Slightly fascinated by the demolItion of the 100 year old warehouses that are next to where i live

This part of London only really had ’ industry ’ for 150 plus years – first the Grand Union canal from Brentford to Birmingham, then superceded by the Great Western Railway branch line to Brentford Dock, on the Thames.

Ships arrived from all over the world, were unloaded by massive cranes, and then the goods loaded onto the canal barges, and later the train carriages, to be conveyed all over Britain

I’m watching the demolItion of the last remnants of all that industry and it’s substitution with apartment blocks and retail space. Brentford ‘ town centre’ will soon have been transformed too. The river Brent, for 150 years hidden by warehouses and industrial detritus, will soon be uncovered and in view.
I don’t think many people realise just how nice it’s going to be. Brentford is a bit damned by its unglamorous sounding name ( which of course only means a ford ( bridge ) over the River Brent ) but it’s in between and adjacent to Kew, Chiswick, Richmond and Isleworth, all of which sound smarter ( and have been for a long time ).

But not for much longer…

There’ll even be an accessible footbridge over the Brent/ Grand Union canal, really near to me.
That’ll be handy! I’m a bit buggered by all the other canal bridges, with their steps and steep inclines.

Knocking down all the dereliction besides my flat gives me a long view of the canal. Next there’ll be apartments built there, but they won’t jut out over the canal in the same way, because they won’t really need to have pulley access to the canal beneath, obviously…

All in all it was a good move to buy in Brentford, I’d say.

God knows what the Ukrainian war will do to property prices In London. There’s lots of Russian cash tied up here. What’ll happen to all the apartments actually purchased with Russian oligarch money I don’t know. There’ll be far more of those than most people imagine.

Might have to change my name from Russ, as well.