1. Before getting on the bus, have a quick look at the grand construction that is Marble Arch. I’m sure you’ve been passed it on numerous occasions and will always have had a glance up at its splendour but have you actually been up close to inspect what’s actually there? It was designed by John Nash in 1827 as the state entrance to the “cour d’honneur” of Buckingham Palace. In the 1840s, with a growing family and entourage, Queen Victoria decided to expand the palace. As the proposed front was going to be on the site of the Arch, and on the initiative of architect Decimus Burton, a former pupil of John Nash, the arch was relocated in 1851 to its current site. Nash had based the three-arched design on the Arch of Constantine in Rome and the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

Three small rooms in the attic room of the rebuilt arch were used as a police station from 1851 until at least 1968. Marble Arch is full of details that are easy to miss. If you go up close to the arch, you can see the elaborate bronze gates – these were made for the arch and installed in 1837, with each of the three main panels carrying a different design: a lion, George IV’s royal cypher and, most strikingly, St George slaying the dragon. Above them, the arch itself is beautifully decorated with huge Corinthian columns, carved figures, winged Victories and floral ornaments. The gates and their decoration have been carefully conserved. It’s definitely worth taking a moment to look closely at the craftsmanship rather than simply walking through the arch, if you get the chance.

2. Baker Street station bus stop

You probably think you’ve seen all there is to see at or around Baker Street station. There are a few things that may have passed you by so look out for them – Chiltern Court is coming up to the centenary of its construction. Originally intended in 1912 as a hotel and the Metropolitan Railway’s HQ, the Metropolitan’s plans were interrupted by WWI. When construction recommenced in the late 1920s, the building was redesigned as a block of flats and the Chiltern Court Restaurant. During the 1930s the block was home to a number of notable figures, including the writers H. G. Wells, who held a weekly literary salon at his apartment, and Arnold Bennett, who died at the Court in 1931. The composer Eric Coates lived in the block between 1930 and 1936. During World War II, the Special Operations Executive was based at 64 Baker Street, and its Norwegian Section was located in three flats at Chiltern Court, from where it directed the operations against the heavy water plant at Telemark.

Over the road is Abbey House, formerly HQ for the Abbey Road Building Society from 1932 until 2002. The Abbey National Building Society was formed by the merger of the Abbey Road and the National Building Societies. If you look up and closely at the building, you can see that the distinctive façade features a unique lighthouse sculpture with a fixed white light and the word Security at its base. It was a symbol of guidance, safety and security — rather appropriate for a building society whose purpose was helping ordinary people save for and obtain the security of their own homes.

Alongside Abbey House is the Beatles store which is a must-see if you’re any type of fan. There’s a huge range of all things Fab Four – T and sweat shirts, models of Yellow Submarine, backpacks. You name it, if it can have a logo stamped on it, then this is where you’ll find it. The store is next door to the Sherlock Holmes Museum and it’s so amusing to think that a museum has been spawned by a fictitious character. Come along at a weekend and the queues are legendary – not quite so bad during the week. Here too is a shop where Holmes memorabilia is on display and for sale. Long live 221b Baker Street!

One final place to see before leaving this stop is the Volunteer pub, a few doors up from 221b. Dating from about 1815, it was built as part of the Portman Estate’s development of Marylebone. The pub is named after the Royal Marylebone Volunteers, a local volunteer defence force formed during the Napoleonic Wars, when Britain was worried about a French invasion. The pub later served as a recruiting station and the pub itself displays material relating to its wartime role – although it doesn’t specify which war.

3. Rudolf Steiner House bus stop

The bus stops right outside Rudolf Steiner House which doubles up as both the HQ and home of the Anthroposophical Society in GB (spiritual and humanistic philosophy founded by the Austrian philosopher) and as a cultural hub for events and the location of the Marylebone Theatre. The building was designed in the expressionist style, constructed in stages between 1926 and 1937. There are a number of lecture rooms, a bookshop and library, a really ambient café and the theatre.

The origin of the theatre was as the Theatre Royal, Marylebone which was built in 1831, and served not only as a venue for putting on plays but also as a music hall, a cinema and warehouse until it was damaged by fire in 1962, when it was demolished. The first play to be performed was a rendition of Dickens’ Oliver Twist, in May 1838. Today, Marylebone Theatre occupies the site of the old theatre and is a relatively recent addition to the building, opening in 2022 after a major refurbishment. It is an independent theatre presenting a varied programme of drama, comedy, music, dance and spoken-word events, with a particular emphasis on diverse and international work.

4. Priory Park Road bus stop

Along the road from the stop is the former Gaumont State Cinema, which opened in 1937. The name State is said to come from the huge 37m tower, inspired by New York’s Empire State Building. Its style is Art Deco Italian Renaissance and the tower, designed in the style of a 1930s New York skyscraper, can be seen for miles around, and still bears the name “STATE” in large red neon letters. 70 years to the day after the Gaumont State first opened on 20 December 1937, the building was bought by Ruach City Church. It’s not possible to see the interior which is a great shame as it was designed in the opulent style of cinemas of the day, and includes a Wurlitzer organ. To this day, it’s one of the largest fully functioning Wurlitzer organs in Britain. An amazing array of talent has performed here over the years, as it became a music venue as well as a cinema. Most notable are Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grappelli, Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and David Bowie – in truth, there are plenty more.

A stone’s throw from here is the former Grange cinema which opened on 30 July 1914 so it pre-dates the Gaumont by some 20+ years. Historic England says it was believed to be the largest cinema in Europe when it opened, with 2,310 seats. Before the cinema was built, the site was occupied by The Grange (hence its name), a large mansion standing in about 9½ acres. It belonged to Ada Peters, widow of a wealthy coachbuilder who had made coaches for Queen Victoria. After her death in 1910, the property was sold to Oswald Stoll, the theatre entrepreneur behind the London Coliseum, who developed the cinema. The corner entrance of the building was deliberately emphasised by the huge copper dome, while its style is described as Baroque. The original cinema also had a remarkable galleried oval rotunda and a tea room.

5. Mill Lane bus stop

Near the stop is a small open space known as Jane Evans Nature Reserve. On the day of my visit (Thursday), it was locked up. The site has controlled access because it includes sensitive local wildlife habitats, a community orchard, and a pond. It’s managed for conservation and community use rather than open-access recreation. This means it’s only open on specified days for school or community visits. However, over the road is Westbere Copse, where it is possible to explore. The site is split in two where one side has free public access and the other is only open at weekends. The site is mainly woodland, with a huge variety of trees, the main ones being sycamore oak, aspen and ash. A plethora of ground plants can also be found here – these are tolerant of shade such as cow parsley, nettles and ivy. Numerous species of birds and plants have been recorded at the site, along with frogs, toads and newts.

6. Cricklewood Station bus stop

Cricklewood is the home of Handley Page, a British aerospace manufacturer. Founded by Frederick Handley Page in 1909, it was the United Kingdom’s first publicly traded aircraft manufacturing company. In 1912, Handley Page established an aircraft factory at Cricklewood. Aircraft were built there, and flown from the company’s adjacent airfield known as Cricklewood Aerodrome. The factory was later sold off to Oswald Stoll (see previous mention about the former Grange cinema) and converted into Britain’s largest film studio, Cricklewood Studios.

At Cricklewood station, there is a large mural on the walkway from the street up to platform level. The Handley Page mural is a celebration of the optimism and engineering spirit of those early interwar aviation years. It connects with other local history displays at the station, including artwork dedicated to pioneer aviator Amy Johnson and Cricklewood’s broader industrial roots. The Amy Johnson artwork pays tribute to the pioneering aviator who had set a series of daring long-distance flying records during the 1930s and who had lived in Cricklewood. The mural is part of a series of free public artworks celebrating unsung women heroes from across London which has been curated by the Tate Collective. The street artist Lakwena Maciver used Johnson’s moniker “Queen of the Air” in large colourful letters to pay homage to this great lady of the skies.

7. Somerton Road bus stop

There’s not a huge amount to see at this stop, but there is one place that continues the Handley Page story – the former HP reception building. It served as the reception and part of the aircraft manufacturing complex. The building has since been carefully renovated and converted into a multi-use live/work, office and location-hire space, while retaining some of its industrial heritage, including raw concrete, exposed brick and rolled steel joists, as well as a triple-height landscaped internal courtyard atrium. From the outside, it’s an unassuming building, but its history makes it a worthwhile stop – a tangible link to the Handley Page factory that once occupied this part of Cricklewood.

8. Clitterhouse Road South bus stop

Tucked away in Clitterhouse Playing Fields is Clitterhouse Farm, a remarkable survivor whose history can be traced back to the early 14th century. By the 18th century the farm consisted of a timber-framed farmhouse surrounded by barns, stables and other agricultural buildings arranged around a courtyard. The farm continued as a working farm into the 20th century and eventually became a dairy farm; the last of its cows were sold in 1925. The surviving outbuildings later had a variety of less glamorous uses, including changing rooms, public toilets, a park keeper’s cottage and a council depot, before standing empty and falling into serious disrepair.

Today, part of the original farm buildings, including the former barn, has been given a completely new lease of life as Our Yard, a community-run café and social enterprise. The café began as a tiny volunteer-run operation in 2015 before a £100,000 crowdfunding campaign enabled a much larger café and workshop spaces to be created. The present café opened in 2021, retaining the character of the old brick farm buildings.

There is another fascinating connection with the farm’s history in the form of a mosaic commemorating Gladice Keevil (1884–1959). She lived at Clitterhouse Farm between 1884 and 1913 and became a prominent suffragette. In 1908 she was arrested alongside Emmeline Pankhurst during a demonstration at the House of Commons. Behind the buildings is Our Yard’s community garden, another impressive example of what can happen when a neglected space is given some love. Volunteers cleared an overgrown and fly-tipped area in 2017 and transformed it into a thriving garden with raised vegetable beds, flowers, wildflower areas, greenhouses, a herb garden and a cedar glasshouse.

9. Brent Cross West station bus stop

However many times you may have been to Brent Cross shopping centre, you are much less likely to have visited Brent Cross West and Town. Brent Cross West station and its environs is all about interesting artwork. As you climb the stairs on the side where the bus has dropped you, you’ll see a colourful mural entitled “Time passes & still I think of you” (for my mother) by Giles Round. The colours and shapes in the frieze are inspired by the forms we build around us in cities and brings the outside in, inside this (new building). The artist’s late mother worked for a time in Brent Cross and so the work is a tender monument to love, loss and hope.

Round the corner is another memorial – this time to Muriel Matters, the suffragist who flew over London dropping “Votes for Women” leaflets. She also famously chained herself to the Ladies’ Gallery grille in the UK House of Commons in 1909.

Finally while you’re still at the station, look for a few posters on the overbridge – these are Towards Barnet & Towards Brent, made by local volunteers from reused bottle tops.

Head back out of the station, in the same direction as you entered it from the bus stop. Straight ahead is a large mural called “Community Mural” by Annu Kilpeläinen, created in 2021. It was commissioned as a celebration of the local community, diversity and the area’s future. Walk through the passageway until you get to Claremont Park. Just inside the entrance to your right is “Yesterday Tomorrow”, a mural that’s a celebration of the rich history and vibrant future of Brent Cross Town. Hidden within the artwork is Handley Page’s aircraft factory, local author Zadie Smith and local actor Helena Bonham Carter. Look closely and you can see the Cricklewood Aerodrome, Bentley Motors HQ and Smiths Clocks.

Further into the park is another piece of art – this is Rainbow of Ribbons that can be found at Gussy’s Ice Cream parlour. The piece features flowing, multicoloured curves inspired by local children’s workshops, play, physical movement, and school physical education ribbon routines. Although they look like real ribbon, they are in fact made from weather-resistant powder-coated steel.

Keep walking through the park and on your right is a large pond. It was designed as a wetland habitat with water-loving planting and a viewing deck. It’s rather a nice tribute to the area’s historic waterways and nearby River Brent, and adds a surprisingly tranquil element to this rapidly developing new neighbourhood. Long may that last!

At the other entrance to the park is the pavilion, the development’s visitor centre, where a large model shows how the new neighbourhood is taking shape, including the buildings and public spaces that have already been completed. A short film explains the vision for Brent Cross Town and its connections, including the ease of reaching the various London airports by the new Brent Cross West station. But my favourite part of the visit was meeting Caron, who was genuinely enchanted by what I was doing as London Routemistress. It was lovely to find someone so interested in the project — and a reminder that you never quite know who you’ll meet along the way. It was also a fitting way to end what turned out to be an unexpectedly pleasant day.

Well I didn’t have many expectations of the route as I felt it overlapped with others and I thought I knew it fairly well. I was therefore pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the day and also learned quite a lot about the area, that I hadn’t previously known. I hadn’t appreciated that one of the main suffragettes had lived in Cricklewood, and I’m ashamed to say that I hadn’t heard of Handley Page and the aircraft factory. Also finding out that Arnold Bennett and HG Wells both lived and worked in Chiltern House in Baker Street (the former also died there) was a revelation to me. I also loved getting up close to Marble Arch and seeing it in all its glory. And seeing Brent Cross Town in model form and how it will evolve was fascinating. All in all, a Good Day and well done route 189!

Toilets that are open to the public and free of charge:

• Rudolf Steiner House/Marylebone Theatre
• The Old Yard at Clitterhouse Farm
• Pavilion in Claremont Park