Moor Park
Colonies of squirrels and Jaguars existing in harmony
Turn right out of the station, and look in the estate agents: it tells you all you need to know about Moor Park. The cheapest house in the window is £980,000; the most expensive, £1,500,000. Moor Park, which seems to be run by a corporation sinisterly called Moor Park 1958 Ltd, is a conservation area, and the new aristocracy, the AB1s, live here.
Not that you'd guess from the people. Commuters who come out of the station vanish into thin air. Nobody walks or even gardens in plain sight here; a parade of shops just by the tube stop is shut and most of them resemble funeral parlours. In the afternoon I visited, I saw one person, and one chocolate-black labrador running after a car.
Take a walk down the treelined drives, and you'll find there's no pavement, just a dirt track. It's like an American boulevard. All the trees down the drive have house numbers on; each homeowner on the drive seems to have his/her very own tree. Perhaps you have to water and prune them otherwise Moor Park 1958 will come round and assault you with pinking shears.
Cherished number plates on cars in Moor Park – and who might own them
- B11TS
A porn star? The head of a crisp shavings factory? 42PM
Someone who invented that device which makes afternoons tediously long.
R11EAG
Ronald Reagan's best mate. H9AHA
An anaesthetist. 3758PP
A woman with 3758 pairs of Pretty Polly tights. X500 DAV
That'll be Dave, then. R5HEL
Change that vowel, and we're there.
The back entrance of the tube station, which you get to by doing a U-turn at the front entrance and walking back along the tunnel (this only makes sense if you go there), leads to some forest and Sandy Lodge golf club. Sandy Lodge golf club has separate men's and ladies' entrances, and is amusingly easy to break into if you walk around the fence.
As for the forest, it's a long walk alongside the railway line. The trees are a world away from their arboraceous, leafy friends being sponsored by house-holders, these trees look thin and sick, like they have been twisted out of shape by an evil giant toddler:
Yes, the last one on the right really does look exactly like a V-sign. You really don't want to walk down here if you're hungry, easily bored or get scared of funny-shaped trees. The path is at least a mile long, and comes out at a row of slightly smaller, shabbier houses, only worth about £950,000.
Also worth mentioning is a nearby street called Askew Road, which is a Private Road. You are told this by an electronic ticker, obviously nicked from a minicab office, that has the time on, weather and everything. Plus, as it is a Private Road, everybody's privacy has been ensured by the 20ft high CCTV camera with infra-red sensors that stands at the opening gate.
Residents of Zone 6, #4 – Moor Park
Parking dispute!
This gentleman, who was the only person I came across on my trip to Moor Park, is pointing at a car who couldn't park at the house next door, and so is trying to park in his drive. The dispute was resolved quickly, as one of the five cars in his driveway was moved into his garage. Neighbourly peace was restored. Phew!Moor Park tube station is unnecessarily complicated. The Metropolitan line is quite like the New York subway, and there are fast platforms and slow platforms. (Fast trains obviously stop here, rather than in Northwood, because people have better houses.) A helpful sign reads something along the lines of "All London trains depart from platform 1, apart from the ones that depart from platform 3."
All of this might make you feel completely confused, and in need of guidance. Alas, none is available from the local information map. Most of the writing has faded away, including the street names. The map is so old, and there's so much money knocking around here, it must be deliberate. People used to remove street signs from estates in Belfast during the Trouble in the 1970s so British troops wouldn't know where they were. Perhaps this is similar.
Before you escape screaming back to a rougher kind of civilisation, it's worth pointing out that Moor Park backwards spells "Krap Room". This may even mean something.
Statistics
Time to Zone 1 30min (fast train), 35min (stopping service) on Metropolitan (Baker Street)
Last trains to Zone 1 Mon-Sat 0035, Sun 0012
What to do if you are stuck in Moor Park after the last train to Zone 1
Well done! You're completely screwed. Forget night buses – no buses stop here for miles, not even during the day. Minicabs? Hoo hoo hoo.
You've got two options really. Spend the night in a spooky, dead forest, or follow these directions: out of the main entrance of the station, walk over the roundabout and take the first left after the parade of shops. Then walk for, oooh, several hours, down this road until you get to Northwood, from where you can probably get a cab to Harrow-on-the-Hill and the N18 bus back to the city.
It'll probably be daylight by the time you get to Zone 1.
