Transport for London’s (TfL) road-painting team were forced to hastily correct an awkward road-painting error outside of Camden Town station – they had mistakenly pointed drivers in the direction of “Hempstead” rather than Hampstead.

Jokes on social media ensued, with some mischievously pointing out that hemp is a strain of the cannabis plant.

The road outside of the Tube station had been repainted as part of TfL’s Britannia Junction redevelopment.

David Sockett, who heads up project and programme delivery at TfL, said: “We’d like to apologise for the unfortunate spelling error on Camden High Street, where work had been carried out to make Britannia Junction safer. The error has now been rectified.”

TfL also reiterated that everyone except critical workers should not be travelling, and it had therefore stopped construction on its construction sites unless there was an “operational safety” reason to continue.

Work at Britannia Junction has thus been paused and TfL plans to resume “when it is safe for workers to get back on site”.