Guided coach tour of the 2012 Olympic Site.
Visit by Probus Club of Ewell to London Olympic Site
Saturday 9th April 2011 Organised by Pat Hunt
It was a lovely sunny day when 36 of us boarded our 9am coach at Sainsbury’s car park. We made such good progress in getting to central London that our driver gave us a tour round Westminster, the City, London Bridge, the Shard and
Tower Bridge in order to pick up our guide, Sean Kelleher, and have a short coffee break, by All Hallows Church near the Tower of London. All the buildings looked fine in the morning sunshine.
Sean Kelleher - Our Guide
Aboard the coach at 11am Sean took us through some of the acronyms associated with the Olympic event, the principal one being the LOCOG (London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games while the ODA, the Olympic Delivery Authority is responsible for supplying the buildings on time. The cost of £9.325Bn is a large sum but, in perspective, it is only 1½ % of the sum that was needed to rescue the bankers. Also he continually reminded us of the 75% reuse to which the facilities will provide for the future.
We drove out of the City, passing half a dozen named Wren churches and then into the east end of London passing through several areas known to Monopoly players we were told there was no Petticoat Lane. It is Middlesex Street. As we drove down Whitechapel Road - Churchill led the Siege of Sidney Street against Peter the painter. Ronnie Kray shot another gangster in the Blind Beggar pub in Stepney. It was outside this pub where General Booth started to preach which led to the formation of the Salvation Army movement. Continuing on we passed Bow and reached Stratford which now boasts a large new bus and rail station adjacent to the Olympics site and a new Westfield Centre of 1.9M square feet is being built.
The site, of 500 acres is larger than Regents Park and was originally contaminated with arsenic, lead, petrol and tar –an area that no commercial developer would touch. A factor in London’s bid for the games, in 2005, was that the site was so near to the city itself, only 5km from Liverpool Street. Apart from the decontamination of the soil, electric pylons had to removed from the area and cables laid underground. Demolition of 200 buildings started in 2007 and building work started in April 2008. Currently progress is on time, or fractionally ahead. Many buildings have to be erected by July this year for commissioning and testing prior to the opening of the Games on 21st July 2012.
We drove completely round the site with buildings being pointed out in the distance. With so much going on it was difficult to appreciate which was which building unless one already had an idea of the particular building being described.
Athletes Village
The Athletes Village for 17,000 includes all the officials, trainers, medics etc. It will have restaurants shops, and will convert to 2,800 houses after the Games finish. There will also be a National Sports Academy for 1.800 students in the future
At 12.10pm we parked about a hundred yards from the Viewing platform and made our way through a concreted footpath and cycle track, boarded up on both sides, and passing near the Security Checkpoint. Here the security is as strict as any customs barrier as they have to inspect each person and lorry entering the area because of the danger of terrorist activity or saboteurs. There are approximately 10,000 people working on the site each day.
Security Checkpoint
Climbing up to the Viewing area we got our first real glimpse of the buildings and our bearings. Here Sean again explained the layout and some of the individual buildings.
This was our first close up view of the Olympic Stadium
The Stadium can seat 80,000 and was designed by Populous, an American firm of architects/engineers who specialises in sports arena. (They were involved, with Norman Foster in the building of Wembley Stadium). The building which will be at the heart of the Games was finished, structurally, last month and the turves laid in the central area. It will be the setting of the opening and the closing ceremonies. It was completed 3 months ahead of schedule and £10m less than the original estimate. The running track, scoreboards and gantries have yet to be built before a test event in May next year. The Queen was said to have planted the tree, on the right row, nearest to the Stadium.
View from the first floor of the temporary View Tube, currently housing a snack bar.
Another building that has been finished is The Velodrome for all the cycling events. We first saw it from the east along with the Village buildings, the white Basketball Courts and the distinctive curved roof of the Velodrome on the right
Basketball Courts
The Basketball Arena by Wilkinson Eyre, seats 12,000 or 10,000 for the Paralympics events. It is the third largest building and will be the holding area for the athletes for the opening and closing events. It will feature wheelchair Basketball, Handball and Rugby.
The 6,000 seat building was designed by Michael Hopkins Associates and was the first to be completed of the five major permanent venues. The hyperbolic paraboloid shaped steel frame structures sits on a 360° glazed concourse at entry level and is clad in timber.
The Velodrome
Boris Johnson suggested that the site needed a vertical feature to commemorate the Games and after a competition it was won by Amish Kapoor’s Orbit Tower. This continuous looping latticework of steel due to rise to 120m (390ft) makes it taller than the Statue of Liberty but nowhere near the height of the Eiffel Tower. It is even 66ft shorter than the Blackpool Tower. A lift to the viewing platform will give a good panoramic view of the whole area, and there is the option of walking down the spiral staircase. By chance, Boris met the wealthy owner of Arcelor Mittal steel works, Lakshmi Mittal, in the cloakroom of a hotel in Davos where, within a few minutes he persuaded him to pay for the cost of the steel - £16M of the total cost of £19M. Apparently, just later, they shook hands on the deal. The Orbit is sited between the Stadium and the Aquatics Centre.
The Aquatics Centre
The Orbit -
Orbit, a helter skelter of red steel (this is Britain’s largest piece of public art designed by Anish Kapoor)
From our very restricted viewing area it was not possible to appreciate the Aquatics Centre which consists of a `sting-ray` shaped roof –somewhat an inversion of the Velodrome roof, with white angular wedge-shaped banks of seating placed on both sides. This will provide 17,500 seats. After the Games the 2,500 seating pods will be removed for the future leisure activities. The centre was designed by Zaha Hadid the Baghdad born (1950) woman architect who studied at the Architectural Association in London- from where she practices. Progress has been good with the two 50m competition and 25m diving pools tested last year and tiling started in September 2010.
At just after 1pm we drove off the site and passed by the ExCel Building in Docklands where they will hold the boxing, fencing and Judo contests.
At 1.20pm we arrived at Cabot Square, Canary Wharf. After lunch, where most of us ate in the sunshine at one of the many dockside cafés, we drew tickets for a Grand National sweepstake, kindly organised by Tony Field, and then embarked on the coach again at 2.50pm
We crossed the river by the 1889 free Woolwich Ferry, but in having just missed one we had to wait for a couple more crossings. The wait turned out to be ¾ hr and Sean regaled us with stories of past Olympic Games. How the Marathon race, in 1908, of 26miles was, supposedly, lengthened by 385 yards, and how Conan Doyle was supposed to have helped the exhausted Italian runner, Dorando Petri, across the line, and thus disqualified him. Also how the famous black American sprinter James Cleveland Owens when pronouncing his initials as JC in a southern drawl, became known as `Jesse` Owens. The Games were started in 776BC and were held in the nude but the modern Games were started in 1896 by Baron Pierre de Coubertin. Arnold Schwarzenegger as a youth trained in the East End as a bodybuilder and has been invited as a guest of the Mayor of Newham to see the Games.
To fill in further time we were given a recitation of Benny Hill’s “Ernie the Fastest Milkman in the West” – the only monologue known by David Cameron. The mascots, Wenlock and Mandeville are named after the Shropshire town of Much Wenlock, which held a forerunner of the current Games and the Buckingham hospital of Stoke Mandeville that organised the precursor of the Paralympics. If all the facts given on the tour were remembered, it would give Probus members added confidence when entering their next Pub Quiz night.
We crossed the river by ferry in just Four minutes and then made a tour of the Royal Arsenal Barracks (now mostly converted to private homes) and saw the RA Barracks which will host the shooting events. We drove to a café, called Firepower, for tea in the army complex, down Tom Cribb Road –named after a 19thC boxer who became world champion after a fight lasting 35 rounds, and who retired and is buried nearby. We saw the adjacent Academy where an officer called Everest studied and who became a cartographer after his army service. He had a mountain named after him. A few of us visited the small Heritage Centre, then boarding the coach again for the last time, at 4.55pm we heard that Pam Coomber’s horse had won the sweep, with Ron Pettett, second and Ken Amess, third. We said farewell to our guide, who lives at Balham and set off for Epsom.
Arsenal Academy
Arsenal Heritage centre
Arriving back everyone expressed what a lovely and full day it had been.
Thanks were given to Pat Hunt for the organisation and arranging the wonderful weather.
Report and Photographs with thanks to Deric Tonge
Supplementary photos with thanks to Sue Hunt
More information and photos are on the 2012 official website......here
