and property rental here.
The distance from Battersea to Victoria is approximately 2.6 miles, but if you need to go further into the West End, it’s more like 3.5 miles.
For current rental prices and rooms to rent, please visit Easyroommate.

Hackney
Hackney is another favourite East End haunt that is probably most famous for the Hackney Empire and it’s market. Hackney is referred to as both a council borough and a town, but in this instance, we’re talking about the town.
Hackney is most appropriately located for those who want to walk to work in the City of London which is approximately 3.2 miles away.
For current rental prices and rooms to rent, please visit Easyroommate.

Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington is located in North London. Slightly further out than some of the other residential areas mentioned on this page, it is an area that has recently ‘up-and-come’. Stoke Newington is often described as being great for families and has a young atmosphere to it. The popular road to hang out on is Church Street. A journey into the City of London covers approximately 3.5 miles of road.
For current rental prices and rooms to rent, please visit Easyroommate..

Peckham
Most people don’t hear ‘Peckham’ without conjuring up images of the Trotters living in Nelson Mandella House. Well it’s a long time since ‘Only Fools and Horses’ was on our screens and in that time, Peckham has moved slowly up the ranks and is now considered a satisfactory place to live, not least because of the fact that some decent watering holes have opened up and that it’s close proximity to Central London. The distance between Peckham and London Bridge is approximately 3.2 miles.
For current rental prices and rooms to rent, please visit Easyroommate.

Ways to blend in as a Londoner

When you first move to London, some of you might take to it like water off a duck’s back, others of you may feel that you stick out like a sore thumb.
We’ve created a list of ways to blend in as Londoner, so you don’t feel out of your depth. Many of them are related to the public transport system and some should be taken as being tongue in cheek, but we’ll let you try and work out which are which!

• Don’t wander around obviously clutching your A-Z. If you need to carry it, then try and be discreet about it. Or if you have an I-phone, you could just use that instead to get about!
• Try and hide the fact that your snot is currently black and sooty – we promise it’ll go away.
• Get an Oyster card – real Londoners don’t buy paper tickets, they’re more expensive.
• Never stand still on the left side of an escalator – always move to the right. In fact, most Londoners are often in a rush, so feel free to charge up and down the left side of the escalator.
• Always avoid eye contact with strangers and don’t even think about exchanging niceties – we don’t do that in London or else people might mistake us for psychopaths.
• Walk quickly everywhere and try and look like you’re extremely angry at all times.
• In a supermarket, use the self-service checkout – remember that you’re in a hurry and don’t have time for queues.
• Don’t scream in alarm at the tiny amount of change you’ll get when you hand over a fiver for a pint of beer
• Stop carrying cash altogether and rely on using cards everywhere
• Scream like billio if you see a mouse in your house, but don’t bat an eyelid if you see 10 of them whilst you’re waiting for a tube
• Roll your eyes and be completely devoid of sympathy if someone commits suicide by jumping on the tube tracks and ruins your journey across town
• Start sniggering (and/or exercise an eye roll) if your train is delayed or cancelled due to leaves on the line or the wrong type of snow
• Always carry Nurofen, Berocca tablets, eyedrops and chewing gum with you on Friday mornings to help you deal with a crazy Thursday night out.
• Learn the names and respective colours of the tube lines. Nothing will make you stand out more than if you say you’re taking the yellow line to work. IT’S CALLED THE CIRCLE LINE!
• Don’t bother going out in Central London unless it’s for work drinks. Instead find the best pub in your new area and claim it as your local.
• Start acting like the rest of the UK doesn’t exist

PS We didn’t mean the last one – we’re not originally from London either!!!

Circle Line Pub Crawl in London

The term ‘pub crawl’ has been used in the UK since the late 19th Century, along with variants of the phrase such as ‘beer crawl’ or ‘gin crawl’. It describes a gathering of people (unless going on a rather anti-social pub crawl) moving en masse, from one pub to the next and so on.

Pub crawls are quite common in England and it seems fitting that our nation’s capital has some of the most famous pub crawls in the whole world. One of these is the Monopoly Pub Crawl where drinkers visit a pub in every area featured on the Monopoly board. However, an equally difficult and notorious pub crawl is the Circle Line Pub Crawl.

The Circle Line is the most central of London’s tube lines. The line formed a loop until December 2009, when a non-circular extension was added onto the northwestern side of the loop. For the purposes of the pub crawl though, the Circle Line Pub Crawl includes pubs near stations which are only featured on the loop of the line.

*One thing worth noting is that although there are 27 stations on the loop section of the Circle Line, Blackfriars station is currently closed until late 2011, whilst Mansion House is only open from Monday to Friday, so if you want to include it on your crawl, then you’ll need to make sure you skip the weekends.

Before we mention the stations and suggested pubs on this route, we should provide you with some sensible advice before embarking on this mammoth pub crawl. Everyone has their limitations when it comes to how much drink they can handle. As there are 27 pubs on the route, you’ll need to drinking small measures in each pub (e.g half pints, single shots of spirits rather than whole pints and doubles) and frequently ensure that you switch to soft drinks unless you want an ambulance to pick you up before you cross the finishing line. Take care when crossing the road after you’ve had a few and try and plan your route home well in advance. Under no circumstances should you consider driving home, instead get a cab or take the nightbus.

Ok, now the lecturing is out of the way, let’s list the stations and suggested nearby pubs on the Circle Line. We’re going to start the list at Victoria, but you can start and end up at any of the stations – that’s the beauty of the Circle Line pub crawl.

1. Victoria Station – The Shakespeare - 99 Buckingham Palace Park Road, SW1W 0RP.
2. Sloane Square – The Antelope - 22 Eaton Terrace, SW1W 8EZ.
3. South Kensington – The Anglesea Arms - 15 Selwood Terrace, SW7 3QG.
4. Gloucester Road – The Stanhope Arms - 97 Gloucester Road, SW7 4SS.
5. High Street Kensington – The Prince of Wales - 8 Kensington Church Street, W8 4EP.
6. Notting Hill Gate – The Churchill Arms - 119 Kensington Church Street, W8 7LN.
7. Bayswater – The Rat & Parrot – 99 Queensway, W2 4QH.
8. Paddington – The Mad Bishop & Bear – The Lawn, Paddington Station, W2 1HB.
9. Edgware Road – The Chapel – 48 Chapel Street, NW1 5DP.
10. Baker Street – The Globe – 43-47 Marylebone Road, NW1 5JY.
11. Great Portland Street – The Green Man – 383 Euston Road, NW1 3AU.
12. Euston Square – The Crown and Anchor – 137 Drummond Street, NW1 2HL.
13. Kings Cross – The Dolphin – 47 Tonbridge Street, WC1H 9DW.
14. Farringdon – Sir John Oldcastle – 29-35 Farringdon Road, EC1M 3JF.
15. Barbican – The Old Red Cow – 71 Long Lane, EC1A 9EJ.
16. Moorgate – John Keats – 85 Moorgate, EC2M 6SA.
17. Liverpool Street – Dirty Dicks – 202 Bishopsgate, EC2M 4NR.
18. Aldgate – The Still and Star – 1 Little Somerset Street, E1 8AH.
19. Tower Hill – The Minories – 64-73 The Minories, EC3N 1JL.
20. Monument – The Ship – 11 Talbot Court, EC3V 0BP.
21. Cannon Street – The Banker – Cousin Lane, EC4R 3TE.
22. Mansion House* – The Hatchet – 28 Garlick Hill, EC4V 2BA.
23. Blackfriars* – The Blackfriar – 174 Queen Victoria Street, EC4V 4EG.
24. Temple – Walkabout – Temple Station, Temple Place, WC2R 2PH.
25. Embankment – The Ship and Shovell – 1-3 Craven Passage, WC2N 5PH.
26. Westminster – St Stephen’s Tavern -10 Bridge Street, SW1A 2JR.
27. St. James’ Park – The Feathers – 18-20 Broadway, SW1H 0BH.

And you’ve made it back to the start…. hopefully in one piece!

Re-opening of the East London Line

UPDATE: The former East London line is now open and running from West Croydon, Crystal Palace and New Cross in the south, to Dalston Junction in the north.

ORIGINAL: The former East London line which has been rebranded and is joining the London Overground network, will partially open tomorrow. The route between Dalston Junction (in East London) and New Cross Gate (in South-East London) will open between 7am and 8pm and will be part of a ‘live testing operation’. Stations served in this test phase include Haggerston, Hoxton, Shoreditch High Street, Whitechapel, Shadwell, Wapping, Rotherhithe, Canada Water and Surrey Quays.

The remainder of the line is due to open on Sunday 23rd May, 2010 and will extend down from New Cross Gate to West Croydon (with a branch line to Crystal Palace) and will include stations at Brockley, Honor Oak Park, Forest Hill, Sydenham, Penge West, Anerley and Norwood Junction.

Whilst this long-anticipated service, which will interchange with stations on the London Underground network such as Canada Water (with the Jubilee line), Whitechapel (with the District and Hammersmith & City Lines) and Shadwell (with the DLR), should benefit the communities of people who have previously been living in areas deprived of a tube line, the service has also attracted a lot of criticism and petition-signing. This is because some existing train services are being cut to make room for the new London Overground trains.

However, on the plus side, for those people who are living in South-East London and working in or around the Shoreditch or Canary Wharf (change at Canada Water) areas, your journey time will be significantly reduced.

This could also potentially push property prices and demand up in the area, so if you’re thinking of moving here, then do it while you can!