STAIRLESS LONDON

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3309, 1 April 1926, Page 6

STAIRLESS LONDON

There are cities that are famous for their steps. Bristol has Christmas Steps, and Whitby its great flight loading up toward the old Abbey. Indeed, most towns ask you to climb cither stairs, writes "J.G.” in the London ‘Evening News,’ or something 'almost as steep. But London has no Jacob’s Ladder loading up and up until you begin to think that your legs arc not so young as they were. What stairs she has ar 0 mostly short .and lead down to the tidal river. And with these nver stairs may be reckoned the stairs down from the bridges. Som e that we do not use lead direct to the water others ithat we do use twist in gloomy vaults to streets at a lower level. There; are, in fact, no steps in London that have any place in our interest or affection, and no ladder-way that gives the climber excuses for a halt to look back over the unfolding view 1 . Yet London is no pancake city, she has her hills and hollows. Yet she has amazingly few steps.

Her most Imposing stairs arc those from the Mall up to Carlton House Terrace. But the rise there is in the main, artificial, and the dt°Ps arc ornamental: they count little more in the geography of London than do the steps .of St. Paul's. But where eiso

does the Londoner go up steps to reach one road, from another? I have mentioned the bridge stairs, and there are stairs on cither side of Bush Hous.o marking the difference of levels between the Strand and Aldwych, which few of us baa noticed until the building came. Ana there arc Riccyman Steps, which take you up from Mount Pleasant to a church with a big white cross at its back and to the hidden 'squares or Clerkenwell.