Monday 6 March 2017

Exploring the Piccadilly Line: Houslow West, Osterley & Boston Manor

Have you ever been on a photowalk? They're lots of fun... even when they don't involve all that much walking.

Last summer I went on a Art Deco themed photowalk organised by Kate of Made by Mrs M, exploring some of the great architecture on the Piccadilly Line. We visited Rayners Lane and Sudbury Hill, Sudbury Town and Park Royal, then took a detour to Chiswick Park for lunch. Now it's time to share the final part of our day...

In the afternoon we got the Tube out to Hounslow West, planning to work our way back to Central London afterwards via a couple more stations. It turns out that we probably should have saved Hounslow West for last because it turned out to be an absolute gem.

It didn't look too promising to start with but then we reached the ticket hall and wow! What a space.


The hall has seven sides, with a huge seven-sided light hanging from the middle of the ceiling. There's an original wooden ticket counter. And the colours are fantastic: that green! combined with those pink and orange tiles! Amazing. 


 

We all practically swooned, then rushed around taking lots of photos and saying "oooh" a lot - much to the amusement of the staff! It seems they don't get a lot of groups of women showing up with cameras and going into raptures over the fixtures and fittings.


After we'd all filled our cameras up with photos of Hounslow West, we headed back along the Piccadilly line to Osterley.

 

I adore this lamp-post just outside the station. More lamp-posts should look like this!


Then it was time for our final stop of the day: Boston Manor.

 

Here we all are reflected in the windows outside the station - yet another bit of curvy architecture!


Huge thanks to Kate for organising the day, it was so much fun. Kate organised another photowalk last year (this time exploring the Northern Line)... hopefully I'll eventually get around to blogging about that one too!

2 comments:

~Mem said...

Hi There! I am from Australia but I not only love photographing the little details of life around me, especially anything historical or decorative, but I lived in London for 5 years and I was doing this all the time!!! I totally relate to your story of amusing the staff at the Tube station as I often had some fun and funny interactions with staff and commuters alike as I stopped here and there to breathlessly take a photo of a treasure which nobody else seemed to notice!!! Thank you - you've made my day! ~M x

Bugs and Fishes said...

Photography definitely makes you notice stuff things other people don't, doesn't it? It's funny how people can be critical of the modern habit of taking lots of photos, like we're not fully experiencing life if we're spending so much time photographing it instead of just living in the moment, but I think there's a LOT of stuff I would have never paid attention to if it wasn't for my camera!