#strike walk

Career of Evil

Hastings Road to ???

Part One

Any lingering hope that no-one would die horribly in Career of Evil disappears as the opening line announces, "He had not managed to scrub off all her blood." We hear the thoughts of a madman who leans against a wall in Hastings Road, Ealing, observing a house opposite.

In due course Robin Ellacott and Matthew Cunliffe emerge from the house and the madman follows them. And this Strike Walk follows him.

I couldn't find a candidate for Robin and Matt's flat, which should've had

... a small front garden, black railings and a lawn in need of mowing. Two white front doors had been crammed together side by side, showing that the three-storey building has been converted into upper and lower flats ...

There were houses with railings -

and one house with a lawn (this lawn doesn't count as it'll never need mowing) -

but no doors crammed side by side, not even once. Nevertheless, out of the right-hand door they come and

... walk up the street side-by-side ...

which is quite difficult on these narrow pavements, unless you're feeling very friendly which we know isn't the case because Robin loves Strike the madman observes

... a slight reserve between the couple ...

We don't know which way Robin and Matt turn, left or right, but the options are east towards Ealing Broadway station or west towards West Ealing station.

We only know

... At the end of the street the pair ahead turned left into a wide, busy thoroughfare lined with offices ...

and apparently without taking any other turns they pass the Ealing Council building.

That doesn't happen if you turn left at the West Ealing end, where it's still mostly residential -

and if you turn left at the Ealing Broadway end you're heading out of Ealing to the north towards Perivale. So I think we missed a turn somewhere, and it's really right at the Ealing Broadway end of Hastings Road into St Leonard's Road (which is quite officey)

and left into Uxbridge Road, which does bring us to the borough council building -

Quite a brutalist contrast to the town council which is next door -

Nice to have all schools of architecture represented! 😁

Part Two is here:

(2/2)

Part 1 is here

The Crow's Nest

"The Crow’s Nest stood where Ferry and Stanley Roads met and formed a hairpin bend: a large, drum-shaped building of red brick."

It was a cracking little pub when I was here in 2023 and it's still there, being cracking. If my dad was here he'd have a word with them about their pointing, but no major concerns.

2023:

2025:

The Vickerstown Bakery

" 'She’ll be at work noo,' said the neighbor, checking her watch. 'Bak’ry awwer in Vickerstown ... ' "

In 2023 the bakery had moved to new premises about 100 yards away and it is still there, the pies are still tasty according to my expert researchers. The old bakery building was occupied by a beauty business called Beautique which, from its FB page, specialised in making women slightly more orange than they strictly needed to be. The shop looks closed and the building is for sale, and Beautique seems behind with filing their paperwork, so may be no more.

2023:

2025:

BAE Systems

"Ahead, a gigantic cream building with the name BAE SYSTEMS on it blocked any view of the seafront. The edifice was windowless and seemed to stretch a mile across, blank, faceless, intimidating."

I was very disappointed not to get authentically ticked off for taking photos of BAE Systems in 2023. Nobody ticked me off this time either but that was OK because I really didn't want to get arrested in case Shrewsbury Town scored a goal*. Nothing seems to have changed. All the same questions remain. Why does it need to be that big when submarines aren't that big? How nuclear is nuclear? Why isn't there a tour? etc, etc.

*We didn't score a goal.

2023:

2025:

Whitechapel to Aldgate East 

(This is Part Three, more to come).

Distracted by a tsunami of memories, Strike turns right into Whitechapel Road and walks westwards, towards the City of London.

He passes a snooker hall, and presumably so did I, but I didn't notice so have pinched this picture -

and the bell foundry, which is in a sad state and swathed in stuff. I was peering under a barrier trying to see what they are up to, when a builder came out for a fag break and told me the large area to the rear - previously a yard I think - is going to be a hotel. And the historic bell foundry buildings are going to be the entrance. 😬

Strike's leg starts to suffer, but "The Nag’s Head pub rose up on the right as though he had conjured it, squat, square and brick." 

Sadly it's a lap-dancing club and his clients are cancelling, so he walks on. It looks like lap-dancing hasn't been working out too well as the venue is now shut. 😁

However it might be opening again, with its exploitation and overpriced beer. 😮‍💨

We've already passed Starbucks, so a little license is needed for Strike to continue walking and find it. It's a Starbucks like any other -

"The squashy earth-colored sofas, the tall cups of American froth, the wholesome young people working with quiet efficiency behind a clean glass counter ..."

except the loo was awful. The loo needs attention. It was not in the least wholesome. 🤢

Part Four:

Whitechapel to Aldgate East 

(This is Part One, link to Part Two at the end).

In Career of Evil, chapter 10, Strike heads to a rendezvous with Shanker at Whitechapel. Arriving at the tube station, he gets a message from Shanker cancelling their meeting and leans up against the yellow brick wall beside the entrance to call him back.

This is the present entrance to Whitechapel station and there's a yellow brick wall to lean on. However, Strike's description of the view -

... a kind of concrete forecourt surrounded by the backs of buildings. The Gherkin, that giant black bullet of a building, glinted on the distant horizon ...

doesn't match. This entrance to points towards the rather handsome Tower Hamlets Town Hall, and not the back of anything, and The Gherkin isn't visible.

It's more likely that Strike is perched at a back or side entrance that no longer exists, because the station has been greatly altered to accommodate Crossrail, the Elizabeth line, etc. This is the present day back entrance.

Assuming that to be the case, Strike would have turned left into Durwood Street and passed this lovely old school building (now converted into flats selling for half a million) just a few paces from where the body of Mary Ann Nichols was found in 1888, not inappropriate for a book about a serial killer.

You can see The Gherkin from here, just about.

This route would take him past Castlemain Street, where Strike recalls a fellow A-level student lived, and over a metal bridge into Fulbourne Street.

Part Two

St Nicholas's Church to Albury Street

This is Part Two, link to Part One below.

Robin is brought back to the present by a call from Strike and they discuss Billy Knight's visit to the Agency's offices in Denmark Street. A dog arrives and makes Robin jump.

This dog wouldn't oblige. Must pack dog biscuits next time. 🐕

She ends the call and her ice-cream and leaves the church, going out the way she came in and missing these finials at the other gate, which are also unusual. I am guessing that these golden balls are a reminder that St Nicholas is the patron saint of pawnbrokers.

Now, she could get home in about two minutes flat by going down McMillan Street and accessing Albury Street at the end inaccessible to cars, which is almost opposite (about where the red car is in this photo).

The backs of the Albury Street hoses are clearly visible here.

But this being JKR we employ a bit of geographic licence and make her walk a few yards down the A200 and turn left at this junction into Deptford High Street ...

... which takes Robin past The White Swan, described as a pub in Lethal White, but now a Vietnamese restaurant ...

... where she passes the carved white swan without even thinking about it or "her calamitous wedding day" - perhaps due to her happiness at not having to go back to the Villiers Clinic, or for "some other reason".

And left shortly after into Albury Street with its pretty cottages and cherubs. Short and sweet! 😁

Whitechapel to Aldgate East 

(This is Part Two, link to Part Three at the end).

Strike, not knowing why he's doing this to himself, arrives in Fulbourne Street, his past attempts to forget the shabby street meaning it "took him a minute or two to identify the door of what had once been the squat, because he had forgotten the number".

The brass letter box gives it away.

(This was the only brass one I could find, so I am declaring it the winner. Other letterboxes may have been available, back in the day. 😁)

As Strike himself says, "everything was impermanent in the poor areas of London, where fragile, fair-weather businesses grew up and faded away and were replaced: cheap signage tacked up and removed; people passing through, passing away" so I doubt any of these businesses are the same as when JKR came to research. There is still a clothing shop, but it doesn't sell western clothes as far as I can tell.

Left side, from Whitechapel Road, brass letterbox and clothes shop.

Right side from Whitechapel Road, no brass letterboxes.

Angry at himself, Strike strides away into Whitechapel Road. Why he doesn't just go back to the station, is anyone's guess, but unhappy people are not always wise, and he wanders on, full of bitter memories.

It's not that I have no bitter memories but who wants to contemplate that stuff on a Strike Day? So, quite cheerfully and totally inauthentically, I did a few Fulbourne - station - Durwood circuits to soak in the atmosphere. There's a vibrant market on Whitechapel Road, just by the station -

and an interesting memorial to Edward VII, erected using subscriptions raised by the Jewish inhabitants of East London in 1911. Beautiful bronzes. The council, in its wisdom, has plonked a rubbish bin hard by it.

If you were about to ask, the answer is yes, all my photos are about 5° off the vertical. Nothing I can do about it, have tried. 😁

Part Three:

All around Barrow-in-Furness

Career of Evil chapters 24-27

This is Part Five, there's a link to earlier parts at the end.

Although they can see her through the glass door of The Bakery, Strike and Robin decide not to try to speak to Holly Brockbank at her place of work, but to try and catch her later at the pub. Strike mourns the pie he could have bought was it not for Labor Omnia Vincit, but I'm on holiday so I had a nice chat with the owner in her new premises and bought a meat and potato.

Strike follows Holly while Robin drives to a deserted stretch of road by a marshy wasteland (take your pick) changes out of her jeans and acquires some fake business cards at an unspecified shopping centre.

They meet at The Crow's Nest - "a large, drum-shaped building of red brick" which stands "where Ferry and Stanley Roads met and formed a hairpin bend".

Robin goes in as Venetia Hall and, as we know, aces it. I was a bit nervous of going in because it looked like a locals place, but it was the nicest pub and the best pint of lager I have had in years. If you're on your own take some cash though because there's a minumum spend on a card. I had to buy two packets of crisps and a Starbar.

After the triumph Strike and Robin celebrate with fish and chips from the Olympic Takeaway, eaten in the Landy. The Olympic's "bright windows intensified the surrounding darkness."

After being serenaded by old Barrovians (no-one serenaded me, sadly) they check into the Travelodge, where they are placed upstairs, five rooms apart.

Robin, unsettled and self-conscious, opens her window, and notes that the view is of the same industrial warehouses they passed at the start of their visit. I don't know how she'd see that in the dark - I had to wait until the morning after to see anything.

Footnote: there's no restaurant at the Barrow-in-Furness Travelodge, so Strike can't have filched pastries and Robin can't have filled their flask from the urn in the morning. Personally I feel they shouldn't give planning permission to budget hotels with no breakfast buffet. 😁

That's the end of Strike Walk #4, thanks for reading!

Go back to Part 4

Go back to the beginning:

All around Barrow-in-Furness

Career of Evil chapters 24-27

This is really several Strike Walks and Strike and Robin didn't walk it, they drove around in the Land Rover (and my feet hurt) but I may never go to Barrow again, so I wanted to make the most of it. Might take me a while to get it all written up.

In Career of Evil, Robin drives Strike to Barrow in search of Noel Brockbank, a suspect. I think they enter the town on the A590, and I am starting on that road by the Costa Coffee.

The road takes S&R through an "unlovely industrial estate, the road flanked by warehouses and factories."

They pass "a battered side entrance to Craven Park, home of the Barrow Raiders" (local rugby team) and the place reminds Strike of "a gigantic out-of-town retail centre" ... which it sort of is.

Things look up when they turn left at a roundabout and pass an "art deco customs house" that had been "turned into a restaurant." The custom house is still there, looking like it's had several reincarnations before being repossessed by the freeholder last year. Currently empty.

They also go past a Victorian technical college, so must turn left into Abbey Road here ...

... and go over this junction (whee're thoo, plinth dude? I risked life and limb getting onto your roundabout and still couldn't read your inscription).

The Victorian technical college is now The Nan Tait Centre, named for the Mayor of Barrow (1959-60). Pretty good going getting a multifunctional council building named after you after such a short term - my curiosity is piqued.

It's a stunner.

I see the Barrow Male Voice Choir are based here and I hope they sing Song of the Western Men occasionally.

There are other fine buildings along this stretch, sadly some of them in poor condition, but on the plus side that includes the Conservative Association (I AM JOKING). Let's hope Barrow is on the up and some of them get rescued, it could be such an imposing place.

End of Part One

Part Two is here