Terminus Treasures: new study reveals best day out at the end of tube lines

A company claims to have found the best things to do at the ends of the railways in London. Spoiler – they haven’t.

Companies sometimes issue these statements based on an intern doing some thin research and they put it out hoping to garner some pr coverage. Whenever you read the results of a survey in the news, check if it’s a survey by a legitimate survey firm or maybe someone pumping out dubious statistics to get some cheap publicity.

Normally I just bin them, but this one was so riddled with mistakes that it would almost be quicker to list what they got right.

So for your amusement, according to them, a list of the best things to do at the end of London’s railways…

First, for the Bakerloo line, start with a simple error as they suggest Salty Yoga in Elephant and Castle, an organisation that simply clicking on the link in their recommendation will show is now called Heated Yoga.

According to them, the Central line was once nicknamed “the tube”, when it was actually nicknamed the Twopenny Tube, because of the prices charged for a trip. They recommend the Musical Museum as a place to visit if arriving at Ealing Broadway, which is nearly an hour’s walk from the station. They’re on firmer ground suggesting Epping Forest for the other end of the line, although any local will tell you that Loughton and Chingford stations are far closer to the woods than Epping is.

On the Circle line, they note that it now terminates at “Edgeware Road” instead of Edgware Road, and at Edgeware Road (sic), there’s another spa to try out. They mention yoga spas a lot.

On the District line, they recommend the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum at Wimbledon station – when anyone who uses the District line to get to the tennis knows that you get off at Southfields instead.

They think the Hammersmith & City line is the newest on the Underground and was created in 2009 — it was part of the Met line and renamed the H&C in 1990. They mention that at Hammersmith, the best entertainment is a comedy club hosted in a local restaurant, which is so good it was suggested as a good place to visit for the end of the Circle line as well. I guess Hammersmith, with its theatres and historic homes is not that interesting after all.

On the Metropolitan line, they recommend a church in Uxbridge, ignoring the amazing Battle of Britain Bunker a short walk away.

On the Northern line — which we are told is otherwise known as the “black line”, they suggest the RAF Museum in Mill Hill East. Which would involve a rather convoluted and very lengthy walk. The museum, wisely, recommends the considerably closer Colindale station.

The Jubilee line we are told is the newest line on the Underground, a title also accorded to the Hammersmith and City line just a few paragraphs earlier in their press release. At Stratford, they recommend a roof bar on top of the old shopping centre, ignoring the Olympic Park entirely.

On to the Piccadilly line, where an escape room venue is recommended for people visiting Heathrow Airport. It’s 3.5 miles from Terminal 4, or about 10 minutes walk from Upper Halliford station on the mainline railway.

On the Victoria line, up at Walthamstow, with two good museums and Gods Own Junkyard to choose from, and yes, it’s more yoga spas.

The Waterloo and City line gets Alice’s Underground Adventures as a recommendation for Waterloo – a venue that closed in 2017. And for Bank, a desert of culture it seems as they recommend looking at a war memorial.

And finally, for the DLR, they seem to have moved Brick Lane Music Hall from next to London City Aport to the other side of the Thames at Woolwich Arsenal, while Tower Gateway, sitting next to Tower Bridge and the Tower of London apparently lacks anything more interesting to visit than a Silent Disco.

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Oh dear.