You're never far from an Acton connection

Shameless Acton partisan that I am, I used part of my summer break to visit a couple of places of Actonian interest. Most parochially, whilst in Suffolk, I visited the village of Acton – between Sudbury and Lavenham - as seen here. A good pint of Greene King Abbot in the Crown in the village, although not a patch on the Fullers London Pride in our local Kings Head.

By my count, there are five other Actons in England, thirteen in the USA, three in Canada and three in Australia. Acton Massachusetts is the largest outside London – and even has an outlying village called East Acton.


I later spent some time in the East Midlands, and took a ride on the new Nottingham tram system. Transport for London are proposing to build a tram around 2015 along the Uxbridge Road from Shepherds Bush to Uxbridge - which would pass along Acton Vale in East Acton. Some of the central Ealing opponents of the tram claim that Acton High Street is too narrow for trams to pass through comfortably, but as my picture shows, some of the route in Nottingham is along narrower roads than ours. The tram stop shown here is Shipstone Street – next to the sadly closed and much lamented Shipstone’s Brewery. Overall the tram seemed popular with local people, and was certainly well used.