Google Maps got a bit of a refresh recently, which always incites us to go looking for errors, oddities and omissions. That's just the way we are.
First up, as noted on the London Reddit board, there's something weird going on with London Fields. The Hackney park is showing up in a distinctly non-verdant grey. What gives?
It's not the only green space to suffer this virtual paving. Hackney Marshes, Walthamstow Marshes and much of Epping Forest have also succumbed. We thought the grey rot was perhaps only affecting commons and open land, but then we noticed Embankment Gardens has gone, too.
Just a little further south stand the Houses of Parliament, and we're pleased to report that a favourite old anomaly is still displaying. Sir Nicholas Soames MP, grandson of Winston Churchill, was once famous for being the most corpulent man in the House of Commons. He's since slimmed down, but still appears as a feature of interest on Google Maps (along with Jeremy Browne MP).
Transport always throws up a few quirks. Something strange is going on at Battersea Park station. The platforms appear to be blushing. Perhaps they're embarrassed about the dreadful riverside developments going on just to the north.
Over in Canary Wharf, meanwhile, it seems that Heron Quays station is so good they built it three times.
At first, we assumed these were three separate entrances to the station, but this convention is not applied at other stations. If you're confused, use the middle symbol — it has a Google rating of 4.5, whereas the more southerly Heron Quays achieves only 3.6.
Sticking by with the river, we note that someone has cleaved London Bridge in twain.
Perhaps the ghost of the medieval bridge has come back to haunt Londoners. It stood a little downriver of the modern crossing.
Google Maps is now so self-assured that it's even displaying individual clothes racks in Marks & Spencer.
Hilariously, Google Maps can show you where to find the slippers in a department store, yet reduces a half-kilometre barrier that cost the equivalent of £1.6 billion to a mere pin.
Perhaps the most important structure in London — the barrier that protects us from flood water — is missing from the map, while the intangible trail of a Thames Clipper is carefully transcribed. We love Google Maps.
We'd love to hear about any other oddities in the comments below...
