Main purpose: EastNet meeting; more Good Beer Guide pubs
My bike's front tyre was wrecked the previous evening in crossing Midsummer Common, thanks to rubbish left from the recent Midsummer Fair, so I walked in via work to the station. I tried to get a 1st class ticket with Zone 1 Tube travel but there was no such option and people were waiting, that being the only machine. So I got a standard Travelcard. At the refreshment booth on platform 1 I bought a can of Coca-Cola for 70p - a rip-off when one can buy them for under 40p in certain circumstances.
The train at platform 3 was the 08:15 service though it had been intended for something else - there was some disruption to services. Anyway it arrived at Kings Cross only two minutes late. I took my usual route via the Brunswick Centre to ULCC.
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There were loads of cartoon panels and Eagle pages on display, along with blurbs on the history, Frank Hampton & co. and related memorabilia.
Next I went for a half in the Lamb Tavern and went past Russell Sq. Tube station: one of the fine old dark red tiled frontages from the early Twentieth century Piccadilly Line, like the disused Strand Station. [They were funded by the American financier Yerkes.]
I tried to find the Old Monk in Grays Inn Road but it wasn't in the southern section. I carried on roughly southwards past the London Silver Vaults to Chancery Lane. Some way down it I spotted an impressive-looking JD Wetherspoons, the Knights Templar, and went in. It was very ornate, with much in common with the Baker Street one: pillars, gilding and paintings on the ceiling, suggesting to me an old theatre or hotel or private bank. I had short-measure of Spitfire for 90p (half). There was a Woolwich cash machine inside, looking like a games machine. Upstairs there was a balcony and a smoking room.
Next I walked along Fleet Street. There are many historic features along the street and down the narrow alleys: for instance the old pubs the Old Bank of England and Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese; Samuel Johnson's house/museum.
At the eastern end of Fleet Street the ground rises at Ludgate Circus, the cross-roads with the old course of the Fleet. To the south is the approach to Blackfriars Bridge. Eastwards is Ludgate Hill, with the City Thameslink station on the southern side. I carried on past St Pauls Cathedral and took the Tube to Holborn, changing for Kings Cross. I missed a train by a minute and had a 30 minute wait.