Run 3: Chancery Lane Station to Rolls Road.

   

Chancery Lane Station. Not on Chancery Lane.
Entrances to both sides of Gray's Inn Road and
a third one on the south side of the junction.  

   
     A dart across the irksomely rebranded "Midtown" from Queen Square brings me to Chancery Lane tube station, which isn't on Chancery Lane.
     The start of this Run has changed recently, due to what appears a permanent closure of Stonecutter Street. Prior to the prolonged reconfiguration of Holborn Circus, this Run turned right from Holborn Circus, down St. Andrew Street and Shoe Lane, before joining Farringdon Street via the now "cycles only" Stonecutter Street.
     Making a hill with a 10%+ gradient "cycles only" shows the type of genius I've come to associate with the "cycling facilities" being installed across the capital on an industrial scale.
     It's a relatively simple Run. Except for Charterhouse Street and Rowcross Street, it's main roads all the way. The Bricklayers' Arms is a comparatively straightforward four-exit roundabout. It does, however, terminate in a locality where not many residents are likely to be able to afford to use Black Taxis - unless the mosque at which they're imam has received an especially generous Ramadan donation.
 

Rolls Road. Not named for the proliferation of luxury cars on the
street and not a place where a crusty ham is likely to be on menus.  

   
     Leave on left - Holborn
     Left - Charterhouse Street
     Right - Farringdon Street
     Forward - Ludgate Circus
     Forward - New Bridge Street
     Forward - Blackfriars' Bridge
     Forward - Blackfriars' Road
     Left - Southwark Street
     Right - Southwark Bridge Road
     Left - Marshalsea Road
     Forward - Great Dover Street
     Comply - Bricklayers' Arms Roundabout
     Leave by - Old Kent Road
     Left - Rowcross Street
     Rolls Road left & right
       
     Anyone not parking the bike and having a look around on foot at the start of this Run needs their head examining. They probably aren't taking The Knowledge seriously enough. (Anyone parking their bike at the end of this Run also needs their head examining, but that's for very different reasons.)
     Leather Lane is pedestrianised at the bottom and there's a market in the rest of it all week. A scooter won't get riders into the courtyards to the south of Holborn either.
     Both Lincoln's Inn & Gray's Inn partly fall within the 440-yard radius and they're gated private property. Taking a scooter in for a reccie isn't forbidden, but I doubt it'll be encouraged by the uniformed bozos on the gate.
     Motorcycle couriers collecting or delivering to Lincoln's Inn are made to park just past the barrier and walk. The compliant morons accede to this request. I don't. However, I'm not taking the piss by darting in for a pointing session on a scooter. Anyhow, there's nothing in any of the Inns of Court that I don't know. I hope.
   

The Prudential Building on Holborn. An Alfred Waterhouse Production, which
wouldn't be hard for anyone familiar with Manchester Town Hall or the Natural History
Museum to guess. Set down on the left, though there's a Brooke Street entrance. 

   
     There is a lot of stuff to the south of Holborn Circus that I don't know. This is because the area has been a construction site for the past two years.
     The iconic London Press Centre - site of many a film, TV show and advert - is no more. Sad. When I first worked as a courier, in 1981, it had the best elevators in London. When I stopped being a courier, in 2013, it still had the best elevators in London - and they were the same elevators. Noisy, but one turned-up on the 17th floor within ten seconds of the button being pressed every time. There are award-winning buildings in the City that are seven floors high and where you can wait a minute for one of the four elevators to arrive.
   

Rowan Atkinson. Trapped on the roof of the late International
Press Centre, at #76 Shoe Lane, in a 1990s Barclaycard advert. 

   
     I walk around agog and in some disgust. I used to work on Holborn a long time ago, when "Fleet Street" - in the sense of the newspaper industry - was still there. The Cartoonist and the Printer's Devil are gone, as is the Poppinjay, which was there when I last remember looking. I'm sure the new wine bars and restaurants are very nice. For those who can afford to use them.
   

Holborn. South side. "The Inn of Court"? Singular? Is nothing sacred?
This was always the Melton Mowbray & was still so named when I was in London last year.
Next door, Sterling House was the first place I ever worked. It was Exchange Travel back then.
Now an Itsu. More of them & their alleged "No English or blacks" employment policy coming soon.

   
     Walk completed, I jump on the scooter and head for Balochistan.
     I see nothing especially outrageous on the Run, though my opinion that selling or renting contraflow lights to London boroughs or TfL must be a more lucrative career option than doing The Knowledge is reinforced.
     The gaping hole on the corner of Marshalsea Road and Borough High Street, where Brandon House was the last time I looked, was surprising. It appeared to be a fairly modern office block. I'd have guessed late 1980s or early 1990s from its clean red brick exterior, though it was probably earlier than that, as I can't recall what was there previously.
     An on-line check of the plans for development revealed that 100 new homes are to be built on the site. Twenty of them will be "affordable."
     And the bears.
     I'm surprised the Southwark Telephone Exchange is still standing. The continued existence of the pubs on Great Dover Street is also puzzling. The overseas yuppies in the student accommodation must be receiving plenty of postal orders from their parents.
     The mosque on the corner of Rowcross Street looks to be open. I seemed closed last year. I'd hoped that would be the first of many such closures.

     There's not a lot to see at the end of this Run. It's certainly not worth getting off the bike to look around.
     Rolls Road must be accessed from Rowcross Street, as it's "No Entry" from the roundabout at the top of Humphrey Street. There's no escape route on the north side of the street, so it's necessary to go all the way to the Catlin Street / St.James's Road junction to head north.
     Last year's extensive roadworks on the Old Kent Road seem not to have resulted in any new restrictions.
     Three down, 317 to go.