It was a glimpse of the undulating curves of Highgate Road from a Suffragette Line train that inspired me.

Do you know the view I mean? It's the one you see if you look south as the Overground trundles between the Gospel Oak terminus and its next modern-day port of call, Upper Holloway Station.

The road below displays a gentle S-bend that is wholly unnecessary by any stretch of the urban planning imagination. It’s a natural path - first imprinted by horse traffic, no doubt - to navigate around who knows what rock, tree or tufty hillock required dodging on the trail north to St Albans, back when (really quite accurately) “all this were just fields”.

London’s higgledy-piggledy topography impacts the tenor of our lives every single day, and yet I’d suggest most of us don’t give its quirks much of a second thought as we steer our own hurried path under, over and through it.

But today, I’m keen we indulge for just a moment in some of the best bits that reveal the thin, but still very present, thread between our lives here in the future of 2026, and all that has gone before.

Not your obvious big ticket local icons; the gothic relic of St Pancras Station or the repurposed horse hospital of Camden Market; but the less splendid variety, such as the strange iron stubble that marks where so many Georgian-era gates, railings and fences were swiftly cut down 'for the war effort’ during World War 2.

The rusty stubs remain to be seen all over the place some 80+ year later, while the actual historical record of who/what/why blurs. It’s unknown how much of the felled ornamental metalwork ever made it (or was even suitable for) the munitions and tank manufacture that was used as justification for the cull, with many claims of the railings possibly ending up in Guyana, Nigeria or at the bottom of the Thames Estuary.

I also love the little reminders, visible under foot today, that these streets were once paved with wood (see main pic above, of a manhole cover with a section of the blocks still in place in Kentish Town Rd, with a couple more examples easy to spot on Camden High Street, too).

Victorians liked how timber was a quieter surface than cobbles for coping with carriages and hooves clattering upon it, yet the wooden road innovations of our great grandparent's era are rarely mentioned anymore, even though they are still in evidence underfoot as we walk about. Here’s where you can read a lot more about them, if you wish to really dive in.

There’s huge romance in considering just how much social change - and traffic - these very pieces of wood have seen rush by through the decades. And yet there they are, still playing their part in the integrity of the thoroughfare. Surviving a daily pummelling, rain soaking - and all the rest.

A similar, if more obvious, history can be evoked from the regular rhythm of cast iron coal hole covers across much of Camden Town, Primrose Hill, Bloomsbury and Hampstead, where the fuel needs of well-to-do housing stock residents were sent neatly down the chute to cellars below.

The pretty designs by forgotten local foundries like George Beach & Co, Camden Town, and Abbott, Camden Town, hark towards the industry that thrived around here in a sepia era of rag 'n’ bone men and Hansom cabs. It’s a real reminder that, in the grand scheme of things, that kind of life in a sooty, smelly Camden was not really very long ago at all.

Other relics of the past emerge, once you set your mind at spotting them - the deep air raid shelter access point at Belsize Park, the chirpy ghost sign advertisement for regular ‘beanfeasts' emblazoned on the back wall of Bistro Laz at Parliament Hill, or the listed ‘stench pipe’, still venting gas from the early sewer network, down near the Lido.

With every dry horse trough or ignored moss-covered milestone, every backstreet that bends to yield with the banks of the long-buried River Fleet, or majestic row of mature trees planted with vision by ancient arboriculturists, our lives remain highly connected to, and shaped by, the history behind where we are.

We just so happen to live in a place that has a particularly rich, long and exciting past, evidence of which is constantly on display all around us, clear as day, whether we actually see it or not.

Another 100 years from now, as the role of our high streets, homes and workplaces, and the spaces we gather to socialise, worship or entertain ourselves will undoubtedly have changes beyond all recognition, I wonder what will have survived and continue to be exerting an impact on the daily rhythms of local life in that version of future?

Difficult to predict, but you can bet Highgate Road will still have its dirt track kink, visible for curious minds peering through the windows of a flying robo-taxi, whisking them over from Upper Holloway.

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🎻 Talking of historic landmarks from lost eras, Chalk Farm’s The Fiddler’s Elbow pub stands out as an 1850s oddity surrounded by modernish housing. Formerly The Mother Shipton at a time it backed onto huge painting and piano-making factories, in more recent decades it’s become famous as an affordably and rare surviving stop-off on Camden’s cherished ‘toilet venues’ circuit of authentically lively live music gig pubs.

The big news is that the long term landlords are heading for retirement, and have put the place on the market in the hope of finding another plucky music enthusiast to continue the legacy they've created.

Panic over beloved boozers changing hands is nothing new, especially in these precarious times for pubs and grassroots venues of all stripes, but I’d hazard a guess the Fiddler’s will continue, and look forward to seeing who picks up the baton - or should we say the bow - as it’s a mighty fine place to catch a band and sink an affordably pint and there’d be genuine uproar were it to become anything else.

🥳 In more pub news, The Black Cap has actually, finally got a reopening date: Sat 21st Mar. After a decade of protests, legal wrangles and construction hiccups, the old girl roars back to life in just a few short weeks after 11 dark years. But, there are still a handful of the regular Saturday vigils to go, and you didn’t think they’d stop until the job was 100% complete, did you?

🍻 Also preparing a sensational, near phoenix-like rebirth is Dartmouth Park’s The Star, the future of which was hanging in the balance only a few short weeks ago. A hastily convened petition to save the shuttered pub saw over a thousand locals rally around for its ‘asset of community value’ status to be assured. Now, thanks to a reader tip-off, Camdenist hears that a handsome refurbishment is nearing completion, and we’ve asked owner Stonegate for the skinny on dates, offering and who is going to be in charge, so more info to follow soon…

🔒On the flipside, the sad beer-related news of this edition is the sudden announcement that Lower Stable Street King’s Cross and D’Arblay St Soho off-licence and dedicated can bar, House of Cans, is closing imminently, citing the impossibility of today’s trading conditions.

Not only did they have a vast selection of UK and international beers, specifically limited to the more eco-friendly cans rather than bottles, owner Simon was one of the first local business-owner Camdenist interviewed following the relaxing of the original Covid lockdown in May 2020. Six years on, things are actually tougher than those odd days, which says a lot about the long term impacts of that period for the kind of businesses we theoretically all wish to see thriving on our high streets.

🏮 The theme of this week's freebie family festivities is definitely lights, led by the popular Light Up Kilburn, which returns to illuminate the end of February with two evenings of twinkly joy tonight and tomorrow, 27th & 28th Feb in and around Kilburn Grange Park. Expect projections, installations and live performances with fire and UV lighting.

🏮The King’s Cross Canopy Market is throwing what it claims to be ‘the first-ever Lantern Festival held in central London. It’s leaning into the celebrations for the Year of the Horse, with live Chinese folk singing, dances, Kung Fu performances and a costume parade, alongside market stalls selling traditional Asian textiles, crafts and foods, plus workshops including tea making and woodblock printmaking. It runs Fri 27th Feb - Sun 1st Mar.

MUSIC: 🎶 There’s an epic 4-hour interactive Brazilian Music Experience tonight, Fri 27th Feb at MAP Studio Cafe, where you’ll be guided through an intense range of Brazilian rhythms and musical styles.

ART: 🧷 It’s the official opening party for Camden Open Air Gallery’s Picture This: A Public Image show tonight, Fri 27th Feb, in association with The Big Issue. Is a celebration of the archives of punk, ska and new wave snapper Spike, who shot some of the biggest bands and singers on the scene in the late 70s and early 80s.

CLUB: 🎧 Clubland party-starting legend Skream is back DJing for his disco disco residency at Parkway’s Jazz Cafe tonight, Fri 27th Feb from dubstep through house to glitterball funk until 3am.

STAGE: 🚺 Camden Town’s Etcetera Theatre is back celebrating bold, original voices with a season of shows by women and female-identifying playwrights, from self-help comedy cabaret to children’s adventure matinees, discover all the shows at the 2026 Women Writer’s Festival throughout March.

COMEDY: 😂 Join Russian-British stand-up Olga Koch for her ‘one good story’ (only it’s not really her story, in Fat Tom Cruise running at Soho Theatre until Sat 7th Mar.

CABARET: 👯 Join Sarah Guinness for her eye-opening romp Grit, Glitter & Gaslight, a Cabaret Story as she delves into her true story of years spent as a muse to some of the top cabaret artists and her own musical journey in this one-woman behind-the-scenes life story. Playing at the new Circle & Star Theatre in Hampstead, 3rd - 21st Mar.