Best and Worst Streets in Britain

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As voted for by listeners to Radio 4's Today programme:

Best - Grey Street, Newcastle
Second best - High Pavement, Nottingham

Worst - Streatham High Street, S. London
Second worst - Cornmarket, Oxford

Do you agree with their choices?

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 20 September 2002 06:51 (twenty-three years ago)

...or maybe you think your local high street should win one or other prize?

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 20 September 2002 06:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Worst: New Cross Road. This is mainly because a very bad thing happened there.

― rosemary (rosemary), Friday, 20 September 2002 07:00 (twenty-three years ago)

worst: coronation

― zebedee (Jeff W), Friday, 20 September 2002 07:47 (twenty-three years ago)

Best: "Weak Become Heroes"!

― Jeff W (Jeff W), Friday, 20 September 2002 07:47 (twenty-three years ago)

Was their a justification for Cornmarket St?

― Graham (graham), Friday, 20 September 2002 11:16 (twenty-three years ago)

yes Graham, it's basically two things; ineptitude and lack of imagination. The new paving that they've put down is cracking up and it's going to cost millions to replace it. Also, it is pretty characterless and still looks like a road without any traffic in it, rather than a proper pedestrianised area. Where are the flowerbeds or trees? Shouldn't there be some kind of focal point like a monument or fountain? There is a real imbalance in the kind of shops that have opened up there recently too. As soon as a property becomes vacant, its replacement is one of two things - a coffee shop or a mobile phone shop. Oxford has far too many of both.

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 20 September 2002 11:55 (twenty-three years ago)

Streatham High Road? What? Send 'em to Digbeth...

― Mr Swygart (mrswygart), Friday, 20 September 2002 12:58 (twenty-three years ago)

But it's indistinguishable from any shopping street anywhere in the known world. Maybe that's bad but I don't think it qualifies as "worst".

― Graham (graham), Friday, 20 September 2002 13:03 (twenty-three years ago)

My mother lives just off Streatham High Road and is always telling me how much she likes it. I don't like it myself, never have done. Too much traffic and too many louts.

― David (David), Friday, 20 September 2002 20:05 (twenty-three years ago)

did you nominate it as the worst, David?

― robin carmody (robin carmody), Saturday, 21 September 2002 00:33 (twenty-three years ago)

No, I didn't offer any nomination. It's no worse than a lot of other places. Like Wood Green High Road for example. It's the harshness I don't like. Grim faced people intent on buying standardised things. Kingsland High Street I also dislike but in a different way - the poverty and utter tattiness (as opposed to the lower-to-middle-market materialism of places like Streatham and Wood Green).

― David (David), Saturday, 21 September 2002 13:42 (twenty-three years ago)

have you read leadville? (about the western avenue?)

― gareth (gareth), Saturday, 21 September 2002 16:40 (twenty-three years ago)

No but I just googled it and it sounds interesting. There are similar boarded-up semis like that on the North Circular (somewhere between Falloden Way and Brent Cross) which have always fascinated me.

― David (David), Saturday, 21 September 2002 17:04 (twenty-three years ago)

it is an excellent book, it partially gave me the idea for the (rather dormant) Arndale Britain thing. i always put it on threads when people say "recommend me books!". its kind of like the opposite of Lights Out For The Territory, taking a totally different approach (and of course it is the other side of london). its very well done, and as it is about a part of london i'm not really that au fait with, it really conveyed it.

yes, the north circular has a large amount of derelict semis, i do wonder what the ones that are inhabited are actually worth (in fact, google, come here...i want you!)

― gareth (gareth), Saturday, 21 September 2002 17:09 (twenty-three years ago)

I live just off Streatham High Road and on a Monday morning on my way to the station I can always count on seeing three things - trails of blood, fried chicken remains (usually being picked at by pidgeons - eew) and mystery vom (the cider + black format is the most disturbing).

But, hey, it's home!

― Alfie (Alfie), Sunday, 22 September 2002 09:43 (twenty-three years ago)

The boarded up houses on the North Circular David mentions are because of road widening and underpass schemes that have never happened. There are even more boarded up houses on the section between Bounds Green Road and Green Lanes. There they even put up a new bridge with an extra span and knocked down some houses completely (leaving a grassy area) in preparation for a road scheme. This was done in 1968 and STILL nothing's happened!

― MarkH (MarkH), Monday, 23 September 2002 08:05 (twenty-three years ago)

Cornmarket I won't argue with (it has actually gotten worse post-pedestrianisation), especially when clogged up with useless Irish folk groups on a Saturday morning.

I live about ten minutes' walk from Streatham High Road and was surprised that only one junction there was described in the report as beyond belief, as I can think of at least two (the Leigham Court one and the St Leonard's Church one) which defy all rationality.

Streatham High Road - I just think of immense emptiness, the perception that this part of town remains what it originally was: a glorified staging post midway between London proper and Croydon. You can get anywhere by bus from it, but there is nothing actually in it. Objectively, no worse than, say, Clapton Road or Camberwell New Road or the Vale in Acton or - well anywhere really.

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 23 September 2002 09:25 (twenty-three years ago)

oi don't knock clapton road:

i. it comes in two parts, like a james brown 7"
ii. hackney community space centre

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 23 September 2002 09:27 (twenty-three years ago)

james brown 7"s are eminently knockable.

iii and iv we of course already know about hah (both now 70).

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 23 September 2002 09:49 (twenty-three years ago)

i have never seen derek live on the streets, though i have lived at most five streets away for nearly 20 years

lol i often see

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 23 September 2002 09:53 (twenty-three years ago)

things about clapton road:

where the lea bridge road peels off is strangely beautiful, i've said before i think, it feels like its clinging onto the side of london and that the lea bridge is heading off into some mystical unknown. also, carrying on north to stamford hill, where it becomes clapton common is so dark and unlit, the utilitarian blocks casting shadow, the trees complicit, only light again at SH broadway...

― gareth (gareth), Monday, 23 September 2002 09:55 (twenty-three years ago)

Come to think of it, we never see Chris T-T on the boards these days.

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 23 September 2002 10:05 (twenty-three years ago)

Gareth, I know what you mean about Upper Clapton and Lea Bridge. I think it's something to do with tangible geographical features (hills and a river in a clearly identifiable valley) giving you a sense of physical orientation with a landscape. I like it that there's a 'Summit Estate' at the highest point on Clapton Common. I also like the way the streets slope steeply down to the banks of the river (almost feels like the seaside). In many parts of London you lose that sense of being on the surface of the earth. There's no horizon and you orient yourself solely in relation to man-made structures -roads and buildings.

― David (David), Monday, 23 September 2002 10:44 (twenty-three years ago)

yes it's weird, i live at the top of one hill and work at the top of another, but have no sense whatever of travelling down or up every day

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 23 September 2002 10:47 (twenty-three years ago)

cor blimey Mark I do, puff pant useless 417 buses ahem! Leigham Court Road is a steep old climb.

Then again, right at the top of LCR you reach Crown Point with a grandstand view of London. You could imagine jumping into it and never landing.

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 23 September 2002 11:10 (twenty-three years ago)

bus routes in the 4xx series were confined to the Country Area in my day.

― MarkH (MarkH), Monday, 23 September 2002 13:58 (twenty-three years ago)

Chris left because he got too busy doing, like, pop star stuff. Hooray for him but alas for us. He did so shortly before releasing that Proclaimers cover as a single, perhaps he sensed that I would shout at him for getting it in my head for weeks (but then I am used to that since T at uni would often play the original repeatedly when drunk).

Worse than before pedestrianisation: yes, definitely, and ugly and laughably badly paved and symbolic of the disastrous traffic scheme and all the rest, but I can think of two worse streets turning off it, and that's just on the east side (erm, yo, fo shizzy etc). These people should try to use the piss-drenched phone box on Market St at 9pm while the stench of rotting fish and blood drained from butchers' vans into the puddles hangs in the air and scary people throw up right outside the phonebox. Well, they shouldn't, I hope never to do so again.

― Rebecca (reb), Monday, 23 September 2002 14:08 (twenty-three years ago)

Rebecca speaks the truth.

And don't get me started on Park End Street...

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 23 September 2002 14:11 (twenty-three years ago)

Dear God. I've lived off Crown Point for 19 years, and I never dreamed it'd get a mention on the internet, anywhere, ever...

And what bit of London is there a grandstand view of, exactly? Does Knights Hill not get in the way?

― Mr Swygart (mrswygart), Monday, 23 September 2002 14:57 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh, and is Chris TT not touring with Divine Comedy and Ben Folds or something?

― Mr Swygart (mrswygart), Monday, 23 September 2002 15:03 (twenty-three years ago)

Crown Point is at the top of Knights Hill. The view includes central London - St. Paul's, P.O. Tower etc. and extends to the hills of Hampstead/Highgate etc. (maybe even further, it's a while since I've been there).

― David (David), Monday, 23 September 2002 15:45 (twenty-three years ago)

Hmm - I know where it is, having run down there to get the bus many, many times... But I'm sure the trees and the estate on the right and the whole newsagents/Chinese/petrol station complex on the left would block the view. Most of the time I go down Crown Point to get the bread, tho. not much time to admire the view...

― Mr Swygart (mrswygart), Monday, 23 September 2002 15:56 (twenty-three years ago)

the way the lea bridge road just peels off to nowhere...it ends here

― gareth (gareth), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 12:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i want to go there

― gareth (gareth), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 12:01 (twenty-three years ago)

I've been there. Here is worth visiting as well.

― David (David), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 12:19 (twenty-three years ago)

eleven months pass...

I'm partial to Neal Streat, home to the Super Lovers shop.

― Mary (Mary), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 04:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Best: Hope Street, Liverpool. Two Cathedrals, a Concert Hall, the best restaurant in the North West and the best pub IN THE WORLD, plus a pretty good theatre and bistro which will serve me bottles of wine at silly o clock.

Worst: Mathew St, Liverpool *starts shuddering*

― Matt (Matt), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 08:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Worst: Market Way, Portsmouth. Nothing but the now-derelict Tricorn.

― robster (robster), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 09:04 (twenty-two years ago)

hey hey! hope street is absolutely beautiful.
apparently prince of wales road in norwich is the most viloent street in east anglia. and i actually believe it coz i feel more in danger of running afoul of some ben sherman-wearing, loafer-sporting inbred cockfarmer whenever i walk down it to see my dad than i ever did on lodge lane in toxteth, coldharbour lane or anywhere on lower clapton...

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 09:14 (twenty-two years ago)

i think Oxford St is my worst lately

― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 11:22 (twenty-two years ago)

I think Dave has a point here. I've always felt far more likely to run into trouble on popular night out streets (cf Mathew St, also Lord St Southport) than I have ever felt wandering round less salubrious areas.

― Matt (Matt), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 11:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Rob, what's happening about the Tricorn? It should be cherished but it's no good preserving these places if they're allowed to fester and fall down.

Also, do you know what happened to Proles For Modernism?

― Tim (Tim), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 11:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Hi Tim. The local paper has averaged around one or two TRICORN TO BE DEMOLISHED stories per year for the past ten years. Other than that, nothing. Personally, I'm pro-demolition but something, anything needs to be done. The city centre really suffers because of the Council's complete lack of imagination and action.

Unfortunately, any cash that might have been put to good use in the area has been sunk into the Gunwharf development and the Spinnaker Tower.

Don't know what happened to Proles For Modernism. Their site doesn't look to have been updated recently.

― robster (robster), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 12:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I love the Tricorn Centre, it's my fave building in Portsmouth by a street. What's happened to it is a disgrace.

― Tim (Tim), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 12:26 (twenty-two years ago)

When it was still in use, it had a grebt comic shop and Charlotte's superstore roxxored.

― robster (robster), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 12:48 (twenty-two years ago)

I bought some good records in there over the years too.

― Tim (Tim), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 13:02 (twenty-two years ago)

two years pass...

what happened with the widening of the western avenue? are the houses that underwent compulsory purchase, still there? i should reread leadville, and go have a look

― charltonlido (gareth), Sunday, 18 December 2005 15:48 (nineteen years ago)

also, a number of the houses on the north circular are derelict, with their neighbours seemingly in permanent danger of joining them. i wonder what the price differential is, for buying one of those semis (golders green and neasden seem to the places worst affected, though i rarely see the north circular east of palmers green, these days)

― charltonlido (gareth), Sunday, 18 December 2005 16:12 (nineteen years ago)

i was wondering about that as well last time we went out to wembley market.

― lauren (laurenp), Sunday, 18 December 2005 16:14 (nineteen years ago)

i love this thread! all these mysterious places i've never seen. and who is the equally mysterious would-be pop star "chris t t"?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 19 December 2005 04:49 (nineteen years ago)

gareth, why did you take lauren to wembley market?

― [jailhouse tattoo] (nordicskilla), Monday, 19 December 2005 06:03 (nineteen years ago)

Oh for gods sake, there are FAR worse places in the country than Streatham High Street. It's the longest high street in the country, it can't all be bad! I mean, the very NAME of the village means Village With The Street. I am proud of our high street.

― Kate Classic (kate), Monday, 19 December 2005 13:14 (nineteen years ago)

FAR worse places in the country than Streatham High Street.

Yeh, cornmarket street is one of them.

And Chris TT is brill.

― Come Back Johnny B (Johnney B), Monday, 19 December 2005 14:26 (nineteen years ago)

gareth didn't take me to wembley market. my friends go every few months and sometimes i tag along. it's kind of horrible but also kind of fantastic.

― lauren (laurenp), Monday, 19 December 2005 15:15 (nineteen years ago)

>> also, a number of the houses on the north circular are derelict, with their neighbours seemingly in permanent danger of joining them. i wonder what the price differential is, for buying one of those semis (golders green and neasden seem to the places worst affected, though i rarely see the north circular east of palmers green, these days)

― Colonel Poo (Colonel Poo), Monday, 19 December 2005 19:41 (nineteen years ago)

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