{"id":15611,"date":"2014-11-10T14:56:16","date_gmt":"2014-11-10T14:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=15611"},"modified":"2014-11-10T15:04:45","modified_gmt":"2014-11-10T15:04:45","slug":"an-autumnal-london-walk-at-dusk-green-park-st-jamess-park-national-gallery-and-oxford-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/an-autumnal-london-walk-at-dusk-green-park-st-jamess-park-national-gallery-and-oxford-street\/","title":{"rendered":"An autumnal London walk at dusk – Green Park, St James’s park, National Gallery and Oxford Street"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"An<\/p>\n

Late Saturday afternoon, I went for a hangover-clearing autumnal stroll through central London, taking in two parks and stopping off for some art.<\/p>\n

I started off at Green Park tube station, and rambled through the near-deserted, gas-lit Green\u00a0Park before walking through\u00a0St James’s Park in the dark.<\/p>\n

I then attempted to dodge some major rain showers before cutting across Trafalgar Square – \u00a0taking in an hour at\u00a0the wonderful National Gallery \u00a0– before heading north in the driving rain to arrive at at Warren Street tube. You can see the full 2.5 mile route mapped here<\/a>, if\u00a0so\u00a0inclined.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Leaving Green Park station and walking into the park. Looking back you can see this magnificent building on Piccadilly.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

An elderly shopper is briefly illuminated by one of the the Victorian gas-lamps<\/a>\u00a0that cover the park.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Grand buildings bordering Green Park.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Bridge across St James’s Park Lake.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Guards Division\u00a0Memorial on Horse Guards Road.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Autumn leaves covering up the underfloor lighting.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Looking across Horse Guards Parade as night falls.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

The heavens opened, so I ran\u00a0for cover under the arches of the Mall Galleries on The Mall.<\/p>\n

With the suitably melancholic Blue Nile ‘Hats’ album playing in my earphones, I snapped a few shots of folks scurrying along the rain-soaked pavements.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

The rain finally stopped, and I made my way to Trafalgar\u00a0Square.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

This\u00a0interesting sculpture in Trafalgar Square was designed by artist Mark Humphrey.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

It contains a brass figure\u00a0-based on the Unknown Soldier, standing in a Perspex obelisk with poppies that sporadically blow in the air around him, giving the effect of a giant snow-globe that’s been shaken.<\/p>\n

I have to say that I found it a bit\u00a0gimmicky for such a serious subject, but you can read more here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

I love visiting the National Gallery, especially the impressionist and post impressionist galleries. I can spend hours just getting lost in the worlds of the artists.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

The wintry Pissaro painting in the middle of the frame is one of my favourite paintings (more below).<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Fox Hill, Upper Norwood,’\u00a01870, by Camille Pissarro [National Gallery<\/a>]<\/p>\n

\"I<\/p>\n

The imposing 1724 edifice of\u00a0St Martin-in-the-Fields church as seen from the steps of the National Gallery.<\/p>\n

Note the gas lamp to the right of the photo (as you’ve probably guessed by now – I’m rather keen on gas lamps!).<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Pushing through the brolly-clutching crowds outside the London Hippodrome.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

The Christmas lights are already up on Oxford Street.<\/p>\n

Read my thoughts on this\u00a0(and find out about changing London Christmas traditions)\u00a0in this article from last year: \u00a0Oxford Street Christmas lights are turned on \u2013 in ruddy November, FFS<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

A rainswept Tottenham Court Road.<\/p>\n

\"St<\/p>\n

Kiosk\u00a0lights reflect off the rain-soaked pavements on\u00a0Tottenham Court Road.<\/p>\n

By this time, the rain had been so persistent that I was reduced to wearing a cardboard box on top of my head for cover!<\/p>\n

All photos taken with the lovely Ricoh GR compact camera<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Late Saturday afternoon, I went for a hangover-clearing autumnal stroll through central London, taking in two parks and stopping off for some art. I started off at Green Park tube … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[194,17,193],"tags":[34,38,274,10,873,496,428,22,31,709,1020,35,1019,227],"class_list":["post-15611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-london-features","category-photos","category-places","tag-art","tag-autumn","tag-green-park","tag-london","tag-national-gallery","tag-oxford-street","tag-park","tag-parks","tag-rain","tag-ricoh-gr","tag-st-jamess-park","tag-trafalgar-square","tag-warren-street","tag-weather"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/nov-2014-london-park-walk-14.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-43N","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15611"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15625,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15611\/revisions\/15625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}