Edgware Road

Has there ever been a road so short, so colourful? The mere 10 miles of London's Edgware Road take some beating for social history in Britain. They have seen invaders, public hangings, highway men, a civil insurrection, murderers and gangsters, bombings, the birth of a sport, the roots of modern aviation and a naturist 'riot.' Plus a workhouse so cruel that those nearby referred to their town as something else rather than risk the association. Every nation on earth has settled along the road. Arab immigrants and their successors post signs in gorgeous curling writing outside their shops. The Irish came to build roads and houses, to find themselves exploited and ruined, to fight in the street and 'to work 'til you're dead for a room and a bed.' The Jewish population built the nation's largest synagogue. Mosques dot the length of the road. Sikhs built gurduwaras and Hindus their temples. From Romans at one end to Romanians at the other, with homes fit for heroes in between, this is the Edgware Road.