The Evening Standard may have leaked this a day or two early as the LT Museum booking office hasn’t had the full details confirmed yet – but there will be guided tours of the disused Aldwych tube station later this month running from 24th-26th September.

Absolutely no more information is known yet, so don’t bombard the LT Museum for details. As soon as the details are finalised, they will put it on their website, and my auto-tracking systems will alert me to update this blog post.

Nonetheless, the chance to get down into the bowels of this iconic station is one not to be missed – even though I have actually been down there once before.

More photos to wet your appetite.

I wonder if they read my previous blog post about tours of the disused station and will include the tunnels as well *grins*.

The ticket office floor of the station was opened to the public recently, for the Transforming the Tube exhibition.

If you haven’t entered the ballot for tickets to go to the top of the BT Tower for Open House London, then you should be sending that email off sharpish.

Applications to be sent to bt-tower@open-city.org.uk.

Ballot closes Mon 13th Sept 5pm. Max 2 tickets per booking. Give full names, addresses, email, telephone of all attendees in application.

However…

There is another way to get into that desirable tower.

You could win a place on an Open House architectural tour in a vintage Routemaster bus, kicking off with a tour of BT Tower, and taking in other Open House buildings, with commentary by Royal College of Art tutor and bus driver Joe Kerr.

Places are limited so to be in with a chance to win a place on this half day tour on the Sunday afternoon, answer this: In what year was the Routemaster launched?

Answers to bustour@open-city.org.uk by Fri 4 Sept 6pm.

Frustratingly, there seems to be two dates that might qualify as the answer, depending on how specific you are being – erk!

As mentioned earlier this week, today a collection of buses plied their trade around North London offering free rides to anyone after a dose of nostalgia.

Although there were routemasters taking people from central London to the area, I decided to take a ride from Edgware to the RAF museum in a single-decker bus.

Once at Edgware, there was a little difficulty in finding a local bus stop map to locate “Stop A” where the bus would pick us up from though – and I could see quite a few other people wandering round with event guides and looking a bit lost.

Incidentally, another reason not to trust the bus maps is that someone decided to put up a map of local shops selling bus tickets – but evidently didn’t understand that Edgware Station in Edgware is not at all close to Edgware Road Station in central London.

Anyhow, two vintage buses arrived one after the other, and after one person tried to get on thinking it was a normal bus, the rest of us were able to embark for a more interesting trip to the museum.

Like all bad school kids, I chose to sit at the back of the bus.

Fortunately, this was a swift route without the tedious stopping every few minutes at bus stops and we made our way over to the RAF Museum which was acting as the hub for most of the bus routes.

Another nice change was the lack of smell of McDonalds or the sound of mobile phones being used as portable jukeboxes by idiots who think everyone shares their taste in music. The seats were also spotlessly clean.

However, as with many vintage events, the greatest pleasure comes from sitting on the bus (or train etc) and seeing the looks of surprise in the bystanders. This time it seemed that the children delivered the greatest smiles along the route, although the occasional adult seemed to realise bus was a bit different and looked up in surprise.

I really should try saving the pennies for a trip on one of the steam trains that travel around London and see if that has the same “bystander effect”.

At the RAF Museum, the buses were turning around their routes and some were stopping for a while as the drivers nipped off to use the loo and drink coffee.

The day was organised by Red-RF, who seem to do these events every few years.

A few more photos over at my usual Flickr account

For medical reasons, I am required to visit a hospital for prodding and poking every few months, and the clinic I visit was recently moved from Barts in the City to the Royal London Hospital in the distinctly non-regal Whitechapel.

However, on almost every visit I keep meaning to stick my nose in the museum the hospital is reputed to have, but being distracted by medical matters I keep forgetting. It was therefore slightly bizarre to make a specific trip to the hospital yesterday, not to see a doctor, but to see this fabled museum.

Going in through the main entrance, there is a big directions sign pointing out where everything is – but no sign of a museum. Fortunately, the reception could guide me down the corridor, over the courtyard, across the road and it is in the church outside. The church that incidentally I had walked past on my way to the hospital.

In the courtyard, there is a statue of Queen Alexandra and thinking it looked rather impressive I decided to take a photo of it in the empty courtyard. Opps! Out darted a matronly looking nurse berating me for taking a photo without a permit from the press office.

I might take photos of patients she explained, as I looked around the empty courtyard for the patients of whom the privacy I was so wantonly invading.

Now, I perfectly understand a restriction on deliberately taking photos of patients, but in a hospital where I can guarantee that hundreds of camera phone photos are taken every single day by doting relatives visiting patients, to huff and puff about someone taking a photo of an empty courtyard is rather irritating.

As instructed, an email has been sent to the press office for permission to take a photo.

In the meantime, have a look at some photos of the statue that other people took.

Pettifogging over – I continued to the museum, which is round the back of the church and not at all accessed through the large doorway indicating the library and archives. Nope, its the next smaller doorway along.

Down the slope and opening the solid looking wooden door and an electric bing-bong heralds the arrival of another visitor into the museum.

Considering the lack of signage in the hospital about the museum I wasn’t expecting that much to be honest, but was pleasantly surprised at the size of the place. Roughly horseshoe shaped, the museum is lined with large glass cases packed full of mementos from the hospital’s long history, which can be dated back as far as 1740.

Past the original royal charter and the small group watching the now ubiquitous video screen explaining the history of the museum for those less inclined to read the display boards and I was into the museum proper.

Here is the sort of museum I love, lots of glass cases full of things to look at, each with a letter code and a key explaining what they are. Some of the cases are generic medical history and a few are devoted to specific people who are famously linked to the hospital.

Whether you are interested in the story of the nurse, Edith Cavell, the Elephant Man or Jack the Ripper, there is ample here to sate your curiosity.

Of considerable interest to me are the three representations of the Whitchapel Mount, which was a huge mound of earth that can possibly be linked to Saxon times, and was almost certainly part of the English Civil War defences of the city. I had see one of the drawings before, but the other two were new to me.

The museum is free to enter apart from the donations tin by the door. I was probably in there for about half an hour, although the more diligent visitor can easily spend an hour or more if they want. I will probably dip in every few months on my regular visits to the hospital to look at things in more detail.

The Museum is sadly not open at weekends though – being just Tuesday to Friday, 10am-4.30pm, but is certainly worth a visit if you have a day off work.

Unsurprisingly, the Diamond Geezer has been there already.

Fancy a trip on a vintage red bus?

Then you are in luck as this coming Sunday(29th August), a collection of vintage buses, all at least 45 years old will be plying the very same routes that they would have travelled along in the 1960s and collecting passengers as usual. However, unlike those days of old, there will be no need to hunt out old shillings and pennies as the whole event is free of charge.

Most of the buses line up before a previous run-out

In addition to local services running around North London, some long journeys will operate on routes from central London in the morning. These will generally be Routemaster-operated. Details here

In total, nine routes are being recreated based on the layout of the bus routes in the 1960s – taking passengers to the RAF Museum in Collindale – which is also free to enter and can easily suck away hours of time if you haven’t been before.

There will be a commemorative guide to the event which will be on sale in the RAF Museum. In addition, there will be a limited static display of buses on the forecourt of the RAF Museum, including buses laying over between services.

The following services are planned for operation, generally between about 10.30 am and 5 pm.

Most buses will start and finish their duties at the RAF Museum.  For the other main boarding points on each route, see the route details and the programme.

The most frequently served places will be the following:

All vehicles are over 45 years old, some over 60. They are privately owned and cared for so there is an understandable ban on food/drink when on the buses.