You can sit down next to me

A Poem for Manchester, by Mike Duff, appears on mirrored art signs studded like beautiful blue jewels into a wall in Piccadilly Place, not far from Piccadilly station.

The poem was chosen from 4,000 entries as winner of a BBC National Poetry Day competition. Its message of solidarity, equality and acceptance seems particularly fitting following the dreadful Manchester Arena attack this week.

Fancy a Turkish bath?

Well, you won’t get one, despite the tempting sign. Usually too covered in trampling feet to be photographed, I was pleased to find this ghost sign deserted one evening and so I was able to take a quick foot-free picture.

The sign is on the pavement in Russell Square London. The baths, part of the Imperial Hotel, were opened in 1913 and considered very fine, though not fine enough to escape demolition in the 1960s.

Put a spring in your step

This pretty London mosaic door step sign always cheers me up. The White Hall Hotel, somewhat confusingly, is nowhere near Whitehall. It’s a Georgian townhouse hotel in Montague Street, Bloomsbury, and a very good place to stay.

North Euston (plus a secret in a shed)

Users of London Euston station might be surprised to hear that there is a North Euston too – 250 miles away.

North Euston is in Fleetwood, Lancashire. A friendly place with an interesting story, Fleetwood was the first Victorian planned town. It was designed by Decimus Burton (so named because he was the 10^th child) for Peter Hesketh, an MP and estate owner with big ideas.

Hesketh saw that Fleetwood could make a successful port and a holiday resort for working families, and set about making his vision a reality. At the time, there was no rail link between London and Scotland, so he put his energies into creating a rail link to Fleetwood from Preston, enabling passengers to make the final leg of the journey by sea from Fleetwood. Fleetwood’s first buildings were started in 1836, along with its railway, and the North Euston Hotel, facing the waterfront, was built in 1841.

Queen Victoria used the rail link in 1847. To welcome her, the council lit all the gas lamps, but they ran out of gas before the Queen arrived. Hesketh’s dreams of commercial success were ruined a few years later when the rail link from London to Scotland was built over Shap Fell (an engineering feat that had been considered impossible), making Fleetwood’s role of transport terminus redundant.

The oldest building in town is the Fleetwood Museum, which has also been a custom house, town hall and hotel. With lovely staff, great cake and a secret in a shed (I’m not spoiling it for you – you need to go and discover it for yourself), the museum is worth a visit; follow it up with a gusty walk on Fleetwood’s seafront and remember the pioneering Victorian with the big idea.