Tescos has destroyed Orpington High Street, which got a mention in the Daily Mail recently. How they didn't see that coming I'll never know. I think Thresher's closed down whilst they were still building it!
Orpington High Street must be the best place around for a choice of restaurants. Looks more alive down there than I'd ever known it.
I think Petts Wood has a better choice only a mile up the road. I would agree with FoD, Tescos put the final nail in the coffin for the high street, also M&S leaving did no favors.
I think Petts Wood has 4 Indians now?
5, a new in petts wood road, opened this. Its expensive, the guy behind it has been on Saturday Kitchen (if that is any guide to being good)
Everywhere in Scotland apart from Glasgow. The whole country seems to be constructed of prefabricated concrete slabs and/or is peebledashed and painted battleship grey. I mean Edinburgh, what a hole. They couldn't even be bothered to put shops on one side of the high street.
Have just flicked through this but was surprised to see Bedford so unpopular. Spent last weekend their with relatives and enjoyed walks along river, some good food and beer and watchng some boat racing. Compared to Doncaster it seemed bloody lovely - por old Donny with its three prisons, with prisoners often stopping after they leave, ruined town centre and high incidence of STI's must be one of the crappest towns. Dewsbury however beats it hands down!
Shoreditch, Camden, Clapham, Brighton and all the other hipster shitholes. It hurts me not only mentally but physically to go into those places. my stomach turns at the sight of those flip flop wearing, "alternative" thinking, rekorderlig swigging red jeaned opinionated "culturally enlightened" jumped up little tossers.
Well said! I think I mentioned Shoreditch earlier on the thread. The type of people who have ruined festivals and go out in vests
the caves that we used to go into not sure if there were anymore
were underneath st peters school you used to access them from Anglesea rd behind the old wooded bit and all the way the edge of the school grounds in the far corner was a crack and you used to be able to go inside and into the caves
Ah thanks nla - I just remember my old father in law who was from Plumstead talking about caves and how people sheltered in them during the war, but he was unsure exactly where they were.
Tescos has destroyed Orpington High Street, which got a mention in the Daily Mail recently. How they didn't see that coming I'll never know. I think Thresher's closed down whilst they were still building it!
Orpington High Street must be the best place around for a choice of restaurants. Looks more alive down there than I'd ever known it.
I think Petts Wood has a better choice only a mile up the road. I would agree with FoD, Tescos put the final nail in the coffin for the high street, also M&S leaving did no favors.
I think Petts Wood has 4 Indians now?
5, a new in petts wood road, opened this. Its expensive, the guy behind it has been on Saturday Kitchen (if that is any guide to being good)
Is that the Michelin starred chef? Very pricey.
Yes, he is behind it but he doesn't do the chefing there
I'll have to admit to the latter kentaddick I'm afraid.
Anyhoo, Scarborough. I love the place tbf, have so many memories of long days out there with mates in my teens, trying to pull down the front and wasting my money in the arcades. Have to say it's in desperate need of a facelift now. It's a Mecca for methadone heads and dead-eyed teen mums bereft of hope and ambition.
I walked across the vast Becontree Estate to get to the Daggers ground last week. It was an ambitious LCC scheme of 24,000 houses built in the 1920s and 30s on Essex agricultural land. They are mostly red-brown brick short terraces, with tiled roofs. Sadly, any satisfaction in uniformity has been lost in a melange of replacement windows, satellite dishes the size of Jodrell Bank, front gardens concreted over for cars, and opportunistic infilling: Bragg Close is bound to be a homage to Billy, who hails from Barking. Even the trees are wrong: densely foliated planes on the main thoroughfares that suck the light out of the street. In a tired parade of shops the Seahorse Fish Bar had a blackboard outside with the scrawled message: 'Special Today - Small Cod & Chips'.
This. Absolutely this. Living in Reigate, they're only two miles apart in distance, but light years apart in class. The absolute scum around the station and town centre have to be seen to be believed.
I scanned this thread looking for Redhill. Went to school there. It's gone backwards over the years to the extent that when I visited last week, I took a walk around in a state of awe at how scummy it has become. Last time I was there was when I was looking for my stolen property. Plenty of shops willing to sell it on.
Looking to buy in Reigate, but flatly refuse to go anywhere near the Redhill border, even if it saves heaps of cash!!
Used to work in Reigate at a firm that had relocated from it's "historical" office in Redhill simply because of the downturn in the quality of the population.
Being a South London lad and given the utter snobbishness of native Reigatians I treated this attitude with the contempt I thought it deserved until I had to go to a client meeting in the aforementioned Redhill.
There is massive snobbery in Reigate, 'tis true. Often unfounded. But I've schooled, lived and worked in Redhill over the years, and frankly, give me a wax jacket and call me Percy if it means living next to the Priory and not the Cromwell estate!
I don't know as much as maybe I should about the history of the area, but Redhill is on the London-to-Brighton line, whereas Reigate is set apart somewhat, tied closer to Dorking and Leatherhead. I've always assumed the divide is something to do with that. I'd be interested to know more really. As long as I don't have to go to the Harlequin library to find out.
The only problem with Reigate is that its so bloody expensive. I can't afford to buy there, so will unfortunately have to move when my divorce is finalised and I look at purchasing a place. Earlswood is ok - but dangerously close to Redhill, so will probably move to Shortlands or Beckenham. Belmont and Banstead are also really nice - but again, close to an abject shithole (Sutton). I can't really move any further out - Reigate is about the limit of drunkenscramblehomeability.
Apparently, it was only about 20 years ago that Redhill wasn't that bad. Must have been some kind of slum clearance done in the nineties.
the caves that we used to go into not sure if there were anymore
were underneath st peters school you used to access them from Anglesea rd behind the old wooded bit and all the way the edge of the school grounds in the far corner was a crack and you used to be able to go inside and into the caves
Ah thanks nla - I just remember my old father in law who was from Plumstead talking about caves and how people sheltered in them during the war, but he was unsure exactly where they were.
that's ok mate there were 3 caves once you got inside the entrance , 1 of them you would have to have been a real skinny fecka to get into , when I was 10 I was a skinny arse but I couldn't get into that one it seemed as though it had been blocked up , the other 2 were very wide and went a fair way down and back , but you always felt the closed one went somewhere you wernt ever meant to go to as a kid it was the entrance to the devils home , but it was more likely it was too dangerous
they wernt like Chislehurst caves they were lower and for a long way into them you had to duck down until kit opened up at the end,
Chatham has some really nice parts no two ways about that but whoever said the entire cast, audience and extras from Jeremy Kyle inhabit the high street was absolutely bang on, fucking horrible place. Its strange because it is a real commuter hive and places like that tend to pick up a bit of culture but I think the people who earn semi serious money live on st Marys island (a nuclear waste dump and home to about 250, 000 french prisoners of war corpses in an as yet undiscovered mass grave. I like to think I live in a nice bit and compared to a huge swathe of Gillingham I do.
Orpington high street is very good for restaurants, shit for pubs and shops though. Eltham, welling, Gravesend, Dartford, Grays, Basildon, Dagenham all fall in similar brackets of disrepair but they all are near to out of town developments that have swallowed the councils planning budget for infrastructure.
Maidstone is overrated, great night out but pretty dull the rest of the time. Nightmare to get to London from and horrifically overpriced. But not a crap town.
Sheerness however, good god.
Sittingbourne has some nice places to live where new builds have gone up but far too close to Ashford and sheppey for my liking
Moved from Charlton (the Royal Standard end) when I was 3 so I don't remember it. Spent the next 3 years in Woolwich, so had 2 years at Mulgrave, then we moved to Erith. I live in Lewisham now, and apart from the time in Charlton that I don't remember I do feel I've come up in the world. My Dad lives in Bexleyheath. I had very few opportunities growing up in Erith. My kids get to do loads. Erith gets my vote, even though it's effectively where I'm from. It at least has the River, which Bexleyheath doesn't.
But the view of what is a crap town is always coloured by our own desires. I want things for my kids to do and not to have to commute a lot, hence lewisham is good for me. Others don't mind the commute but prefer that their kids are perceived to be safer or in a better environment for schools. Outside of places I've lived, I would nominate Newhaven (partner from there); Oldham; Northampton (the last place I suffered any random violence); Doncaster. (I drove thru South Yorkshire last year and apart from a few bits of Sheffield, it was unremittingly grim).
The south-east London-based comedienne Linda Smith who sadly died of cancer a few years ago, said Erith isn't twinned with any other place, but it has signed a suicide pact with Dagenham.
Grays is an absolute sh*thole. Redhill is a great shout too.
How Tunbridge Wells has managed to get into this thread is madness. Yes, has some odd people about but to have it on a list of crap towns is crazy.
*sigh* i'm guessing you didnt actually read my post.
There are posters on here that are either illiterate or massive losers.
Is resorting to insults really necessary because we don't agree?! I did read your post, but because you didn't like some of the people that live there surely doesn't make it a crap town! Crap towns surely means proper shitholes, like Grays, Redhill etc.
I mean I don't like a lot of the people that live over here in Fulham. Doesn't mean it's a crap part of London!!
The south-east London-based comedienne Linda Smith who sadly died of cancer a few years ago, said Erith isn't twinned with any other place, but it has signed a suicide pact with Dagenham.
She was born and brought up in Erith but lived in Sheffield then Hackney. But it was a true enough comment. She did a part of her routine about how there was a competition in Erith to name the new leisure centre and the winning name was "The Erith leisure centre"
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I mean Edinburgh, what a hole. They couldn't even be bothered to put shops on one side of the high street.
Compared to Doncaster it seemed bloody lovely - por old Donny with its three prisons, with prisoners often stopping after they leave, ruined town centre and high incidence of STI's must be one of the crappest towns.
Dewsbury however beats it hands down!
Was in Barry, Wales last week, absolute sh*t pit. Only place that I can think of that was worse than that was Grays.
Both places should be raised to the ground, the people there look like something out of The Hills Have Eyes.
In fairness that was in the period between Xmas and New Year, so was freezing, and most seaside towns are grim in Winter. Depressing, tho!
How Tunbridge Wells has managed to get into this thread is madness. Yes, has some odd people about but to have it on a list of crap towns is crazy.
There are posters on here that are either illiterate or massive losers.
Anyhoo, Scarborough. I love the place tbf, have so many memories of long days out there with mates in my teens, trying to pull down the front and wasting my money in the arcades. Have to say it's in desperate need of a facelift now. It's a Mecca for methadone heads and dead-eyed teen mums bereft of hope and ambition.
Apparently, it was only about 20 years ago that Redhill wasn't that bad. Must have been some kind of slum clearance done in the nineties.
they wernt like Chislehurst caves they were lower and for a long way into them you had to duck down until kit opened up at the end,
Orpington high street is very good for restaurants, shit for pubs and shops though. Eltham, welling, Gravesend, Dartford, Grays, Basildon, Dagenham all fall in similar brackets of disrepair but they all are near to out of town developments that have swallowed the councils planning budget for infrastructure.
Maidstone is overrated, great night out but pretty dull the rest of the time. Nightmare to get to London from and horrifically overpriced. But not a crap town.
Sheerness however, good god.
Sittingbourne has some nice places to live where new builds have gone up but far too close to Ashford and sheppey for my liking
But the view of what is a crap town is always coloured by our own desires. I want things for my kids to do and not to have to commute a lot, hence lewisham is good for me. Others don't mind the commute but prefer that their kids are perceived to be safer or in a better environment for schools.
Outside of places I've lived, I would nominate Newhaven (partner from there); Oldham; Northampton (the last place I suffered any random violence); Doncaster. (I drove thru South Yorkshire last year and apart from a few bits of Sheffield, it was unremittingly grim).
I mean I don't like a lot of the people that live over here in Fulham. Doesn't mean it's a crap part of London!!
yes yes yes a fooking pit of a place and the one place whilst doing my runs I refuse to do at night,
I have done Peckham, Brixton, newcross and Deptford, mile end, Camberwell
I got chased in ladbrooke grove the other night
but dalston not a hope