tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16668725590070765692024-03-27T06:36:04.349+00:00London underfootLondon's walking trails under the microscope.Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.comBlogger64125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-50156333696157580392023-11-06T12:31:00.001+00:002024-03-25T23:07:23.551+00:00Capital Ring 14/15: Hackney Wick - Beckton Park - Woolwich<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGV5hO56u_eTdWrldpkzQlmLTukMieZBc-hTew3LkgIHjXI5RSViF28PrbTKI3T21-ke1CpXevDekNkFFNK5OJsZZiWssPq6j-S8vNF4aEKf3cjb1x_fE-9m-YROCqpzMsLzlPfRd0iqaH1Orc48AWC1qV_zwrb3sICEICcbs_gkR3zF7klUauuPod5x8/s1000/uelalbertdock-w1000.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGV5hO56u_eTdWrldpkzQlmLTukMieZBc-hTew3LkgIHjXI5RSViF28PrbTKI3T21-ke1CpXevDekNkFFNK5OJsZZiWssPq6j-S8vNF4aEKf3cjb1x_fE-9m-YROCqpzMsLzlPfRd0iqaH1Orc48AWC1qV_zwrb3sICEICcbs_gkR3zF7klUauuPod5x8/w640-h360/uelalbertdock-w1000.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Halls of residence at the University of East London campus on Royal Albert Dock.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">The Capital Ring concludes with an easy stroll
through low-lying former marshlands, around the edge of the Queen Elizabeth
Olympic Park on the River Lee Navigation towpath and the Greenway, a footpath
and cycleway along the top of the Northern Outfall Sewer which continues to
East Ham – a more pleasant experience than it sounds. A thread of green spaces
among the 1980s developments of Beckton leads south to the Royal Docks, where
the trail rejoins the river Thames at Gallions Reach for a final riverside
section across the docks’ lock gates and through the Woolwich Foot Tunnel to
complete the circuit, with the nearby alternative of the Woolwich Free Ferry.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">This post covers two consecutive official Ring sections
combined to create a day walk. One ends and the other begins at former railway
line the Beckton Corridor in Beckton Park, near Royal Albert DLR station. Otherwise,
this is one of the best-connected sections of the trail, passing three other
DLR stations and numerous bus stops, with easy links to one of London’s busiest
transport interchanges at Stratford, two other Tube and National Rail stations
and three boat piers. It even passes within walking distance of an
international airport. Note that at the time of writing, redevelopment works are
disrupting parts of the riverside path at the end, as explained below.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Stratford Marsh and Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park<o:p></o:p></h3>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJjZ3Nd7CAIeCgfOPZY3FKvqb3CHrOcfr-O-h3fihyDPbgn0opNjpSP7eykd7RYYma5Ywoja4YDy8gRaRdoRTH668FHPtFISiM6UnuHbKbA15eRo35ETIUdDxTrbwHDR6XOHqF7VJStES0X-YwL-QpIymBS0V2wH8VyQhmfCx-XTqN-ZDOjC11nn4NnM0/s1000/carpentersbridge-w1000.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJjZ3Nd7CAIeCgfOPZY3FKvqb3CHrOcfr-O-h3fihyDPbgn0opNjpSP7eykd7RYYma5Ywoja4YDy8gRaRdoRTH668FHPtFISiM6UnuHbKbA15eRo35ETIUdDxTrbwHDR6XOHqF7VJStES0X-YwL-QpIymBS0V2wH8VyQhmfCx-XTqN-ZDOjC11nn4NnM0/w640-h360/carpentersbridge-w1000.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View south from Carpenters Bridge along the Hackney Cut with London Stadium and Orbit sculpture.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">As we’ve seen in the <a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2023/05/capital-ring-1213-highgate-stoke.html" target="_blank">previous section</a>, large areas
of marshland once stretched across the broad, flat valley carved by the river
Lea. As we’ll discover in these last two sections of the Capital Ring, these
marshes continued south to merge with the equally damp and even broader margins
of the Lea’s parent, the Thames. The first former marshland area we pass is
Stratford Marsh, which for millennia challenged travellers heading east out of
London. In Roman times it already straddled a major route, later known as the
Great Road, part of Inter V, which linked two of Britain’s most important
cities at the time, London and Colchester (Camulodunum), formerly a major
Celtic settlement and the first capital of the province before this function
was transferred to London around 61 CE.</p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">It’s long been assumed that the Great Road always forded
the Lea on the line of a pre-Roman crossing at what we now know as Old Ford,
which we’ll reach shortly, but excavations in 2003 unearthed Roman timber
structures that suggested the crossing may at some point have been a wooden
bridge or causeway to the north. It had clearly reverted to a ford by 1067 when
the name <i>Strætforda</i> is first recorded, meaning ‘ford on the street’,
with ‘street’ in its original sense of a surfaced highway, often applied to
Roman roads.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">In 1110, so the story goes, Matilda of Scotland (1080-1118), first
wife of monarch Henry I, fell into the river while struggling across the ford
on her way to Barking Abbey. The experience prompted her to command the
construction of a more secure route with a bridge and causeway a little south
of the existing one. It’s sometimes claimed the bridge, which included a chapel
to St Katherine, was the first stone bridge built in Britain: certainly, stone
was then a highly unusual building material for bridges, which were more
typically wooden. The structure had a pronounced arched profile which prompted
the name Bow Bridge, and the area immediately to the west of it became known as
Stratford-at-Bow, Stratford-le-Bow or simply Stratford Bow, later shortened to
Bow. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Back then, this area was part of the large parish and
manor of Stepney, among the extensive holdings of the bishops of London in the
Ossulstone hundred of Middlesex. As the East End grew, Stepney, which became
part of the Tower Division of Ossulstone in the 17<sup>th</sup> century, was also
subdivided. Stratford Bow became a separate parish in 1719, with a chapel of
ease a little west of our route upgraded to the parish church of St Mary’s (not to be confused with St Mary-le-Bow church on
Cheapside in the City, the one that reputedly defines true Cockneys as those
born within earshot of its bells). Old Ford, the area immediately west of the ford
and bridge in the northern part of Bow, was likely a separate manor by 1380,
held by one William Badby: it subsequently passed through many different hands.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The name Stratford was also applied to the eastern, Essex
side of the river, with which it’s exclusively associated today. In the 10<sup>th</sup>
century this was also part of a much larger parish: Ham, or Hamme, meaning a
dry area surrounded by marshes, in the hundred of Becontree. Exactly when this
was divided into West Ham, including Stratford, and East Ham is uncertain but there’s
evidence of the split from 1037. The Essex Stratford became known as Stratford
Ham or Stratford Langthorne, the latter after a nearby abbey, of which much more
shortly.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The river itself, and the marsh that occupied the land
between it and the abbey and, later, the town, were long the subjects of human
intervention. For centuries the marsh, like those along the previous section,
was managed as ‘lammas land’, used for the private cultivation of hay and grain
in the warmer months and for common grazing in the cooler seasons, with various
ditches and other artificial features added to improve drainage.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The first major alteration to the Lea’s natural course was
likely around 894, when the Anglo-Saxon king, Alfred the Great (c849-899), ordered the
cutting of a new channel to lower the water level of the main stream, grounding
several Danish longships which had sailed further upriver intent on expanding Danish
rule in the region beyond its established western boundary at the Lea. Monks
from the abbey then further remodelled the waterways, improving drainage and
transport and creating races to power mills. The result was the complex skein
of channels known today as the Bow Back Rivers, all of them splitting from and
rejoining the Lea. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The presence of mills signalled a future industrial function
for an area that, although always comparatively well-connected by both river
and road, was too damp for extensive housebuilding. During the 19<sup>th</sup>
century, much of the marshland was lost to industries attracted by plentiful
water and easy connections to central London, the Thames and the docks. The
Metropolitan Building Act of 1844 banned the most noxious and dangerous
industries from operating in the metropolitan area, west of the Lea, after
which ‘factory after factory was erected on the marshy wastes of Stratford and
Plaistow’, as <i>The Times</i> put it in 1886. ‘The banks of the Bow Back
Rivers were the site of dozens of factories, including gasworks, soapworks,
chemical plants, an important drug manufacturer, paint and dye factories and a
wide range of other industrial sites’, writes historian Jim Clifford.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Much of this industry went into decline in the 20<sup>th</sup>
century, particularly following the closure of the docks in the late 1960s when
decreased incomes reduced local demand and the area’s convenience for
international trade was lost. At the dawn of the 21<sup>st</sup> century,
Stratford was recognised as one of the most deprived areas of London and the UK,
with a densely packed population on low incomes, many of them unemployed. So
when in 2003 the UK government and Mayor of London put the capital forward as potential
host of the 2012 summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, Stratford Marsh was top
of the list as the site of the main Olympic park with the suggestion that this
would spur a much-needed regeneration.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">In 2005, London just pipped Paris to become the first city
to host the Games three times: previous Olympiads were in 1908 and 1948 and we’ve
already passed a couple of their venues. But while the 1948 event, staged in
the challenging economic context of the immediate aftermath of World War II,
was known as the ‘austerity games’, with no new buildings, its successor triggered
one of Britain’s biggest ever regeneration and redevelopment projects. Not all
the events took place here – some were elsewhere in London and in other parts
of the UK – but the marshes became home to the flagship stadium, several other
major venues and the athletes’ village.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As always, games organisers the International
Olympic Committee (IOC) required the hosts to foot the bill for meeting its
extremely exacting requirements: the final cost to taxpayers was around £9.3 billion,
well over twice the original estimate of £4 billion.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">London 2012 was touted as the most sustainable Olympics
yet, not just in terms of building design and construction practices but because
the legacy was carefully planned in. The IOC was increasingly sensitive to
criticism of demands for costly infrastructure which was then either removed or
failed to find sufficient future use. Several previous host cities were littered
with decaying white elephants marooned in desolate wastelands, like the Stade
Olympique built in Montréal for the 1976 games which took 30 years to repay its
cost and remains underused today while requiring expensive maintenance. London,
we were promised, would be different, with the Olympic Park subsequently
transforming into a vibrant new neighbourhood almost 3 square km in extent, packed
with high-quality green space, affordable housing and business and employment
opportunities.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The organisers and supporters of London 2012 regularly
described the site rather misleadingly as ‘underdeveloped’ and derelict, a
blank slate of little use. In truth, it had not long before been one of the
most intensely developed parts of London, and though it was undoubtedly in
decline, badly polluted, unattractive and with poor access, it was still home
to around 135 businesses which were displaced. 450 housing association flats
were lost, many of them home to very poor and vulnerable tenants. Wildlife in
the remaining fragments of marsh also had to be moved, including 4,000 smooth
newts and various other amphibians and fish.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The games were also justified as a way of promoting and
encouraging physical activity, the low levels of which were increasingly seen
by the early 2000s as a serious public health challenge generating significant
cost to the NHS and the wider economy. The event would ‘inspire a generation’, with
a target to get a million more people to play more sport. But there’s no hard
evidence that major sporting events increase public participation: indeed, by
focusing on the extraordinary achievements of elite athletes, they can even make
active lifestyles seem less rather than more accessible, particularly to the
most sedentary people who could most benefit from becoming a little more
active. It’s no surprise that, over a decade on, there’s little to suggest this
aspiration was met.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">More promising was the commitment to active travel. I was
working full-time for the Ramblers in the years before the event and sat on the
Olympic Delivery Authority’s Active Travel Advisory Group. This was a mixed
experience: the focus of the group was to encourage spectators to walk or cycle
to events and provide infrastructure to facilitate this, as there was to be no
public vehicle access, but the walking and cycling charities argued that there
were also opportunities to further the public health ambitions through
promoting the most accessible forms of everyday physical activity more
generally.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">We made some headway, though the promotional activities
were limited and left to the last moment. And there was always the
contradiction that, while for spectators this was to be a car-free games, Transport
for London (TfL) had to meet the IOC’s demands for officials and athletes to be
whisked around by car at high speeds, even if that meant temporarily removing
pedestrian crossings and cycle lanes. All the same, some of the 2012 work
remains useful today, including improvements to the paths the Ring follows alongside
the Lee Navigation and the Greenway in this and the last section.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Then there was the disruption of the build and of the
events themselves, and the security measures necessary. For several years, most
of the paths the Ring follows round the edge of the park were closed for
construction. Some of them were reopened but only with armed police patrols, then
closed again during ‘games time’ as part of the security cordon. But bumping
into a copper with a machine gun on the towpath is rather less distressing than
the experience of residents who discovered surface-to-air missiles were being
installed on the roofs of their flat blocks to defend against possible
terrorist attack from the air.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">As a sporting event, London 2012 was regarded as a great
success, with over two million people attending and 38 new world records set. Mo
Farah won his double golds in the 5,000 and 10,000 m and the only notable
disaster, perhaps predictably, was then-Mayor of London Boris Johnson getting
stuck 20 m in the air on a zipwire in Victoria Park, an enduring image of his frankly
confounding political career. 70,000 volunteers were mobilised as ‘games
makers’ who assisted during the event, and the ones I’ve spoken to found it a
joyful and fulfilling experience. For a while, the capital seemed to become a
friendlier place.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The aspiration to secure a sustainable legacy for the purpose-built
venues seems to have been largely achieved, in the Olympic Park at least. The site
passed to a quango, the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), and the
extensive green space and permanent venues were fully opened to the public by
April 2014, renamed the <a href="https://www.queenelizabetholympicpark.co.uk/" target="_blank">Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park</a> to mark the queen’s
diamond jubilee, also in 2012. The athletes’ village on the east side was, as
planned, redeveloped as housing and several more mixed residential developments
have followed.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Ultimately there will be homes for 8,000 people within the
park boundaries, though the extent to which this housing is ‘affordable’ is
debatable – most of it is well beyond the means of the deprived people the
development was supposed to help, and the improved facilities have themselves
driven up property prices locally. The LLDC has its own planning powers and has
overseen redevelopment, though these powers are set to return to the local
authorities during the 2020s and the parkland will eventually become part of
the <a href="https://www.leevalleypark.org.uk/" target="_blank">Lee Valley Park</a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring only scrapes the edge of the park, but it’s worth
further exploration. There’s lots to see, from wild areas and wetlands to
spectacular formal plantings, most recently joined by a ‘blossom garden’ to
commemorate the victims of the 2020-21 Covid-19 pandemic. The cleaned-up Bow
Back Rivers are to my mind one of the most fascinating attractions, providing
pleasant walking routes and linking both the wildest and the most built-up parts
of the space. But there are also places where the patchwork doesn’t quite hang
together and several wide roads, regarded as essential during games time but
now out of scale to their current levels of use and adding an unfinished,
unwelcoming feel to their surrounds. Hopefully some of these will be reclaimed
over time.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Old Ford</h3><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhISZ-nHwKA7zX7TaoVBo32qvZp51dQ_1vLlI8gqUnfJPM0wyik0bCOmtVj32C5gYUhR5Q3Z5vJzB28PIjL5PZRoRS44DGkDHU1B_ZHSJFt8kFruvOFXD-09P5o93pQdZow9LjYnyvrRGXyAq5IoFaqsWkQwJlczmyzOQ5NY7B4T4RpOCaJWdm1ez0s1uE/s800/oldfordlocks-w600.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhISZ-nHwKA7zX7TaoVBo32qvZp51dQ_1vLlI8gqUnfJPM0wyik0bCOmtVj32C5gYUhR5Q3Z5vJzB28PIjL5PZRoRS44DGkDHU1B_ZHSJFt8kFruvOFXD-09P5o93pQdZow9LjYnyvrRGXyAq5IoFaqsWkQwJlczmyzOQ5NY7B4T4RpOCaJWdm1ez0s1uE/w480-h640/oldfordlocks-w600.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old Ford Lock, Fish Island on right.</td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div>One of those overlarge roads is Carpenters Road, which
crosses the <a href="https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/canals-and-rivers/lee-navigation" target="_blank">River Lee Navigation</a> on the Carpenters Road Bridge (no 11) on the
Tower Hamlets side of Hackney Wick, heading east into the park. The towpath
below the bridge here is the starting point of Ring 14, also part of the<a href="https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/walking/lea-valley" target="_blank"> Lea Valley Walk,</a> and I’ve already mentioned
some of the surrounding features at the end of the last section: the Sweetwater
development site to the left, on land once occupied by an East London Water
Company reservoir; the Hertford Union canal heading off right towards Victoria
Park and Mile End. The waterway here is still the Hackney Cut, a little west of
the Lea’s natural course, so both sides fall under Tower Hamlets and former
Middlesex.</div><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The next bridge south, Monier Bridge (H14), lands on the
far side of the canal in a triangular-shaped neighbourhood known as Fish Island.
This is not actually an island as it’s surrounded on only two sides by water – the
Hertford Union to the north and the Hackney Cut to the east – but its third,
western, side is well-defined by Wick Lane and the Northern Outfall Sewer, of
which more shortly. From the mid-1850s, products like oil, coal tar, ink and
rubber were processed on waterside sites here.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">In 1865 the Gas Light and Coke Company bought a plot of
disused railway land as a potential gasworks, but this was never built:
instead, the company developed a ’factory town’ where noxious industries
crammed up against poor quality homes for their workers. The picturesque
name is nothing to do with the aquatic inhabitants of the adjacent waterways
but followed from the fanciful decision to name the newly built streets after freshwater
fish while facilitating the poisoning of their habitats: Bream Street, Dace
Road, Roach Road. Factories gave way to light industry and partial dereliction
following World War II. Then, like the neighbouring northern part of Hackney
Wick, the area became an artists’ hangout and, following the success of the
Olympic bid, an increasingly trendy and expensive place to live. Part of it is
now a conservation area.<o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm94UUddJSRMuZZtY-U6Pdy3w9oxXmN7feeDeBKarGAt5OiuyWQYNIsqcQDHeMbSrrCwZUXb7z7O3XGK8nS5yGE4NQF0RnvczOzo1mHnYiGjzITEj5HifHpDBwSAQUvC_jBO0KbpmlXCMYQB7pGMlfj3QSxi96D9hNJnq8ZDWT9XDoTBuCbb9HpVb0WRo/s600/leenavcranebase-w600.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm94UUddJSRMuZZtY-U6Pdy3w9oxXmN7feeDeBKarGAt5OiuyWQYNIsqcQDHeMbSrrCwZUXb7z7O3XGK8nS5yGE4NQF0RnvczOzo1mHnYiGjzITEj5HifHpDBwSAQUvC_jBO0KbpmlXCMYQB7pGMlfj3QSxi96D9hNJnq8ZDWT9XDoTBuCbb9HpVb0WRo/w640-h480/leenavcranebase-w600.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Forner crane location on the towpath of the River Lee Navigation at Sweetwater.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoBodyText">Just past the bridge, a patch of cobbles striated with
rails underfoot indicates a location once occupied by a canalside crane: there
are several others further along. Both Monier Bridge and the next one, Stour
Bridge, are new, designed to improve connectivity as the area is redeveloped.
Monier Bridge was originally a more modest footbridge opened in 2014, but in
2020 it was closed and replaced by the current structure as the LLDC wanted a
new route for buses to Sweetwater, though currently it’s still only open to walkers
and cyclists. Stour Bridge was installed with a similar purpose a little
earlier in 2020: it lands right beside the rather grand pink building Forman’s salmon
smokery managed to wrest out of the Olympic agency when it became the most
celebrated business forced to move from Stratford Marshes.</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Next, on our side of the canal, you pass the Bobby Moore
Academy, opened in 2017 as a primary school on the academy model, with an
emphasis on sport: it’s named after the footballer Bobby Moore (1941-93), a
West Ham United defender who captained the victorious England team at the 1966
World Cup. The link to West Ham is a rather closer one than geographical
proximity to its home district, as we’ll soon see. The school is partly built over
the former East London Waterworks reservoir, which once stretched a long way
down this side of the Hackney Cut.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Just past the academy is a fence affording glimpses of a
red brick house surrounded by trees, originally three terraced cottages built
in 1947 and designated Old Ford Lock Cottages 1-3. Following decades of
dereliction, in 1992 they were knocked into a single house and refurbished as the
location for calculatedly irreverent Channel 4 breakfast TV show <i>The Big
Breakfast</i>. Its isolation in an otherwise dense urban area was ideal for
such purposes, its inaccessibility less so. After the show was axed in 2002 the
house was sold to a private occupant, then sold again in 2022 at a hefty price
of £6 million, but is still known locally as the Big Breakfast House.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The cottages were originally built to house staff
supervising Old Ford Lock (no 19), now in front of you, after earlier
accommodation was badly damaged in World War II bombing. The lock itself was opened
with the Hackney Cut in 1769 but has been rebuilt several times since, most
recently in 1935. For most of its history, it was a tidal lock: the tidal limit
of the Lea was Hackney Wick until 2000 when the Bow Locks further downstream were
remodelled to prevent tides washing silt into the navigation.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Hackney Cut ends just past the lock, where the
Navigation rejoins the Old River Lee flowing in from the left, the first time
we’ve seen it since Lea Bridge. The towpath crosses it on a footbridge which
takes the Ring from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets to the London Borough
of Newham, its final borough. But we’ve not yet entered historic Essex: the old
parish and county boundary followed a still-older course of the waterway a
little further east.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Between here and the bridge ahead, on the opposite bank,
are two notable sites. First is Swan Wharf, built by a haulage company in the
early 20<sup>th</sup> century. A 2010s community campaign saved the imposing industrial
building with its overhanging framework when it was slated to be demolished for
housing, and it’s now used as artists’ studios and an events venue. Development
did proceed next door at Crown Wharf, the original home of Crown wallpaper, but
at least opened a window for the archaeological dig that revealed possible
remnants of a Roman bridge and causeway. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The bridge ahead carries the Greenway, which parallels the
Northern Outfall Sewer, thus the thick steel pipes that cross the river. We join
the alignment of the sewer almost immediately after passing under it, up a ramp
from a path junction known as the Greenway Turn. It’s an appropriate point to take
our leave of the river Lea and the Lea Valley Path, as this is more-or-less the site where Matilda took
an unintentional swim, though there’s no visible evidence of the ford today.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlJwFqJMXW-PAgDjoQUActfkdhCo8zi3YqCN6SJ9CLLr53cEzD4j2t266rGh07wNx6UwsSK84H-c7A0AYMQOxux67bRSPQ-dMGMftNxT3SwVddN6aQJawMkeJ7nAvm6iXqcfMk3lGGtwXWg2tC10Nw7m0zsA6nKACX8uB84aK1vbF5GyUz9SUeD5Tm9dE/s800/greenwayturn-w600.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlJwFqJMXW-PAgDjoQUActfkdhCo8zi3YqCN6SJ9CLLr53cEzD4j2t266rGh07wNx6UwsSK84H-c7A0AYMQOxux67bRSPQ-dMGMftNxT3SwVddN6aQJawMkeJ7nAvm6iXqcfMk3lGGtwXWg2tC10Nw7m0zsA6nKACX8uB84aK1vbF5GyUz9SUeD5Tm9dE/w480-h640/greenwayturn-w600.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Signing at the Greenway Turn, more-or-less on the site of the Old Ford.</td></tr></tbody></table><h3 style="text-align: left;">The Greenway</h3><h3><o:p></o:p></h3>
<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfHSn1gWUJzyOeVm4mWRuhz4UKrxbsNPgvekWbqN81OH9kxSaKNNR4YraLNrkQFBi0-o8NVsTwNkVGJ202YwjtdaNY7Ad3XcK3XqRc__-3PahXJ0BVUjQdnaUrz3C_8EfbDPm3VCJ2qvSfsmJK7RPK_v71_3VsEvE8mpDZp3FYWtw6ZBvvm7KE_GJzgQY/s800/greenway-w600.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfHSn1gWUJzyOeVm4mWRuhz4UKrxbsNPgvekWbqN81OH9kxSaKNNR4YraLNrkQFBi0-o8NVsTwNkVGJ202YwjtdaNY7Ad3XcK3XqRc__-3PahXJ0BVUjQdnaUrz3C_8EfbDPm3VCJ2qvSfsmJK7RPK_v71_3VsEvE8mpDZp3FYWtw6ZBvvm7KE_GJzgQY/w480-h640/greenway-w600.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Greenway, a more salubrious name than the Sewer Bank.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">For most of London’s history, the city’s rivers were
also its sewers. As their capacity to wash effluent cleanly away was stretched
by the growing population, they began to turn into noxious health hazards. The
simplest solution was to cover them over, the fate of nearly all the Thames
tributaries in the central area: out of sight, out of mind, and most
importantly out of range of human olfaction. Artificial sewers were constructed
haphazardly from the mid-18<sup>th</sup> century, but these also drained into
the river system and eventually into the Thames, and even this large river’s
capacity to absorb sewage was eventually stretched following the adoption of
flush toilets from the later 18<sup>th</sup> century, continued population
growth and new sources of liquid waste from burgeoning industries. In his novel
<i>Little Dorrit</i>, written in 1855 but set in the 1820s, Charles Dickens relates
his character Arthur Clennam’s impressions of London thus:</p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="Quote1" style="text-align: left;">Miles of close wells and pits of houses, where the inhabitants
gasped for air, stretched far away towards every point of the compass. Through
the heart of the town a deadly sewer ebbed and flowed, in the place of a fine
fresh river.</p></blockquote><p class="Quote1"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The consequences for public health became increasingly
clear: tens of thousands of Londoners died in a series of cholera outbreaks
between the 1830s and 1850s, and during the second of these, in 1853, physician
John Snow (1813-58), correlated cases with a particular water pump in Soho and
proved that the disease was spread through contaminated water rather than
polluted air as previously thought.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">London had a long-term problem with major infrastructure, particularly
sewers. There was still no unified local government outside the City, and any initiatives
covering a wider geographical area had to navigate a complex patchwork of parish
and county authorities, ad-hoc boards and powerful landowners, often requiring
backing from central government. Transport projects like major roads, canals
and railways could to some extent be left to the private sector with central
government authorisation, as investment could be recouped, hopefully at a
profit, by charging at the point of use. But nobody wanted to pay for poo.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">In 1848, the government finally established a Metropolitan
Commission of Sewers, the first time a single body took on London-wide
responsibility for the system. The following year, the Commission appointed a
talented former railway engineer, Joseph Bazalgette (1819-91), as assistant
surveyor, later promoted to chief engineer when his boss died. Bazalgette completed
the first integrated and comprehensive plan for the capital’s sewers in 1856.
By then the need for a more general cross-London infrastructure body had become
urgent, and the previous year the Commission had been superseded by the
Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW), which retained Bazelgette in his post though
didn’t yet implement his recommendations. We’ve encountered the MBW numerous
times in London underfoot: although a quango with limited powers, it’s usually
seen as the beginning of modern governance in the capital, as explained in
<a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2010/06/london-countryway-12-welham-green.html">London Countryway 18</a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">During several weeks of extremely hot and dry weather in
July and August 1858, the water level in the Thames became unusually low, and
at low tide sewage piled up on the foreshore, with some of the semi-solid
deposits two metres deep, putrescing in the hot sun. The Great Stink, as it was
named, caused Queen Victoria to abandon a pleasure cruise. Parliament, right on
the riverside, could no longer ignore the problem: the curtains in the Palace
of Westminster were soaked in lime chloride to mask the smell, and there was
serious talk of relocating outside London. As the <i>Times</i> recorded, ‘Parliament
was all but compelled to legislate upon the great London nuisance by the force
of sheer stench’. The MBW was charged with cleaning up the river and granted
the power to borrow money to finance this, recouped through a levy on the
rates. Bazelgette’s plans were rapidly given the green light.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Bazelgette is an often-overlooked architect of modern
London. Between 1860 and 1874 he oversaw the construction of almost 2,000 km of
new sewers. The works included the Victoria, Albert and Chelsea Embankments
along the Thames itself, collecting sewage at the drainage system’s lowest
point, with the Victoria Embankment additionally incorporating an underground
railway, today’s Circle and District Lines. Two other key components were the
Northern and Southern Outfall Sewers to the east, transporting the combined
sewage downriver to Beckton on the north and Crossness, between Erith and
what’s now Thamesmead, in the south, where it was pumped into the Thames at
high tide. Treatment plants were later built at both points to filter the
effluent before discharge, following further health scares.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">For over 5 km, the Ring runs atop the Northern Outfall
Sewer, completed in 1868. This starts around 350 m northwest of where we join
it, at Wick Lane, where it receives flows from the high-level sewer starting in
Hampstead and the middle-level sewer from Kilburn. It then runs within a
prominent embankment in a series of straight lines 7 km southeast to Beckton. In
a reflection of the priorities of the time, it was built without connections to
the areas it passes through, like Stratford, West Ham and East Ham. The
inhabitants of these deprived industrial neighbourhoods had to put up with the dirty
discharge of central London passing their backyards without being able to take
advantage of the system themselves.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The top of the embankment was always walkable, primarily
for maintenance purposes, but it was long used as an informal route by locals
and became known as the Sewerbank. Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) enjoyed exploring it when
staying in Bromley-by-Bow in 1931 for talks on the future of India. In the
early 1990s, the London Planning Advisory Committee (LPAC), a joint
organisation set up to plug some of the strategic gaps left by the abolition of
the Greater London Council, produced a ‘green strategy’ for London which included
recommendations on improving walking and cycling routes, including the
Sewerbank. In response, Newham council, working with Thames Water, launched an
improvement project, but wisely decided to change the name, adopting the much
more salubrious <a href="https://londongardenstrust.org/conservation/inventory/site-record/?ID=NEW013" target="_blank">Greenway</a>, or Newham Greenway. The steel arches at access
points, with their distinctive lettering, date from this mid-1990s makeover:
you’ll pass one as you leave the towpath.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The northwestern section was reworked again in the run-up
to the 2012 Olympics, when it provided the most direct link between West Ham
station and the Olympic Park. The surfaces are much improved in quality as a
result, particularly for cyclists, but now detract somewhat from the informal
green character. Another issue is that the path is not a public right of way
but remains Thames Water’s private property, with only permissive access, so can
easily be closed at short notice: the stretch we’ll soon walk between Pudding Mill
Lane and Stratford High Street was off-limits for a full ten years between 2009
and 2019 to allow construction work. It’s also locked at night.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">But it’s undoubtedly one of London’s walking gems, a piece
of practical and historic infrastructure put to an unexpected second use, with
something of that alternative geography of canals and disused railways. Much of
it is elevated above its surrounds, providing views and a sense of space, and refreshingly,
its origin is not effaced but deliberately foregrounded in the various pipes
and other elements of fluid engineering scattered about. You may sometimes even
notice the smell, but normally it's remarkably fragrant.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">From the Greenway Turn onward, the Capital Ring shares its
route with the <a href="https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/walking/jubilee-greenway" target="_blank">Jubilee Greenway</a>, another of Transport for London’s strategic
walking trails, which has already joined the Greenway a little further
northwest where it starts at Wick Lane. Created to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s
golden jubilee in 2012, this is effectively another orbital route, though for
the most part more central than the Ring and also open to cyclists. Most of it duplicates
existing trails: the Greenway and then the Capital Ring from Wick Lane to Woolwich,
the Thames Path to Westminster Bridge, its own route to Paddington and Little Venice
via Buckingham Palace, Green Park and Hyde Park, the Regents Canal towpath to Victoria
Park and its own route and the Hertford Union Canal towpath to Wick Lane. I’ll
cover it in more detail in future posts, but its green marble pavement plaques
will become a familiar sight for the rest of this section.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Greenway: Stratford Marsh</h3>
<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1VeR8lBCSmt39rj9vm0QopYyscQcUKJb1ioKTxXzsgLuzgqQT7F8YjwjGgE4y66DwQi9qEGsf0-iHmEIZfosZ5eDzQyW1O-A3U-uNXSp3QdfEEtJQDUBkFhlyOK0kT4mjozCo5vdjiW2gaKBwKO1KOuFusOhMxHXC3-G6H86bWVJzdvmB4elzxID9WfM/s800/waterworksriver-w600.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1VeR8lBCSmt39rj9vm0QopYyscQcUKJb1ioKTxXzsgLuzgqQT7F8YjwjGgE4y66DwQi9qEGsf0-iHmEIZfosZ5eDzQyW1O-A3U-uNXSp3QdfEEtJQDUBkFhlyOK0kT4mjozCo5vdjiW2gaKBwKO1KOuFusOhMxHXC3-G6H86bWVJzdvmB4elzxID9WfM/w480-h640/waterworksriver-w600.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Waterworks River and Halo Tower, on the site of Saynes Mill.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">The original East London Waterworks was established around
1806 on a site immediately south of the Greenway (right) where the Ring joins
it. Originally it abstracted water from the Lea here but in 1829 shifted its
collection point to Lea Bridge, where the facility grew into the Middlesex and
Essex Filter Beds visited in the last section. As already mentioned, the
company built an aqueduct running from the filter beds alongside the Hackney
Cut to convey water southwards. The Northern Outfall Sewer crossed the aqueduct
more-or-less where we join it, the latter terminating in a set of reservoirs on
the south side.</p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">By the 1890s all this was filled in and the reservoir site,
along with the rest of ‘Bow Island’, the triangle of land between the river
Lea, the sewer and the Great Eastern main line, was annexed to the sprawling
railway facilities centred on Stratford and renamed Bow Goods Yard East. Railway
use declined over the 20<sup>th</sup> century and the site then became the main
construction hub for the Olympic Park in the runup to 2012. During games time
it housed a warm-up track, and currently part of it is an aggregates terminal, though
it facilitates remarkably open views southwards towards Mile End and Poplar.
This is not to last: in 2023, Network Rail launched its masterplan for a
mixed-use neighbourhood, though still incorporating a rail freight terminal, on
what will likely be the last parcel of Olympic land to undergo redevelopment.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Some of the better-known Olympic landmarks are now clearly
visible to the left of the Greenway. The main stadium, now officially known as
the London Stadium, held 80,000 spectators during the Games when it was covered
by a 70 m-high roof. It was designed so capacity could be reduced after the
Games, but, as this involved removing one of its circular tiers, it also
necessitated losing the roof. In 2016 the building reopened following a
controversial bidding process as the new home ground of West Ham United FC. It’s
used for other sports as well, a requirement of the lease, and non-sporting
events. The capacity is now normally 60,000 but for events like concerts, when
part of the arena can be used for seating, this increases to 80,000.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The 114.5 m tangle of red gantries next to the stadium is Britain’s
largest, and one of its more controversial, pieces of public art, the
<a href="https://arcelormittalorbit.com/" target="_blank">ArcelorMittal Orbit</a>. When Boris Johnson became Mayor of London, he was keen to leave
his own stamp on the park, a project he inherited from his Labour predecessor
Ken Livingstone. Johnson persuaded Olympics minister Tessa Jowell that ‘something
extra’ was needed, and they launched a design competition for an ‘Olympic
tower’. The winners were Turner Prize-winning artist Anish Kapoor and engineer
Cecil Balmond, and the construction work was financed by a £16 million donation
from Britain’s then-richest man, Lakshmi Mittal of the ArcelorMittal steel
company, thus the name, topped up with £3.1 million from the public purse. The
Orbit’s two observation platforms proved less successful than expected as a
visitor attraction, even after it was enhanced with the opening of the world’s
longest slide in 2016, an appropriate addition reflecting the common
observation that it already looked like a mixed-up helter skelter.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Just past the stadium, the Greenway widens substantially
to form the deck of a bridge and, a few steps onto this, the Ring crosses the
former parish and county boundary, leaving historic Bow parish in the Tower
division of Ossulstone Hundred, Middlesex and entering West Ham in the
Becontree Hundred of Essex. The boundary was retained when the London County
Council was created in 1889, so this is another point where the Ring leaves the
‘Metropolis’ as it was until 1965, and continued to divide Tower Hamlets and Newham
boroughs until tweaks in the early 1990s realigned it with the current course
of the Old River Lea. Essex is the Ring’s last historic county and I’ve said
more about it under <a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2014/03/london-countryway-13-broxbourne-theydon.html">London Countryway 19</a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The bridge next crosses the course of the Pudding Mill
River, a minor stretch of the Bow Back Rivers which once provided an 800 m
alternative channel for the river Lea from just before the latter joins the
Hackney Cut at Old Ford to St Thomas’s Creek near what’s now the Bow Flyover. A
watermill stood on the bank a little south of here as far back as 1200: it was
originally known as St Thomas’s Mill but acquired the name Pudding Mill, not
because of its output, which was mainly flour, but its shape, which reminded
locals of a pudding. It was later rebuilt, then demolished in 1934 as part of a
flood relief scheme.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The river south of the Greenway was infilled in the 1960s,
but the northern part remained in water into the 21<sup>st</sup> century, when,
following a period of neglect, it was cleaned up as an attractive and valuable
nature area. This was the site that required the most relocation of wildlife
when it was cleared in 2007 to make way for the Olympic development, and the
marathon track and stadium car park now cover the river’s course.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The bridge finally crosses Marshgate Lane, an old road
through the marshes: this and Pudding Mill Lane once paralleled the Pudding
Mill River on east and west banks respectively. Just past this, the Greenway
temporarily leaves the embankment to join Marshgate Lane as the way ahead is
obstructed by the railway. But if you have the time, or need a break, it’s
worth continuing ahead to the dead end where you’ll find the <a href="https://theviewtube.co.uk/" target="_blank">View Tube</a> with its
stumpy tower. Built in 2010 from recycled shipping containers, it was intended
as a temporary facility offering views of the park during its construction, partly
in recompense for the loss of access. It proved a popular local feature and is
still open today, with a café, toilets, bike workshops and artists’ studios.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">A distinctive circular building with a short tower topped
by a blue glass lantern stands on the opposite side of the lane at the bottom
of the ramp. This is another sewage management structure, a pumping station for
the new sewers around the Olympic Park, completed in 2010 to a design by Lyall
Bills and Young architects. Decorations on the concrete are inspired by
Bazalgette’s plans, and the tower is essentially a stink pole, venting smelly
gases above nose level (see <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/capital-ring-12-woolwich-grove-park.html">Ring 2</a>). <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The lane ducks under the substantial railway bridges
carrying the Great Eastern main line, the DLR and, since 2022, the Elizabeth
Line: the eastern portal of the Stratford branch of the Crossrail tunnel
emerges here to join the existing line to Shenfield. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The entrance to Pudding Mill Lane DLR is
immediately opposite on the other side of the bridge. This stretch of the DLR
opened as part of the initial network in 1987, connecting Stratford with Canary
Wharf and Island Gardens, though at first there was only a passing loop here on
what was originally a single-track line, with trains running through non-stop. The
first station, a little north, opened in 1996, but was relocated to make way
for Crossrail in 2014.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The DLR station was closed during the 2012 events as it
was too small to cope, but since 2022 has enjoyed unexpectedly high footfall
thanks to its proximity to the ABBA Arena, home to the curious <i>Voyage</i>
show where the Swedish pop giants are represented by eternally young ‘Abbatars’. The
hexagonal purpose-built venue sits like a landed UFO just down Pudding Mill
Lane itself: it’s ‘demountable’ so can be moved to a new site when the show completes
its London run in 2027.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Pudding Mill River once ran through the strip of land
immediately south of the station alongside Marshgate Lane, currently occupied
by a container hotel: the mill itself was at the southern end of this stretch. In
1966, Queen Mary College installed a miniature nuclear reactor here for
educational purposes, the first operated by a UK university. It was
decommissioned in 1983 with no long-term threat to public health, but in 2005
there was a brief panic when this atomic history came to light in the early stages
of preparation for the Games.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Another ramp immediately south of the railway bridge climbs
past the Stratford Mill development site on the right to regain the embankment
above a surviving Bow Back River, the City Mill River. This splits from the Old
River Lee to the north, between the Olympic stadium and Carpenters Road, and
flows past the east side of the stadium as one of the main water features in
the Olympic Park. It originally joined the Waterworks River near Stratford High
Street, which in turn rejoined the Lea south of Three Mills, but as part of the
1930s flood relief scheme it was cut off by locks at both ends and now joins
the stump of the Pudding Mill River. The City Mill itself straddled the river
to the south, growing into a massive chemical works which covered much of the
triangle of land to the right.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Just before Stratford High Street, you cross the
Waterworks River, which also leaves the Lea to the north, just above the City
Mill River, which it parallels to the east through the Olympic Park before flowing
as the Three Mills Wall back to the main stream at Three Mills. Its current
name recalls its more recent use as a water supply channel, but before this it
was a tidal stream which since at least the 12<sup>th</sup> century powered a
corn mill known as Saynes Mill, the site of which is now covered by the curved
tower block, Halo Tower, visible to the left. Sometime after 1745, the West Ham
Waterworks Company co-opted the stream and turned the mill into a pumping
station with an adjacent reservoir. The infrastructure became part of the East
London Waterworks but was retired by the 1890s, and the river was widened and
diverted as part of the 1930s scheme, losing its tidal character.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">A different type of industry once occupied the art deco
building, Warton House, immediately to the left as you reach the High Street. It’s
now flats but was originally a box factory for the perfume company, Yardley,
thus the nostalgic mural at 2<sup>nd</sup> floor level depicting lavender
sellers. When it opened in 1937, the surrounding industries were still in full
flow, so I wonder if there was a hint of irony in invoking such pleasant
fragrances next to a sewer amid the stench of Stratford Marsh.</p><p class="MsoBodyText">Glance right for
a glimpse of another tall 2012 landmark that’s arguably more to scale, more
attractive and more relevant than the Orbit. A little down the High Street on
the opposite side is a 40 m wooden lattice sculpture illuminated at night and
intended to resemble the Olympic torch, designed by ARC-ML architects to
provide a centrepiece for another housing development.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Stratford and West Ham<o:p></o:p></h3>
<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj09VazOtHgK1gm7FUgJTOuVU0j9M_16LvEuJpTW5h1b4yFo2IQI0aQCjQjmKtGAOI2mG6Ts__Xx1Ost0csdOV2f9ACkqu-TwJQ-ao062td0EJJv6EEksoSD7mbzM7f43kVyA9zHltHF8TskkKeFsOvGPPd3Q4XPbZwAL1hX92ttxaibsdxvecvfq4PAfc/s1000/stratfordabbeysite-w1000.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj09VazOtHgK1gm7FUgJTOuVU0j9M_16LvEuJpTW5h1b4yFo2IQI0aQCjQjmKtGAOI2mG6Ts__Xx1Ost0csdOV2f9ACkqu-TwJQ-ao062td0EJJv6EEksoSD7mbzM7f43kVyA9zHltHF8TskkKeFsOvGPPd3Q4XPbZwAL1hX92ttxaibsdxvecvfq4PAfc/w640-h360/stratfordabbeysite-w1000.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View from Channelsea Bridge over the site of the former Stratford Abbey, with Abbey Mills engine house.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">As already mentioned, the medieval Essex parish on
the east side of the river Lea was West Ham, likely divided from East Ham
sometime in the 11<sup>th</sup> century. Anglo-Saxon <i>Hamm</i> is a reference
to the topography, meaning an area of hemmed-in land, in this case by marsh and
water. The historic centre was around the parish church of All Saints, which
has stood since at least the 1180s, about 1 km east of where the Ring meets
Stratford High Street and some way off our route. But two other developments nearby
eclipsed it as a local centre in subsequent centuries: first the abbey, then
the market town and industrial and railway centre of Stratford that grew up to
the north.</p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The town had the additional advantage that it lay on the main
highway through the area, originally the Roman Great Road, later Matilda’s
causeway, which eventually rejoined the previous route on what’s now the other
side of the town centre, along Romford Road. It’s this causeway we now cross, though
much widened and enlarged: the Roman alignment was eventually lost to the
shifting marshes and subsequent development, and when archaeologists looked for
it during the building of the Olympic Park they found no definitive trace. The High
Street remained part of a trunk route for centuries, linking London with Chelmsford,
Colchester, Ipswich and the coast at Great Yarmouth, with branches to other
coastal destinations like Harwich and Felixstowe. It was designated the A12 in
1922 but has since been renumbered A118: the A12 number is now applied to newer,
wider roads to the west and north, and we passed under one of these on <a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2023/05/capital-ring-1213-highgate-stoke.html">Ring 13</a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Around 1140, Norman noble William de Montfichet, whose
family seat was at Stansted Mountfitchet in northwest Essex, donated 4.5 ha of
land southeast of the causeway for use as an abbey. The beneficiaries were
monks of the Savignac order of Normandy, absorbed in 1147 by the Cistercians. The
community was first known simply as West Ham Abbey, or St Mary’s after its
patron saint, and eventually formed its own parish as an enclave within West
Ham, with its own grand church. It later became known as Stratford Langthorne,
allegedly after a distinctive tall thorn tree (‘long thorn’) nearby. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Originally a relatively small foundation, over the next
couple of centuries the site, which we’ll shortly pass, almost doubled in size
to 8 ha, housing one of the wealthiest monasteries in the country and
ultimately the fifth largest. This was partly due to its control of numerous watermills
which served the increasing demands of the London market, partly to the
ingenuity and industriousness of the monks in reclaiming productive land for
growing crops by draining the marshes, and partly because its accessibility
from London encouraged royal patronage. Henry III (1207-72) was a frequent guest,
conducting business from the abbey in the 1260s, and Edward IV (1442-83) agreed to donate
two casks of wine a year in 1467 in exchange for masses said on his behalf. At
its peak the abbey owned 600 ha of adjoining land and 20 manors across Essex
and elsewhere. It was so popular with monks and clerics visiting London that its
abbot felt compelled to break the tradition of hospitality by limiting stays to
three days.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Such wealth made it a prime target when Henry VIII (1491-1547) moved
to dissolve the monasteries. Stratford Langthorne was shut down in 1538 with
most of its land given to Peter Meutas (d 1562), the king’s faithful courtier, soldier
and spy. Eventually the buildings were dismantled, their masonry recycled in
new construction. Astonishingly, no visible evidence of this once vast complex,
the peer of Fountains in Yorkshire, remains beyond a stone window and carving
transplanted to All Saints Church, and a few street and other location names. A
celebrated pub, the Adam and Eve, established in the former precincts after
dissolution, survived, albeit much rebuilt, until 1994 when it was flattened
beneath the Jubilee Line depot.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The vital mills continued operating under secular
management, perpetuating the district’s early industrial character, but large
parts remained agricultural, noted for potatoes. Stratford was rustic enough by
the end of the 17<sup>th</sup> century to attract wealthy Londoners seeking convenient
country retreats: in 1722 the writer Daniel Defoe noted how such ‘handsome
large houses’ had multiplied ‘to a strange degree’ in the last three decades. A
fine porcelain factory opened in 1744, and large-scale industrialisation of the
entire area followed in the second half of the 19<sup>th</sup> century, as
already discussed.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">By then Stratford had its own church, St John’s, opened as
a chapel of ease to serve the growing population in 1834 but upgraded when the
new Stratford ecclesiastical parish was created a decade later. This formed the
nucleus of a new town centre around Stratford Broadway, about 1 km northeast (left)
along the High Street. A street market began on the Broadway in 1858, while a
wholesale fruit and vegetable market to rival Spitalfields opened nearby in
1879. Though the latter closed in 1991, both indoor and outdoor retail markets
remain a popular local feature.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The railway was another powerful driver of 19<sup>th</sup>
century growth. Stratford station first opened just a short distance from the
Broadway in 1839, in the initial flush of London rail development. Initially it
was an intermediate stop on the Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) between its
temporary terminus near Mile End and Romford: we ducked under this line, now
much expanded and widened, on Marshgate Lane. The following year the ECR extended
to a proper terminal at Shoreditch on the edge of the City, adjacent to today’s
Shoreditch High Street Overground station, later renamed Bishopsgate and
superseded by London Liverpool Street in 1874. In the opposite direction, the
line reached Colchester in 1843 and eventually Ipswich and Norwich, with
branches to the major East Anglian coastal ports. It was later absorbed
into the larger Great Eastern Railway (GER) and is still known today as the
Great Eastern Main Line.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Stratford remained a one-line station for only just over a
year, beginning its development into a major interchange in 1840 with the
opening of the Northern and Eastern Railway (N&ER) north along the Lea
valley to Broxbourne. The N&ER originally planned to connect London and
York this way, but only raised sufficient funds to reach Cambridge, achieved in
1845. It couldn’t even afford its own London terminal, so relied on using ECR
tracks between Stratford and Shoreditch, and the latter soon took it over, with
both later absorbed into the GER. I said a bit more about what’s now known as
the Temple Mills branch at Lea Bridge on <a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2023/05/capital-ring-1213-highgate-stoke.html">Ring 13</a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Further spokes were added to the Stratford hub. In 1846, the
Eastern Counties and Thames Junction Railway (EC&TJR) reached south towards
the Thames, as explained later. A connection to the London Tilbury and Southend
Railway (LT&SR), still in infrequent use, followed in 1854, with what’s now
the North London Line opening the following year, along with a branch to
Loughton, incorporated into the Underground Central Line in 1947. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">But the passenger and goods facilities, impressive as they
were, eventually accounted for only a small proportion of the railways’ impact
on Stratford. The ECR began maintaining locomotives here in 1840 and building
them from 1850. In the 1870s, Stratford became home to the GER’s main
locomotive and carriage works, which ultimately covered a wedge of land between
the North London and Great Eastern lines with a finger reaching to a wagon
works at Temple Mills. 1,702 locomotives and 5,500 passenger coaches were
constructed here between 1850 and 1963, and at its peak in 1912 the facility
provided jobs for 6,500 people. After several decades as a repair facility,
British Rail closed the works in 1993, another blow to the local economy,
though some pockets remained in use as freight terminals. Much of the site is
now the giant Westfield shopping mall, though some is housing and the Temple
Mills works is the main Eurostar depot for London.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Boosted by the millennium celebrations and then the
Olympics, Stratford became even better-connected in the late 20<sup>th</sup>
and early 21<sup>st</sup> centuries. The DLR from Canary Wharf opened in 1987;
the Jubilee Line in 1999; the North London Line converted to a more frequent
London Overground service in 2007. The international High Speed 1 (HS1) line
from London St Pancras to the Channel Tunnel portal and onwards to Brussels and
Paris followed in 2009, with a new so-called Stratford International station on
part of the old railway works though only served by high-speed domestic trains
to Kent. A second branch of the DLR connected the international and domestic
stations with the Royal Docks and Woolwich in 2011, and most recently the Shenfield
branch of the Elizabeth Line opened in 2022, linking local stations on the
Great Eastern main line with central London, London Heathrow Airport and
Reading via the Crossrail tunnel. As a result, Stratford is now the 5<sup>th</sup>
busiest station in Britain, the only one in the top 10 that isn’t a city centre
terminal.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Greenway: West Ham<o:p></o:p></h3>
<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqkrMi-DhKoWGqHefrhxzgsMLPi0BmKLBji1hkyPEcV26vP9EzZvdcJ_LCtGa1N3nE5mA9Om7FQaYkH0cYCAZ4eqeIoZyEx1-LJnoX9uNZAQnd0Qrdw9h-2ABGsD1l7NJrUVXv0EfvYuk4aYZCoopGFvIop28oEFJMD3tJvOFbvXJhQcB-2bQ3R8IzH_M/s1000/abbeycreek-w1000.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqkrMi-DhKoWGqHefrhxzgsMLPi0BmKLBji1hkyPEcV26vP9EzZvdcJ_LCtGa1N3nE5mA9Om7FQaYkH0cYCAZ4eqeIoZyEx1-LJnoX9uNZAQnd0Qrdw9h-2ABGsD1l7NJrUVXv0EfvYuk4aYZCoopGFvIop28oEFJMD3tJvOFbvXJhQcB-2bQ3R8IzH_M/w640-h360/abbeycreek-w1000.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From the Greenway southwest over Abbey Creek, Channelsea Island centre, Long Wall right.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">The Greenway continues straight across Stratford
High Street, between the site of the abbey and some of the mills that
contributed to its wealth. The area of housing and light industry to the right was
once fields known as Mill Meads, and today there’s some green space immediately
adjacent to the embankment a little way along, where Victorian terraces bombed
during the Blitz of 1940-41 have been replaced by a modest but popular local
park, Abbey Lane open space. On the opposite side is the site of Stratford
Gasworks, opened in the 1890s but largely decommissioned in the 1970s. Two
large underground storage tanks in the southernmost part of the works, just
before the Greenway bridges Abbey Lane, are visible as circles on aerial
photographs: they remained in use for some decades afterwards but have since
been filled in. This site is subject to yet another development application.</p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The forbiddingly spiky rooflines visible on the left from the
bridge belong to the Grade II-listed cottages at 116-130 Abbey Lane, built in
1865 for sewage workers to designs by Joseph Bazalgette himself. They’re a footnote
compared to the building now visible through the fence on the right side of the
Greenway: Grade II*-listed Abbey Mills Pumping Station, completed in 1868, perhaps
Bazalgette’s most impressive monument and one of the most extraordinary
buildings on the whole trail. The northern low-level sewer, which begins way to
the west, with branches from Hammersmith and Fulham, and runs through the Chelsea
and Victoria embankments, converges here, where a pumping station was needed to
transfer its contents into the main northern outfall sewer beneath our feet.<o:p></o:p></p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXOVuf8kAJ8T2zmgL3AtF6BRevzqBM7qyhurR0tPEKqzZjWGWUmPmkSOERm8rNPhlP9vEYlIIS5awTEigtJziU8g8fGYde-Xkp7xNBSRwsJo9q53oUSSPN7n_Ytq1ok302pv9u0qENJ7SWFzecv1_dgz0zi3luFxmTLmSgsKOcLHrc60daoL197i2eylA/s600/abbeymillspumpingstation-w600.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXOVuf8kAJ8T2zmgL3AtF6BRevzqBM7qyhurR0tPEKqzZjWGWUmPmkSOERm8rNPhlP9vEYlIIS5awTEigtJziU8g8fGYde-Xkp7xNBSRwsJo9q53oUSSPN7n_Ytq1ok302pv9u0qENJ7SWFzecv1_dgz0zi3luFxmTLmSgsKOcLHrc60daoL197i2eylA/w640-h480/abbeymillspumpingstation-w600.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cathedral of sewage: Abbey Mills pumping station.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoBodyText">But rather than a mundane shed, Bazelgette and his
architectural collaborator Charles Driver came up with what soon became known
as ‘the cathedral of sewage’, an astonishingly fanciful yellow brick creation
inspired by a Byzantine church. It’s on a cruciform plan with Romanesque arched
windows decorated with contrasting bricks, carved stone pediments, dormer
windows and towers tipped with elaborate cast iron finials, surmounted by an octagonal
lantern tower that looks like it dropped out of a fairytale. The interior is
equally elaborate: it’s rarely open to the public as it remains in use as a
backup to the more modern facility in the adjacent aluminium-clad building,
commissioned in 1997, but you may be lucky to catch it on Open House Weekend. It
completes the trio of water management structures on the Ring with an
appearance that belies their utilitarian purpose: the others are Streatham
Pumping Station (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/capital-ring-45-crystal-palace.html">Ring 5</a>) and the Castle (<a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2023/05/capital-ring-1213-highgate-stoke.html">Ring 12</a>).</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Just past the pumping station is a path crossing and a
much longer bridge, heralding our last encounter with a Bow Back River, the
Channelsea River. This is likely the oldest of the group: it existed in
Matilda’s time, requiring its own bridge along her causeway, and may be the channel
dug by Alfred to foil the Danes. It split from the Lea at Temple Mills, some
way to the north, and still rejoins it at Bow Locks, southwest of our current
location. The section north of the Greenway (left) was diverted through an
underground culvert in 1958, and a footpath, the Channelsea Path, now follows
its course towards Stratford town centre, through an area known in the later 18<sup>th</sup>
century as the Calico Grounds as it was noted for textile printing works.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Channelsea once formed the western boundary of the
abbey precincts, which were surrounded on the other three sides with a moat,
the southern arm of which ran more-or-less parallel to what’s now the Greenway.
A gatehouse once stood near today’s bridge. It’s hard to imagine a great Gothic
complex to the left here, now all lost beneath housing, industry and the large
Jubilee Line depot which is just visible. The closest you will get is by
descending the ramp and turning right along Abbey Road to the DLR station of
the same name. On the other side of this is <a href="https://www.abbeygardens.org/" target="_blank">Abbey Gardens</a> on Bakers Row, a
delightful community garden created over a former kitchen garden and the foundations
of an abbey guesthouse, a Scheduled Ancient Monument which has been covered up
to protect it, though extensive interpretation boards tell the story<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Back on the Greenway, to the south (right), the Channelsea
is still in water as a tidal creek, also known as Abbey Creek, which splits
into two channels to create the long, thin Channelsea Island, currently only reachable
by boat. Abbey Mill, from which the pumping station gets its name, once
straddled the stream between the ‘mainland’ and the island. Around 1870, a
large chemical works making sulphuric acid opened on the opposite, eastern bank,
and in the 1920s this expanded onto the island itself. The plant was
decommissioned in the 1980s and the island has since been reclaimed by nature,
its buildings falling into dereliction.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Though there have been redevelopment proposals, they’d
require extensive and expensive decontamination work to implement, so ironically
it looks as though its noxious past will protect the island’s future as an
informal, little-visited nature reserve. The health of the surrounding water improved
further with the 1990s improvements at the pumping station: before this, sewage
was regularly discharged into the Channelsea at times of high demand.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The path immediately right at the junction, between the
pumping station fence and the creek’s west bank, is known as the Long Wall. Since
2021, its immediate surroundings have been managed by not-for-profit project
the <a href="https://www.surge.coop/" target="_blank">Surge Coop</a> as the Long Wall Ecology Garden, with a community orchard, plus artificial
floating habitats in the river itself. The garden has inherited another quirky
Greenway landmark: just inside the gateway arch, what appears to be piece of
public art turns out to be an old centrifugal pump from the pumping station, its
spiral structure curiously reminiscent of a giant ammonite. It’s kept painted
in strikingly bright colours to deter graffiti.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">A 1 km diversion along the Long Wall will take you to
<a href="https://www.visitleevalley.org.uk/three-mills-green" target="_blank">Three Mills Island</a>. This almost lives up to its name with two standing mills, one
dated 1776 and the other around 1817, successors to former monastic mills,
suspended over a tidal section of the Lea. With the well-preserved old brick buildings,
one of which features a distinctive clock tower, attractively arranged around a
cobbled yard against a watery backdrop, this is one of London’s most
atmospheric locations. The Green London Way, which takes a particularly
roundabout route through the area, passes the site, as does the Lea Valley
Walk, so I’ll cover it in more detail when I finally get round to the latter.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Today’s route continues ahead across the bridge, itself
Grade II-listed, built by the London County Council and completed in 1902: note
the distinctive railings. A large partially cream-painted grey brick complex with
multiple pitched roofs now rears up on the left: this is the engine house
attached to the pumping station, built in 1897. To the the best of my knowledge
it still contains two Lilleshall steam-powered beam engines installed in 1900,
though is now used mainly as an engineering training centre.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Greenway crosses Canning Road on the level before traversing
two sets of railway lines on another bridge. The first is the London
Underground Jubilee Line; the second is the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) Stratford
International branch. Both serve Stratford station northbound (left) and West
Ham station southbound. Both services launched relatively recently but the rail
alignment is much older. It opened in 1846 as the Eastern Counties and Thames
Junction Railway (EC&TJR), heading south from Stratford towards <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Canning Town and the area where the Royal Docks
were planned. In the 1980s it became part of the North London Line and I’ll pick
up on more of its history as we progress.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We crossed the
other end of the Jubilee Line at Uxendon on <a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2021/08/capital-ring-1011-south-kenton-hendon.html">Ring 10</a> and passed closed to its
terminus on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/london-loop-15-hatch-end-borehamwood.html">Loop 15</a>, but that section began in 1932 as a branch of the Metropolitan
Line and later the Bakerloo. It became the Jubilee in 1979, extended at the
south end in a new tunnel from Baker Street through the West End to Charing
Cross. Originally named the Fleet Line, it was intended to continue across that
river to Cannon Street and Lewisham but progress was stymied by lack of funds
and dwindling central government interest. When the Jubilee Line Extension
finally opened in 1999, it took a very different route, crossing the Thames
several times in tunnel to connect Waterloo, London Bridge, the growing
business centre at Canary Wharf and the soon-to-open Millennium Dome at North
Greenwich (now the O<sub>2</sub>) before emerging at Canning Town and running
alongside the former EC&TJR to West Ham and Stratford.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The North London Line service was withdrawn south of
Stratford at the end of 2006 so the line could be put to other uses. Since 2011,
the section between Stratford and Canning Town has been part of the DLR’s
Stratford International branch: we’ll discover the fate of some of the rest of it
later.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Abbey Road, mentioned earlier, is one of the new
intermediate stations provided on the DLR branch: the Jubilee Line passes by
non-stop. Its name is historically and geographically appropriate but a little
misleading. It’s not unknown for Beatles fans who don’t know the city to end up
here looking for the famous zebra crossing depicted on the cover of the <i>Abbey
Road</i> album (1969). But this is on another Abbey Road in another part of
London entirely, in St Johns Wood, though coincidentally also near a Jubilee
Line station.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The patch on the left between the railway and Manor Road,
which the Greenway now also crosses, formed the southeast corner of the abbey
precincts. It was once occupied by a moated house known as the Lodge which may
have begun as a manor house predating the abbey and was still standing as late
as 1747. The housing estate on the right just after the road occupies the
former Abbey Marsh.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">A ramp on the right descends to Manor Road, and a little
way south along it is West Ham station, on the London Tilbury & Southend,
District and Hammersmith & City lines, of which more shortly, as well as
the Jubilee Line and DLR. The station, some way south of the old parish centre,
opened in 1901, sometime after the lines themselves, and has since helped
retain the currency of the place name while shaping perceptions of where it
applies, though even locals are vague about what’s West Ham and what’s Stratford.
The station was completely rebuilt for the Jubilee Line in 1999 and it’s this
iteration you’ll see today.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The term West Ham is now even more familiar as the name of
a premier league football club, <a href="https://www.whufc.com/" target="_blank">West Ham United FC</a>. Its nickname ‘the Hammers’
is partly a reference to its origin in 1895 as a works team for the Thames
Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company, indeed partly in the ancient parish as it
straddled the Lea at Blackwall, right by its confluence with the Thames. The
team was initially named Thames Ironworks FC then reconstituted and renamed in 1900,
and played for some years at a site we’ll shortly pass. In 1904 it moved east to
the Boleyn Ground in Upton Park, its home for over a century and technically
just in East Ham. In 2016, as already mentioned, it returned to ancient West
Ham to take over the former Olympic stadium. Inevitably, the Upton Park site
has since become yet another mixed-use development.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Despite being intensively developed, as already mentioned
West Ham was excluded from London when the LCC was created in 1889. This was
partly a result of local resistance. In 1878, in response to moves by the LCC’s
predecessor the MBW to extend its influence beyond the Lea, local politicians
began lobbying for the parish to be converted instead into a largely autonomous
local authority known as a municipal borough. This was achieved in 1886, a few
years before the LCC’s creation, and the population was sufficient that in 1889
West Ham became fully independent of Essex, though still formally part of it,
as a County Borough. By 1901, it was the ninth most populous district in
England. It finally joined London with the creation of the Greater London
Council in 1965, which also marked its reunion after many centuries with East
Ham to form the London Borough of Newham. In a pleasing nod to history, the new
borough name was deliberately chosen to mean ‘New Hamm’.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Greenway: Plaistow</h3><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuYwch1wFxidn3M-B-LKZUitGfZYm7XjslgI3JZBxRm6VG7d7yG-sbvuq9YOm6wl_WsBrfpOTUvQyFkQV3xu5Zz9TMROaNip0wFKSH0QDONQLZKjst9uObWatDpEBSvlmYncU4Z2utKYLlKYl7A5UfeCTl6oIfD7LG4_Y__NLR-jxwyMjuE-C1Xb_xVSA/s1000/greenwayorchard-w1000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuYwch1wFxidn3M-B-LKZUitGfZYm7XjslgI3JZBxRm6VG7d7yG-sbvuq9YOm6wl_WsBrfpOTUvQyFkQV3xu5Zz9TMROaNip0wFKSH0QDONQLZKjst9uObWatDpEBSvlmYncU4Z2utKYLlKYl7A5UfeCTl6oIfD7LG4_Y__NLR-jxwyMjuE-C1Xb_xVSA/w640-h360/greenwayorchard-w1000.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Greenway Orchard, Plaistow.</td></tr></tbody></table><div>The area southeast of the old centre of West Ham has
been known since at least the 13<sup>th</sup> century as Plaistow. It was centred
on a separate village, a little east of our route, which by the 17<sup>th</sup>
century, before the development of Stratford, was the biggest settlement in the
area. ‘Stow’ simply means a fenced place, but the rest of the etymology is
disputed. Some sources attribute it to the Plaiz family, who owned estates here
after the Norman conquest which they donated to the abbey in 1353. But these
lands were scattered and there were other independent holdings centred on the
village, so other sources prefer to read the name as ‘place of play’, indicating
a village green where miracle plays were staged. The name is relatively common:
there’s another Plaistow in Bromley borough, and both are pronounced
‘plah-stow’. Like its neighbour, it was rapidly built up in the 19<sup>th</sup>
century, though the trail passes some interesting green oases among the
housing.</div><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Another railway soon cuts diagonally across the Greenway, between
West Ham station to the west (right) and Plaistow east. This was opened in 1856
by the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway (LT&SR) between Bromley-by-Bow
and Barking, where it joined the company’s existing line to Tilbury and Southend.
The LT&SR had been operating since 1854 but originally had to use the ECR’s
line west from Manor Park to reach central London; the new line gave it a more direct
route from London Fenchurch Street, avoiding Stratford. Plaistow station opened
with the line, but West Ham, as mentioned above, was only added in 1901 as an
interchange with the Stratford – North Woolwich line.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">In 1902, the District Railway extended from Whitechapel to
connect with the LT&SR at Bromley-by-Bow and began running through trains
from west and central London to East Ham, Barking and Upminster. In the
following years the District built new electric lines alongside the LT&SR
steam services, and soon most local stopping services were provided by the Underground.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">When British Rail electrified the LT&SR tracks using
overhead cables in 1962, rather than Underground-style fourth rail, most of the
stations on the shared stretch lost their main line platforms, and all apart
from Barking and Upminster, including West Ham and Plaistow, transferred to London
Transport ownership in 1969. Today, TfL’s District and Hammersmith & City
lines serve all stations; London, Tilbury and Southend trains, now provided by
commercial operator c2c, no longer have platforms at Plaistow but have been
calling at West Ham again since the Jubilee line opened in 1999. A ramp on the
left just after the lines links to Plaistow station, which retains an
attractive red brick booking hall from 1905, its rounded arches perhaps
deliberately reminiscent of Abbey Mills Pumping Station.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The right-hand ramp leads to Memorial Recreation Ground, adjacent
to the embankment, which is linked to the history of both West Ham station and
football club. Known simply as Memorial Grounds when it was opened in 1997, it
was financed by Thames Ironworks managing director Arnold Hills as a staff
sports ground. As well as hosting the team that became West Ham United, it
boasted cycle and running tracks, tennis courts and one of the largest outdoor
swimming pools in England. Hills was instrumental in pushing the LT&SR to
open West Ham station, partly to serve the grounds.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Following the company’s closure in 1912, the site became a
council recreation ground, and most of its original structures are long gone,
but it’s still well-used for sports, home to several rugby clubs among others. Near
the modern community centre in the southwest corner, a detour from the Ring, is
an intriguing sculpture created in 2007 by the Mooch public art agency,
consisting of 11 steel posts with hammers. It commemorates not only the
football team and the ironworks but a tragic incident connected with the
latter.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">One of the vessels built at the company’s yard was HMS
Albion, a 128.5 m-long Canopus class battleship for the Royal Navy. At the launch
on 21 June 1898, the ship’s entry into the water raised an unexpectedly high
wave which swept away a viewing platform on which 200 people were standing, 34
of whom drowned. Coincidentally, this was also the first disaster captured on
film. The posts of the sculpture are laid out in the shape of the Albion’s main
deck, and many of the victims are buried in the adjacent East London Cemetery,
also clearly visible as you continue on the Greenway.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Opened in 1872, the cemetery remains managed privately
rather than by the local authority. The Albion victims are marked by an anchor
monument at the northern end of the main avenue. There are also monuments to victims
of the two other disasters, including the worst one yet on a British inland
waterway. In 1878, crowded paddle steamer the Princess Alice collided with a
coal boat on the Thames at Gallions Reach while on a pleasure trip, splitting
in two and sinking within minutes. Between 600 and 700 passengers died in
waters befouled with raw sewage from Beckton, with only two survivors. The
Silvertown Explosion occurred at a chemical works in 1917, killing 73.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">There are war graves, including one official German war
grave near the Albion memorial commemorating 16 men executed by the British for
spying during World War I. Numerous actors are buried here, including Leslie
Dwyer, Jack Warner and Queenie Watts, as well as Blair Peach, the anti-racist
activist killed by police during a demonstration in Southall in 1979 (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/hillingdon-trail-1-cranford-west-ruislip.html">HillingdonTrail 1</a>).<o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8G7oBTNH38cuaZIBI_YgxOlZtWuhXzfwQjr9aweSq75D8wDKHJAt2sLifLxJSjewCbEyVsdSkpWMLShMphdNeE0X2xhIt_9bo-9x3MW6t9KbQRb_Ri4pfZ7osVUOtFH8-i1sY_y49IseRth689E509WqZyf0U6JmaJ_biFIijUFv43RSnQj16KtFGuNU/s800/upperroadcrossing-w600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8G7oBTNH38cuaZIBI_YgxOlZtWuhXzfwQjr9aweSq75D8wDKHJAt2sLifLxJSjewCbEyVsdSkpWMLShMphdNeE0X2xhIt_9bo-9x3MW6t9KbQRb_Ri4pfZ7osVUOtFH8-i1sY_y49IseRth689E509WqZyf0U6JmaJ_biFIijUFv43RSnQj16KtFGuNU/w480-h640/upperroadcrossing-w600.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You can't miss the Greenway where it crosses Upper Road, Plaistow.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoBodyText">There’s a particularly impressive gateway treatment where
the Greenway crosses Upper Road, with a forest of poles marking the path on
both sides. A little left along the road is Lister Gardens, a small park with
attractive gates, opened in 1929 to commemorate pioneer of antiseptic surgery
Joseph Lister (1827-1912), who was born at since-demolished Upton House, about
1.5 km to the north by West Ham Park. Back on the Greenway, just by the
collection of inspection hatches in the footway, the area of housing on the
right was once a pond.</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The strip of woodland to the left, immediately below the
embankment, was maintained between 2013 and 2023 by a community group as the
First Avenue Urban Wilderness community garden, which then lost its lease. It’s
not clear if this little treasure of a site, which was intermittently open to
the public, will be retained for a similar use, but if it’s revived, note it’s
only accessible by leaving the Greenway left at the next road junction and
turning immediately left along First Avenue.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">That next junction is Balaam Street, one of the oldest
streets in the area, first recorded in the 1360s. Its unusual name is from
local landowners the Balum family, who lived in West Ham as far back as 1183.
Not much further away but also off-route is Plaistow Park, a bigger green space
occupying the grounds of a long-demolished Tudor mansion that’s been a public
park since 1894. The next Greenway crossing is with a newer and busier road,
Barking Road, built in 1812 by the Commercial Road Turnpike Trust to connect East
India Docks directly with Barking via Plaistow, and once part of the A13.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Visible to the right after the junction is the stony bulk
of Grade II-listed St Andrew’s Church, opened to serve the ever-swelling
population in 1870 on the site of the manor house of Bretts, one of the late
medieval West Ham manors which controlled scattered properties in Plaistow. It gained
its own parish the following year. It’s unapologetically Victorian, an English
Gothic pastiche in Kentish ragstone, and was heavily damaged in the Blitz but
later repaired. The adjacent vicarage is also Grade II-listed. The building
hasn’t been used as an Anglican church since 1970 and is now offices. The area
on the left side of the Greenway, around the crossing of Barking Road and the
street we encounter next, Prince Regent Lane, was once a hamlet known as Hook
End, although the name has completely disappeared from modern maps.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Past Prince Regent Lane, the former Plaistow Marsh is to
the right. A substantial portion of this, nearest the Greenway, is now occupied
by Newham University Hospital, opened as Newham General Hospital in 1983 when
several smaller local hospitals were closed. Since 2012, it’s been part of the
Barts Health Trust. The strip of woodland, scrub and grass separating path and
hospital is wider than usual and has pleasingly been turned by volunteers into
the Greenway Community Orchard. As well as fruit trees, there are vegetable and
flower gardens, beehives and wild areas, and you might spot a Green Gym session
in progress if you take the option of diverting from the hard surface here and
following the winding paths through the orchard instead. It makes for a
pleasant farewell to West Ham.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>East Ham and Beckton</h3><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgus1G-Jb-NC36GSRYXSUoQcfD_yS5lM57eUnLNS_0iNvY8Mml3Z5R3_gDd_BDQqjCiQ_lko1NKrI47VyhSDAcMfZXrG4CA5mufkMKxEpOmyzGFdZOcr8_ZMdJto_dhA9H5cLI-zrW7hgsYapEhS-rCfiUTDbEqcnqfTDVc-oBq_PV1OKglY-GfXOFAUOg/s1000/a13crossing-w1000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgus1G-Jb-NC36GSRYXSUoQcfD_yS5lM57eUnLNS_0iNvY8Mml3Z5R3_gDd_BDQqjCiQ_lko1NKrI47VyhSDAcMfZXrG4CA5mufkMKxEpOmyzGFdZOcr8_ZMdJto_dhA9H5cLI-zrW7hgsYapEhS-rCfiUTDbEqcnqfTDVc-oBq_PV1OKglY-GfXOFAUOg/w640-h360/a13crossing-w1000.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View from the A13 footbridge at Noel Road looking east: Beckton Alps just visible in the distance.</td></tr></tbody></table><div>The next crossing is with Boundary Lane, so named as
it does indeed mark the ancient boundary between West and East Ham. Following
their division in the 11<sup>th</sup> century, the east remained the most
remote and rural of the two Hams, though part of it also ended up among the
possessions of Stratford Langthorne abbey, marking the limit of its reach
against the territory of another large and powerful abbey, Barking, further
east. Back then, the northern part of East Ham was thickly wooded, a
continuation of the Forest of Essex reaching south from Epping Forest and
Wanstead Flats, while the southern part was marsh. A road, part of which we’ll
later cross, ran north-south between the two, with scattered settlements
alongside it, though there was a parish centre with a manor house and church
where St Mary Magdalene church still stands today, a little further along the
Greenway from where we leave it.</div><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Over the following centuries, much of the woodland was
cleared and the marshland drained and put to agricultural use. By the 17<sup>th</sup>
century the marshes were used to graze livestock for the London meat markets,
and by the following century were noted for potatoes, onions and cabbages. The <i>Victoria
County History</i> quotes verses from 1850 which unflatteringly refer to the
area’s ‘dead flats…marshes full of water rats, onions and greens, black ditches
and foul drains’. Industrial development took longer than in West Ham: by 1801
East Ham had 1,165 inhabitants and only about 1,000 more by 1861. But in the
last decade of the 19<sup>th</sup> century it became one of the fastest growing
places in England, with the population rising to 96,018 in 1901.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">While the northern part of the parish housed some light
industry and small factories, three much larger developments changed the face
of the southern part that we’re about to cross: the Victoria Dock in 1855, the
Northern Outfall Sewer in 1864 and the Gas Light and Coke Company (GL&CC)
works on the riverside at Gallions Reach in 1870. The dock was actually in West
Ham, but the associated infrastructure, including the Eastern Counties and
Thames Junction Railway (EC&TJR), opened up the adjoining marshes for
development, and the subsequent expansion of the dock into London’s biggest such
complex, the Royal Docks, sprawled across both parishes. Most of the gasworks
site, as we’ll see, was also in another parish, Woolwich, but the supporting
development, including workers’ homes, was in East Ham, and other, smaller
developments followed in its wake. The Northern Outfall Sewer outlet was also
in Woolwich, north of the gasworks beside the confluence of the rivers Roding
and Thames at Barking Creek: originally this was just a system of reservoirs to
manage the flow, but a treatment plant was added in 1887 and developed into the
largest sewage works in Britain, still in use today.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">With characteristic Victorian hubris, GL&CC governor
Simon Adams Beck named the newly developed area Beckton after himself. The name
stuck, perhaps because it trips off the tongue well and sounds like it might be
a genuine Anglo-Saxon place name. But not everyone who worked here lived here:
many more travelled from outside the parish. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So paradoxically, the pattern of development
reinforced the separation of the marsh from the older medieval settlement in
the north, because the main routes by road and rail were via Canning Town in
the west, or via ferry or, later, foot tunnel from the south, connecting
Beckton and the docks more closely to West Ham and Woolwich than the rest of
the parish.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Like its neighbours the area was badly damaged during the
Blitz, then made a rapid recovery after the war only to suffer from worsening
economic circumstances as the 20<sup>th</sup> century progressed. The gasworks closed
in 1969; the docks lingered longer with decreasing trade, but finally closed in
1981. This left Beckton a patchwork of derelict industrial sites, clusters of
neglected Victorian housing and large areas of undeveloped marsh and waste
ground. In the years leading up to the dock closure, Newham council undertook
some modest regeneration, draining the remaining marshes, laying out streets
and beginning to build new council homes.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Its efforts were soon to be overtaken, as 1981 was also
the year Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government set up the London
Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC). This is not to be confused with the
current LLDC covering the Olympic site but was the original model of this controversial
approach to planning. It was an unelected, government-appointed quango with
sweeping powers over much of the former Port of London and its hinterland that
overrode those of local authorities, handed publicly owned land and property to
dispose of as it saw fit.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">In a reflection of the new, privatised, market-driven
approach of the era, the LDDC announced it had no grand plan but instead would
be pragmatic, facilitating private developers to come up with their own
proposals for Docklands. It argued that adhering to the consultative traditions
of planning would simply take too long in a situation where large areas of the
city were rapidly falling into dereliction. At its worst, it rode roughshod
over the wishes of local communities and facilitated developments intended
purely to line the pockets of shareholders in property companies, who were
handed land at knockdown prices with the additional incentive of tax breaks.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The LDDC’s best-known legacy is Canary Wharf, a US-style
downtown with its office towers and underground mall shoehorned between the
West India Docks, with upmarket housing nearby. But at Beckton, where the Corporation
presided over a large tranche of hinterland as well as the docks and their
immediate estate, it took a different approach. Partly following the council’s
template, it invited more traditional housing developers like Barrett and
Wimpey to build modest low-density housing, of the sort Newham was now
prevented from providing thanks to Thatcherite housing policy, punctuated by bland
business and retail ‘parks’, with more ambitious developments around the docks
themselves, some of which we’ll encounter later. Nearly all the historic housing
was demolished in the process, creating a miniature ‘new town’ in the hope of
attracting upwardly mobile lower-middle-income families from more densely
populated areas of east London.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Like many such planned communities, this one has only been
partially successful. The rather bland developments lack coherence, an
impression of neglect persists, and residents complain of absence of community spirit. And it remains cut off from its surroundings by the A13,
the river and the docks: the Docklands Light Railway Beckton branch was
intended to address this but is yet another east-west connection which blindsides
East Ham to the north. The LDDC withdrew from Beckton in 1995 and from the
Royal Docks in 1998, the year it was dissolved, with planning control handed
back to Newham council. But the redevelopment of the area was far from
complete, and still isn’t today, adding to the incoherence. Recently, building
work has accelerated again, with the surroundings in a state of semi-permanent
disruption. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">One virtue of the 1980s development was the creation of a
chain of parks right through the middle of Beckton, already well-advanced under
the council’s original scheme. While these now provide a convenient and
reasonably attractive off-road route for the Ring, their current condition adds
to the air of the neglect. They were originally generously equipped with
toilets, pavilions, community centres and café facilities in the indifferent
style of the day: broad, low brick buildings with geometric roofs. Nearly all
of these are currently out of use, boarded up and heavily graffitied, though
the odd one has been rented to a private pre-school nursery.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Thanks in part to the energy of local community groups,
there have been some recent improvements, including extensive voluntary tree
planting, and the council is working on a parks masterplan with a promised high
level of community involvement, so let’s hope for a better future for this
stretch of the Ring.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Greenway: East Ham<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara">It’s illustrative of how isolated this part of
London remained that in the early 20<sup>th</sup> century the patch of land
immediately east of Boundary Lane and south (right) of the Greenway was
considered suitable for an isolation hospital treating diphtheria, smallpox and
typhoid patients. The East Ham Isolation Hospital occupied an iron hut by the sewage
works from 1894 but transferred here in 1902. Badly bombed in 1941, it never
reopened, and the site was eventually redeveloped as schools. Today it’s
largely occupied by Brampton Manor Academy secondary school, sometimes known as
the East End Eton as it sends so many of its students to Oxbridge.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">There never was a Brampton manor in East Ham, but the name
seems to have stuck to the locality thanks also to Brampton Road and another early
20<sup>th</sup> century municipal park, just off the Greenway to the left at
the next path junction. Immediately east of this is another extensive, cemetery,
East Ham Jewish Cemetery, opened in 1919 and now administrated by the United
Synagogue.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">It’s at this junction that the Ring finally leaves the
Greenway in the opposite direction. The sewer is of course heading for the
sewage works on the riverside, but if you kept ahead you’d find the path ends
short on Royal Docks Road, by a sprawl of retail parks and warehouses. The Ring,
meanwhile, cuts through residential streets for the first time in a while, a stretched
triangle between the sewer, the school and the A13 developed in 1920s by the
Burges family, who began acquiring land in East Ham in the mid-18<sup>th</sup>
century and ended up as one of the parish’s biggest landowners. Stokes Road is
named after Alfred Stokes, the mayor of East Ham at the time, and Roman Road
after Roman remains found locally, rather than the road’s own history.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">A footbridge crosses the A13, the Ring’s last encounter
with a radial trunk route. Unlike most of the previous such highways we’ve
encountered, this one has a relatively short history, originating with the
construction in 1802 of a new turnpike, Commercial Road, linking the City of
London at Aldgate with West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs. The road was
extended to East India Docks at Blackwall by 1812, continuing across the river
Lea to Canning Town, as Barking Road to Barking, crossed earlier, and on
into estuarine Essex. The present road was opened to the south as the East Ham
and Barking Bypass, a congestion-busting measure, in 1928. It was originally
designated A118 but was renumbered by the 1940s and eventually superseded the
Southend Arterial Road (crossed on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/london-loop-22-harold-wood-upminster.html">Loop 22</a>) as the main road from London to
Southend. It’s been widened since.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Pause and look east (left) while crossing the bridge and
you’ll see a rather incongruous green hill in the middle distance. This is
Beckton Alps, the plural name recalling that it was once one of several heaps
of toxic slag discharged by the gasworks. Most were removed in the early 1980s
but this one remained, capped by clay, to become a much-trumpeted LDDC
initiative. Cued by the name, an entrepreneur leased it for conversion to a dry
ski slope complete with chairlift, opened by Princess Diana in 1989.
Significantly, this failed and closed in 2001, and an even more ambitious plan
to create an indoor ‘Snow World’ with real snow on the site fell through too. It’s
now a nature reserve, noted for its birds and locally rare plants.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Alps should help orientate you as it clearly marks the
location of the gasworks and sewage works, beyond which is the river. To most
locals, today’s Beckton begins south of the A13, and after passing one of the
newer developments, Beckton Parkside, completed in the 2010s in the currently
fashionable geometric style, you’re ready for your first Beckton park.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Beckton District Park<o:p></o:p></h3>
<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHJ1Ro-64aTFPrFIgN0owaSwbL9Cyi25b3Ctoo1QYOv3hRJKQCM_jgp2iicQeBghrIQCM-sZv1MIKOrJHrwK_vQ3IfpHYaeJAMAwyOudP8fDshtPc3bDyQKe71W2OvuWZJ6WxpohXncs54pgZRfIJY_gSIn2Fooj7biuXi_rCmF1_IckS3kZ02qZzQgMM/s1000/becktondistrictparknorth-w1000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHJ1Ro-64aTFPrFIgN0owaSwbL9Cyi25b3Ctoo1QYOv3hRJKQCM_jgp2iicQeBghrIQCM-sZv1MIKOrJHrwK_vQ3IfpHYaeJAMAwyOudP8fDshtPc3bDyQKe71W2OvuWZJ6WxpohXncs54pgZRfIJY_gSIn2Fooj7biuXi_rCmF1_IckS3kZ02qZzQgMM/w640-h480/becktondistrictparknorth-w1000.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Entering Beckton District Park North with its tree trail.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">Beckton District Park was one of the chain of green
spaces landscaped by the council and the LDDC in the early 1980s, though it
adjoins a 1950s King George V recreation ground and a 1970s city farm, off our
route to the west. Remarkably for a relatively new London park, it was largely
created on previously undeveloped land, part of the swathe of former marsh that
survived into the postwar period as rough grazing, allotments and waste ground divided
by ditches.</p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Despite the evidence of decline mentioned above, the park
has its attractive features, including a tree trail featuring numerous specimen
trees, exotic and otherwise. Most of the boards indicating these are still in
place and legible, but this valuable resource otherwise seems forgotten about
as I’ve found no online documentation of it. Just off the Ring but easily
reached by forking right soon after entering the park is one of its most
substantial features, a boating lake, its spoil used for the landscaping that otherwise
blocks it from view. The boats, café and toilets initially provided are now
sadly missed but there’s the peaceful water and bird population to enjoy.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Tollgate Road divides the park into north and south
sections. Originally known as Beckton Road, it was constructed in the 1860s to
serve the gasworks, branching off Barking Road near Canning Town. The southern
part of the park is more heavily wooded, with 1980s plantings which have since
matured nicely. You cross Mitchell Walk, one of several lengthy footpaths
through the estate: the Green London Way uses it, but the Ring stays in the
park.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">During the Blitz, Beckton fought back from a site beyond
the trees to the west (right), just off Stansfeld Road. Four heavy
anti-aircraft gun emplacements surrounding a command post were installed here
in 1939 and were used regularly throughout the war. There were once around 1,000
such structures in Britain: this is one of only 60 still surviving, the
only one in London, and is now a Scheduled Ancient Monument, though it’s been
buried to protect it and nothing is visible above ground.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring continues past a wildflower garden, a welcome
recent addition, and through a thin sliver of park past the dilapidated Will
Thorne sports pavilion, to a fingerpost at a path junction beside
Stansfeld Road, adjacent to open grass and sports fields ometimes simply referred to as Beckton Park. This is the unassuming end of
section 14 of the Capital Ring, with a short signed link continuing along the
road to Royal Albert DLR station. We’re also back at the historic boundary
between West and East Ham, and while the Ring continues in the latter, walking
to the station takes you back into the former.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsMIGUC_79mrTTK4tlr3Kf-CTq4AZ-uFWJ3rw3AxAaJPBymOCST3KPHU9CslBlWVaea91WcA2Fx4UfwenBx13udfxPfhiGZSlD3gG5Rkon6YMzcC4ZB41inPhZTnej_t-sVVYPD_fWZMIMmiStd-_ro2CYG5o16r9M-YWQ8pBqVTu-ZrMnZ2Lk7REDdvo/s800/becktondistrictparksouth-w600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsMIGUC_79mrTTK4tlr3Kf-CTq4AZ-uFWJ3rw3AxAaJPBymOCST3KPHU9CslBlWVaea91WcA2Fx4UfwenBx13udfxPfhiGZSlD3gG5Rkon6YMzcC4ZB41inPhZTnej_t-sVVYPD_fWZMIMmiStd-_ro2CYG5o16r9M-YWQ8pBqVTu-ZrMnZ2Lk7REDdvo/w480-h640/becktondistrictparksouth-w600.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The unassuming end of Loop 14 at Beckton Park.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoBodyText">The station surroundings are another area in transition. Most
of the footfall is generated by Building 1000, a glass shed surrounded by
landscaped green space on three sides and the Royal Albert Dock on the fourth which,
amid some controversy, became Newham council’s main headquarters in 2010. There
are two hotels a short walk away, but of more interest is the Compressor House
close to the station, a distinctive red brick industrial building dating from
1914 which was once a cold storage warehouse for the docks. Inevitably, this
‘destination building’ in an ‘area of opportunity’ was unoccupied at the time
of writing.</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>New Beckton Park and Cyprus</h3>
<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiijV3gusRvdSPb4mAvh41YTqCUinnnS_fJxDnNKKkZGKbl72kVE_rfQTQXctK8R3FTZLlqRE-oinr5u9y4scAkXvAzsKVDQI6Ee6EZjR8nCNwqhnjy79Wi5gxbU3UPxTru16Hw05_cpM5xYFcwrS-axpKAhBxYLoPbGzyg_LycURxhtqtLjbSbrprWHH8/s1000/becktoncorridor-w1000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiijV3gusRvdSPb4mAvh41YTqCUinnnS_fJxDnNKKkZGKbl72kVE_rfQTQXctK8R3FTZLlqRE-oinr5u9y4scAkXvAzsKVDQI6Ee6EZjR8nCNwqhnjy79Wi5gxbU3UPxTru16Hw05_cpM5xYFcwrS-axpKAhBxYLoPbGzyg_LycURxhtqtLjbSbrprWHH8/w640-h360/becktoncorridor-w1000.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beckton Corridor: the former Beckton Branch railway.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">Ring 15 sets off on a dead-straight avenue across
the park, with a parallel bridleway, an unexpected feature round here but
apparently well used. It’s part of another lengthy green path incorporated into
the 1980s design, only in this case its alignment has a much longer history. In
1872 the Gas Light and Coke Company opened its own private line connecting its
works with the Eastern Counties and Thames Junction Railway (EC&TJR) just east
of Custom House. Initially the line was used for freight but from 1874 the EC&TJR
began operating passenger services from Stratford, serving a lone station at
Beckton just before the line entered the gasworks. The branch later became part
of the Great Eastern Railway and, eventually, British Rail, though passenger
services were withdrawn following bombing in 1940. Freight continued using it
until 1970, and the track was lifted soon afterwards.</p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Beckton Corridor traces the branch for most of its
length, from near Prince Regent station to today’s Beckton station. Beyond
this, the DLR reuses a short section past the site of the original Beckton
station, of which nothing now remains, just before it crosses Royal Docks Road
and turns south towards Gallions Reach. The Ring only briefly samples the old line
before turning along the eastern perimeter of the park, past more sports
grounds, towards Parry Avenue. A turn right just before leaving the green space
will take you to Beckton Park station, another stop on the DLR Beckton branch,
more-or-less on the site of a long-vanished station called Central, of which
more shortly.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Next is New Beckton Park, which despite its name is rather
older than the previous parks. It recalls the nearby development originally
known as New Beckton, built from 1881 to provide further housing primarily for
gasworks workers. In 1901, East Ham Borough Council supplemented this by laying
out Savage Gardens, named after a councillor of the day, which the Ring now
follows. To the north (left) it built social housing; to the south, it provided
a small municipal park. Nearly all the Edwardian features, including a
bandstand and lake, have long since vanished and the space was reworked in the
1980s, when all the houses it was built to serve were demolished and replaced.
If you continue just a few metres further along Savage Gardens after the Ring
turns off, you’ll find two gateposts looking rather more elegant than the
surrounding modern fencing. These and others elsewhere around the perimeter are
the only surviving original structures.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring angles its way around an open grass sports field,
but to the left, through the hedge and behind further neglected public buildings,
is a leafier area with tennis courts and playground. There’s a more recent
treat just beside the trail where it turns to leave the park: a community
orchard planted by residents and schoolchildren with the help of Trees for
Cities in 2018. Among its 20 fruit and nut trees are apple, crab apple, hazel,
medlar, mulberry, pear, plum and quince, while the surrounding grass is managed
to create a more meadow-like environment than the mowed pitches.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">You emerge on East Ham Manor Way, at the southern
extremity of the ancient north-south road through the parish which, further
north, forms East Ham High Street. This stretch has something of the feel of a
coherent local centre, with shops, a GP surgery and a community centre, though at
the time of writing, the last was also ‘temporarily closed’. This is the original
hub of the New Beckton development from 1881, though all the buildings now date
from at least a century later.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">One of the streets laid out in 1881 was named Cyprus Place
and the new neighbourhood became known as Cyprus. While the original workers’
village closer to the gasworks was noted for its high-quality housing, this
later addition was ‘a squalid development’, as the <i>Victoria County History</i>
puts it, ‘a long-standing nuisance to the local board because of its lack of
main drainage’, despite its proximity to one of the world’s biggest sewage
works. Sharing a name with a sunny eastern Mediterranean island wasn’t
intentionally ironic: the UK had gained control of Cyprus (Greek <i>Kypros</i>,
Turkish <i>Kıbrıs</i>) from Turkey in 1878 so it was in the news as one of the
glories of Empire. Following redevelopment, the only original building still
standing is the Ferndale pub, a little off our route (though on the Green
London Way) at the junction of Cyprus Place and Ferndale Street, and that’s
inevitably no longer a pub but converted into flats.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBuD99Y6nSUJkSYjEJszUM4K515uC3KQt6DNUieUecuWCX06i8N-Ndl7HDxc0GcBn4QV2ofxssVpqFuPAgBXHlAqiQ2a4Jf6Xv74kAM3MBX2OYZPvQOh7Atz-x_xT7R05iMKp4ux-D8glMUuOZa_U0FUa96qgoB2wr3Ba_HZbFQpqZs-zyXmlN-6VlzOk/s1000/cyprusdlr-w1000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBuD99Y6nSUJkSYjEJszUM4K515uC3KQt6DNUieUecuWCX06i8N-Ndl7HDxc0GcBn4QV2ofxssVpqFuPAgBXHlAqiQ2a4Jf6Xv74kAM3MBX2OYZPvQOh7Atz-x_xT7R05iMKp4ux-D8glMUuOZa_U0FUa96qgoB2wr3Ba_HZbFQpqZs-zyXmlN-6VlzOk/w640-h360/cyprusdlr-w1000.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cyprus station with elevated roadway, along line of Victoria Cut and Gallions Branch railway.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoBodyText">Following Manor Way to what’s now its end on Cyprus Place,
you reach one of five locations where the Ring runs right through a railway
station, in this case Cyprus DLR station where it flies rather spectacularly
across the tracks on an elegantly curved footbridge (the others are Penge East
on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/capital-ring-3-grove-park-crystal-palace.html">Ring 3</a>, Wandsworth Common on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/capital-ring-45-crystal-palace.html">Ring 5</a>, South Kenton on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2021/01/capital-ring-89-boston-manor-greenford.html">Ring 9</a> and East
Finchley on <a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2021/08/capital-ring-1011-south-kenton-hendon.html">Ring 11</a>). But before you tackle this, have a look at the linear
features which once again follow the lines of older infrastructure.</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Gallions Branch railway line was opened between 1880
and 1881 by the London and St Katharine Dock company to serve the new Royal
Albert Dock, though later operated by the Great Eastern Railway with through
trains from Fenchurch Street and Liverpool Street. Like the Beckton branch, it
split from the EC&TJR at Custom House, continuing to a station called
Central, where Beckton Park DLR is today, provided for ‘the convenience of
artisans, mechanics and daily labourers’, and terminated at Gallions station
near the ocean liner berths, of which more later. A canal known as the Victoria
Cut, long since infilled, originally paralleled the railway. Like the Beckton
branch, the Gallions line was badly damaged in the Blitz, in this case ending
both passenger and freight service, though the tracks remained in place until
the late 1960s, used for storing rolling stock.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The decline of these branches left the main EC&TJR
route to North Woolwich (later part of the North London Line) as the only
railway through the area, and as redevelopment loomed in the 1970s, the lack of
transport was identified as a major barrier. As mentioned above, when the first
phase of London Underground’s Jubilee Line was under construction in the 1970s,
it was planned to extend to Lewisham. But just before the first phase of the
line opened in 1979, this was revised to a more northerly route serving the
ailing Docklands, via Surrey Docks and the Isle of Dogs, taking over part of
the EC&TJR to North Woolwich, then under the river to Woolwich and on to
the new town of Thamesmead, with a branch to Beckton.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">That year, everything changed with the election of the new
Conservative government, whose monetarist sympathies made it reluctant to
authorise major investment in an expensive new Tube line for the London
Transport Executive, a large public body then controlled by its political
rivals. Instead, when the LDDC was created in 1981, it was tasked with finding a
cheaper, nimbler transport solution for its domain, one more suited to Thatcherite
market-led ideology.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The outcome was the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), which
was part-funded, built and initially operated by private companies, boosted by government
subsidy. It emphasised its difference from the Tube, with a different electrical
supply system and initially with distinctive, and very corporate, branding,
though sensibly it was always integrated with the zonal ticketing system. Technically,
it’s a ‘light metro’ with lightweight vehicles, essentially trams operating on
segregated track, though street running sections were considered in the early
stages.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">This idea was rejected for safety reasons, also enabling
the implementation of one of the system’s most remarkable features, full
automation. A ‘passenger service agent’ on each train can drive it manually if
necessary, but in normal operation concentrates on passenger safety,
information and revenue protection, leaving the driving to a remote computer.
This was highly ambitious and advanced at the time, and even today such systems
are relatively rare outside of simple self-contained people movers at airports
and the like. Doubtless it was prompted by the desire to eliminate traditional
unionised drivers and guards, but it was unarguably forward thinking and,
following some initial glitches, has worked well, with few dangerous incidents.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The first phase of the system, opened in 1987, formed a
skewed Y-shape, with branches from Tower Gateway, on the edge of the City, and
Stratford converging at Canary Wharf and continuing to Island Gardens at the
southern tip of the Isle of Dogs, with substantial lengths alongside existing
railways or reviving disused ones. A short western extension in tunnel to Bank opened
in 1991. The Beckton branch was the next to open, in 1994, and once again made
use of older alignments. It was effectively a continuation of the DLR’s City
line east from Poplar, paralleling the North London Line (former EC&TJR)
from Canning Town to Custom House then taking over the Gallions branch towards
the river, with all the current stations opening at the same time.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The DLR subsequently expanded further: the Woolwich extension,
which we encountered on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/capital-ring-12-woolwich-grove-park.html">Ring 1</a> and will cross over later, opened in 2009, while
the Stratford International branch, crossed earlier in this section, is the most
recent addition, from 2011. The Island Gardens branch was extended under the
river to Greenwich and Lewisham in 1999. As a riposte to the original
intention, the whole lot is now fully integrated with TfL’s other rail
services, though with operations contracted to a private company, and since the
early 2000s has been branded with a variant of the familiar roundel. The system
now extends over 38 km with 45 stations, and although notably slower than a
real Tube, nonetheless provides a useful way of getting around many previously
poorly served areas. And plenty of children, not to mention a few adults, still
scramble to get the front seat so they can imagine they’re driving the train.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Meanwhile, much of the proposed Jubilee Line Docklands extension
was realised several decades later in 1999, though diverted at the eastern end
to serve Stratford. Other parts of the planned route are covered by the DLR
and, most recently, the Elizabeth Line, though poor old Thamesmead still lacks
a rail connection, 55 years after its first houses were occupied. Recently
there’s been revived talk of extending the DLR Beckton branch across the river
to the town, though this is unlikely to happen until at least the early 2030s.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The DLR doesn’t run straightforwardly on the former
trackbed here but in a shallow cutting slightly north of it and south of the
former canal. It forms the central reservation of a new spine road built in
1990, the A1020 Royal Albert Way, elevated on viaducts which the Ring passes
under: the northern viaduct roughly follows the line of the canal, the southern
the old railway. The carriageways bend out here to create an incomplete circle
with the station in the centre: this was originally intended as a roundabout connecting
with local roads but the links to it were never built. Beckton Park station a
little west has a similar design.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">On the other side of the station, the surroundings change
dramatically as you enter the expansive and aggressively contemporary <a href="https://uel.ac.uk/student-life/our-campuses/docklands-campus" target="_blank">Docklands campus</a> of the University of East London (UEL), one of the flagship redevelopments
in the area, opened in 1999 as the first new university campus in London for
over 50 years. The institution dates back to 1892 when the newly formed West
Ham county borough founded the West Ham Technical Institute in Stratford as a self-proclaimed
‘people’s university’. This merged in 1970 with similar colleges in Dagenham
and Walthamstow to form North East London Polytechnic, upgraded to formal university
status in 1992. It currently teaches more than 17,000 students, split between
here and Stratford. A rather good café, keenly priced for staff and students
but also open to the public, may provide a useful pitstop before the Ring leads
you directly to the expansive waters of the Royal Albert Dock.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Royal Victoria Docks<o:p></o:p></h3>
<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9oTI2qGI6hJ6ebyZIaegcq9Dxz5ocOtVPZZhNRt6qcYgs77mtYthJFAjTErI6BrCfMUtA6y4Tx7uWAdgGicpsiQgqeondCDOPSH-F0VRROErECBzvjpqxOvzW8My1gHCsgZUTX5SXyp3C0iRGwd3rwEtKFtckXEg8-O4OdmVSMpyi1VzSY8JXMEkGdYQ/s1000/royalalberthwharfpumphouse-w1000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9oTI2qGI6hJ6ebyZIaegcq9Dxz5ocOtVPZZhNRt6qcYgs77mtYthJFAjTErI6BrCfMUtA6y4Tx7uWAdgGicpsiQgqeondCDOPSH-F0VRROErECBzvjpqxOvzW8My1gHCsgZUTX5SXyp3C0iRGwd3rwEtKFtckXEg8-O4OdmVSMpyi1VzSY8JXMEkGdYQ/w640-h360/royalalberthwharfpumphouse-w1000.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Royal Docks pumphouse at Albert Basin: filling swimming pools by the minute.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">Among London’s many distinctions, it was for many centuries
the biggest and busiest port in the world, an emblem of Britain’s status as a
maritime nation. People have undoubtedly used the Thames for transport since prehistoric
times, and the first major improvements to what was originally a relatively
broad, shallow and marshy river appeared in the Roman period in the form of wharves,
piers and embankments, with cumulative encroachments eventually creating the deeper,
well-defined channel through the city centre that we know today. For centuries,
the port was essentially the river and its banks, focused on the Pool of
London, the straight, deep reach of the Thames from Rotherhithe upstream to
London Bridge, which blocked tall ships from further progress. Ships would
either moor at the wharves that lined the Pool or drop anchor in the river
itself, with people and goods transferred in smaller boats.</p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">By the 18<sup>th</sup> century the Pool was becoming
impossibly congested. There are tales of people crossing the river on foot by
jumping from deck to deck, while still more ships queued for days further
downstream. The tides didn’t help, disrupting loading and unloading and creating
a risk of grounding. Off-river docks were the obvious solution, providing not
only additional moorings but a constant water level insulated from the tides by
locks.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The first such commercial dock was Howland Great Wet Dock
in Rotherhithe, opened in 1699 on a piece of land given by the Howland family
to the Russell family, the Dukes of Bedford, as part of a dowry: I told a bit
more of the story on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/capital-ring-45-crystal-palace.html">Ring 4</a> when it passed the site of the Howlands’ ancestral
seat in Streatham. Later renamed Greenland Dock and much extended, it’s still
in water today. But it took another century of ever-mounting congestion before
dock expansion began in earnest: West India Dock on the Isle of Dogs in 1802, the
London Docks at Wapping and the East India Docks at Blackwall in 1805, Surrey Commercial
Docks expanded from the original Howland Dock from 1807, St Katharine’s Dock opened
in 1828. Like the original railways and canals, these were private initiatives
in competition with each other, and they were driven not only by rising demand
but by the increasing size of ships, which grew further as iron steamships
began to replace wooden sailing vessels from the 1820s.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Victoria Dock was opened by the London and St
Katharine Dock Company in 1855 as London’s biggest yet, 13 m deep and with 3.6
km of quays, designed to accommodate the largest steamships of the day. It was dug
from part of Plaistow Marshes in West Ham parish, just southwest of Canning
Town and in the northwest corner of a long, blunt peninsula formed by the
Thames between Bugsby’s and Gallions reaches. A lock (since filled in) linked to the river at Bugsby’s reach to the west, and railway sidings
provided direct connections between the EC&TJR and the quayside.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Victoria was a great commercial success and plans were
soon being drawn up for a second dock to the east, crossing the boundary into East
Ham and continuing right across the peninsula to a second, eastern, lock onto
Gallions reach. This was finally opened in 1880, linked to the Victoria by a
channel known as the Connaught Passage, after the Duke of Connaught who
performed the opening ceremony. Equipped with hydraulically powered cranes and scoring
a technological first with electric light to enable round-the-clock working, it
was a modern marvel of its day. Its builders got the Queen’s
permission to name it the Royal Albert Dock after her late husband, with the regal adjective retrospectively
applied to its older neighbour, so the pair together became known as the Royal
Docks. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">As with so many utilities pioneered through private
enterprise, competition was initially stimulating but ultimately
self-defeating. In 1886, the rival East and West India Dock Company, whose original
docks were now too small for the largest vessels, opened Tilbury Docks, further
downstream, today still outside Greater London though passed on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/london-countryway-1617a-west-horndon.html">London Countryway 22</a>, in a deliberate attempt to poach the Royal Docks’ trade. But by
now there simply wasn’t enough business to go round, and the cutthroat rivalry yielded
perilously low returns for both companies. In 1908, following the advice of a
Royal Commission, the government stepped in, effectively nationalising all of
London’s docks, including Tilbury, under a newly created public body, the <a href="http://www.pla.co.uk/" target="_blank">Port of London Authority</a> (PLA).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The PLA launched a modernisation programme which included
building a third Royal Dock to accommodate ever-swelling ships. King George V
Dock, known to its workers and users as KGV, south of and connected to the
Albert and slightly smaller than its neighbours but with an even bigger lock,
opened in 1921. It boosted the <a href="https://www.royaldocks.london/" target="_blank">Royal Docks</a> into the largest area of enclosed docks
in the world, covering over one square km of water with 19.3 km of quaysides, surrounded
by a wider estate which reached almost 4.5 sq km in extent, about 1½ times the size
of the City of London. And still more expansion was planned, with a large area
to the north earmarked for a further dock, one of the reasons why some of the
land we’ve just walked through remained undeveloped for so long.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">As things turned out, the King George V marked high water for
the Port of London. Around 25,000 tons of bombs fell on the London docks during
the Blitz: they were easily identifiable from the air and an obvious target for
inflicting logistical and economic damage. But the Royals remained open
nonetheless and were used to construct the portable Mulberry harbours deployed
for the Normandy landings in 1944. Trade revived after the war, but after
peaking in the 1950s, a few years into the 1960s Docklands’ fortunes began a
rapid and inexorable decline.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">People of a certain political colour like to point to the
role of the trade unions in this. Certainly, the docks had a strong tradition of
organised labour emerging from the General Strike in 1926, when 750,000 imported
meat carcasses threatened to rot in warehouses with the refrigeration turned
off. As the PLA increasingly struggled to make ends meet in the 1970s, it and
the government regularly scapegoated the unions for their alleged inflexibility,
conveniently forgetting that their militancy was prompted by longstanding poor
conditions, tough and insecure work and low pay.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Meanwhile, other forces were at work, including changing
patterns of trade. The UK was still a major economy, but no longer the hub of an
empire, and following its entry into what became the European Union in 1973 its
trade increasingly shifted towards mainland Europe, just across the Channel,
and away from the more distant Commonwealth outposts that had previously
generated much of the seaborne freight. Even more significantly, from the 1960s
international shipping practices progressively favoured putting everything into
standard 20 and 40-foot (6.1 and 12.19 m) intermodal containers which could be stacked
up to make the most efficient use of space and easily transferred between sea,
rail and road vehicles by computer-controlled cranes with no need for packing
and unpacking except at each end of the distribution chain. Even the Royal
Docks couldn’t accommodate the new generation of even more gargantuan ships
designed to transport such containers, and there simply wasn’t room left in
London to build docks big enough for them. So ships began calling further down
the estuary, including at Tilbury Docks, and other points closer to the coast. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The East India, London, Surrey and St Katharine docks and
all the wharves on the Pool of London closed between 1967 and 1971. After a
mid-1970s plan to save the Royal and West India Docks resulted in still further
losses, facilities on the Isle of Dogs were closed completely in 1981. The
Royals were closed to general shipping the same year, with the last vessels
loaded and unloaded in KGV towards the end of the year, though they were used
for ‘laying up’ ships not in use until late 1983.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The closures were a social and economic catastrophe for
the East End, triggering unemployment and hardship on an unprecedented scale.
It’s estimated that just the closure of the upper docks resulted not only in
the direct loss of 25,000 jobs at the sites themselves but 150,000 further job
losses in the wider local economy. The rest of the story, from the LDDC to
today’s ongoing development, has largely been told above, but we’ll pick up on
some aspects of it as the walk continues.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">One LDDC legacy is immediately visible, and likely
audible, across the Royal Albert Dock and slightly right. <a href="https://www.londoncityairport.com/" target="_blank">London City Airport</a>
(LCY) was first proposed by the LDDC and engineering firm Mowlem in the early
1980s and opened in 1987 on the tongue of wharves separating Albert and KGV docks. Mowlem built and initially operated what is still the
closest airport to central London, though it’s now owned by a consortium of Canadian
pension funds and Kuwaiti investors.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Only specific smaller aircraft can use the airport due to
its short 1.5 km runway and steep approaches, so it mainly serves short haul
mainland European and domestic destinations. The original intention was to provide
executives from Canary Wharf and the City with flights to financial centres
like Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Luxembourg, but it’s since branched into serving
leisure resorts too. From 2009 there was even a luxury overnight flight to New
York City, requiring a refuelling stop at Shannon where passengers pre-cleared
US customs and immigration, but this was suspended during the Covid lockdowns
in 2020 and has not been reinstated. To reduce noise nuisance in this heavily
populated area, flying is banned at night and on Saturday afternoons and Sunday
mornings.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring turns east along the dockside for a relatively
short distance, passing the distinctive UEL halls of residence with their
ellipse-shaped footprints and sloping roofs. Today there’s quiet water where
substantial ships once berthed, but you might spot smaller vessels like kayaks,
sailing boats and pleasure yachts using Gallions Point Marina,
though this was temporarily closed for development when I last passed by. The
path angles slightly right past a squarer timber-clad block housing the university’s
sports medicine centre, where it crosses another long-forgotten parish and, anomalously,
county boundary. Prior to 1889, you’d be entering the Kent parish of Woolwich
here. Between 1889 and 1965, while East Ham was still part of Essex, Woolwich was
within the county of London, so the Ring is once again returning you to an
earlier iteration of the ‘metropolis’. I’ll explain later.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Immediately after the sports medicine centre you pass five
more conventionally shaped residential blocks, and the expanse of water narrows
towards the eastern extremity of the dock, known as the Royal Albert Basin. Manor
Way once ran between where the third and fourth of these (Redbridge House and
Shepherd House) now stand to cross the neck of the basin on a bascule lifting
bridge installed in 1879. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The quayside
was built out to accommodate it, but this promontory, along with the bridge,
has been removed. Aerial photographs reveal the imprint of its southern
approach road on the northwest tip of Albert Island opposite.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The bridge was replaced in 1999 by the Sir Steve Redgrave
Bridge just ahead of you, spanning the water on a series of paired concrete
piers. Unusually it’s named in honour of a living person, the Olympic medallist
rower who has a connection to the marina and sports centre here. It’s something
of a symbol of the docks’ loss of their original function, as ships of any
reasonable size could not pass between its piers or under its 5.2 m clearance.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>To Armada Green<o:p></o:p></h3>
<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9e9IVswO7RpbgOb3BpJ6Vt34kR3UyZhKyf0d-wuOfgKA8jwoLSlU6w_e2KQrfvNr3nVgwDLxvrhyphenhyphen_ZpInLcbvpMay0WvIscseO1SPqQLARJIBd6GGmLEEQq3tihU0G6JeanqRBOlzKg7UVOrXoeyIEiMhDtXM9ossU-Y5gMHTHwPWssBYduQ1XcR86jk/s1000/gallionsreach-w1000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9e9IVswO7RpbgOb3BpJ6Vt34kR3UyZhKyf0d-wuOfgKA8jwoLSlU6w_e2KQrfvNr3nVgwDLxvrhyphenhyphen_ZpInLcbvpMay0WvIscseO1SPqQLARJIBd6GGmLEEQq3tihU0G6JeanqRBOlzKg7UVOrXoeyIEiMhDtXM9ossU-Y5gMHTHwPWssBYduQ1XcR86jk/w640-h360/gallionsreach-w1000.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">River Thames at Gallions Reach, from Armada Green looking downstream, Shooters Hll in distance.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">The Capital Ring’s obvious objective from here is the
river Thames, just a short distance away, so it can finish as it started, in a
close encounter with London’s foremost unifying feature, but at the time of writing
and likely for the next few years, you may find progress frustrated by ongoing
developments. I’ll start by describing the way the Ring <i>should</i> go. The original
route, devised in the early 2000s and signed on the ground, turns away from the
dockside just before the bridge to the Gallions roundabout then heads straight
to the river along Atlantis Avenue.</p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">On the opposite corner is Gallions Reach DLR station, not
to be confused with the original Gallions station, which was further south and
will be discussed shortly. The present station is on a new stretch of the DLR,
curving north from the former Gallions branch railway on an elevated viaduct to
reach the old Beckton branch, which it then follows a short distance west to
today’s Beckton station. The Thamesmead extension, if it’s built, will split
from the existing railway a short distance north of Gallions Reach, leaving
Beckton on a stub of line.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">When I first walked this way in the early 1990s, following
the Green London Way, the DLR hadn’t yet been built, but the roundabout was
already in place, a puzzlingly large, neat and lonely circle amid derelict land:
as often with major redevelopments, they built the skeleton of the road system first,
creating the impression of ghost roads through nowhere. Atlantis Avenue,
originally the course of the long-infilled Victoria Cut, was a rough track, a
public right of way which once led to a now-abandoned oil wharf. Where it left
the roundabout, a security guard in one of those plastic sentry boxes kept
watch on an access gate to the vast gasworks site, stretching northward from
the path to the Beckton Alps.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">In its pomp, the gasworks was one of Europe’s biggest, covering
over two square km, with storage space for 250,000 tonnes of coal, employing 10,000
people and operating its own fleet of 17 collier ships. As well as producing around
five million cubic metres of gas per day, it did considerable trade in other coal
derivatives, like coal tar, dyes, ammonia and sulphuric acid. The shift to
natural gas extracted from underground deposits in the 1960s sealed its fate,
but its closure in 1969 was a significant blow to the local economy at a time
when the docks were also starting to feel the pinch. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Though sections of the site in the north were redeveloped
in the 1980s as retail and industrial parks, and a central chunk became a DLR
depot in 1994, most of the rest was simply left to fall into dereliction. That’s
the way I found it in the early 1990s, strewn with rubble and toothed by the
skeletal remains of industrial buildings, an ideal location for film makers
seeking post-apocalyptic surroundings. Its most famous role is as the wreckage
of Hu<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">ế</span>
in Stanley Kubrick’s Vietnam war drama <i>Full Metal Jacket</i> (1987), the filming
of which reputedly added further ruination. But it has numerous other screen credits,
including the opening sequence of <i>For Your Eyes Only</i> (John Glen 1981),
when James Bond drops Blofeld down one of its chimneys from a helicopter, and <i>Nineteen
Eighty-Four</i> (Michael Radford 1984). I remember it most fondly for its
distinctive retort house with three square towers filmed in blurry over-saturated
Super-8 in Derek Jarman’s <i>The Last of England</i> (1987).<o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs4sgKjvxOKwhYs7gxnuyTnfDBhyphenhyphenPqfp3CvBaAWHC-g-jfCXFT2hTosO0E80MqB3XvZUwf8Pj9pIaPZ-DjDnmRJDJKI2rGjXzTBrJmZrXsX_koXgdwOnR86q_8ZKDAA4sI592D6iTPQQM8pYkFzM7KrZ9r3i_GrBC93pJUmtpeLRB-2-0SoPZGBEdExsg/s1000/becktongasworksretorthouses-w1000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs4sgKjvxOKwhYs7gxnuyTnfDBhyphenhyphenPqfp3CvBaAWHC-g-jfCXFT2hTosO0E80MqB3XvZUwf8Pj9pIaPZ-DjDnmRJDJKI2rGjXzTBrJmZrXsX_koXgdwOnR86q_8ZKDAA4sI592D6iTPQQM8pYkFzM7KrZ9r3i_GrBC93pJUmtpeLRB-2-0SoPZGBEdExsg/w640-h360/becktongasworksretorthouses-w1000.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Remains of Beckton Gasworks retort houses in 1996.<br />Photo: Ben Brooksbank, Creative Commons <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/" target="_blank">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoBodyText">The site is considerably neater today, though still
something of a patchwork. Atlantis Avenue is a proper road, and the first flats
have appeared on the north (left) side of it, on the southwest corner of the
gasworks, in the last couple of years. The rest is now an ‘opportunity area’
designated by the Mayor of London, with a vision for a major new neighbourhood
dubbed Beckton Riverside, crossed by the DLR Thamesmead extension. Once you’re
past the new flats, a large undeveloped area remains on the left as fenced
rough grassland: some of this is likely to be reserved for a park when development
begins in earnest. The other side of the avenue, part of the former dock
estate, is already built up, though the large industrial shed currently rented
by Swiss industrial engineering company Bühler may also be redeveloped
eventually.</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Since the Ring was first devised, developers have opened
an interesting new way of getting to Atlantis Avenue which I’d be happy to see
adopted as the official route. This continues under the Sir Steve Redgrave
Bridge, venturing further into the Royal Albert Basin. The Royal Wharf development
here, completed in 2018, displays a little more architectural imagination than
some of its neighbours, particularly in the three towers on piers that stick
out into the water, with an elliptical cross-section that echoes the student halls we’ve
just passed. But the real gem is a quirkily distinctive and obviously rather
older building surrounded by a stone and glass circle just opposite the towers,
currently branded Galyons Bar and Kitchen but better known as the Gallions
Hotel.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Opened in 1884, the hotel was built by the dock company as
part of the Gallions branch railway: indeed at first it formed part of Gallions
station, the branch’s terminus, with the canopy now facing the dock opening
onto the station platform. Its purpose was to accommodate passengers and ships’
officers making early morning departures on Pacific and Oriental (P&O) liners
from the docks, earning it the unkind nickname ‘the captain’s brothel’. An
underground passage connected it with the liner berths.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Two years after the hotel opened, the railway was diverted
north of it to make way for dock alterations and the line extended slightly
east to a new Gallions station. This has completely vanished under flat blocks,
but for many decades afterwards a stub of its predecessor's platform remained
visible outside the hotel, beneath the protruding turret. The once-familiar
interchange is mentioned in Rudyard Kipling’s first novel <i>The Light that
Failed</i> (1891), when a character asks a P&O clerk for more information
about a steamer departure with the words ‘Is it Tilbury and a tender, or
Galleons [sic] and the docks?’<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Later run by Truman’s brewery, the Gallions clung on as a
pub after rail services were withdrawn during World War II, finally closing in
1972 as the docks plunged into decline. It remained shuttered and derelict for
over 40 years, until 2013 when, with redevelopment of the surroundings
beginning in earnest, a construction firm restored and reopened it, installing
their offices on the upper floors and a pub-restaurant beneath. As the firm was
Irish-owned, the official ceremony was performed by the then-Taoiseach, Enda Kenny.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMUNCG_1WaBSgIgY0Va6pK76Abo-nMZu_T9XfEyxA6KbRlhhp0Kx8N0tI8MgwAV6Q6uE8ltlhWgWBXncu6dXonyW9JzG46mKNQqdxQ8oQyX7afRsm0SUAS_jnjccE81Y54xTonDI7WczMmosSvbwfaqdEsOYMpUR_g1A4BZ59uAg2tzbquG98bU0-frXw/s600/gallionshotel-w600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMUNCG_1WaBSgIgY0Va6pK76Abo-nMZu_T9XfEyxA6KbRlhhp0Kx8N0tI8MgwAV6Q6uE8ltlhWgWBXncu6dXonyW9JzG46mKNQqdxQ8oQyX7afRsm0SUAS_jnjccE81Y54xTonDI7WczMmosSvbwfaqdEsOYMpUR_g1A4BZ59uAg2tzbquG98bU0-frXw/w640-h480/gallionshotel-w600.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gallions and the docks: The Gallions Hotel, Royal Albert Basin.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoBodyText">Designed by George Vigers and Thomas Wagstaffe, the Grade
II*-listed red brick and white plaster building is in a whimsical, mock-antique,
quasi-Arts and Crafts style, anticipating the ‘brewer’s Tudor’ that became the favoured
expression of pub architects in the interwar years. It’s packed with modestly
extravagant details that cohere into a pleasing whole: the gables, the tall Elizabethan
chimneys, the transomed bay windows and little turrets, the canopy and the
frieze by artist Edward Roscoe Millins that wraps the top of the first floor
with naked buxom nymphs and putti. It’s one of my favourite buildings on the
Ring and I’m delighted that it’s back in use and looking as good as when it was
built.</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">This alternative route leaves the quayside immediately on
the other side of the hotel, but before you turn off, it’s worth following the
water around the next couple of bends, perhaps as far as the footbridge. The
new buildings that now surround it aren’t particularly distinguished, but overlooking
the far corner of the dock is another older red brick building, a single storey
with seven bays. This is the Royal Docks Pumping Station, built in 1912 and
still essential to maintaining the level in the docks today with water
extracted from the Thames. It contains four pumps which between them could fill
an Olympic swimming pool in 1½ minutes. A short stroll through the new streets
to the north of the basin takes you onto to Atlantis Avenue to rejoin the
official route.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">At the end of the avenue, you finally reach the river at Armada
Green, a curious public space that’s intended only to be temporary until the Beckton
Riverside project kicks in. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somehow, I
hope they keep it as it has an unusual atmosphere. Despite its name, it’s
mainly a concrete piazza, scattered with low wooden benches and with timbers embedded
in the surface, intended to resemble floating logs. The concrete was made with
aggregates dredged from the river, while the timbers are sleepers salvaged from
the gasworks rail network.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The river wall is high here, so the surface has been built
up to provide a view over it, across the Thames to Gallions Reach urban village
and the still undeveloped stretch of waste ground once used by the Royal
Arsenal to its left. Shooters Hill, which we crossed back on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/capital-ring-12-woolwich-grove-park.html">Ring 1</a>, rises in
the distance. The antenna on the adjacent radar mast, one of several used by
the PLA to monitor shipping on the river, rotates steadily overhead. It’s
peaceful and slightly sombre, particularly when you remember that it was on
this stretch of river that the Princess Alice went down with the loss of so
many lives in 1878.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Incidentally, people often assume that the name Gallions or
Galleons Reach is a reference to the 16<sup>th</sup> century warships known as
galleons known from tales of the Spanish Armada. More likely it’s a reference
to the Galyon family, who owned riverside property in the 14<sup>th</sup>
century.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Gallions Reach and the lock gates<o:p></o:p></h3>
<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD8fIFgErsLOi4nW5e5Ozrl7rar7ENkzslQE3nZJe1wQBWADEK1FWzWHQH1-WGZe0CwAQU7_KXfpRymTptW5O7PD-9OFUFCk0syX6N8X0j7mbaiLeNPEpHboYC4OKVTJuIwsd2eK3PbpXQwc6GT4A6eRMYjReMPGQeDPL4nh6mrYFAMVU6ENOsbwcePHc/s1000/kinggeorgevdocklock-w1000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD8fIFgErsLOi4nW5e5Ozrl7rar7ENkzslQE3nZJe1wQBWADEK1FWzWHQH1-WGZe0CwAQU7_KXfpRymTptW5O7PD-9OFUFCk0syX6N8X0j7mbaiLeNPEpHboYC4OKVTJuIwsd2eK3PbpXQwc6GT4A6eRMYjReMPGQeDPL4nh6mrYFAMVU6ENOsbwcePHc/w640-h480/kinggeorgevdocklock-w1000.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">King George V Lock, from the Bascule Bridge looking towards the river Thames.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">A path alongside or close to the river, signed as
part of the Thames Path Extension, runs upstream from Armada Green across the Albert
and King George V (KGV) entrance locks and all the way to the Woolwich ferry
and foot tunnel, also providing the official Capital Ring route. I’m not alone
in having long considered this path, particularly the section over the locks,
one of the most intriguing walks in London, a secret passage discoverable only
on foot, although not everyone appreciates the sense of isolation on some parts
of it. The Beckton Riverside plans should provide a substantial extension of
this path downstream, perhaps even to Barking Riverside. But that’s still many
years away, and in the meantime one of the Ring’s most characterful paths has
become one of its most problematic.</p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Parts of the section between Armada Green and Gallions
Point have been closed for varying periods in recent years for work of various
kinds, including strengthening the river wall and repairing the locks. In April
2022, the Royal Docks and the Mayor of London announced a more prolonged closure
of the whole stretch of path, both for redevelopment and to allow the
replacement of the life-expired lock gates. Following the completion in October
2023 of yet another new estate at Great Eastern Quays, between Albert Dock and
the river, the path between Armada Green and Albert Lock reopened, and there are
recent reports that the sections across the locks are at least reopened
informally, though could be closed at short notice. I’ll describe the official
route below, as well as alternatives if you find some sections closed. As often
with walking infrastructure, reliable sources of offsite information are hard
to find, so you should check <a href="https://www.innerlondonramblers.org.uk/articles-62328/london-walking-network-guardians/capital-ring.html" target="_blank">Inner London Ramblers’ website</a> for updates and
otherwise tackle this section of the route in the spirit of adventure, prepared
to backtrack if necessary.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Even as the path reopens, its character will inevitably
change. The first stretch from Armada Way was an unsurfaced path with an
obscured entrance, a high flood defence wall blocking off much of the river
view on one side and a scraggly strip of secondary woodland on the other. The
Royal Docks team describes the reopened stretch as ‘much enhanced by improved
landscaping, tree planting and recreational areas’, indicating a very different
environment. There will be benefits such as enhanced accessibility and an
improved perception of personal safety, but there will be losses too. I haven’t
walked this stretch since it reopened, but I wonder if it’s improved the view
of a feature beneath your feet opposite the end of Wallis Walk, a little before
the path starts to bend inland towards the first lock: the intake where the
pumping station abstracts all those cubic metres.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The path used to cross Albert Lock over the inner lock
gate but there’s now a footbridge as the gate has been replaced (perhaps temporarily) with a fixed barrier.
The narrowness of the lock, only around 8 m, is a striking indication of how
ships have swelled in size since 1880: today’s Ultra Large Container Vessels
regularly reach 50 m or more.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">On the other side is Albert Island, an irregularly shaped
10 ha patch of land enclosed by the locks, the docks and the river. Accessible
by road only from Manor Way, it was long another largely empty and
semi-derelict area. The marina, dirt bike track, builder’s yard, boat repairer
and branch of the National Construction College have all been evicted in the
last couple of years to clear the way for another huge redevelopment, creating
an ‘industrial park and innovation campus’ which will include the first new shipyard
to be built in London in over a century and a new pedestrian bridge. The
riverside footpath here was as untidy and secluded as the Great Eastern Quays
stretch, but project director Richard Gibb promises ‘fantastic landscaping…with
terraces down to the water that will allow people to go down to the shore’.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">King George V Lock at the other end of the path is still
operational. Although small by today’s standards, it’s much bigger than Albert
Lock: 30.48 m wide and 235 m long. Just beyond the inner gates, to your right, Manor
Way leaves the island on a bascule bridge which is also still functional: while
its brick approaches date from the 1920s construction, the bridge itself was renewed
in 1990.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The public path crosses the inner gates, and you might try
to imagine the scene in August 1939 when the brand-new Cunard-White Star
transatlantic liner RMS Mauretania, the biggest ship ever to use the Royals, squeezed
through on a return voyage from New York City, witnessed by 10,000 spectators. The
ship was almost exactly the same length as the lock, and just a couple of metres
narrower, but it got through with barely a scrape thanks to the skilled crews
of several tugs at both bow and stern. This was also the point where the last vessel
to load commercially at the docks left them behind in 1981.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring leaves Albert Island to enter the Gallions Point
estate, completed in 2003: the riverside path here is well-established so there
should be no more major closure issues. From 1924, this was the main London yard
of celebrated Belfast shipbuilders Harland & Wolff, founded in 1861. It
never built anything as spectacular as the firm’s most famous work, RMS
Titanic, but was an important supplier of smaller vessels, from canal boats to
lighters and small steamships, as well as buoys, piers, spare parts and car and
railway bodywork, and offered a full repair service. It even had a sailmakers’
shop, as traditional Thames sailing barges were still in widespread use for
local freight. In 1972, as London shipping declined and international
competition increased, H&W began concentrating operations in Belfast and
closed the North Woolwich facility. It was subsequently demolished except for
the main gates, which are now in Lyle Park in Silvertown, some distance off our
route.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring follows the promenade, but there’s a parallel
greener and less formal alternative accessed through a wooden gate visible
ahead as you turn towards the river. The narrow sandy bank between river wall
and river is managed as the Gallions Point Riverside Wildlife Area, a pleasant
strip of long grass, wildflowers, shrubs and bird life. At low tide, you can
even scramble down to the foreshore in a couple of places. The angle where the
riverside turns slightly right is Gallions Point itself.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn0H4dhvbLUWkAmuDS3MoOk7ecF9XXsyiwATgjzO6tk1CxXSsG2eZq8ygC1PO5Ngi6FU1F_ROADe3_2aHLYPqGlvX7Bbzofqhh1kA5zdzUvHGhrWMT-tg6Qehyphenhyphen0l8N_XbfcttSLaBS6I1Tu-77bVyPAZ2QfLVVZxQsnG-RyxuExgGETfZasUE72PE_wk0/s1000/gallionsnaturearea-w1000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn0H4dhvbLUWkAmuDS3MoOk7ecF9XXsyiwATgjzO6tk1CxXSsG2eZq8ygC1PO5Ngi6FU1F_ROADe3_2aHLYPqGlvX7Bbzofqhh1kA5zdzUvHGhrWMT-tg6Qehyphenhyphen0l8N_XbfcttSLaBS6I1Tu-77bVyPAZ2QfLVVZxQsnG-RyxuExgGETfZasUE72PE_wk0/w640-h360/gallionsnaturearea-w1000.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gallions Point Wildlife Area, where Harland & Wolff shipyard once met the Thames.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoBodyText">Either way, you’ll reach a pleasant little plaza at the
end of Fishguard Way, the spine road through the estate, named after the Welsh port
where H&W-built vessels regularly operate. Shipbuilding was briefly revived
here in 2016 when artist and sometime Elvis impersonator Dmitri Galitzine, with
the participation of local residents, spent the summer constructing a small wooden
sailing ship, the Nyuk Ken, from recycled wood. It was then hauled away down
the river, but there’s now a smaller hull in its place, converted into a
planter.</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">If you encounter path closures, or want to avoid steps, or
vary your surroundings if you’ve walked this way before, there are several
other ways of reaching this point, though none quite so satisfying as following
the river. The simplest, most direct and reliable option, signed as a Ring
step-free alternative, is to cross the docks alongside Manor Way on the Sir
Steve Redgrave Bridge, easily reached from the dockside by the UEL buildings.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The views from the bridge are worth sampling, with Albert Lock
on the left and Woolwich in the distance, and a panorama of the docks and the
airport to the right, with the London Cable Car at the other end and Canary Wharf
beyond. The bridge descends to Albert Island and the road continues across the
bascule bridge, with the KGV lock beneath. A left turn down Fishguard Way takes
you straight through the estate to the plaza.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Another shorter alternative, cutting out the riverside
path at Great Eastern Quays, is to venture further into the Royal Albert Basin
from the Gallions Hotel, with a closer view of the pumping station. Following
the quayside, you’ll arrive at Albert Lock to pick up the route described
above.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">If the path across KGV Lock is closed, there’s another straight
ahead that circumnavigates three sides of a crane compound and continues beside
the lock, reaching a short drive onto Gallions Road which leads to Manor Way
and across the bascule bridge as described above. In the past, parts of this
path were often overgrown but it usually remained passable: again its qualities
are highly likely to change as Albert Island is redeveloped. You can also cut
out the riverside path on the island by staying on Gallions Road once you’ve
crossed Albert Lock.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>North Woolwich<o:p></o:p></h3>
<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv1Jir-sE_ccytpfazl_KjxdusbGTA7m97qaAyt3BH_Pv05rJrnIDC-vUbIzvOwxn-bJteHagtnRx_YuExxUDJAOTuYG9SdQtneoPFEySO8ahgjtTgZmtx6B-8Zhiljf81fSStf_Hmr7EzlWONM_Q2U0-L77eC2xTZrCiwRgJQ5I_KDhEawff6cIJ54KA/s1000/northwoolwichstation-w1000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv1Jir-sE_ccytpfazl_KjxdusbGTA7m97qaAyt3BH_Pv05rJrnIDC-vUbIzvOwxn-bJteHagtnRx_YuExxUDJAOTuYG9SdQtneoPFEySO8ahgjtTgZmtx6B-8Zhiljf81fSStf_Hmr7EzlWONM_Q2U0-L77eC2xTZrCiwRgJQ5I_KDhEawff6cIJ54KA/w640-h360/northwoolwichstation-w1000.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The long-disused North Woolwich station building, dating from 1854.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">Rivers are obvious lines for boundaries to follow,
dividing everything from individual properties to whole countries. For the best
part of a millennium, the Thames has definitively separated counties over much
of its length: Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Middlesex and Essex on the north
bank, Berkshire, Surrey and Kent on the south. But for most of that period,
there was a curious anomaly here, with two salients of Woolwich parish, in the
lathe of Sutton at Hone and the Blackheath hundred of Kent, reaching across the
river to encroach into East Ham parish, in the Becontree hundred of Essex. In
the past, boundaries were often more ragged than we expect them to be today, with
various enclaves, exclaves and ‘detached parts’ often derived from medieval
manorial holdings. But it was unusual to find such untidiness on the banks of
such a wide river.</p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The responsibility likely lies with Hamon Dapifer (died
c1100; the last name refers to his office rather than his family), steward to
both William the Conqueror and his son William II and, from 1077, Sherriff of
Kent. Hamon held extensive estates in both Kent and Essex, including the manor
of Woolwich and additional lands just across the river, surrounded by East Ham.
He seems to have used his power and influence as Sherriff to ensure these holdings
were consolidated into Kent. This made it easier for him to earn tax revenues
from the ferry which already operated here, of which more later.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">It’s not unknown for the land immediately adjacent for
ferry terminals and bridge landings to be included in the same administrative division
on both sides of the water but the areas affected are usually small. Here they
were much bigger: not only a substantial patch behind the ferry pier but an
even bigger one further downstream, a wide strip alongside Gallions Reach to
Barking Creek. At over 1.6 square km in total, they accounted for around a third
of Woolwich parish, later including the Albert Basin, nearly all the gasworks
and sewage works and all but the tip of Albert Island. We’ve been walking
entirely within ancient Woolwich since just before leaving Albert Dock.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The anomaly persisted for a remarkably long time. As
mentioned above, when Woolwich became part of the London County Council area in
1885, its detached parts went with it, subsequently included in the
Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich created in 1900. East Ham remained in Essex, so
the two patches became the only official part of the metropolis on the north bank of the Thames east of the river Lea. Finally, when Greater London was created in 1965, they
were sensibly included along with East and West Ham in the new London Borough of
Newham, while Woolwich was merged into the London Borough of Greenwich, now
entirely on the south bank.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Originally the anomaly was known by terms like Detached
Woolwich or Woolwich in Essex. The name North Woolwich didn’t become current
until a railway station of that name, a little further along, opened in 1847. Today
the name is usually restricted to the patch between the docks, the riverside
and the old West Ham parish boundary, which, as we’ll see, includes territory
that was never Woolwich! There was an established hamlet here in Hamon’s time,
likely a little further downstream than today’s North Woolwich, though by the
early 15<sup>th</sup> century it had been lost to flooding. The fields were
drained again in the 16<sup>th</sup> century but the area remained as largely
uninhabited grazing land until the railway arrived in 1847.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">There’s a slightly annoying reminder as we leave the estate
that the riverside access here isn’t by right but permissive, granted as a
condition of planning consent: a gate out onto the street with an electronic
lock operated by a button, only operational during daylight hours. Though normally
not an issue, it’s been known to fail, forcing a detour back through the estate.
Beyond this is a slipway, the Old Bargehouse Drawdock, an ancient river access
point which was once used for ferries. The Old Barge House itself was a pub at
the top of the slipway, opened around 1815 as possibly the first in the area
and claiming to incorporate a grounded barge in its structure. It was destroyed
by a bomb in 1940. There’s a second slipway a little further along at Waldair
Wharf.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Entering Royal Victoria Gardens, you almost immediately
cross the western boundary of the larger patch of Detached Woolwich, temporarily
leaving former Kent and the old County of London and re-entering former East
Ham parish and Essex. The gardens are almost entirely in the tongue of East Ham
that separated the two detached parts, though no-one today would dispute this
is still North Woolwich. The Ring follows a raised riverside terrace with
splendid views, but it’s worth taking a few paces right just inside the park to
inspect a preserved steam hammer made in Glasgow in 1888, salvaged from Green
and Silley-Weir shipyard on Albert Dock during the construction of London City
Airport and installed here in 1994.<o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOBXHrj9mKFgKKEmDv2pFK0cYA9t24X9xWexu4esdHYYHOLa2PWQ6pqS9u-LaWJHqg1L0L4hRdFA6AwPYGdxBRgt1sQc36GNKRX6BLvkyUy5b8Jchd8d__eQ4FaKAkVd7msMlweYPzHbhmeagUNcnk1Ac-fiBLhyphenhypheno76eOvuvT5kroaCJFeZflfQ2AW1uk/s800/royalvictoriasteamhammer-w600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOBXHrj9mKFgKKEmDv2pFK0cYA9t24X9xWexu4esdHYYHOLa2PWQ6pqS9u-LaWJHqg1L0L4hRdFA6AwPYGdxBRgt1sQc36GNKRX6BLvkyUy5b8Jchd8d__eQ4FaKAkVd7msMlweYPzHbhmeagUNcnk1Ac-fiBLhyphenhypheno76eOvuvT5kroaCJFeZflfQ2AW1uk/w480-h640/royalvictoriasteamhammer-w600.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1888 shipyard steam hammer in Royal Victoria Gardens, North Woolwich.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoBodyText">The Gardens are part of the story of the area’s
development. The land here, along with some of the rest of East Ham, once
belonged to Westminster Abbey. It was described in 1556 as ‘a cottage and a
marsh’, and so it stayed until 1847 with the opening of the railway and the
steam ferry. The Courage brewery added a pub and hotel, the Royal Pavilion, to
serve the increased footfall, and in 1851 the pub’s tenant turned the adjacent
riverside into the Royal Pavilion Pleasure Gardens, with attractions including
circus acts, fireworks, hot air balloons, dancing, landscaped gardens, a bowling
green and a maze. The facility prospered for three decades thanks partly to
canny agreements with pleasure boat operators, outlasting all the other London
pleasure gardens, though by 1882 it was operating at a loss.</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Following a proposal to sell it for building land, a group
of worthies including the bishops of Rochester and St Albans petitioned to use
it instead as a public park, a badly needed green space in an increasingly
congested area. Their funding appeal successfully raised the asking price of
£19,000, including a £50 donation from Queen Victoria. The site was handed over
to the London County Council which reopened it in 1890 after much reworking,
including a swimming pool and a new bowling green: only the riverside terrace
and the central walk survived from the original design.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Most of the 1890 features have in turn been lost: one
exception is the bowling green, which you’ll see if you continue past the steam
hammer to find the toilets. Adjacent is a splash pool, the only current water
feature. Renovated in the early 21<sup>st</sup> century, it’s a pleasantly
leafy space that retains something of an appropriately Victorian atmosphere,
though the riverside promenade is arguably still its most distinguished
feature.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The new flats in the far corner occupy the site of the
original Royal Pavilion pub, demolished in 2002. This was in Woolwich while most
of its gardens were in East Ham, so as you reach the flats you cross back into
ancient Kent. Immediately north of them, though a few steps off our route, is a
small garden enclosed by trees, another rare surviving late 19<sup>th</sup>
century feature.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>The Woolwich Crossing<o:p></o:p></h3>
<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXGFh8PwTrWgL__xYqztaMpxItPafWIU0IgpvhBDHNNZWAUp-SoCGDNuI6W87TLGhCKvBCiAO5c0Iu3BlF9foGjWEWTdNO1qJD3R6UORpus3bRLWDX_TEQLHSVUPWMAGciaga66PCPTgGCsG0Q9HXObIMNmsU-ujStizfoanFNjsGC8FPUmCo1GITDr7Y/s1000/woolwichferry-w1000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXGFh8PwTrWgL__xYqztaMpxItPafWIU0IgpvhBDHNNZWAUp-SoCGDNuI6W87TLGhCKvBCiAO5c0Iu3BlF9foGjWEWTdNO1qJD3R6UORpus3bRLWDX_TEQLHSVUPWMAGciaga66PCPTgGCsG0Q9HXObIMNmsU-ujStizfoanFNjsGC8FPUmCo1GITDr7Y/w640-h360/woolwichferry-w1000.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Troublesome vessel Dame Vera Lynn on the Woolwich Free Ferry service, North Woolwich Pier.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">As we’ve heard, Woolwich and North Woolwich were
already connected by ferry in early Norman times. The service may have been
intermittent in times of flooding, but there’s written evidence of it from 1308
when the business was sold for £10, then sold on again in 1320. Cross-river
traffic increased following the establishment of the Royal Arsenal in 1671, and
in 1810 the Army, frustrated by the sometimes-unreliable existing service, began
operating its own ferry. Back then, both military and civilian ferries sailed
from the Old Bargehouse drawdock.</p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">In 1847, the Eastern Counties and Thames Junction Railway
(EC&TJR), which already had a line primarily for coal from Stratford to
Thames Wharf south of Canning Town, extended to a new station at North Woolwich
where it provided its own steam ferry service from a new iron pier opposite. Woolwich
itself, which didn’t yet have a rail connection, was the main objective: there was
nothing at North Woolwich except the Bargehouse pub and slipway and ‘one small
house occupied by a local shepherd’. But the railway itself stimulated
developments like the pleasure gardens, and in 1854 the original station
building was replaced by a much grander edifice.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">As demand grew, even this service became stretched, and in
the 1880s Woolwich residents began lobbying for an improved publicly funded
ferry, pointing to the fact that the Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) had
already taken over several toll bridges in west London and abolished the tolls.
The MBW eventually agreed, appointing Joseph Bazelgette, whom we met on the
Greenway, to oversee the project. The free paddle steamer service launched in 1889,
two days after the MBW was replaced by the London County Council, departing from
a new terminal upstream of the station. It's remained a free service ever since.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">In the 1930s the North Woolwich ferry terminal became the
effective eastern end point of the North Circular Road, connecting with the
South Circular which begins on the Woolwich side, though the northern
approaches have never been numbered A406 like the North Circular itself (they’re
currently A1020 and A117). Modern roll on-roll off boats were introduced in
1963, with the current pontoons installed in 1966. Responsibility for the service
transferred to the Greater London Council in 1965, the Secretary of State for
Transport and the London Borough of Greenwich when the GLC was abolished in 1988,
and to Transport for London (TfL) in 2008. Two new Polish-built diesel-electric
hybrid vessels began public service in 2019, but have proved unreliable, and TfL
is currently operating a reduced service on a semi-permanent basis, with no
ferries at weekends, so this has become even more of a notorious traffic
bottleneck than before.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">As to the service’s future, various proposals for replacing
it with new road crossings have foundered on local opposition, cost and
environmental concerns. A scheme proposed by Boris Johnson when he was London
mayor to displace it to Beckton and Thamesmead characteristically came to nothing.
So with no further vehicle crossings of the Thames downstream from here to the
Dartford Crossing (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/london-loop-alternative-upminster.html">Loop 23/24 alternative</a>) and no foot passenger
crossings until Tilbury (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/london-countryway-1617a-west-horndon.html">London Countryway 22</a>), the <a href="https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/river/woolwich-ferry" target="_blank">Woolwich Ferry</a> looks like it
will remain as one of London’s best free rides for some time to come.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The LCC’s free service inevitably torpedoed demand for the
existing railway ferry. Then-owners the Great Eastern Railway finally withdrew
it in 1908, though the pier remained in use until World War II by railway
steamers to Margate and Southend. The structure still stands, though badly
deteriorated, partly burnt out and unsafe for use. The connecting rail service continued into British Rail days, though the facilities were reduced to a single
platform by the 1970s, and in 1979 the large 1854 building was closed and
replaced by a much smaller modern one next door. That same year, the line
enjoyed a new lease of life when it was appended to the improved North London
Line service from Richmond.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">In 1984, the old building was reopened as the North
Woolwich Old Station Museum, but this closed due to funding difficulties in
2008, and proposals to turn it into an arts centre foundered. An evangelical
church bought it in 2020 but it remains unused, its windows firmly boarded. In
2023, yet another new development was announced for the site, which includes an
extensive former goods yard. As the building is Grade II listed it will have to
be retained, so may yet be restored to its former glory.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The rail service, meanwhile, ended in 2006: the new
station building was demolished, though most of the line has been reused. As we’ve
seen, the northern section between Stratford and Canning Town is now the DLR.
From just south of Canning Town to Prince Regent, both the DLR and the new Elizabeth
Line trace the old alignment, and the Elizabeth Line then curves between
Victoria and Albert Docks through the EC&TJR’s Connaught Tunnels. It enters
a new cross-river tunnel just northwest of the former North Woolwich station,
but without stopping. The nearest station is now King George V, on the DLR
Woolwich branch, which runs south of the docks, partly on another former
EC&TJR line, before turning into its own cross-river tunnel north of Royal
Victoria Gardens. We walked over it shortly after entering the park.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The official Ring route just misses the old station,
continuing from the gardens onto the riverside path past the boarded-off railway
ferry pier. But it’s worth taking a few paces right past the flats to the bend
in Pier Road, with the Elizabeth Line pretty much exactly beneath your feet. You
can see how closely integrated everything was in the 1850s: the station with
its pillars and rusticated arches immediately opposite, the pier just to the
left, behind the dot matrix sign, and the site of the Royal Pavilion pub and
hotel with its attached pleasure garden immediately right.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">From here you can divert to King George V station or head
straight for the foot tunnel entrance, now visible to your left, but the Ring
wants to show you just a bit more of the river. The riverside path ends just before
the ferry pontoon, where a ramp leads up to the pavement. The ferry provides
one option for completing the Ring, but the official route assumes you’ll want
to rely on your own muscle power by walking across the river here via the <a href="https://www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/foot_tunnels" target="_blank">foot tunnel</a>, entered via its distinctive red brick rotunda.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">It's a sign of how quickly North Woolwich changed that by
the dawn of the 20<sup>th</sup> century demand for cross river transport was
once again exceeding supply, particularly for dockers living in Woolwich and
working at the Royals. Campaigning socialist politician and trade unionist Will
Crooks (1852-1921) was once a dock worker himself and was involved in a major
dock strike in 1889. He was elected the same year as one of the first labour
movement members of the LCC, became the first Labour Mayor of Poplar in 1900
and the MP for Woolwich in 1902, winning a massive swing from the Conservatives.
He campaigned for various improvements in Docklands and its surroundings, including
the Greenwich Foot Tunnel in 1902.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The LCC opened this companion tunnel in 1912, thanks again
to Crooks’s advocacy, finally providing a physical connection between the component
parts of Woolwich. Designed by Maurice Fitzmaurice, whose portfolio includes
Vauxhall Bridge and the Aswan Dam, the tile-lined tunnel runs for 504 m,
reaching a depth of 3 m below the riverbed, and is still used by around 1,000
people a day. There are lifts as well as stairs, though they’re unreliable, and
at the time of writing the north lift is out of service for the medium term.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Longer and quieter than the Greenwich tunnel, it’s quite
an experience: with its unavoidably damp air and echoey acoustics, it’s just as
you might expect walking half a kilometre under a major river should feel like.
But it’s brightly lit and the frequent CCTV cameras give reassurance on
personal safety. A bigger problem is the speeding bikes: cycling is banned but
the rule is frequently ignored, and Greenwich and Newham councils have struggled
to manage the issue.<o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZvwgqGGx5sx1lQOYPKhgO3ypPsa-jC2RI5xVVQrc0OuXhGf53dSes-9GrURQsjd7AJk9Of8bjJkDOcp-gjL7qY-LND7KY47fxBjeC36XX7ZFveZ3zYUOfESFjQ5FkzTaC0faudeWmTRzd-387-aEDyqb4Mj-DBFg0T7nNFtQz-f7rLEyrQ7w7oniWlTY/s800/woolwichfoottunnel-w600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZvwgqGGx5sx1lQOYPKhgO3ypPsa-jC2RI5xVVQrc0OuXhGf53dSes-9GrURQsjd7AJk9Of8bjJkDOcp-gjL7qY-LND7KY47fxBjeC36XX7ZFveZ3zYUOfESFjQ5FkzTaC0faudeWmTRzd-387-aEDyqb4Mj-DBFg0T7nNFtQz-f7rLEyrQ7w7oniWlTY/w480-h640/woolwichfoottunnel-w600.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Woolwich Foot Tunnel.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoBodyText">And so you complete the Capital Ring by emerging on the south
side of the river behind the Waterfront Leisure Centre in Woolwich in the
London Borough of Greenwich, likely gasping for fresh air after a brisk climb
up the stairs. That quirky little rotunda we passed on the first section 126 km
ago now takes on a new significance. After perhaps spending a little time
gazing back across the river, you can either follow the official station link
downstream and through the Royal Arsenal, handy for the Elizabeth Line (which has
opened since I started writing about the Ring) or take the short way via Hare
Street and Powis Street. I covered Woolwich in detail <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/capital-ring-12-woolwich-grove-park.html">at the start</a> so I won’t
say any more now but leave you to enjoy your own sense of achievement.</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Epilogue<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara">I can confidently claim to be familiar with the
Capital Ring. In the early 1990s, when the route was still an unnamed pencil
line on the London Walking Forum’s maps, I walked the Green London Way, an unofficial
green walking trail around inner London using existing access, devised by Bob
Gilbert who back then worked for the Lea Valley Park. While Bob took numerous
different decisions from the people who eventually finalised the Ring, both routes
shared the same overall intentions and inevitably ended up visiting many of the
same places and using many of the same stretches of path.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">It was Bob’s brilliantly written guidebook that did the
most to encourage my love of urban walking and what it can teach you about
history and social and economic change as well as the natural and built
environment. The book spent many paragraphs reminding readers that London’s extensive
collection of fine green spaces and built heritage, one of the things that
makes this very large and busy city liveable, survives thanks to phenomenal
courage and determination and sometimes even bloodshed, as ordinary Londoners fought
against rich and powerful landowners to secure sites which would otherwise have
been swept away in the interests of private profit. Knowing this made me even
more appreciative of the places I already knew, and anxious to discover more of
them.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">When the first Capital Ring sections began to open later
in the decade, each promoted with its own free leaflet, I made a priority of completing
them. I walked the whole route when the first edition of Colin Saunders’s official
guide appeared in 2003, rediscovering some places familiar from the Green
London Way as well as the leaflets. I walked it again between 2017 and 2021 to
research these blogs, and the Green London Way again between 2016 and 2023 for
a series of led walks, twice over in fact as I had to both recce and lead them.
In between times I’ve rewalked numerous individual sections both for my own pleasure
and in my capacity as a walk leader.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">But I don’t think I’ll ever tire of the Ring which is
probably my favourite London trail. Though the Thames Path is tough
competition, it’s all (or very nearly all) river, which is fabulous, but the Ring
has two exceptional and contrasting stretches of the river and so much else
too. The <a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/p/london-loop_44.html">London Loop</a> has more expansive and wilder greenery but can also be a
bit suburban. The Ring is closer to the centre, more urban and even denser with
layers of history and significance, unfolding as a succession of unexpected
pleasures in seemingly unpromising surrounds. And the Loop is also frustrating
in turning out not to be a loop at all, while the Ring satisfactorily completes
its circuit, eventually taking you back to where you started, no matter where
that was.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Time and again, when I’ve taken others on walks along
these paths, they’ve commented that they never knew that this was here, or that
they’re astonished to see something like that in inner London. For me, and I suspect
for many others, walking in London has always been about discovery, as well as assembling
your own sense of place and enriching your mental map. The Ring excels at both.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">I can’t think of a better way to sum up this adventure than
repeating the exercise I carried out when I concluded the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/london-loop-2324-upminster-bridge.html">Loop</a>, picking out a
dozen personal favourite places which I may never have discovered without
walking the trail and which still delight me. The section numbers are included
in brackets. I’ve avoided Thamesside spots as we’ll also find these on the
Thames Path when I get round to it. You may agree with me, you may not. There’s
only one way to find out.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l13 level1 lfo22; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Oxleas
Woods</b> (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/capital-ring-12-woolwich-grove-park.html">1</a>). I guess many other Ring walkers would pick this one too, particularly
as it was almost destroyed to make way for a motorway. It’s the variety I
particularly love, the mixture of wildwood and genteel civilisation, and that matchless
succession of Severndroog Castle, the Castle Wood terraces with their distant views,
dense Jack Wood, a surprise outcrop of formal gardens and the lovely café overlooking
the sweeping grass.<b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l13 level1 lfo22; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Downham
Woodland Walk</b> (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/capital-ring-3-grove-park-crystal-palace.html">3</a>). What an inspiration of the 1920s LCC developers to fold
their new estate around a strip of woodland, and how delightful that it’s still
there as a secret geography.<b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l13 level1 lfo22; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Crystal
Palace Park</b> (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/capital-ring-3-grove-park-crystal-palace.html">3</a>). Another perhaps obvious choice, but I always welcome the
chance to wander among the anatomically inaccurate dinosaurs and to invoke the
ghost of the palace itself on the giant empty stage at the top of Sydenham
Hill.<b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l13 level1 lfo22; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Streatham
Common</b> (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/capital-ring-45-crystal-palace.html">4</a>). Where you can enter Lambeth, an inner London borough, from
Croydon on your way to a Zone 3 station, along a rough country lane between
woods and fields, and dip into one of London’s loveliest gardens on the way.<b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l13 level1 lfo22; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Richmond
Park</b> (<a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2018/08/capital-ring-67-wimbledon-park-richmond.html">6</a>). My third crowd-pleasing pick, but as this is London’s biggest
green space I should probably narrow things down a bit. So how about walking
between the frozen Pen Ponds in the frost of a February morning while deer
graze in the distance, or strolling from Ian Dury’s bench on Poet’s Corner to
descend the spectacular slopes of Petersham Meadows on one of those crystal-clear
spring days when you can just about see Windsor Castle?<b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l13 level1 lfo22; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Brent
Park</b> (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2021/01/capital-ring-89-boston-manor-greenford.html">8</a>). This was one of my epiphanies when I first walked the Green London Way: the leafy paths along the Brent are already attractive, the Wharncliffe
Viaduct is impressive, and suddenly there’s this perfect cluster of buildings
around Brent Lodge stables, beside a little animal park overlooked by a hilltop
church.<b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l13 level1 lfo22; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">7.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Horsenden
Hill</b> (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2021/01/capital-ring-89-boston-manor-greenford.html">9</a>). A unique island of hay meadows and woodland marooned in suburbia.
I prefer the alternative route past the farmhouse with its rich kitchen garden,
a prelude to the flat hilltop, where you surely pick up the resonant atmosphere
even if you’re unaware of its prehistoric past.<b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l13 level1 lfo22; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">8.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Parkland
Walk</b> (1<a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2023/05/capital-ring-1213-highgate-stoke.html">2</a>). There’s something special about trails along old railway lines: the
privilege of enjoying somewhere once firmly off-limits, and the geeky delight
in spotting remnants of the past. You’ll enjoy these in full between the platforms
of Crouch Hill station, but don’t let the Spriggan pounce.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l13 level1 lfo22; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">9.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Abney
Park Cemetery</b> (<a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2023/05/capital-ring-1213-highgate-stoke.html">12</a>). The nonconformist and radical connections make this a
particularly fascinating member of the Magnificent Seven, as well as the
higgledy-piggledy, semi-overgrown environment and the incongruity of the main
entrance with its monumental ancient Egyptian pastiche.<b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l13 level1 lfo22; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">10.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Walthamstow
Marshes from Springfield Park</b> (<a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2023/05/capital-ring-1213-highgate-stoke.html">13</a>). I have a soft spot for flat and lonely
places, and this best-preserved of the lower Lea marshes hits it firmly. Even
if you find the landscape monotonous, you’ll enjoy the wildlife, and the
descent from a gem among London parks.<b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l13 level1 lfo22; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">11.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Middlesex
Filter Beds</b> (<a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2023/05/capital-ring-1213-highgate-stoke.html">13</a>). Again it’s the juxtaposition that’s fascinating: what
would once have been a rather unattractive site so thoroughly reclaimed by
nature, but with plenty of mysterious industrial remains, some of which now
seem almost as organic as the trees and reed beds. A very short dodge off the
official trail but unmissable.<b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l13 level1 lfo22; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">12.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>The
Royal Docks</b> (15). Much as I’m cynical about some of the redevelopment, it’s
so far failed to rob the docks themselves of their glory. These breathtakingly
vast geometric expanses of water are a giant monument to perhaps the most
important aspect of the city’s past. And the Gallions Hotel is surely one of
the most charming buildings of its age in London.</p><ul style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><li>Ramblers route descriptions: <a href="http://innerlondonramblers.org.uk/capital-ring" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">innerlondonramblers.org.uk/capital-ring</a>. Check the additonal link on this page for current diversions and problems.</li><li><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LnVj3ajGDhbYRODGqPml9DBtGfTTvvOw/view?usp=drive_link" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">London Underfoot information sheet</a> (PDF)</li><li><a href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1dEzj8toHFPhGR8hjigYqpojJJYA&usp=sharing" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Google map</a></li></ul>Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-84558213516462490282023-05-03T16:43:00.007+01:002023-11-13T12:51:48.642+00:00Capital Ring 12/13: Highgate - Stoke Newington - Hackney Wick<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUWV_Tduf0JHTATbIhue6bp1AbMq1cKEGcTO7ji-Ndn8mYuieObN4hjUK7jZTRreYVnd8dESa5y3zfebVWzBxgn7Gep3x3rJ6KZF2SlN207ekRJKg7R6Z4awVsSNUIelLtzfp4uYG1yauEfqIyzb-9hMxUlk0Osd-2d9blcWiwg2MCKj4aXEqTxE0w/s1000/crouchhillstation.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUWV_Tduf0JHTATbIhue6bp1AbMq1cKEGcTO7ji-Ndn8mYuieObN4hjUK7jZTRreYVnd8dESa5y3zfebVWzBxgn7Gep3x3rJ6KZF2SlN207ekRJKg7R6Z4awVsSNUIelLtzfp4uYG1yauEfqIyzb-9hMxUlk0Osd-2d9blcWiwg2MCKj4aXEqTxE0w/w640-h360/crouchhillstation.jpg" title="Ghost station: Crouch End on the Parkland Walk" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ghost station: Crouch End on the Parkland Walk, Haringey.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">Following the hilly, semi-rural excursions of the
previous walk, this stretch of the Capital Ring uses well-defined paths often
following geographical features through largely flat surroundings. First, a disused
railway, the Parkland Walk, sweeps to Finsbury Park. The trail crosses the park
to pick up 17<sup>th</sup> century watercourse the New River through the newly
created Woodberry Wetlands, negotiates two attractive green spaces and a
historic street at Stoke Newington then descends through Springfield Park into
the Lea Valley, following the towpath along the river Lea and River Lee
Navigation through the bleak but curiously attractive and environmentally
valuable marshes of the Lea Valley Park. It ends at the recently regenerated industrial
area of Hackney Wick on the edge of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, within
sight of the Olympic stadium.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">This post covers two consecutive official Ring sections
combined to create a day walk. One ends and the other begins near Stoke
Newington station, but there are plenty of other transport options, including
easy links to six other stations as well as frequent bus stops.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Highgate<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara">Highgate is one of London’s best known ‘villages’,
though except for its woods, crossed in the last section, the Capital Ring
misses its best-known features: the picturesque village green and the famous
cemetery are both some way off route. A tollgate on the Great North Road once
stood by the green, still commemorated by the landmark Gatehouse pub, now a
1930s Brewer’s Tudor building but at a location that’s housed an inn since at
least the 16<sup>th</sup> century.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Folk etymology holds that the place name simply refers to
this ‘high gate’ atop the prominent 100 m hill, but the first syllable is from
Old English <i>hæg</i>, ‘hedge’. As described in the <a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2021/08/capital-ring-1011-south-kenton-hendon.html">previous section</a>, much of
the land in this part of London, in the former parishes of Finchley and
Hornsey, was part of the Bishops of London’s estate, and in mediaeval times the
bishops’ hunting park, Hornsey Great Park, carved from the ancient Forest of
Middlesex, occupied a swathe of it. The southeastern edge of this park elbowed
along Hampstead Lane and Southwood Lane, and close to the corner, on the
plateau atop the hill, there was a gate in the high hedge surrounding the episcopal
domain. Hampstead Lane also marked the parish boundary of Hornsey to the north
and St Pancras to the south, and central Highgate today is still divided along
the same line between the boroughs of Haringey and Camden.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">As early as 1318, the bishops were levying tolls at the
gate for the use of tracks through the park linking to the Spaniards Inn on
Hampstead Heath to the west and the White Lion at East End (now East Finchley)
to the north. By the end of the century, the track towards East End, today’s North
Hill, had become part of A1 predecessor the Great North Road, from the City of
London along Holloway Road, up Highgate Hill and on to York and Edinburgh, as
also discussed in the previous section. Activity around the junction intensified,
initially to provide services for road users, and by the following century Highgate
was an established settlement, already attracting wealthy residents for its
combination of an airy and picturesque location and convenient links to central
London.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The second major turning point in Highgate’s development
into the wealthy and exclusive ‘village’ of today was, ironically, the loss of
the main road that had created it in the first place. As road traffic developed
in the 18<sup>th</sup> century, horse-drawn vehicles became larger, heavier and
less able to cope with the steep climb up Highgate Hill. A turnpike trust was
set up in 1810 to address this problem by building a bypass slightly to the
east, partly in tunnel to ease the gradient. The tunnel collapsed during
construction and was replaced by an open cutting, with a tall arched brick bridge
designed by John Nash to take Hornsey Lane across it. Opened in 1813, the new
road was soon known as the Archway after the bridge, and today is called
Archway Road.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Soon after opening, its gravel surface was replaced by
engineer Thomas Telford with a novel hard covering made from gravel bonded with
concrete, now regarded as one of the first modern road surfaces. Nash’s bridge
was replaced in 1900 with the current crossing designed by Alexander Binnie, an
elegant cast iron structure that has an unfortunate reputation as a suicide
hotspot. The diversion of through traffic left the village as a sleepy
semi-rural retreat whose well-heeled residents were well-placed to resist the
tide of development in the late 19<sup>th</sup> and early 20<sup>th</sup>
centuries.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The steep path that climbs between the houses of Priory
Gardens at the back of Highgate station at first seems to herald a return to
the woodlands that closed the previous section, but the patch of trees known as
Highgate Spinney, to the right, has grown up over the northern portal of the
Highgate Tunnels, of which more later. Arriving on Shepherds Hill, just to the
left is the attractive mock-Tudor Highgate Library, purpose-built on a former
priory site in 1902: predictably, it’s been threatened with closure in recent
years but is supported by a vigorous Action Group.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Shepherds Hill leads to busy Archway Road, still the route
of the A1 today: it ran largely through open country when first constructed but
today has something of the character of an Edwardian high street. Opposite
looms the Grade II-listed Gothic Revival hulk of <a href="https://www.jacksonslane.org.uk/" target="_blank">Jacksons Lane Community Centre</a>,
built to designs by local architect W H Boney in 1905 as the Highgate Wesleyan
Methodist Church. By the early 1970s it was disused and derelict, spurring a
local campaign involving among others later deputy Mayor of London Nicky Gavron.
It was reopened in 1975 as an arts and community centre which has helped
nurture the talents of Eddie Izzard, Matt Lucas and David Walliams among
others.</p><p class="MsoBodyText">Efforts to save it from being demolished in the early 1980s so the A1
could be widened ultimately benefited the whole neighbourhood, which is now a
designated conservation area. Historic Highgate is southwest of here, across
the main road, but our route is south along it. You’ll have to continue a
little further past the Ring’s turnoff to admire the arch itself, but before
you head downhill, note the various entrances to Highgate station, one legacy
of the particularly complex history of railways in the area. As this has a
direct bearing on the character of our next stretch of path, we now need to
address it in detail.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>The Northern Heights and the Parkland Walk<o:p></o:p></h3><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgninDsspNYfW2_eKfCEvZB6yAe5Zl-BWRBb6B8tndk5rfWbtqu0KnSM82Cf4_DpwcpfaScLWZN62MDDef4-ezaaN1EiTDoEHrJVUC_HpleMqctHjvNacgql6VAVCvdeYVRokf1tYJIus6rnqRbuj4RnuPUQCkvOQQVNeuaLNoXrfsqgXmSKXNCFjad/s1000/parklandwalkhighgate.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgninDsspNYfW2_eKfCEvZB6yAe5Zl-BWRBb6B8tndk5rfWbtqu0KnSM82Cf4_DpwcpfaScLWZN62MDDef4-ezaaN1EiTDoEHrJVUC_HpleMqctHjvNacgql6VAVCvdeYVRokf1tYJIus6rnqRbuj4RnuPUQCkvOQQVNeuaLNoXrfsqgXmSKXNCFjad/w640-h360/parklandwalkhighgate.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking in the 'up' (southeast) direction along the Parkland Walk at Highgate.<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div>Trains first reached Highgate in 1867 along the
Edgware, Highgate and London Railway, a branch from the Great Northern Railway’s
(GNR) main line from London Kings Cross at Finsbury Park, running via Highgate,
Finchley and Mill Hill East to Edgware. The line was originally promoted by a separate
company but bought out by the GNR just before it opened. The hilly terrain
required considerable engineering with extensive use of cuttings, embankments
and viaducts: the station had to be placed some way northeast of the village
centre, in a deep cutting with tunnels at each end. A branch from Finchley to High
Barnet was added in 1872, followed the next year by a second branch from
Highgate to Muswell Hill and Alexandra Palace when the latter opened as an
intended northern equivalent of Crystal Palace (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/capital-ring-3-grove-park-crystal-palace.html">Ring 3</a>).</div><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">London’s suburbs grew exponentially over the following
decades and services on the line rapidly became overcrowded. Some relief was
offered in 1907 when the nascent Underground system reached the area in the
form of the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway (CCE&HR), a deep
level ‘Tube’ line from Charing Cross to Camden Town, with branches on to
Golders Green via Hampstead and to Highgate – or at least a station called
Highgate, since renamed Archway, some way south of the village at the bottom of
Highgate Hill. From here, passengers could be hauled uphill on a San Francisco-style
cable car along a street-based line which was later converted into part of London’s
original electric tram network, closed in the 1950s.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The CCE&HR was also promoted by an independent
company, but by the time it opened it was a subsidiary of the Underground
Electric Railways Company of London, also known as the Underground Group, the
enterprise created by flamboyant and unscrupulous US entrepreneur Charles
Yerkes which ended up owning most of the early Underground lines. In 1924 the Golders
Green branch was extended to a second station at Edgware, just to the north of
the terminus of the Finsbury Park line, which a couple of years previously had
become part of the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) under the
government’s grouping scheme. Then in 1926, the CCE&HR was linked to the
City and South London Railway, opened in 1890 as the world’s first deep level
Tube, to create the Northern Line, with its distinctive parallel branches
through central London via Charing Cross or Bank.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The government unified control of most local passenger
transport in London in 1933 under the not-for-profit London Passenger Transport
Board, better known as London Transport, the earliest predecessor of today’s
Transport for London. Under the new regime, the Underground Group was integrated
with its arch-rival the Metropolitan Railway to create the London Underground. Two
years later, the Board announced its ambitious New Works programme for
expanding the network, intending both to build new stretches of Tube line and to
convert sections of existing surface rail branch lines to electrified metro-style
service.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Under the Northern Heights scheme, the Northern Line would
be extended from Archway in a new tunnel, with additional platforms at Highgate
underneath the LNER station, emerging south of East Finchley to join the LNER
branches to High Barnet and to Edgware via Mill Hill East, which would become
part of the Underground. The GNER station at Edgware would be closed, its lines
diverted through the existing Underground station and along a further extension
to Bushey Heath, where a major development was planned on a greenfield site. The
Great Northern and City Railway, an isolated section of the Underground between
Moorgate and Finsbury Park, built as a Tube but to main line proportions, would
be transferred from the Metropolitan Line to the Northern Line and joined to
the surface lines at Finsbury Park so Underground trains could continue via the
surface station at Highgate to Alexandra Palace on newly refurbished and
electrified tracks. The celebrated Underground architect Charles Holden designed
a rebuilt Highgate station integrating both high- and low-level platforms, with
grand entrances on Archway Road.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Work proceeded rapidly and by July 1939 Northern Line
trains were running through the new tunnel to East Finchley. But World War II
began only weeks later, significantly disrupting further progress. The new low-level
Highgate station opened early in 1941, soon after the line to High Barnet had
been converted to Underground use, and quickly found a dual role as a bomb
shelter. The high-level station was equipped with new platforms with concrete
canopies and a direct passageway to the Tube platforms, but little additional work
was completed. When the war ended in 1945, London Transport still intended to
complete the project, and the various conversions and extensions were even
shown as “under construction” on Tube maps, but the priority of repairing war
damage amid continuing shortages, the competing demands of a similar scheme for
the Central Line and an unhelpful shift of thinking on urban transport towards
buses and cars saw the remaining plans finally shelved in 1954.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">So what’s left of the Northern Heights besides the current
Northern Line High Barnet branch? Electrification of the original Edgware
branch reached Mill Hill East in 1941, prioritised to serve a barracks there,
but got no further, leaving the curious stub of Northern Line familiar from
today’s network. Passenger services beyond this never restarted, though LNER
and its successor British Rail, the nationalised main line operator from 1948, continued
to convey freight to the old goods yard at Edgware until 1964. The station site
was subsequently redeveloped as a shopping centre but stretches of the line can
still be followed as footpaths.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Post-war Green Belt legislation aimed at containing
London’s sprawl stymied the Bushey Heath extension: today the proposed site of
the terminus is still a roundabout amid fields, passed on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/london-loop-15-hatch-end-borehamwood.html">Loop 15</a> where
I’ve said a bit more about how far the work got. The tunnel from Moorgate
remained the disconnected Highbury ‘branch’ of the Northern Line. Following the
horrific Moorgate disaster in 1975, when a train overran the buffer stops and
crashed at full speed into the end of the tunnel, this section was handed over
to British Rail and finally joined to the main line, reopening in 1976 as part
of the suburban stopping service to Hertford and Welwyn Garden City, today
provided by privatised operator Govia Thameslink.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Most interesting for our purposes is the fate of the tracks
from Finsbury Park through Highgate to Alexandra Palace. GNER and then British
Rail continued to provide steam-hauled passenger trains, but the service was
half-hearted and irregular, cut back to a shuttle that didn’t continue through
to Kings Cross, suspended for a year due to coal shortages and then limited to
peak hours using older rolling stock. Unsurprisingly, ridership dropped
considerably: passengers contributed to the vicious circle of decline by switching
to buses and the fast and frequent Tube instead. Holden’s grand plan for
Highgate station was substantially pruned, with the escalator entrances from
Archway Road realised only as the modest sheds we see today.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Passenger services on the surface line were withdrawn
entirely in 1954, though freight continued to Muswell Hill until 1956 and to
Highgate until 1962 and London Underground used battery powered locomotives to
transfer empty Tube stock from Drayton Park to Highgate until 1970. As we saw
at the end of the previous section, the disused high-level platforms at
Highgate are still intact, partly used to house ventilation equipment for the
Tube station, and can be visited occasionally on guided tours.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The closure was bad news overall for London’s transport
network, notably leaving Muswell Hill as one of the few important outlying centres
without a rail connection. But it turned out to be very good news for walkers,
cyclists and nature lovers. By the early 1970s the tracks were lifted and
ownership transferred to Haringey and Islington councils, who were initially
keen to build houses on as much of the route as possible. But walkers were
already using parts of the trackbed unofficially, and a public campaign was
ultimately successful in securing the conversion of nearly the entire length into
a footpath, cycleway and London’s longest Local Nature Reserve. Following resurfacing
work and the installation of access points, it was officially reopened as the
<a href="https://www.haringey.gov.uk/libraries-sport-and-leisure/parks-and-open-spaces/z-parks-and-open-spaces/parkland-walk-local-nature-reserve" target="_blank">Parkland Walk</a> in 1984. The Walk is split into two sections, separated at
Highgate, with no access for safety reasons through the tunnels and along the cutting
around Highgate Woods (crossed by the Ring when it entered the woods in the
previous section).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Parkland Walk has flourished despite occasional issues
with neglect and antisocial behaviour. The threat of a new road scheme in the
1980s, ultimately rejected, spurred the creation of a <a href="https://www.parkland-walk.org.uk/" target="_blank">Friends group</a> which
continues today to hugely beneficial effect. The incorporation of the southern
section into the Capital Ring in the 1990s further popularised the amenity and
helped bring additional improvements. The walkway provides a hidden link between
several local centres that’s both useful and endlessly fascinating and
rewarding, and on fine weekend afternoons it can sometimes seem as busy as
Oxford Street. Much of it is surprisingly secluded, curiously detached from
densely built-up surroundings, and on the high viaducts the effort of Victorian
engineers now privileges walkers and cyclists with unique viewpoints. The
southern section has numerous reminders of its past, including former station
platforms and buildings, and the way these have both been repurposed by local
people and reclaimed by nature helps make this one of the most atmospheric and
fascinating stretches of footpath in the city.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Parkland Walk: Crouch End<o:p></o:p></h3><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6ODHtrYNx_BVOMWUBLtJRrnar2wWDPCTF2bD71RovT8RHX1jQ1HV297zMytD1DVx-XA10hTiGChwCy2cFZfCzfpSkHbCVC46Tl74XPfby_1JV32LKlsss9nG6G8dDNQDavp-Nk9kU96pM8euXVG7Aj-oQILfzVxFx9VswHkXZW6awEJvXFljoiiEZ/s1000/highgatetunnels.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6ODHtrYNx_BVOMWUBLtJRrnar2wWDPCTF2bD71RovT8RHX1jQ1HV297zMytD1DVx-XA10hTiGChwCy2cFZfCzfpSkHbCVC46Tl74XPfby_1JV32LKlsss9nG6G8dDNQDavp-Nk9kU96pM8euXVG7Aj-oQILfzVxFx9VswHkXZW6awEJvXFljoiiEZ/w640-h360/highgatetunnels.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Blocked off entrances to Highgate Tunnels. Bats not visible.<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div>The Capital Ring includes the entire southern
section of the Parkland Walk from Highgate to Finsbury Park, beginning at the
gate on Holmesdale Road. To the left are the securely fenced portals of the original
1867 Highgate Tunnels, which can be inspected more closely with a short detour
on a dead-end stub of trackbed. These eastern tunnels are the shortest of the
two sets, at 127 m. It’s nice to imagine them reopened as part of the walkway
but this is unlikely: restoring and maintaining them in a safe state for this
purpose would be prohibitively expensive, and besides they now have other
residents, as a dedicated wildlife sanctuary sheltering brown long-eared,
daubenton, natterer and pipistrelle bats.</div><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Our way is in what was known in railway times as the up
direction, almost immediately passing the gate to Holmesdale Road Meadows, a
damp open area adjacent to the path turned into a wildlife trail by the friends
group. It’s usually open during daylight hours, with signing to indicate the
different habitats, managed to encourage butterflies and other insects, birds
and amphibians. Just past this is the first of several wooden posts we’ll pass
as part of an older nature trail, repurposed in 2020 as one of London’s most
unusual and curiously exquisite art trails. Look around where you see one of
these posts and you should spot a tiny but colourful design depicting local wildlife
or history, painted on discarded chewing gum by artist Ben Wilson as the
outcome of a crowdfunded project. There are corresponding artworks for all 17
posts, plus several bonus ones – a few obsessives have surely been kept busy
trying to spot them all. Among the other curiosities are lines of short
concrete posts installed in the late 1930s in preparation for the conversion that
never happened: they would have carried those trackside cables that are a
familiar sight on the Underground. <o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7CV6V0n8bWoraJPlrF-JntmbvzmsfVG3GoEGg0TkU3_L9XB8WOLXWHc3YNvDZnpJFdsYs68WJfq-UYm2DmF4O1HsreBsZJUS8-un3ckCs1pKhENultXK_Z9Y_deCfc0_V1WrA4PtfT8IXm2Y7kHq7mHIinyol9hp9REkVM6rlwZhOONC1IQdTleNn/s1000/parklandwalkposts.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7CV6V0n8bWoraJPlrF-JntmbvzmsfVG3GoEGg0TkU3_L9XB8WOLXWHc3YNvDZnpJFdsYs68WJfq-UYm2DmF4O1HsreBsZJUS8-un3ckCs1pKhENultXK_Z9Y_deCfc0_V1WrA4PtfT8IXm2Y7kHq7mHIinyol9hp9REkVM6rlwZhOONC1IQdTleNn/w640-h360/parklandwalkposts.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Posts for Underground cables that were never installed along the Parkland Walk.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoBodyText">You’re now walking on a broad track edged by thick bands
of trees and scrub. While the margins of railway lines often provide green
corridors, they’re still subject to strict management for operational reasons
on working lines, but here they’ve been freed of such restraints and become
particularly rich and verdant. Occasionally, house walls are visible through
the trees, but the path retains that sense of being offset from its
surroundings, a hidden alternative geography. It’s always on a different level
from the street network, passing either under or over it: grade-separated, to
use the technical term. A succession of Victorian bridges takes you over Northwood
Road and Stanhope Road and under Crouch End Hill to the former Crouch End
station, the best-preserved station on the line and surely one of the
unexpected highlights of the Ring.</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Crouch End was one of two intermediate stations between
Highgate and Finsbury Park. The station entrance and booking hall were at road
level on the east side, with two flights of steps down to the platforms. These
buildings were largely demolished when the bridge was rebuilt in 1977 but they are
obliquely remembered in the unusual inverted arch design of the parapet, affording
a fine view of the old trackbed from the road. Still visible at track level in
the lower brickwork of the bridge are the door and bricked up windows of what
was once the men’s toilet. But the most obvious remnants are the two platforms,
still fully intact, to the delight of children and more than a few adults. These
were originally timber but were rebuilt in concrete and brick in the late 1930s
in what turned out to be vain anticipation of the Northern Heights extensions. There
was once a siding here too, on a now-overgrown strip to the left (north) of the
trail. Every time I visit, I see more people walking on the platforms than on
the trackbed, as if afraid of colliding with the ghost of an ancient train.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Crouch End Hill, up on the bridge, is a much older route
of at least medieval origin, a northward extension of Hornsey Lane which formed
part of the Great North Road before this was rerouted via Highgate in the 14<sup>th</sup>
century. The lane led up to a Crouch End itself, a small hamlet around a
junction with other important roads to and from Stoke Newington, Hornsey and
Muswell Hill: ‘Crouch’ derives from the word ‘cross’ and refers to this
junction, marked by a wooden cross. Its modern successor is a brick clock tower
built in 1895 when the whole area was succumbing to railway-driven development
providing homes for London’s growing army of middle-class commuters.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Parkland Walk: Crouch Hill</h3><div><br /></div>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara"></p><table cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcLjv_C_Q0Z-LeGQFF22FVn6nBFkbMsdsIpDZ7muDkL7za0CohfxU7_JQ6KY4CgRo8O1KJ33D1JCH-5UUh3461lIvDkH-Mnw3NIeueCQK3rZfgTWURAjKf5g-Lg-YFFIV-PZ_HqA1_URUGfdXvubNZDp9Qv43FkSU74OqqMbqI5sQo0sthuhsGiz_P/s600/spriggan.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcLjv_C_Q0Z-LeGQFF22FVn6nBFkbMsdsIpDZ7muDkL7za0CohfxU7_JQ6KY4CgRo8O1KJ33D1JCH-5UUh3461lIvDkH-Mnw3NIeueCQK3rZfgTWURAjKf5g-Lg-YFFIV-PZ_HqA1_URUGfdXvubNZDp9Qv43FkSU74OqqMbqI5sQo0sthuhsGiz_P/w640-h480/spriggan.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Spriggan about to pounce, near Crouch End station.</td></tr></tbody></table>A crossing path just past the end of the platforms
marks the start of the Capital Ring’s brief visit to the London Borough of
Islington, a triangle of which pokes north of the old railway line here,
following the ancient Islington parish boundary. The old parish centre is now
of course one of London’s most famous neighbourhoods, but it’s a good way south
and we’ll walk right through it when we tackle the Jubilee Greenway, so I’ll
reserve detailed commentary until then. The derivation of the name is ‘Gisla’s
Down’ (in the sense of ‘hill’), and the land was held before the Norman
Conquest by the Bishops of London and St Paul’s Cathedral.<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">By the 12<sup>th</sup> century the parish had been
subdivided into several manors: this patch was part of Highbury Manor which in 1270
was gifted to the Priory of St John of Jerusalem, at Clerkenwell in the far
south of the parish. The manor was confiscated by Henry VIII when he suppressed
the priory and remained crown property into the 17<sup>th</sup> century, after
which it was broken up and sold off. When the railway was built, this northern
extremity was still largely rural but rapidly filled up with housing
thereafter.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Islington parish was incorporated into the County of
London in 1889, becoming a Metropolitan Borough in 1900, while Hornsey remained
in Middlesex until the creation of Greater London in 1965. At that point,
Islington was merged with Finsbury to form the present London borough. So this
is one of the points where the Ring crosses into ‘the metropolis’ as it was prior
to 1965, if only briefly at this stage.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">I’ll forewarn you to look up at the brick arches shoring
the embankment on the left after the crossing path, otherwise you may either
get a shock if you catch it out of the corner of your eye or miss one of the
most delightful examples of public art on the Ring. Poised at the top of an
arch as if he’s about to pounce down on you through a curtain of ivy is a giant
horned humanoid figure made of wood, crowned with leaves and apparently naked,
though some of his body has modestly not quite emerged from the brick. This is
the Spriggan, created in 1993 by artist Marilyn Collins as what turned out to
be the only completed work in a proposed Parkland Walk sculpture trail.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Collins consulted with local children who helped choose
the design and according to some accounts she was inspired by tales of them daring
each other to visit the Walk at night, as it was supposedly patrolled by a supernatural
‘goat man’. But she also wanted to commemorate the long association between
Crouch End and the permaculture movement promoting ecologically-based land
management – the first lecture by permaculture co-founder Bill Mollison and the
first urban forest garden in the UK were both in the neighbourhood.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">It’s not obvious from the foot of the cutting but the path
here forms part of a wider park, Crouch Hill Park, stretching to the south. This
is a new creation, opened in 2012: the site previously housed an independent
recreation and youth centre and surrounding grounds, created in the 1920s. This
closed in 2004 and became derelict, before being regenerated into the present landscaped
park. It includes Ashmount Primary School, visible at the top of the slope
opposite the Spriggan and supposedly England’s first carbon-neutral school, a
community nursery, youth centre and sports facilities. The unusual wood and
brick building on the right a little further along, before the next bridge, is
the Cape, a 1930s transformer station also built as part of the abortive Northern
Heights project. It’s since been converted into a community centre and events
space with an attached adventure playground opened alongside the park in the
early 2010s.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The trail passes under Crouch Hill, part of the old
highway between Stoke Newington and Crouch End mentioned above. A station of
that name was opened in 1862 on what’s now the London Overground Gospel Oak to
Barking Line, of which more below, and what was previously just a street name was
soon generalised to the district. You quickly walk under a further bridge, under
Mount View Road, to discover another surprise. The embankment on the left is a
south-facing swathe of acid grassland, an extremely rare habitat in inner
London, home to unusual plants like sheep sorrel and specialised ants, bees and
butterflies. Just after this, a narrow path joining from the right marks the
Ring’s farewell to Islington and return to Haringey. There are various winding paths
through the woods on both sides here.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Parkland Walk: Stroud Green<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara">From the cutting at Crouch Hill the ground starts to
fall away and the line passes over the next road, Mount Pleasant Villas, on a
bridge. We’re now in Stroud Green, once a small hamlet, first recorded in the
early 15<sup>th</sup> century, the first part of its name referring to marshy
ground. Although mainly in Hornsey parish, it seems at one point to have been a
common for Highbury Manor in neighbouring Islington. Those with commoners’
rights were known as the Corporation of Stroud Green and during the 18<sup>th</sup>
century were reported to take part in an annual ceremony, by then largely
sociable but likely with an origin similar to ‘beating the bounds’. Housing
development didn’t start in earnest until the 1860s: Mount Pleasant was built
up in the following decade.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The surroundings then open for a long, high stretch on the
bridge across Stapleton Hall Road with one of the most intriguing views on the
trail. Passing at an angle under both bridge and road is another railway line
in a cutting and tunnel, so this is a rare opportunity for walkers and cyclists
to fly over two other modes of transport. The low-level line was built in 1862 as
the Tottenham and Hampstead Junction Railway, sponsored by the Great Eastern
Railway in the hope of gaining access to the West End. But the initial plans
were never completed and services on the line remained predominantly local. In
1981 it was incorporated into British Rail’s Gospel Oak to Barking Line,
sometimes known as the Goblin Line, which from 2007 has been part of Transport
for London’s Overground network. It was TfL’s only diesel-operated line until
finally electrified in 2018.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Stroud Green is the second station site on the Parkland
Walk’s southern section, although it’s much less obvious than at Crouch End. The
platforms were cantilevered out from the bridge parapets, while the ticket
office was a wooden building at street level, under the bridge arch on the west
side of the road, with a substantial and rather handsome whitewashed brick
station master’s house immediately adjacent to the north. This house still
stands, visible from the bridge to the left, just before crossing the road, and
is now a community centre run by mental health charity Mind. Everything else
was demolished following a fire in 1967, though there’s one other easily missed
reminder: towards the end of the bridge on the right of the path is a worn
concrete stump, the base of a signal post.<o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeNGGTg_qdNs8yDKUHcJrCrutHlkZ1GHndcVM92qKAg8gvLEi_feG_-XR05K-894_gqPZS4xMtnfb8XpCiRrAmGUqp3_ADKq1quPqArYFVnRir3NTromzWWu7Wa5JlcDE_lT7ItpeoI4ZfVGlj7RE3ZjXuRgR_ph4npn1wtqNWRySmSxVnqBzmVW5i/s800/stroudgreensignalpost.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeNGGTg_qdNs8yDKUHcJrCrutHlkZ1GHndcVM92qKAg8gvLEi_feG_-XR05K-894_gqPZS4xMtnfb8XpCiRrAmGUqp3_ADKq1quPqArYFVnRir3NTromzWWu7Wa5JlcDE_lT7ItpeoI4ZfVGlj7RE3ZjXuRgR_ph4npn1wtqNWRySmSxVnqBzmVW5i/w300-h400/stroudgreensignalpost.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Signal post stump at Stroud Green.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoBodyText">The trail continues atop an embankment, some of which has
been retained as a grassy meadow supporting plentiful insect and bird life. There’s
one further bridge, across Upper Tollington Road, lined to the north by two
parades of mature London planes. A rather more exotic fig tree grows on the right
a little past the bridge, likely sprouted from a discarded fruit. Then a fence
blocks the way ahead, with a busy working railway visible beyond it, just north
of Finsbury Park station.</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The railway is one of the great historic trunk lines out
of London, the East Coast Main Line (ECML). This section, between London and
Peterborough, was opened by the Great Northern Railway in 1850, providing
services to Leeds, York, Newcastle upon Tyne and Edinburgh. Originally its
southern terminus was the temporary and long-vanished Maiden Lane station,
between the Regents Canal and what’s now York Way. This was replaced in 1852 by
the current London Kings Cross terminus on Euston Road. Finsbury Park station,
first opened in 1861 under the name Seven Sisters Road (Holloway), gained its
current name in 1869: it’s since been remodelled several times and now
incorporates two Underground lines.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The footbridge that takes walkers and cyclists across the ECML
into Finsbury Park was first provided by the Great Northern to maintain the
connection with Oxford Road to the west: originally the Highgate line swept
obliquely to the east side of the main line just south of here on another
bridge and curved alongside it before merging with the main line just north of
Stroud Green Road. Once in the park, a path on the right provides a short link
to the station. The strip this runs through was once also part of the railway
and by the late 1980s had become an overgrown final stub of the Parkland Walk known
locally as ‘the Track’, dotted with remnants of infrastructure and plentiful vegetation
much favoured by local gay men seeking alfresco encounters. It was relandscaped
in a Lottery-funded early 21<sup>st</sup> century refurbishment, of which more
below. It’s now quite hard to trace the former line, which curved through part
of the present tennis courts and skatepark, but today’s station link follows at
least a little more of it.<o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhpGEuuvmZ-BoBMWGZFNhm3t19u6coqVRhSC9gG1fioiq0CH8n8AAz3SwgU7mK8E90m3bhM1VfGyGKXuOJvPwZd6nd41alyxl7xwGCDqdn3v3GIiUyAk02AKvBXg2qlVc0V4f3ovpNF-PqISvbnSMuHvmf93aBc8mQTmJD64mVZ8cYspNW8SIFaKmj/s1000/eastcoastmainline.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhpGEuuvmZ-BoBMWGZFNhm3t19u6coqVRhSC9gG1fioiq0CH8n8AAz3SwgU7mK8E90m3bhM1VfGyGKXuOJvPwZd6nd41alyxl7xwGCDqdn3v3GIiUyAk02AKvBXg2qlVc0V4f3ovpNF-PqISvbnSMuHvmf93aBc8mQTmJD64mVZ8cYspNW8SIFaKmj/w640-h360/eastcoastmainline.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">East Coast Main Line looking south towards Finsbury Park station.</td></tr></tbody></table>
<h3>Finsbury Park<o:p></o:p></h3><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMJbiqOvpJcbtDSCsGX4Wiq6dzf03fcTBDYOMSYzYaLVYtjHuKTuhN3RSKXK3zvFFR6u-HtRlcD4FlUWtYtyM3_vW6fQnLS4jt-gsMGX9wYRMGQb5SSo65zDZa9_tyPZBgfAQajCeHMNDBXCQlcwqmlLPqVJc7KbcY_PBT-TcV-TQ4txQ3ntVWIGms/s1000/finsburyparkgardens.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMJbiqOvpJcbtDSCsGX4Wiq6dzf03fcTBDYOMSYzYaLVYtjHuKTuhN3RSKXK3zvFFR6u-HtRlcD4FlUWtYtyM3_vW6fQnLS4jt-gsMGX9wYRMGQb5SSo65zDZa9_tyPZBgfAQajCeHMNDBXCQlcwqmlLPqVJc7KbcY_PBT-TcV-TQ4txQ3ntVWIGms/w640-h360/finsburyparkgardens.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">McKenzie Gardens, Finsbury Park.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>In medieval times, the Bishops of London’s property of
Hornsey Wood stretched all the way to Green Lanes and Clissold Park. By the
mid-16<sup>th</sup> century, this southeast extremity had been leased out as a
sub-manor known as Brownswood, and a century later a manor house, Copt Hall,
stood close to where the Capital Ring now enters <a href="https://www.haringey.gov.uk/libraries-sport-and-leisure/parks-and-open-spaces/z-parks-and-open-spaces/finsbury-park" target="_blank">Finsbury Park</a>. The nearby woodlands
were once a popular venue for duels, thus the crossed pistols mosaic on the station’s
Victoria Line platforms. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moving on
another century, the manor had become a popular tea house surrounded by
pleasure gardens, renamed Hornsey Wood House and so successful that in 1796
both house and gardens were extensively expanded, including the addition of a
lake. Back then the surroundings were largely rural, but the built-up area of
London was already spreading inexorably towards them, its dense population in
often poor housing posing major challenges for utilities and public health.</div><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The recognition that urban parks and green spaces could
deliver health benefits was one of the drivers for the creation of the
capital’s first purpose-built public park, Victoria Park, in the early 1840s as
a facility for the overcrowded East End. In 1850, a group of campaigners in the
parliamentary borough of Finsbury, just west of the East End and becoming as
overcrowded, began agitating for similar provision. The name Finsbury (Finn’s
manor) is first recorded in 1231 when it was used of a small manor then held by
St Paul’s Cathedral, immediately to the north of the City of London walls: the
area is commemorated today by place names like Finsbury Circus and Finsbury
Square.</p><p class="MsoBodyText">When the large and populous Middlesex hundred of Ossulstone was
partitioned for administrative convenience in the 17<sup>th</sup> century, the
name was borrowed for the much larger area of Finsbury Division, which stretched
north to include Finchley, Friern Barnet and Hornsey parishes. Following
electoral reforms in 1832, the name was also used for a parliamentary
constituency electing an MP. Confusingly, this was smaller than the Division
and had different boundaries, including parts of Camden and Holborn and
excluding the northern parishes. Even more confusingly, the name was used yet again
in 1900 for a Metropolitan Borough, subsequently included in today’s London
Borough of Islington. But it was the constituents of the Parliamentary Borough
who demanded a park.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Their sights fell on the pleasure grounds and adjoining
areas of farmland around Hornsey Wood House, located just northeast of the parliamentary
borough boundary, which ran, as does the modern London borough boundary, along Stroud
Green Road (Finsbury Park station itself is just on the Islington side). As
well as the second purpose-built public park, Finsbury Park was the first to be
created by its own Act of Parliament in 1857, authorising the newly formed
Metropolitan Board of Works to acquire the land by compulsory purchase. The
space was fully opened in 1869, following plans by the MBW’s senior architect
Frederick Manable and landscape designer Alexander McKenzie. That same year,
as mentioned above, the station was renamed to match the park and inevitably
the name spread to the adjoining areas of southern Hornsey, northern Islington
and northwestern Stoke Newington. All of which explains why the area today
bears the name of a district around 6 km to the south.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">In its Victorian heyday, the 46 ha park was considered one
of the most notable of its kind in the country, with its own nurseries
supplying a dazzling array of flower beds which attracted visitors from all
over the capital and beyond, but following World War II its fortunes began
changing for the worse. Transferred from the MBW to its successor the London
County Council in 1889 and in turn to the LCC’s successor the Greater London
Council in 1965, it suffered through several decades of underfunding and
neglect, with the loss of most of its original features. The <a href="https://www.thefriendsoffinsburypark.org.uk/" target="_blank">Friends of Finsbury Park</a>, founded as an action group in 1984, initially faced an uphill
struggle: following the abolition of the GLC in 1986 the park was divested to
the London Borough of Haringey but with no extra funds for its upkeep. Though
the park was added to the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens in 1987, the lake
became so polluted that nearly all the birds died, the play areas were deemed
unsafe and closed, and by the late 1990s many of the park buildings had been
burnt down in arson attacks. The council’s own leaflets warned visitors of “drug-dealing,
cruising and vandalism”.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Things have significantly improved in recent years, thanks
largely to new pots of funding secured by the council with the support of the
Friends. In the early 2000s, £4.9 million was spent on refurbishment, most of
it from a successful bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund. The lake has been
dredged and cleaned, old structures reclaimed and new ones added, and the
gardens restored to something like their former glory. Though funding pressures
continue, more positive attitudes now prevail, and community involvement has
also helped transform the space.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring crosses one of the main drives and soon passes
one of the recent improvements, the park café visible on the left. It’s worth a
short detour here to view the lake, originally part of the old Hornsey Wood
pleasure gardens but reworked in the 1860s into its current extent and shape:
the irregular shoreline and the island were intended to make it look larger
than it is. To the right of the Ring route, opposite the café, a path leads to
the surviving open- air theatre, known as the Pit. This was a 1950s addition, on
the site of a Victorian bandstand which was reputedly destroyed by a rogue
elephant. The brick building ahead is the McKenzie Art Pavilion, named after
the MBW’s landscape designer, now a gallery and education centre run by Furtherfield,
an art and technology project. Hornsey Wood House stood to the left of the path
here, on the shores of the lake: it was demolished in 1866 during the
construction of the park.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">McKenzie is further honoured in the McKenzie Gardens, a 21<sup>st</sup>
century reinstatement of at least some of the floral displays for which the
park was once known: the Ring enters this area under a decorative archway,
another recent addition. The trail continues past an attractive wooden
gazebo-style shelter, replacing one of those lost to fire, with a multipurpose
sports pitch and running track behind a fence to the left. Our way then bends
east through an area of scattered trees, but if you kept on straight across the
grass here, you’d reach a second area of restored Victorian flower beds, the
American Gardens. There’s also the option of a transport link and short cut
from the gazebo to Manor House Underground station, of which more below.
Nearing the Green Lanes Gate out of the park, the trail converges with a
waterway approaching from the left, the New River, our companion for the next
phase of the walk.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Green Lanes and the New River<o:p></o:p></h3><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaDIZJOSB2_jSHWEfAuc65z2v67fWwT7QJ9rYKdtmlZsnF4DAtzK8XKvHSP3NlLv0qjhzAyOihbfPudaPsoG_umL0CylOUnSUPKrEltRaQQVlXJ6PrKeIN82QN1Hk2UXnLE0vW695DHRvZJF6p7on8rHtROFX_8S6B965MXoIliYmlnuXMoR9W-hzZ/s800/newrivergreenlanes.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaDIZJOSB2_jSHWEfAuc65z2v67fWwT7QJ9rYKdtmlZsnF4DAtzK8XKvHSP3NlLv0qjhzAyOihbfPudaPsoG_umL0CylOUnSUPKrEltRaQQVlXJ6PrKeIN82QN1Hk2UXnLE0vW695DHRvZJF6p7on8rHtROFX_8S6B965MXoIliYmlnuXMoR9W-hzZ/w480-h640/newrivergreenlanes.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New River Path, off Green Lanes: tranquil waterway, muddy path.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Green Lanes – the name is in the plural – is part of
an ancient highway between the City of London and Hertfordshire which may
possibly date from Roman times and was once used as a droving route. Today,
it’s London’s longest named road, running over 10 km from Newington Green to
Winchmore Hill, although for around 2 km through Wood Green it’s known as High
Road, so the house numbers never quite reach four figures, stopping in the 940s
at the northern end. At the point where the Ring crosses, it marks the boundary
with the old parish of Stoke Newington and the modern London Borough of
Hackney, which you enter immediately on leaving the park. Just to the left,
north of the gate, the road crosses the New River at Green Lanes Bridge, and
the boundary turns east to follow the watercourse. As Stoke Newington was
included in the County of London in 1889 but Hornsey wasn’t, this was also the
boundary of London until 1965.</div><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The <a href="http://newriver.org.uk/nr/index.php" target="_blank">New River</a> is neither new nor a river but an aqueduct
originally built in 1613 to convey clean water into London from Hertfordshire
springs. An entire trail, the New River Path, tracks the waterway’s course from
its source near Hertford to its original head at Sadlers Wells and as this will
feature in future London Underfoot posts I’ll hold back from going into detail
here. We’ve already encountered it at Broxbourne on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/london-countryway-12-welham-green.html">London Countryway 18</a> and at
Enfield on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2016/10/london-loop-17-cockfosters-enfield-lock.html">Loop 17</a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">For the most part the ‘river’ provides a pleasant walking
environment with an atmosphere all of its own, but unfortunately here, despite
its urban location, it runs alongside currently one of the worst quality stretches
of path on the entire Capital Ring. This path is unsurfaced and prone to
excessive mud, not just a few avoidable patches but several lengthy expanses of
slippery and sticky morass which often completely cover the restricted width
between the water’s edge and the boundary fence or wall, with few handholds to
steady the balance. Only a prolonged spell of particularly warm and dry weather
will bring relief: I’ve walked it in late spring after two dry weeks and still
found it tricky without heavy boots and a sturdy stick. It’s a shame as
otherwise this is a surprisingly secluded stretch, a tranquil ribbon of reed
beds and honking waterfowl providing a sharp contrast to traffic-choked Green
Lanes.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoBodyText">The recently updated online Ramblers route description
acknowledges the problem, offering a near-parallel street-based alternative
along Eade Road to the north, which is also the course of the Better Haringey
Trail, keeping within its home borough. Walking this way, once you’re past the
late 19<sup>th</sup> century terraces you’ll still find yourself alongside the
New River, though it’s on the other side of a fence and the experience, though
dryer, is less atmospheric. And I doubt there’s much prospect of the situation
improving soon, as the waterside path is a permissive one through land managed
by Thames Water, outside of direct local authority control.</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="color: red;"><i style="font-weight: bold;">Update November 2023</i>. Contrary to my expectations, Thames Water refurbished this path in summer 2023, necessitating a temporary closure, but I'm told it's now reopened and is much improved. I'll leave this text in place, though, until I've had a chance to rewalk it myself.</span></p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring is about to embark on a lengthy dogleg detour
following a bow of the New River east then curving back southwest alongside the
Stoke Newington Reservoirs. Sticking to the official route, you’ll cover 2.3 km
rather than 900 m by the direct line south along Green Lanes to rejoin the Ring
at the Castle, but there are many compensations in the form of one of London’s
newest and most important nature areas and one of its most controversial new
developments. If you don’t mind missing this, you can save a few more metres by
heading southeast from the gazebo shelter in Finsbury Park to Manor House
station then along Green Lanes.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">There’s a further transport option here: heading north
along the main road will take you to Harringay Green Lanes station on the
London Overground Gospel Oak to Barking line, the railway we glimpsed at the
lowest level beneath the former Stroud Green station. Reflecting more general
confusion about what to call the area, the station has had something of an
enduring identity crisis: it was opened in 1880 as Green Lanes and has since been
known as Harringay Park Green Lanes, Harringay Park, Harringay Stadium (after
the adjacent substantial greyhound and speedway stadium, demolished in the late
1980s) and Harringay East, gaining its current name in 1991. <o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Woodberry Down <o:p></o:p></h3><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqMFENCMswudtomPRJ08G_1lBWIC-k4aQAuvTAFtwYZMYJm5q2lo_mm_DhV6JIA0oNaiezQYheO_U6Q11OJx6j-L9Ziqd-oOwmid07wqvZ3JIBNpclqPPRD_N1fBghF_36PjBWA7h6dIf9_xBgjiA43u101ipKMio-38pfqZz5NF6QDr0ghBQdYbQc/s800/woodberrydown.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqMFENCMswudtomPRJ08G_1lBWIC-k4aQAuvTAFtwYZMYJm5q2lo_mm_DhV6JIA0oNaiezQYheO_U6Q11OJx6j-L9Ziqd-oOwmid07wqvZ3JIBNpclqPPRD_N1fBghF_36PjBWA7h6dIf9_xBgjiA43u101ipKMio-38pfqZz5NF6QDr0ghBQdYbQc/w480-h640/woodberrydown.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old and new: Austrian-style social housing blocks under demolition at Woodberry Down in 2021.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>When the New River was first dug to the east of
Green Lanes in 1613, it looped through meadows used for dairy farming and a
patch of remnant woodland known as Berrie Down Wood atop a minor hill,
originally part of the desmene land of Stoke Newington manor. By the 18<sup>th</sup>
century the area was known as Woodberry Down, using ‘down’ in the sense of
‘hill’. Big houses intended for wealthy Londoners began to appear in the 1820s.
Northumberland House, built in 1822 and used between 1826 until its demolition
in 1955 as a ‘private lunatic asylum’ that once numbered T S Eliot’s first wife
Vivienne Haigh-Wood among its patients, stood immediately opposite as the Ring
leaves Finsbury Park, south of the New River and east of the road. The area was
further opened for development by the Seven Sisters Road, a new
southwest-northeast turnpike connecting Camden Town with Tottenham from 1833.
This crossed Green Lanes about 300 m south of where the Ring does, and a
landmark pub, the Manor House, opened at the junction.</div><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">By the 1860s, Woodberry Down had become one of London’s
most desirable upmarket suburbs, particularly popular with wealthy Jewish
families, with detached houses backing onto the Stoke Newington Reservoirs, of
which more below. By the beginning of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, it had
started to lose its exclusivity with the construction of smaller, denser
housing for less wealthy residents, facilitated by the provision first of a
horse tramway along Green Lanes in the 1880s then an electric tramway along
Seven Sisters Road in 1904. The tramway junction was named Manor House after
the pub, a name which then passed to the Charles Holden-designed Tube station opened
in 1932 on the Cockfosters extension of the Piccadilly Line and subsequently
generalised to the wider area. This station originally had nine street level
entrances, including two leading to tram stops on traffic islands. Tram
services were withdrawn in 1938, initially replaced by trolleybuses, but until
very recently a short section of tram track remained visible in a gateway immediately
east of the pub on Seven Sisters Road, originally giving access to a depot.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Meanwhile, Woodberry Down had been chosen for the site of one
of London’s most ambitious social housing experiments. In 1934 the London
County Council under Labour leader Herbert Morrison compulsorily purchased the
entire 26 ha of land in the bow of the New River from the Church Commissioners,
which still owned the freehold. Here it planned to build a huge new estate of
around 1,800 homes for those displaced by slum clearances in the East End, much
to the consternation of the middle-class leaseholders who were obliged to make
way for what the local paper dubbed a “£1 million slum-dwellers’ paradise”. In
the event, legal challenges, bureaucratic delays and World War II set back the start
of construction to 1946, with the first properties occupied two years later. The
estate was finally completed in the 1970s.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">In its heyday, Woodberry Down was trumpeted as an “estate
of the future”, noted for its imposing cream-coloured flat blocks in an
Austrian-influenced style, made largely from reinforced concrete recycled from
air raid shelters. Initially the new homes were much appreciated by residents
previously used to appalling conditions. But like many such schemes, by the
1980s, now under the stewardship of Hackney Council, it was chronically
neglected and under-maintained, with a local reputation as a sink estate rife
with crime. The buildings suffered from subsidence and damp, the designed-in
amenities had proved inadequate and poorly planned and the geography
contributed to a sense of isolation even in a busy and well-connected inner
city area. A 2002 council report concluded that 31 of its 57 blocks were “beyond
economic repair”.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">As with many other recent
regeneration schemes, the solution chosen by a cash-strapped council was a
Faustian pact with private sector developers anxious to profit from the
changing housing market in London, where well-off young professionals increasingly
sought inner city homes. As I write, the council’s commercial partner Berkeley
Homes has almost completed the process of demolishing nearly all the old estate,
replacing it with almost 4,700 new build homes, ‘reproviding’ the socially
rented properties but still making a substantial profit by adding in many more for
private sale, with prices for three-bedroom flats now reaching £900,000 and
penthouses well over £1 million. It’s been slammed as “state-sponsored
gentrification” but in the current circumstances, with no genuine government
support and finance for social housing, you can understand why councils see no alternative
to these self-financing deals.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Initially, whether following the New River itself or the
parallel route along Eade Road, you can’t see much of the estate to the south, but
you may be able to hear children in the playground of Woodberry Down Community
Primary School, one of the listed buildings which will survive the regeneration,
a simple but innovative Scandinavian-inspired yellow brick building from 1951. The
tall brick boiler-house chimney visible to the left from both paths is part of
the former Maynard’s sweet factory, operational between 1909 and 1998 and noted
for its wine gums. The buildings are now occupied by the Oriental Carpet
Company, thus the current lettering. Crossing Seven Sisters Road, you rejoin
the New River along an attractive tree-lined path following the eastern extreme
of its bow, with more of the redevelopment becoming visible as you approach the
Stoke Newington Reservoirs.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Woodberry Wetlands<o:p></o:p></h3><div><br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDPwnDm15BrmAM3lnBcxjPPlw3UpqtRAyE8ZYkVdmhJ4hsCAb3RsWCMJrtNKYBCgulv-TtLBcG6diZN5E1HRuWRun7CS7Y7_rhKH05IUxo4i8xBqaafQUhedqLM3_iW91AEzV9_whhJu8jW2hAvejv2Ic9QIACXVUTQcRRV8AW3bGJ2P6y4BOIug7x/s1000/stokenewingtonreservoirs.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDPwnDm15BrmAM3lnBcxjPPlw3UpqtRAyE8ZYkVdmhJ4hsCAb3RsWCMJrtNKYBCgulv-TtLBcG6diZN5E1HRuWRun7CS7Y7_rhKH05IUxo4i8xBqaafQUhedqLM3_iW91AEzV9_whhJu8jW2hAvejv2Ic9QIACXVUTQcRRV8AW3bGJ2P6y4BOIug7x/w640-h360/stokenewingtonreservoirs.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Woodberry Wetlands, the former Stoke Newington East Reservoir.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">The New River was originally built to serve central
London, but as the capital expanded in the 19<sup>th</sup> century the New
River Company found itself struggling to meet rising demand in suburbs like
Stoke Newington and Hornsey. In response to this, in 1833 it built the two
Stoke Newington Reservoirs, creating 17 ha of open water on former farmland
immediately to the south of the waterway itself at Woodberry Down, lined with
rubble from the recently demolished medieval London Bridge. The work was led by
the company’s chief surveyor William Chadwell Mylne (1781-1863), who must have
had New River water in his blood: his middle name is from Chadwell Spring, the
aqueduct’s main source between Hertford and Ware. Following the 1846 cholera
epidemic and the discovery that the disease was largely spread by untreated
water, in 1855 the company added extensive filter beds immediately southwest of
the West Reservoir, on the other side of Green Lanes.</p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The assets of the New River Company passed to the
Metropolitan Water Board in 1903, and in 1946, it deemed the New River south of
the reservoirs surplus to requirements. Since then, the flow has ended at the East
Reservoir: its course south of here was largely filled in, though some of it can
still be seen. By the 1950s the management regime included regular use of
chlorine and sodium phosphate gas, turning the two bodies of water into dead
spaces, very different from the Brent Reservoir encountered in the last
section. In the 1980s, Thames Water, which had taken over operations in 1973, began
work on a new ring main which would make the remaining facilities at Stoke
Newington redundant. With the water company due for privatisation by the end of
the decade, both Hackney council and local campaigners feared for the future of
the site, and it was designated a Conservation Area in 1986.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The newly privatised company put the reservoirs and
associated infrastructure up for sale in 1992 with a proposal to fill them in
and build on them, claiming they would become a stagnant health hazard once the
flow of water stopped. Numerous local protests followed, with a Save the
Reservoirs Campaign joining the existing New River Action Group in arguing for
their retention and restoration as a wildlife and recreational resource. Ultimately,
while the filter beds were built on, both reservoirs remain, now a designated
Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation. The West Reservoir is
now the property of Hackney Council and leased out to a recreational and water
sports provider. Thames Water retains the East Reservoir, which once again contributes
to the water supply system, albeit on a smaller scale than before. More
exciting for our purposes, though, is a partnership with the London Wildlife
Trust to manage its surroundings as a nature reserve which has long since
shaken off its chlorinated past.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"><a href="https://www.wildlondon.org.uk/woodberry-wetlands-nature-reserve" target="_blank">Woodberry Wetlands Nature Reserve</a> was officially opened by
David Attenborough in 2016, for the first time freely opening the immediate
surrounds of the East Reservoir to the public between 0900 and 1630 daily. Besides
the water and wetland edges there are hedgerows, wildflower meadows and an
orchard. The site is particularly noted for its bird life, with arctic terns
visiting in spring and siskins, great crested grebes, red kites, sparrowhawks
and buzzards also present, plus some exotic ferals like parrots and cockatiels.
Bats are common around the water’s edge and it’s also a good place for insects,
including dragonflies, damselflies and some very large and distinctive moths.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Recent developments have provided an improved setting for
some of the historic structures connected to the waterworks. After the waterway
bends, the path crosses a little street called Newton Close, here converted to
a footpath. Just to the left, a simple brick bridge with no parapet, Woodberry
Down Bridge, takes the street across the New River. The surfaces and railings
are recent, but beneath them is a Grade II-listed 18<sup>th</sup> century
structure. A little further along and more obvious is Ivy House Sluice, a small,
neat brick building spanning the waterway. Likely added in the 1830s, it contains
equipment to control the flow of water into the reservoirs, still in working
order. Just after this, views of the East Reservoir and the surrounding wetlands
open beyond the waterway.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Approaching several blocks of new flats, the path splits: the
old unsurfaced New River Path continues ahead, while a much broader new
promenade runs roughly parallel on the other side of the hedge. Both have their
attractions: the old path is closer to the water but can get muddy and
overgrown and is sometimes closed for conservation reasons. The curvaceous promenade
is quite fun, passing some interesting landscaping, play equipment and a carved
wooden sculpture of Mr Toad from <i>The Wind in the Willows</i>.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTE1gIR2ExgzP-Iv0iFYsVhTqIOBm-59TGTtyyxKuG1PQXEbJ-NwCmdJoW4qqW4YL-0u5oCnhWfTdhY2aKWn2kZruzFDY--mvIFuCSkaC-jvSI_GoWg-pvGMGAh2vJ9-sJdHMh0ceshfLxLP2FErGkdqsdRyG4mqGLAM1x7BZ5aFnG068ZMAhj6xoj/s800/mrtoad.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTE1gIR2ExgzP-Iv0iFYsVhTqIOBm-59TGTtyyxKuG1PQXEbJ-NwCmdJoW4qqW4YL-0u5oCnhWfTdhY2aKWn2kZruzFDY--mvIFuCSkaC-jvSI_GoWg-pvGMGAh2vJ9-sJdHMh0ceshfLxLP2FErGkdqsdRyG4mqGLAM1x7BZ5aFnG068ZMAhj6xoj/w300-h400/mrtoad.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Meet Mr Toad at Woodberry Down. Poop poop!</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoBodyText">Whichever you
choose, I can’t think of another stretch of path on the Ring that traces the
interface of two such sharply contrasting environments. To the left are wide
views of placid water ringed by rich vegetation, with birds wheeling above. To
the right are uncompromisingly modern apartment blocks in stacked geometric shapes,
all brick, glass, white render and bold lattice grids, not especially
distinguished but striking in their way. In an ironically literal demonstration
of the value of nature, there’s no doubt that the delightful views of the
reserve have added a premium to the price of these flats.</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The main entrance to the Woodberry Wetlands is on the left
not far past Mr Toad, marked by a rusted steel porch supposed to evoke a time
machine that sits very well in its leafy environment. A diversion here will
take you on a round trip past several viewpoints and the Coal House Café,
occupying another surviving 1830s Grade II-listed brick building also known as
the Gas House. If you visit, look out for the surprisingly flamboyant north end
with its baroque gable: a plaque here commemorates the building of the
reservoirs, incorporating in its decoration wolf’s head motifs derived from the
family crest of Hugh Myddleton (1560-1631), the man who led the original New
River project.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring crosses Lordship Road which separates the two
reservoirs and continues its waterside course, initially past more new flats and
a terraced open area where a curtain of water flows over the sides of a giant
silver ball, tartly described by Architects for Social Housing, one of the
development’s vocal critics, as the sort of thing you’d expect to find in the
lobby of a Singapore hotel. The West Reservoir is less green but has the added
interest of sailing dinghies, canoes and kayaks as well as its bird life. After
Spring Park playground, the path is fenced and more secluded, soon with
glimpses to the right of another important survivor from the old estate: the
low but large Swedish-influenced John Scott Health Centre, opened in 1952 as a
showcase for the newly founded National Health Service. Visible across the water
at the end of the reservoir is the Filtration Plant, now known as the West
Reservoir Centre and the focus for all the water sports, including open water
swimming. Curiously, this rather elegant 1936 Moderne-style red brick building on
its prominent quayside isn’t listed.<o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxg1PghsM4u8p0dOmG354p2R4aXrBXVtfSqqDtNaSqqEzBECvzbNEV1BNIT7CYPyQdyJ2EXq6WnaSkvx4GBvamNHVuyuT2cdiAJt8Ok7beG3mmbnGY0RgGhW9YBeVd8Mt7mdv7syOE4Iwp6THIyVKFndMjS2qNbYtaKxRpSmoAbu_vDxrrRVSB3HB6/s800/castlestokenewington.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxg1PghsM4u8p0dOmG354p2R4aXrBXVtfSqqDtNaSqqEzBECvzbNEV1BNIT7CYPyQdyJ2EXq6WnaSkvx4GBvamNHVuyuT2cdiAJt8Ok7beG3mmbnGY0RgGhW9YBeVd8Mt7mdv7syOE4Iwp6THIyVKFndMjS2qNbYtaKxRpSmoAbu_vDxrrRVSB3HB6/w480-h640/castlestokenewington.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Castle, Stoke Newington, not what it seems.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoBodyText">Finally, you reach the jewel in the crown of the
reservoirs’ heritage structures, already observed from further away. Guarding
the gateway from Green Lanes is a forbidding Scottish baronial-style brick castle
crested with battlements and sprouting three towers. Completed in 1856, also
under William Mylne, the Castle, as it’s now known, was built to house two
powerful steam engines pumping water from the reservoirs to the filter beds
across the road. Several of the features have a practical purpose: one of the
towers is a chimney, another a water tower, while the buttresses at the front
accommodated the engine flywheels. But even so it’s a delightfully fanciful
building for such a utilitarian purpose, and the second of three architectural
extravaganzas disguising water installations on the Capital Ring: see also the
Byzantine Streatham Pumping Station on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/capital-ring-45-crystal-palace.html">Ring 5</a> and the ‘cathedral of sewage’ at
Abbey Mills, still to come on Ring 14.</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">By 1971, the Metropolitan Water Board had no more use for
the building and proposed to demolish it, but a campaign by residents and
heritage campaigners resulted in its current Grade II* listing. This didn’t
solve the problem that, like many specialised industrial structures, there was
no obvious alternative use for it. The Castle remained neglected and derelict
for many years, occasionally used as a film location: it’s featured to
advantage in Nigel Finch’s cult short thriller <i>The Errand</i> (1980). It was
once more threatened by the proposed sale and redevelopment of the reservoirs
in the early 1990s, but then someone had the bright idea of turning it into an
indoor climbing centre, open since 1995.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Today the continuous watercourse of the New River ends by the
Castle gates, though it originally continued under Green Lanes into the site of
the filter beds directly opposite, now covered by bland 1990s flats known as
Myddleton Avenue. It then curved back on itself to pass through Clissold Park,
where we’ll glimpse what’s left of it later. Heading south on Green Lanes, you pass
a Grade II-listed 1927 K2 phone box outside a parade of shops on the opposite
side. A few doors down on the corner of this parade is the Brownswood pub, a
rather pretty Victorian building on the west side of the road, taking the old
manorial name for the area. This was once the southeastern extremity of Hornsey
parish, allocated by the Bishops of London to the canons of St Paul’s Cathedral,
and the appearance of its name conveniently leads us into a little more
background on mediaeval Stoke Newington.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Stoke Newington<o:p></o:p></h3><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3pywlRwZYy6UJ3SpQqpTKAjN3aWlZm6oDChlHN7ofcT6WzUOzrn99CjSLdgeRjHWrKDQgR5WNMi3edpPBDGCpl04AAKZW_Lq-XqGayoHjkZCr4GwQ9fOWKOuonb4Mv8DsCxtJT1gGO8VMBG2JMnZ6UqbJy2YA4qAg5ahy88lnEgv4VIBj89SIriAH/s800/clissoldhouse.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3pywlRwZYy6UJ3SpQqpTKAjN3aWlZm6oDChlHN7ofcT6WzUOzrn99CjSLdgeRjHWrKDQgR5WNMi3edpPBDGCpl04AAKZW_Lq-XqGayoHjkZCr4GwQ9fOWKOuonb4Mv8DsCxtJT1gGO8VMBG2JMnZ6UqbJy2YA4qAg5ahy88lnEgv4VIBj89SIriAH/w640-h480/clissoldhouse.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Abney House, with the newer Stoke Newington church in the background.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Stoke Newington’s boundaries are a matter of some
confusion and dispute. Today the whole area is within the London Borough of
Hackney, normally thought of as east London, except that ‘Stokey’, as it’s
often called, has an N postcode. Most people using the term are probably
thinking in terms of the area around Church Street and High Street and would
consider the reservoirs more in terms of Manor House or Harringay despite their
historically correct name. The old parish of Stoke Newington, in the Finsbury
division of the Ossulstone hundred of Middlesex, occupied much of the land
between Green Lanes and the London Road (Stamford Hill, High Street), from the
New River south to Newington Green and Balls Pond Road. But a bulge of
Brownswood in Hornsey crossed Green Lanes to claim around half of what’s now
Abney Park, and there were three ‘detached parts’ of it in the south of the
parish, known as South Hornsey. To add to the confusion, Stoke Newington Common
on the east side of the High Street fell into Hackney parish despite its name.</div><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Civil administration was reorganised in 1855 when both
Stoke Newington and Hackney parishes were combined into a new Hackney District,
a move that provoked considerable resentment, with the affluent residents of
the former particularly displeased at their forced marriage with their down-at-heel
neighbour. Following four unsuccessful attempts, the parishes were demerged in 1893,
but only a few years later were threatened with merger again as part of the
second tier of boroughs making up the County of London. Stokey on its own was truthfully
too small for this purpose, but Parliament, unwilling to reignite the
“intolerable and interminable feuds” of the past, allowed it to become a
Metropolitan Borough in 1899, its size augmented a little by the sensible
incorporation of the Hornsey exclaves. Then, on the creation of the Greater
London Council in 1965, it finally found itself combined with Hackney again,
along with Shoreditch, to form today’s municipality.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">‘Newington’ simply means ‘New town’, a derivation it
shares with any other place names: the ‘ing’ wasn’t added until the 13<sup>th</sup>
century, while ‘Stoke’ was originally a suffix likely referring to a clearing
in a wood, used to distinguish Newington Stoke from Newington Barrow and
Newington Berners, both in Islington. The manor is recorded in the Domesday
survey of 1086 as held by St Paul’s Cathedral, a status likely dating from before
the Norman Conquest. As a ‘predendary’ manor, it was used to generate income
for the cathedral. The church maintained an interest for many centuries, as we
saw in the story of Woodberry Down, but from the 1460s the manor was leased to
a succession of wealthy Londoners, often City merchants and manufacturers.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Unlike some Middlesex parishes we’ve encountered, this one
had an obvious nucleus around the manor house and church, next door to each
other on Church Street. The London Road passed just to the east, along the line
of Roman Ermine Street, providing a link with the metropolis which made the
area yet another favoured site for big country houses. But Stokey developed a
speciality: from the 17<sup>th</sup> century it became a favoured destination
for ‘dissenters’, originally largely of the religious kind. Puritans,
presbyterians, Quakers, congregationalists, unitarians and various other
non-Anglican believers congregated here, followed throughout the 19<sup>th</sup>
and 20<sup>th</sup> centuries by political radicals: Abolitionists, Chartists, suffragettes,
supporters of home rule in Ireland and the CNT in the Spanish civil war,
socialists, communists, anarchists, feminists, anti-nuclear campaigners and
squatting activists among others. On the long roll call of former residents are
names like Daniel Defoe, Mary Wollstonecraft, Edgar Allen Poe, John Stuart Mill
and Tom Paine.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Anyone who thinks World War II ended Mosleyite fascism in
Britain should note that in 1946 a group of Jewish ex-servicemen based locally
found it necessary to set up the anti-fascist 43 Group, which in 1949 fought
hand to hand here with 200 supporters of Oswald Mosley’s Union Movement intent
on marching through the Jewish area of Stamford Hill. More notoriously, in the
early 1970s the ultra-left terrorist Angry Brigade took up residence in Amhurst
Road: members of this group prosecuted in 1971 for a series of bombings targeting
banks, embassies and the homes of Tory MPs were termed ‘The Stoke Newington
Eight’.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Stokey’s diversity increased still further in the later 20<sup>th</sup>
century as it became both more deprived and more multicultural. The authorities
took a close interest in an area regarded by some as a hotbed of anarchism, and
in the 1980s the local police station earned a reputation as particularly
brutal, repressive and racist following notorious incidents such as the unexplained
death of Colin Roach from a gunshot wound on its doorstep in 1980. But the
area’s cheapness and vibrant alternative reputation also attracted more
lifestyle-focused residents, and by the 1990s it had become an early example of
inner-city gentrification, with local property prices spiralling. Its current
reputation as a haven of moneyed ageing hipsters is perhaps best summed up by
recalling that Stoke Newington Farmer’s Market was the first in the UK to sell
exclusively organic produce. According to the <i>Financial Times</i>, it’s “about
one children’s clothing shop shy of becoming twee”. But, as we’ll see, it has
many attractions.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Clissold Park<o:p></o:p></h3><div><br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkmfhZ2Xqv_81M5PMGrigPYUU3D-KiuMI5Z6svgSrcJ8SXKgxidS_QtOWCg_jaVcXdLkhDfmS2dwSH8IFNd-KkK-0M0pR9gopmTatsBgLKu7l4RiDz6iWjmOG5_OcX1747fZYdmZYA5UGCF4xAuNjRlkmyE3iyKX0P0xgqiUc37-TZgVQMG0WK9mKi/s1000/beckmereclissoldpark.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkmfhZ2Xqv_81M5PMGrigPYUU3D-KiuMI5Z6svgSrcJ8SXKgxidS_QtOWCg_jaVcXdLkhDfmS2dwSH8IFNd-KkK-0M0pR9gopmTatsBgLKu7l4RiDz6iWjmOG5_OcX1747fZYdmZYA5UGCF4xAuNjRlkmyE3iyKX0P0xgqiUc37-TZgVQMG0WK9mKi/w640-h360/beckmereclissoldpark.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beckmere, Clissold Park, Stoke Newington.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">The first of these is the much-loved <a href="https://hackney.gov.uk/clissold-park" target="_blank">Clissold Park</a>, one
of the most delightful medium-sized parks on the trail and quite rightly
included on the official register of Historic Parks and Gardens. Within its
22.6 ha, you’ll find surviving remnants of both smart Georgian country estate
and proud late Victorian civic amenity, but it still manages to do a fine job of
serving the contemporary local community and reflecting its vibrancy. And it’s
an exemplary place to start as it owes both its existence and its current form
to the local tradition of stroppy dissent.</p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Until the late 18<sup>th</sup> century, there were fields
here, split in ownership between two mediaeval estates. As mentioned above, a
large toe of Brownswood in Hornsey parish kicked across Green Lanes to enclose what’s
now the western half of the park, while the rest was administrated by the
Church Commissioners as part of their Stoke Newington property. Besides the New
River, the site was crossed by the Hackney Brook which ran through a band of
woodland in the north. This was quite a substantial stream, around 10 m wide
where it crossed Green Lanes. It rose from two sources near Islington’s
Holloway Road, flowing east and southeast through Highbury, Stoke Newington, Hackney,
Homerton and Hackney Wick to join the river Lea at Old Ford where we’ll meet it
again later. It was largely covered over in the 1850s, its flow diverted into
the sewer system.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">In 1789, Jonathan Hoare, a wealthy Quaker merchant and
anti-slavery campaigner originally from Ireland, leased land close to the
church to build a mansion, originally known as Paradise House. By 1796 Hoare
also controlled the Brownswood lands and amalgamated his holdings to create the
rhomboid-shaped area of today as private grounds attached to the mansion. The
claypits used during construction were converted to two adjacent leaf-shaped lakes
fed by the Hackney Brook, various exotic trees were planted, and the park landscaped
into a single coherent space, effacing nearly all evidence of the parish
boundary except for a set of stone markers, only one of which survives today.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">By 1800 Hoare was in financial trouble and sold the estate,
which by 1811 was occupied by William Crawshay. A nonconformist and
anti-clericalist, Crawshay was enraged when his daughter Eliza fell in love
with the local Anglican vicar, Augustus Clissold: he forbade the pair from
meeting, and by some accounts kept Eliza a virtual prisoner, even increasing
the height of the walls around the park for the purpose. William died in 1835
and Eliza inherited the estate, promptly marrying Augustus and moving him in. In
1882 the property reverted to the Crawshay family. This was a time of rapid
development in the area, which now had a rail connection, and many of the old
estates were being broken up with the cooperation of the Church Commissioners
and sold off as building land. In 1884 the Crawshays sold the lease of what was
now known as Clissold House and Park back to the Commissioners for that purpose.
Fortunately, the awkward squad of Stoke Newington had other ideas.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Joseph Beck (1828-91, an optical instrument manufacturer
and Conservative member of the City of London Corporation, who lived locally, established
the Clissold Park Preservation Committee, supported by another local politician
and open spaces campaigner, John Runtz (1818-91), Hackney’s representative on
the Metropolitan Board of Works. They argued that a public park was a necessary
asset both for public health and local amenity at a time when the remaining
open spaces in Stoke Newington were being covered in housing. Despite a
petition attracting 12,000 signatures, they struggled to raise the necessary
cash: approaches to neighbouring parishes whose inhabitants would also benefit
were spurned, sometimes in intemperate terms, and opponents dishonestly
inflated the miniscule increase proposed to the local rates. Finally, after several
years of hard-fought campaigning, the MBW agreed to use its new powers of
compulsory purchase, buying the estate in 1888.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">By the time the park first welcomed the public the
following year, the MBW had metamorphosed into the London County Council and,
like Finsbury Park and other MBW creations, Clissold was subsequently inherited
by the Greater London Council in 1965 and the borough council, Hackney, in
1986. It never became quite as badly neglected as Finsbury Park, though a
Heritage Lottery Fund-backed £8.9million restoration project in 2011 was
certainly welcome. Unsurprisingly, there’s an active <a href="https://clissoldpark.com/" target="_blank">User Group</a>, founded in 2000.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring enters through Lodge Gate in the northwest corner
and, while the New River Walk parts company with us here by heading south along
the eastern perimeter, our way is ahead alongside the larger of the two lakes,
now named Beckmere; its neighbour, appropriately, is Runtzmere. The parish
boundary entered at approximately the line of the gate and continued straight
ahead into Beckmere before turning southeast, so the Ring briefly returns to
historic Hornsey here, re-entering Stoke Newington about halfway along the
bank. At the gap between the two lakes, you turn towards the house along an
avenue laid out in Jonathan Hoare’s time. The Grade II*-listed brick mansion is
a handsome affair, rendered even more imposing by the grassy landscaped slope
that rises to its fine portico of Doric columns. It’s long housed a popular
park café and is also used as a wedding venue.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The trail turns left just before passing the house, but
there’s an opportunity for a brief detour. Only a few paces ahead and opposite
the portico is what remains of the original course of the New River. Behind
this is the animal enclosure, one of the original park features and the first
of its kind. Deer have been in residence since 1890: today there’s a small herd
of fallow deer as well as goats and an aviary for exotic birds. Beyond the
enclosures is a pioneering urban market garden, established by not-for-profit
group Growing Communities in 1996. They now have two others in Hackney, one of
which we’ll pass close to later: the Clissold site is particularly noted for
its melons. The parish boundary tracked the east side of the New River,
parallel to the drive, and just inside the main gate ahead is the last
remaining boundary stone, dated 1790.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Back on the main trail, you’ll pass the north end of the
house, with its decorative fountain installed in 1893 by Rose Crawshay, born
Yeates, to commemorate three of her sisters who died in early childhood. You
can now see the full effect of that slope at the front, as at the rear the
house grows an extra lower storey. Then there are some attractive formal
gardens, a playground and a skateboard park before you leave by the Town Hall
Gate.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">I’ll leave the last word to the park’s joint creator, Joseph
Beck, as quoted by local historian Amir Dotan:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: left;">It will be from the narrow
streets of Shoreditch, from the pent-up alleys of Clerkenwell and Islington,
that thousands and tens of thousands of our fellow beings will issue to enjoy
the sweet breezes and lie under the shade of the old and handsome trees of
Clissold Park. It will be on the soft grass that the little ones will romp and
play and learn the charm of getting for a short time under the benignant
influence of bright sunshine and fresh air.</p></blockquote><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Stoke Newington Church Street<o:p></o:p></h3><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT5RIyv-wysC_4ITAMxrsqgjdcBQC8WTEBMTflr0zdqX6UBuX1XVStZsbzwdoCPJ0xfuzzEmx7FCx5DEL6bKEAeDE5vnpMf_qYj0YXDK38mnlX02HYhB31jS06jG1c0H2v8fROZv1zA-Fh0M6YmbrQpzIUCFpLxCudVfv5yJ3t_iW02ZpNGW7HwVVb/s800/stokenewingtontownhall.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT5RIyv-wysC_4ITAMxrsqgjdcBQC8WTEBMTflr0zdqX6UBuX1XVStZsbzwdoCPJ0xfuzzEmx7FCx5DEL6bKEAeDE5vnpMf_qYj0YXDK38mnlX02HYhB31jS06jG1c0H2v8fROZv1zA-Fh0M6YmbrQpzIUCFpLxCudVfv5yJ3t_iW02ZpNGW7HwVVb/w640-h480/stokenewingtontownhall.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stoke Newington Town Hall.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Immediately on leaving the park, the trail turns
sharply on a worthwhile dogleg along an atmospheric path amid surroundings that
manage a passable imitation of a country churchyard. Ivy climbs the sides of
weathered mausolea and headstones tilt alarmingly beneath a canopy of trees. There’s
been a church here since at least 1086: the current building replaced a
mediaeval structure in 1563 at the behest of the lord of the manor William
Patten. The church was restored and extended in the late 1820s, having become
so decrepit that coffins were floating in a flooded crypt, but unlike many
later 19<sup>th</sup> century restorations, the work was carried out
sympathetically, preserving the building’s appearance and proportions. Thanks
to this, it survives as a notable Grade II*-listed example of a Tudor village
church, a rare beast as this was a quiet period for church building. It’s now
an <a href="https://www.theoldchurch.org.uk/" target="_blank">arts, music and events venue</a> but still preserves features like early 19<sup>th</sup>
century box pews and Tudor windows with Y-tracing.</div><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">In the churchyard alongside the path is the tomb of James
Stephen (1758-1832), the legal brain behind the banning of slavery in the
British Empire. Stephen’s personal convictions were formed when he was
Solicitor-General of St Kitts in the Caribbean and witnessed four black men
sentenced to death by burning for a murder they very likely didn’t commit. His
father lived in the Summerhouse on the nearby Fleetwood House estate with
several prominent Quaker abolitionists as neighbours, and his second wife was
Sarah Wilberforce, sister of abolitionist leader William Wilberforce. Although
not a Quaker himself, Stephen became a mainstay of abolitionism: a qualified
barrister and later an MP, he was well-placed to draft what became the Slave
Trade Act of 1807. Both Sarah and her sister are buried nearby, as is Romantic
poet and children’s author Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743-1825), another local
radical and prominent opponent of slavery.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The rapid population growth of the first half of the 19<sup>th</sup>
century prompted calls for a new, larger church, answered in 1858 by the
building immediately opposite as you emerge on Church Street, an imposing ‘early
decorated’ Gothic Revival pile designed by George Gilbert Scott of St Pancras
fame. The capacious nave was regularly filled in the early days by congregants
who came from all over London to hear the dynamic preaching of its first vicar,
Thomas Jackson. The tall steeple, which has been visible for some time, wasn’t
completed until 1890 under Scott’s son John Oldrid Scott, leading local wits to
quip:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="Quote1"></p><div style="text-align: center;">Stoke Newington's a funny place</div><div style="text-align: center;">With lots of funny people;</div><div style="text-align: center;">Thomas Jackson built a church</div><div style="text-align: center;">But could not build a steeple.</div><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Most people find
the older building more likeable, but both together say much about Stoke
Newington’s transition from a Middlesex village to a prosperous suburb.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">You soon pass another prominent building from a further
chapter of local history. When the Metropolitan Borough was first created in
1899, it operated from modest offices, but by the 1930s local councillors
wanted something that more adequately reflected civic pride. The result, opened
in 1937, was Stoke Newington Town Hall, a substantial combination of municipal
offices, council chamber and assembly hall designed in eclectic style by John
Reginald Truelove, with elements of Classical and renaissance architecture and
1930s monumentalism. It’s particularly notable for the curved end section, the
grand entrance to the assembly hall and a sumptuous art deco interior which
includes a sprung Canadian maple dance floor. During its construction, builders
discovered the foundations of the manor house, demolished in 1695. Look
carefully and you can still see the remains of World War II camouflage paint on
the exterior. Following the creation of the London Borough of Hackney, the
building was largely disused and fell into neglect but was restored and reopened
as an events venue in 2010.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring follows Church Street for a while. As mentioned
above, this was the original village street, and retains a very strong sense of
character that prompted architecture critic Nikolaus Pevsner to remark in 1953
that “Stoke Newington is not entirely London yet”. In the 18<sup>th</sup>
century it was flanked by big houses set back behind gardens, but as it evolved
into a busy retail centre, premises began to reach forward to the thoroughfare.
It still has numerous listed and other historic buildings, many of them happily
still occupied by independent and specialist retailers: artisanal food shops
and restaurants, specialist wine and craft beer dealers, upcycled furniture and
jewellery traders, a violin maker, and yes, the odd kid’s clothes boutique.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Opposite the Town Hall, the Rose and Crown pub on the
corner of Albion Road is an impressive neo-Georgian Truman’s rebuild with a smart
1930s oak-panelled interior. Nos 169-183, the block immediately east of Albion
Road, is all 18<sup>th</sup> and 19<sup>th</sup> century buildings, including
several showing projecting shop fronts and a fine pair of three storey town
houses built in 1717. A brown plaque at no 173 records that these buildings
replaced a medieval mansion, demolished around 1710. Opposite, the red brick public
library building with its distinctive gables predates the town hall next door:
it was built in 1892 but extended twice in the early 20<sup>th</sup> century,
thanks in part to a donation from Andrew Carnegie. Above the second door is a
World War I memorial based around a niche, which is easy to miss. Edgar Allen
Poe was once a pupil at Manor House School on the site of no 172, as mentioned
on a plaque.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Across the small green space next to Nandos on the right is
another fine three-storey house, Bilney Lodge, perhaps dating from the 1730s,
with a taller building from around the same time next door. Nandos itself, incidentally, once housed the
Vortex Jazz Club, where your author regularly hosted a musical cabaret and
chanson night in the 1990s. The Red Lion opposite isn’t listed but is a
handsome Dutch-style Truman’s interwar building with two relief plaques
outside. Several more 18<sup>th</sup> century buildings fronted by Victorian
shops occupy the row between 105 and 117: one has the remains of early 20<sup>th</sup>
century advertising for fountain pens, and there’s a brown plaque for Anna
Barbauld at 113. The Clarence Tavern on the left is an elegant mid-19<sup>th</sup>
century building with its name repeated on an inscribed parapet, then there’s
another run of prosperous Georgian houses, this time without shops, nos 75-93
on the right. Just round the side of no 75, on Defoe Road, is a blue plaque
recalling Daniel Defoe lived in a house on the site.</p><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">There’s one more plaque of interest, on a pillar just
before the cemetery fence on the left, recalling that the gateway to Abney
House stood here between 1700 and 1843. The history of both house and cemetery
are intertwined, as we’re about to discover.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Abney Park Cemetery<o:p></o:p></h3><div><br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnCnFgi9i2jZJHXZe2YIGVA0SGxXynK9uZNUWOn2M6WODh-1dTR6NJkqL8oB-f9ebBGHvm9RBijEziwmoeorijMlQOkuR9B0vASrYbAWo4qvjD87BiYtaXSUR9A8A7Y9HMObZxImQJ8wk2I0Zjer6fU0YOQHXIMA9Sp-B19fwWQl9_Dee2inmofulu/s800/abneyparklion.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnCnFgi9i2jZJHXZe2YIGVA0SGxXynK9uZNUWOn2M6WODh-1dTR6NJkqL8oB-f9ebBGHvm9RBijEziwmoeorijMlQOkuR9B0vASrYbAWo4qvjD87BiYtaXSUR9A8A7Y9HMObZxImQJ8wk2I0Zjer6fU0YOQHXIMA9Sp-B19fwWQl9_Dee2inmofulu/w300-h400/abneyparklion.jpg" width="300" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbfE8BDcrcuIpQCQW4MeW4qfEFXWDOLz8J_UNVoDN4Gf7w08aq5bJSvZ3BxxFg9P-G62AXv8X5E9pOueTtAIFXoZn9eBHoOsUOLt-GPUBiBhOezNHGt9Xp_dcPC8H3TPo7xvbRR8EprNvlmQKddjSJydAu-Ol8Y-SLM5AMR89fn9ev9e8PGKR3U1GL/s800/abneyparkchapel.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbfE8BDcrcuIpQCQW4MeW4qfEFXWDOLz8J_UNVoDN4Gf7w08aq5bJSvZ3BxxFg9P-G62AXv8X5E9pOueTtAIFXoZn9eBHoOsUOLt-GPUBiBhOezNHGt9Xp_dcPC8H3TPo7xvbRR8EprNvlmQKddjSJydAu-Ol8Y-SLM5AMR89fn9ev9e8PGKR3U1GL/w300-h400/abneyparkchapel.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">Abney Park Cemetery. Left: the Bostock lion; Right: the chapel.</p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">At the start of the 18<sup>th</sup> century, two large
houses stood in extensive grounds to the north of Church Street at its eastern
end. The western plot had been acquired by an alderman of the City of London,
Thomas Gunston, who in 1699 also bought out the manorial lands, becoming lord
of the manor. As the ancient manor house on what’s now the town hall site was
already demolished, Gunston began building a new house further east. When he died
in 1701, the estate passed to his sister Mary (1676-1750), wife of co-founder
of the Bank of England and sometime Lord Mayor of London Thomas Abney, so
became known as Abney House and Abney Park. Mary, a Congregationalist, moved
into the house permanently when she was widowed in 1722 and began landscaping
the grounds into a verdant country estate. In this she was assisted by an old
friend, longstanding house guest and keen amateur naturalist, Dr Isaac Watts
(1674-1748), best known as the nonconformist hymn writer credited with ‘Our
God, our help in ages past’ among around 750 others. The estate retained its
nonconformist leanings even after private occupation ceased: it housed a
Methodist training college between 1838 and demolition in 1843.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Next door was Fleetwood House, built in 1634 but named for
one of Oliver Cromwell’s generals, Charles Fleetwood, who acquired it by
marriage in 1664. For much of the 18<sup>th</sup> century it was occupied by
the Hartopp family, good friends of the Abneys, who cooperated in laying out
the parkland. Unsurprisingly, it was a noted meeting place for nonconformists
and housed a Quaker school from the 1820s. The Summerhouse, the residence of
the Stephen family mentioned above, was in the grounds. The house was demolished
in 1872 and a fire station now stands on the site. Masonry from both this house
and Abney House was recycled for new buildings along Church Street.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">One of the practical problems caused by London’s late 18<sup>th</sup>
and early 19<sup>th</sup> century expansion was a surfeit of corpses. For
centuries, most burials took place in small churchyards which were now
overflowing. An act of parliament in 1832 encouraged the establishment of
private suburban cemeteries, following the model of Père Lachaise in Paris, established
in 1802. Seven such facilities opened around London in the next decade, later
dubbed the ‘Magnificent Seven’. Abney Park Cemetery was the fourth of these,
and the only one on the Capital Ring, created in 1840 from the grounds of Abney
House and Fleetwood House. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Abney Park is unique among the Seven in several ways. It’s
the only one that’s not consecrated ground; it was planned as a
non-denominational facility open to those of all religions and none, taking
advantage of the impeccable nonconformist history of its site. It was also the
first cemetery in Europe to be combined with an arboretum: building on the
tradition established by Abney and Watts, it was intended as an educational
attraction as well as a burial ground, inspired by models in New England. It
was planted with 2,500 different species of trees and shrubs, the former
arranged alphabetically around the perimeter walk. The delights of what was
then regarded as London’s most Sylvan cemetery were eloquently reported by New
York visitor and Watts fan David W Bartlett in an 1861 book:<o:p></o:p></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="Quote1" style="text-align: left;">There is a beautiful cemetery in Stoke Newington…, no quieter
burial spot within a dozen miles of London in any direction, and there are
cedars of Lebanon in it, wide lawns, and beautiful flowers. There is an old
clergyman in the church [chapel], who is always ready to officiate for a small
fee on funeral occasions. He is over eighty years old, his hair is like the
snow, and he is a fit companion to such a solemn place. One shining evening,
with a female friend we visited the cemetery, and stopped… to talk with the
venerable clergyman. The tears actually sprung over his eyelids when we said
that we came from America. The old man asked a thousand questions about the
wonderful far land of liberty in the west, which we were glad to answer. </p></blockquote><p class="Quote1"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">By then, though, the botanical rigour of the site had
begun to slip following the closure of the nursery in the 1850s. Flaws in the
original business model, a not-for-profit trust, led to a court case and in the
1880s the cemetery passed to a commercially minded new owner who had little sympathy
with the original aims. New graves were crammed into every available space,
removing much of the original planting in the process. The company went into
liquidation in the early 1970s and the cemetery, by now containing almost
200,000 burials, was abandoned and rapidly overrun by nature. Hackney council
took over in 1978 and in the early 1980s, in consultation with the locals,
reopened the site as a public green space and nature reserve rather than a
working cemetery, though there have been a few discretionary burials since for
descendants of historic plot-holders. It’s currently managed in partnership
with an independent charity, the <a href="https://abneypark.org/" target="_blank">Abney Park Trust</a>, and there’s an active user
group. Major restoration work funded by a £4.4million package from the Heritage
Lottery Fund and others began in 2020, so there may be some changes, including
the opening of a new visitor centre and café.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The current management regime has done a great job of
balancing nature, heritage and public access needs while maintaining the unique
atmosphere of the place – which now includes the legacy of past exploitation
and neglect, such as the higgledy-piggledy burials, crumbling monuments and
overgrowth. There’s so much of interest, both in terms of nature and monuments,
that I can only scrape the surface here: the Abney Park Trust has more detailed
guides and suggested walks. Among the occupants we won’t point out along the
way are Welsh nurse Betsi Cadwaladr (1789-1860), who worked alongside Florence
Nightingale during the Crimean War but was buried in a pauper’s grave that was
only marked in 2012; William Calcraft (1800-79), one of England’s most prolific
hangmen, who carried out the last public execution in 1868; singer, songwriter
and comedian Albert Chevalier (1861-1923), the ‘costers’ laureate’ and author
of ‘Knocked ‘em in the Old Kent Road’ and ‘My Old Dutch’, as well as several
other prominent music hall stars; Margaret Graham (c1804-c1880), the first
British woman to make a solo balloon flight in 1826; William Tyler (1877-1909),
a police constable shot dead while trying to arrest Latvian anarchists engaged
in a wages robbery, an incident dubbed the ‘Tottenham Outrage’; Joanna Vassa
(1795-1857), daughter of former slave and abolitionist Olaudah Equiano, whose
grave was rediscovered in 2005; and Afro-Caribbean writer Eric D Walrond
(1898-1966), a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">One of the best-known monuments is visible as soon as the
Ring enters the cemetery, marking the graves of Methodist preacher William
Booth (1829-1912) and his wife Catherine (1829-1890), who founded the Salvation
Army, originally known as the East London Christian Mission, in 1865. Booth’s
funeral procession to his final resting place stretched for miles. Several of
his comrades are buried in the same plot, including son Bramwell.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring follows the Long Ride to the left of the
Salvationist plot. Just along the second path to the right is a square pillar
marking the grave of James Braidwood (1800-61), founder of one of the world’s
first municipal fire services in Edinburgh in 1824 and the first director of
the London Fire Brigade from 1833: he died fighting a fire at Cotton’s Wharf,
Southwark. Curiously, he was also a witness at the trial of William Burke, notorious
grave robbing partner of William Hare, in 1828. Perhaps the most admired
memorial is on the right before the main path crossing, a magnificent sleeping
lion in white marble comfortably sprawled over the chest tomb of menagerist and
animal trainer Frank C Bostock (1866-1912): the sculpture is a copy of one in
Highgate Cemetery.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The path continuing ahead at the crossing is Great Elm
Walk, one of the features originally laid out by Mary Abney, but our way is
right along Wilson Ride to the little chapel so admired by David Bartlett. He
mistakenly called it a ‘church’ but it was always a funeral chapel rather than
a place of worship. It’s the only surviving building designed by William
Hosking (1800-61), and is in a broadly Gothic style but, in line with cemetery
policy, tries hard not to favour any one Christian sect, with a plan based on
the equal arms of the Greek cross: the extended southern section is a <i>porte-cochère</i>
for sheltering funeral carriages rather than part of the chapel proper. The
rose windows were intended to reference the rosarium which was an original
feature of the site. The chapel has long been on the at-risk register following
neglect, vandalism and arson attacks in the 1980s but is currently undergoing
restoration.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Opposite the chapel is the Commonwealth War Memorial with
its Cross of Sacrifice installed in 1922: it contains the remains of 262
military victims of World War I and another 113 from World War II. Behind this
is Watts Walk with its 1845 statue commemorating the hymn writer. There’s another
site in the cemetery closely associated with Watts, a mound in the extreme
northeast corner where he supposedly sat and wrote. This is also one of several
places claimed to hold the last remains of Oliver Cromwell. History records
that the former Lord Protector’s body was exhumed from Westminster Abbey following
the Restoration in 1661 and subjected to a posthumous execution, but there were
persistent rumours that the remains of the real Cromwell had already been
removed and reburied by republicans fearing just such an outrage. Watts’ own
remains aren’t at Abney Park but another, earlier, nonconformist plot, Bunhill Fields
just outside the City of London.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring continues east along Chapel Ride, passing a
prominent chest tomb with quatrefoil ends on the right, another individually
listed structure. It commemorates architect and religious dissenter Samuel
Robinson (1752-1833) and was originally outside some alms houses he endowed in
Hackney but was moved here in 1901. A little past this on the same side is a
Bhutan pine, one of the few remaining trees from the original arboretum.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">You leave the cemetery through the main gates onto Stoke
Newington High Street. These and their attached lodge bring an unexpected
Egyptian Revival flourish to this corner of northeast London, with bold stone
piers topped with coved cornices in lotus and palm leaf patterns, forbidding
black doors and hieroglyphic carvings. The style reflects the early Victorian
obsession with ancient Egypt, prompted first by Napoléon Bonaparte’s occupation
between 1799 and 1801 and then by growing British and other European interests
in the country that facilitated a wave of archaeological expeditions in the
following decades. But it also serves the non-denominational policy: what
better way to make a ceremonial entrance appropriately solemn without favouring
any current religion than by borrowing the symbolism of an extinct one. Hieroglyphs
on the lodge welcome visitors to “the abode of the mortal part of humanity”;
similar wording was included on a pavement plaque just inside the gates in 1992
but, much like the treasures of the pharaohs’ tombs, this was stolen almost
immediately. Before finally leaving the mortal abode, we should note that since
it was built, it’s yielded evidence of human activity long predating the
culture that inspired it, as we’ll shortly discover.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Stoke Newington High Street<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara">In Roman times, the main road north from London left
the City by Bishopsgate, following Shoreditch High Street, Kingsland Road and
Stoke Newington High Street towards Tottenham, Enfield, Royston, Huntingdon and
on to York. The Anglo-Saxons called this road <i>Earninga Stræ</i><i>te</i>, or
Ermine Street, after a tribe called the Earningas who lived near Royston. It was
the main route north until the 14<sup>th</sup> century when, thanks in part to
problems crossing the river Lea at either Hertford or Ware, it was gradually
superseded by the Great North Road described in the previous section, after which
it became known as the Old North Road. It remains an important trunk road, since
the 1920s designated as part of the A10 from London to Cambridge and Kings
Lynn. Where we leave the cemetery, it’s still known as Stoke Newington High
Street, but north of the junction with Cazenove Road opposite and slightly left
it becomes Stamford Hill as it starts climbing the geographical feature of that
name. The name changes here as, at that junction, Ermine Street crossed the
former line of the Hackney Brook at the ‘stony ford’ that gives Stamford hill
its name. The stream turned roughly south, away from our route, on the other
side of the main road.</p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">As previously mentioned, Ermine Street was the eastern
boundary of the old Stoke Newington Parish, so in crossing it we reach the
territory of its longstanding rival parish of Hackney. Following the subdivision
of the old Ossulstone Hundred of Middlesex in the 17<sup>th</sup> century, this
was also a boundary between divisions, with Stoke Newington in Finsbury and
Hackney in Tower Division.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">So there’s a hair-splitting argument to say that Stoke
Newington station, where Ring 12 ends a little north of the Cazenove Road
junction on the east side of Stamford Hill, isn’t actually in Stoke Newington. The
line here, now usually known as the Seven Sisters branch of the Lea Valley
Lines, was opened by the Great Eastern Railway in 1872 as a shortcut from
London to Enfield. It left the main line from Bishopsgate (later Liverpool
Street) at Bethnal Green to run via Hackney Downs and Seven Sisters: previously
the rail journey had involved travelling east to Stratford, then along the
original Lea Valley Line via Tottenham Hale and a branch line, since closed,
between Angel Road and Lower Edmonton. Stoke Newington was one of the original
stations, helping trigger the building craze that spurred the creators of
Clissold Park to action. There’s some original brickwork at platform level, but
the current street level building is an undistinguished smoked glass and steel
box installed in the early 1980s. If you’re rejoining the Ring here, a
half-hidden alleyway parallel to the railway known as Willow Cottages provides a
convenient cut to Cazenove Road.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Stamford Hill to Upper Clapton<o:p></o:p></h3><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZrluIaCR-lQa52zGC-N-URjODMBLgCgcCtWYP6N02K5S1czEx23MV-Vz--Z6H1gmWuYZXBej6674NwzC-uWMpL9sqS5AW4HyBUcc0ZiHgc1KIlNgFGTqo81VkmtpOVwSIcPvuyIDbKflHmRaRJg3j6qJPAiA1mP8JwD_HTsx_Wi79ShaI4ZSJ8h_x/s800/stamfordhill.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZrluIaCR-lQa52zGC-N-URjODMBLgCgcCtWYP6N02K5S1czEx23MV-Vz--Z6H1gmWuYZXBej6674NwzC-uWMpL9sqS5AW4HyBUcc0ZiHgc1KIlNgFGTqo81VkmtpOVwSIcPvuyIDbKflHmRaRJg3j6qJPAiA1mP8JwD_HTsx_Wi79ShaI4ZSJ8h_x/w480-h640/stamfordhill.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stamford Hill, the line of Roman Ermine Street, looking north.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Our knowledge of the earliest humans to inhabit
Stoke Newington and Hackney is partly thanks to Worthington G Smith
(1835-1917), a largely self-educated man from a modest background who
apprenticed as an architect, made a living as an illustrator and is hailed by
both archaeologists and mycologists as a significant contributor to their
disciplines. Smith lived in Mildmay Grove near Newington Green in the 1870s
when he heard that early stone tools had been found not far away at Hackney
Downs and Highbury. Conveniently, large tranches of Stoke Newington were then
being dug up for house and road building, while the graves in Abney Park
cemetery multiplied. Smith began patrolling these excavations and paying
workmen modest sums for access, becoming a well-known, rather scruffy figure in
what he termed his ‘paleolithic clothes’. One day while picking through gravel
on a building site he overheard a conversation between two labourers nearby. “If
you ever sees a heap of gravel anywhere”, one said, “it don't matter where, if
you keep your eye on that heap of gravel long enough you will be bound to see
that gent come and walk about on the top of it”.</div><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">These apparently eccentric efforts uncovered what’s now
regarded as one of the most important palaeolithic sites in northern Europe. Over
four years in the 1880s, Smith collected 200 complete flint axes and ‘hundreds
of thousands’ of flakes in a layer he named the ‘palaeolithic floor’, dating
from the old stone age of perhaps 300,000 years ago. This is long before the
last glacial period when the Thames and its tributaries found their current
courses, and the toolmakers were likely our mysterious extinct cousins <i>Homo
neanderthalensis</i> rather than <i>H. sapiens</i>. The concentration of finds,
including broken fragments of the same tool in the same place, has prompted
suggestions that this was a ‘factory’, a centralised facility supplying tools
over a wide area. Some of the artefacts were likely too big and heavy to be of
practical use, suggesting they were appreciated for their craftsmanship and used
to indicate status. Some are now on display in the Museum of London.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring plods the leafy residential streets that arose
from the building sites so assiduously patrolled by Worthington Smith. Originally
Stoke Newington common extended over a wide area immediately to the east of the
London Road, and went by the picturesque name of Cockhanger Green or,
sometimes, Shaklewell common, only gaining its current name in the later 19<sup>th</sup>
century as locals’ idea of Stoke Newington expanded eastward with development. By
the 1860s the land was controlled by the Tyssen-Amhurst family, and the
northern part had already been converted to market gardens. Just over 2 ha of
the southern part, off our route, remains as a green space, publicly owned
since 1872, though carved up by roads and railway.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Development took place between 1865-1895 with various
architects and builders, though under strict family control, giving a pleasing
combination of diversity and unity, with most of the houses constructed of buff
London brick – that special character has since been acknowledged with the
designation of the Northwold and Cazenove Conservation Area. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Smith found worked flints to the south (right)
of Cazenove Road, on the site of what are now flats just past the railway
bridge, and in the foundations of houses along the southern sections of Alkham
Road and Kyverdale Road. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The streets of the conservation area north of Cazenove
Road run up towards Stamford Hill, home to one of the biggest Hasidic or Haredi
‘ultra-orthodox’ Jewish communities in Europe. ‘Haredi’ means ‘one who trembles
at the word of God’, and you’ll likely pass members of the community in their
distinctive dress as you walk north along Kyverdale Road and east on Filey
Avenue, particularly on Saturday’s <i>shabbos</i>: men with beards or <i>payos</i>
sidelocks, in black suits, old-fashioned black frock coats and homburg or fur
hats, women in dark ‘modest dress’ with long skirts and sleeves, usually
conversing in Yiddish.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Better-off Jewish people began moving to Stamford Hill
from the East End in the 1920s, but the Haredi community expanded significantly
in the 1930s when people fleeing Nazi Germany settled in the area. The tendency
of established immigrant communities to attract further members was
particularly compelling for the Haredim, whose lifestyle in its strictest form
requires rejecting numerous aspects of life most of us take for granted, so new
arrivals in the postwar years were attracted by an already supportive network. The
result was what’s sometimes called a ‘square mile of piety’ in northeast London,
with five community centres, 90 synagogues and 30 orthodox schools serving an
estimated 40,000 people.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Simon Marks School on the corner of Cazenove and Kyverdale
roads is an orthodox Jewish school but not Haredi, instead affiliated to the
more mainstream United Synagogue: it’s now the only remaining mixed sex Jewish school
in inner London and welcomes children from other backgrounds too. It began in
1956 at a now-demolished synagogue in Lea Bridge Road and moved here in 1973.
Other than subtly pleasing decorations on some of the houses, there’s not much
to look out for until another primary school, this time secular: glance down at
the pavement as you pass Jubilee School on Filey Avenue to see some unexpected
artwork designed by children. Reaching the main Upper Clapton Road, the Ring
turns left to cross it just in front of a small synagogue: a little to the
right on the opposite side, by the bus stops, is a listed supposedly Victorian
pillar box, except that the current box is clearly marked GVIR, dating it to
the later reign of George VI (1936-52). It was likely moved here in the late
1990s as a replacement for the Victorian original.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">It's time I introduced the parish of Hackney, which the
Ring entered when it crossed Stamford Hill on leaving Abney Park Cemetery.
Hackney was by far the largest of the parishes in the old Tower Division of
Middlesex’s Ossulstone Hundred, occupying roughly the northern third of the
division between Ermine Streeet and river Lea. The origin of the place name is
uncertain: it may mean ‘Haka’s island’, after a personal name, or ‘hack’ may
refer to a gate (hatch) into a woodland or a hook or bend in a river. The
balance of evidence, incidentally, suggests the traditional term ‘Hackney
carriage’ for a taxicab is nothing to do with the place name but evolved
separately from a word for a type of horse.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">In the early middle ages, the area was part of the Bishops
of London’s huge manor of Stepney, of which it had become a sub-manor by the
Norman conquest in 1066. It had a parish church by 1275, in the central village
also known as Hackney, along Mare Street some distance southwest of our route. In
1550 it passed into private hands and was eventually divided into sub-manors,
soon becoming a popular rural retreat of prosperous London merchants. By 1699
much of it, including most of this part of the trail, was in the hands of the
Tyssen family mentioned above, originally merchants from Vlissingen in the
Netherlands. It was almost entirely built up during the 19<sup>th</sup> century
as an overspill from the East End and in the 20<sup>th</sup> century became one
of London’s most diverse, and one of its most deprived areas, though much has
been gentrified recently. As described above, after various 19<sup>th</sup>
century boundary disputes, it eventually merged with Stoke Newington and Shoreditch
to create the modern London Borough of Hackney in 1965.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The locality we now cross is known as Clapton, meaning ‘hill
farm’, the hill likely referring to the land that rose sharply here from the
Lea Valley. First mentioned in 1339, Clapton was originally a sprawling linear
hamlet along a bow-shaped road once known as Hackney Lane from Hackney village
to Clapton Common, a little north of where we cross, and Stamford Hill where it
joined Ermine Street. By 1800, the area was habitually divided into Lower
Clapton, south of Lea Bridge Road, and Upper Clapton, our current location
north of it, and the road, today’s A107, became known as Lower and Upper
Clapton Road accordingly. By this point the road was urbanised all the way to
the common, though there were still fields beyond it and Upper Clapton was
regarded as a select suburb. Nearly all of it was built up by the end of the 19<sup>th</sup>
century, but the busy scene today, with numerous high density flat blocks, is partly
the result of 1930s redevelopment by councils, housing associations and private
investors.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Springfield Park<o:p></o:p></h3><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggu1MB3QIMA1Ocl8CN3RuNYlOqfutiv78NQbq760iCu3TmvGSN5Clqz1TcG7N9svy2z8EuXdtLNypHGubgd1iob2tY6mpExSOsBfrTl6dt5Qd8gOiDOY_gTSP0C0tui2v6bqcUbDSIDAlF-FszOat8wiCVzIJC6vZ8VDLNhc9YSb5dIJxLsM2iMWAT/s1000/springfieldparkview.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggu1MB3QIMA1Ocl8CN3RuNYlOqfutiv78NQbq760iCu3TmvGSN5Clqz1TcG7N9svy2z8EuXdtLNypHGubgd1iob2tY6mpExSOsBfrTl6dt5Qd8gOiDOY_gTSP0C0tui2v6bqcUbDSIDAlF-FszOat8wiCVzIJC6vZ8VDLNhc9YSb5dIJxLsM2iMWAT/w640-h360/springfieldparkview.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Surely one of London's best views: Walthamstow marshes from Springfield Park, Upper Clapton.</td></tr></tbody></table><div>In what seems an indecently short time after
Clissold Park, the Ring passes through another beautiful local park that’s
surely among London’s best, also a Local Nature Reserve and included on the
Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. Within its 13 ha, <a href="https://hackney.gov.uk/springfield-park" target="_blank">Springfield Park</a>
offers variety – formal plantings, nature areas, community market gardens, woodland,
sports fields, a tree-lined pond, a handsome old villa, a new landmark building
– with unique and dramatic views across the Lea valley. You enter the park at
its highest level and the ground soon drops beneath you to the canalised river
and the flat green sweep of Walthamstow Marshes stretching out beyond it, with the
tower blocks of Walthamstow rising in the distance and, beyond them, the wooded
ridge of Epping Forest. It’s a particularly congruous staging post as the trail
now descends into the low-lying and marshy floodplains of the river and its
parent, the Thames, and stays there until its end, and you can appreciate every
step of the transition in the open air of the park.</div><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The ‘uplifting’ location was one of the reasons why the
London County Council chose the site for a park to serve the increasingly
densely populated area in 1904. The land had once been meadows but by the 18<sup>th</sup>
century a wharf known as Giles’s Dock, long since filled in, poked out from a
bend in the river into what’s now the sports field in the northeast of the site,
serving a cluster of small factories making calico, tiles and varnish. As Upper
Clapton began to evolve into a select suburb at the end of the century, three
villas were built to take advantage of the views, each with extensive grounds. The
LCC bought and amalgamated these properties to create the park, which was designed
like several others along the trail by chief parks officer J J Sexby and opened
in 1905.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">One of the houses, Springfield Lodge, remains near where
we enter in the southwest corner, now known as the White Lodge or White House.
The others – Spring House, in the northwest corner, and the oldest, the
Chestnuts, in the flat part of the park at the bottom of the slope to the
northeast – were demolished, along with several cottages, but several of the
paths, plantings and other features in their grounds were preserved. The
references to springs aren’t idle: water emerges here from the interface between
the gravel and brick earth on the higher ground and the London clay beneath and
there are wells marked on 19<sup>th</sup> century maps.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring enters through Springfield Gate, once the house
access, passing a pond in lush surrounds which once belonged to the house and
was slightly expanded when the park was built. The White Lodge itself is soon
in view, a sturdy early 19<sup>th</sup> century Grade II-listed building with a
Doric porch and two bow windows on the east side which now houses offices,
public toilets and a renowned café. Behind it, slightly off our route, is the
Glass House, an impressive events venue opened in 2021 to replace Victorian
glasshouses which had fallen into disrepair. Turning away from the house the
views open and the trail descends the grassy slope to reach a crossing by a woodland
corner: the path to the left here leads past the site of one of the wells to a bandstand
that’s still occasionally used for music. Our route continues ahead to leave
the park through a gate onto Spring Lane, a footpath beside the river at the
foot of Wilson Hill.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Walthamstow Marshes<o:p></o:p></h3><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNJBjxoSg9-XE8uGf0IfDRGrJnvFrEvrsMualjCQxlOUZhXiG2lqxC_ZMPCMxGm5MyRb2cQZZF54RsFHh_-MVY1pgRTJbNqn8Hhs4jCGtr3mSnpsRjnn9s4SHN41bfy7_OEUCuSGoFLDFBbwK4AtSCaLFJszf9FeP7pVOc1K7YnF362mV3G8OpgBdv/s1000/springfieldmarina.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNJBjxoSg9-XE8uGf0IfDRGrJnvFrEvrsMualjCQxlOUZhXiG2lqxC_ZMPCMxGm5MyRb2cQZZF54RsFHh_-MVY1pgRTJbNqn8Hhs4jCGtr3mSnpsRjnn9s4SHN41bfy7_OEUCuSGoFLDFBbwK4AtSCaLFJszf9FeP7pVOc1K7YnF362mV3G8OpgBdv/w640-h360/springfieldmarina.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Springfield Marina, Walthamstow marshes.</td></tr></tbody></table><div>Any circumnavigation of London on foot necessarily
crosses the river Lea and involves at least a brief encounter with the <a href="https://www.visitleevalley.org.uk/" target="_blank">Lee Valley Park</a>, as we’ve discovered along the London Countryway and the London
Loop. I’ve said quite a bit more about the valley, the river, the navigation
and the park under <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/london-countryway-13-broxbourne-theydon.html">London Countryway 19</a>, but the short version follows.</div><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Running for 68 km between Leagrave north of Luton, east,
southeast and south to its confluence at Leamouth, Poplar, almost opposite the
O<sub>2</sub>, the Lea is one of the longest of the Thames tributaries, with
the biggest catchment. Long an important commercial artery, particularly for
grain grown in Essex and Hertfordshire and consumed in London, it was
progressively canalised from the 12<sup>th</sup> century and became a formally
managed waterway, the <a href="https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/canal-and-river-network/lee-navigation" target="_blank">River Lee Navigation</a>, around 42 km between Hertford and
Bow, in the later 18<sup>th</sup> century, combining ‘improved’ stretches of
natural course and new cuts and now managed by the Canal and River Trust. Unusually,
the river’s name has two acceptable spellings with no agreement as to which is
correct, though ‘Lea’ is often preferred for the natural river and its valley
and ‘Lee’ for the navigation and associated infrastructure, a practice I’ve
followed here.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Though residential development stayed clear of the
riverside to avoid flood risk, the lower part of the valley was intensively
used for industry and agriculture: nurseries and gravel extraction,
particularly in the northern section, reservoirs and waterworks, and heavy
industry in the south, taking advantage of the transport opportunities. By the
1930s much of this was in decline, providing an opportunity to create a vast recreational
resource for densely populated east London by reclaiming derelict sites and
connecting them to the remaining undeveloped areas. This vision was included in
the Greater London Plan of 1944 but only began to be realised in 1966 with the
creation of a statutory Lee Valley Regional Park Authority following much
lobbying and campaigning by local politicians and others.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Today’s Lee Valley Park encompasses 40 square km along the
valley between Ware in Hertfordshire and Leamouth, including the Queen
Elizabeth Olympic Park which we’ll later visit, with more under development,
particularly along the lowest reaches of the river. Though it’s dotted with
built leisure facilities, the vast majority is public green space managed for
informal recreation and nature conservation. It’s a magnificent resource and
one of London’s green jewels, easily equalling the Royal Parks and exceeding
them in extent.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Since the early 1990s, an 80 km walking trail, the <a href="https://ldwa.org.uk/ldp/members/show_path.php?path_name=Lea+Valley+Walk" target="_blank">Lea Valley Walk</a>, has followed the river from Leagrave to Bow, with a variety of
options to continue from there to the Thames: I plan eventually to cover the
London sections of this in more detail in later posts. Below Hertford the Lea
Valley Walk simply follows the existing navigation towpath, and the Ring now
takes advantage of the same infrastructure for the next 6 km south downstream to
Old Ford, a short distance into the next section.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The river carries an ancient boundary. When the Anglo-Saxon
province of Middlesex (‘territory of the Middle Saxons’) was carved out of the
Kingdom of Essex (‘territory of the East Saxons’), likely some time in the 7<sup>th</sup>
century, the Lea marked its eastern extent. In 886 the Anglo-Saxon king of
Wessex, Alfred, retook London from the invading Danes, and under the subsequent
treaty agreed with his opponent Guðrum the river was incorporated into the
western boundary of the Danelaw, that part of England governed by Danes. It continued
to divide the later counties of Middlesex and Essex and in 1889 became part of
the boundary of the newly formed county of London, so the Ring is once again
about to leave the ‘metropolis’ as it was before the creation of Greater London
in 1965. While that development subsumed land on both banks into the capital,
the Lea still demarcates the boroughs of Enfield, Haringey, Hackney and Tower
Hamlets on the western, former Middlesex side and Waltham Forest and Newham on
the eastern, former Essex side. Where the navigation divides from the natural
course, the boundary normally follows the latter, but in some places it’s been
realigned along more recent cuts.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The land immediately opposite here was once part of
Walthamstow parish in the Essex hundred of Becontree, which still preserves its
medieval nucleus as a conservation area some distance east. Today it’s part of
the London Borough of Waltham Forest, and there’s considerable confusion over
these names. ‘Waltham’ is an old English place name meaning ‘settlement by (or
in) a wood’, cognate with the common German name Waldheim. There was certainly
once much woodland in the vicinity as it comprised part of the Norman Forest of
Essex, fragments of which survive today as Epping and Hainault Forests on the
eastern edge of London and Hatfield Forest much further north, near Stansted
Airport. In the 13<sup>th</sup> century the forest was split up and this part
became Waltham Forest, which encompassed Epping and Hainault. The redundancy in
the name is only apparent – as I’ve had occasion to remark before in London
Underfoot, the term ‘forest’ was once a legal designation for a broad area
reserved by royals or other nobles for hunting purposes and wasn’t necessarily
continuously wooded.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Walthamstow, on the other hand, first appears at the time
of the Norman Conquest in 1066 as <i>Wilcumestowe</i>, which could mean a place
belonging to someone called Wilcume or, more likely, a place where strangers
are welcome. Predecessors of the modern form appeared in the 15<sup>th</sup>
century, it seems through a confusion with Waltham Forest. To complicate things
further, the Saxon lord of the manor in 1066 was Waltheof, earl of Huntingdon, so
perhaps his name was blended into the mix too. Waltheof was executed for conspiracy
in 1076 and the manor subsequently passed through numerous hands, with a
portion to the southwest split off as the sub-manor of Walthamstow Bedyk or Low
Hall in the early 14<sup>th</sup> century: its last holders, between the 1740s
and the 1930s, were the Bosanquet family. Technically, it included the common
marshes along our route, although these were never managed as private farmland.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Walthamstow was included in the London Postal District in
the 1850s though not in the new county of London in 1889, which stopped at the
Lea and never included any part of Essex. But the locality was sufficiently
developed to become an Urban District in 1894 and in 1920 the council actively
petitioned to be included in the capital. In the event this didn’t happen until
the creation of Greater London in 1965, when Walthamstow was combined with Chingford
and Leyton to create the modern London Borough of Waltham Forest, reviving the
old forest name.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring crosses the canalised river on Horseshoe Bridge,
no 20, and it’s worth pausing not just to mark your passage into the trail’s
last historic county but to observe the surroundings. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To the right, downstream, the navigation
follows more-or-less the natural course. To the left, upstream, the river
originally formed a tight meander to the northeast, the ’horseshoe’ from which
the bridge takes its name. The current straighter course was dug in 1878 and
the local authority boundary realigned to follow it: the commemorative spade
used to inaugurate the work is now in the Science Museum in Kensington. The
bridge you’re standing on was built as part of the project.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The original course was left as a creek and the island within
it was later used as a boatbuilding yard. In 1969 it became one of the newly created
park authority’s first projects when it was converted into the <a href="https://www.visitleevalley.org.uk/marina-springfield" target="_blank">Springfield Marina</a>, still very much visible and active today. Spoil from digging the new
moorings was dumped nearby and allowed to grow naturally, creating the fenced
area visible immediately ahead, known as Horseshoe Thicket. It’s an atmospheric
patchwork of secondary woodland and small ponds, rich in wildlife, and worth a
wander if you have time. The Green London Way, which takes a more circuitous route
through Springfield Park and crosses the river at the next bridge upstream,
High Bridge, works its way around the marina and through the thicket but the
Ring prefers a more direct course straight down the towpath.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The flat, grassy <a href="https://www.visitleevalley.org.uk/walthamstow-marshes" target="_blank">Walthamstow marshes</a> that stretch out beyond, striated
by railway viaducts and lines of pylons and kettled by industrial estates and
flat blocks, are one of London’s most unusual and ecologically valuable
environments. Most people find the surroundings here atmospheric rather than
beautiful, and this stretch can feel surprisingly remote and desolate despite
the dense residential areas just across the river. My Dutch ancestry
predisposes me to appreciate damp, flat landscapes, but I once found myself
having to recce a led walk here on a cool, windy, wet spring day and, lashed by
chill winds and drizzle, it felt like walking on the edge of the world. But on
the day of the walk the sun came out, insects buzzed in the long grass beside
the river and all was well with the world.<o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyyscJebuoAp1CKWsTy1YgxY_ZF9XPnltyObovEz8UdKfHVvf_qR_GUaBJ_dWF4kSZCkh198f5gfUvrQMGZgZsRpVznrdbny3MRYuUsbPmxuPQJWs0xrjBD-2U2-SLnuGeEQ38bKy3ErAKWs4DwDMaAuKcCAyrjQgboNvGofSvMCCgspRTUZ4PE1ny/s1000/walthamstowmarsh.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyyscJebuoAp1CKWsTy1YgxY_ZF9XPnltyObovEz8UdKfHVvf_qR_GUaBJ_dWF4kSZCkh198f5gfUvrQMGZgZsRpVznrdbny3MRYuUsbPmxuPQJWs0xrjBD-2U2-SLnuGeEQ38bKy3ErAKWs4DwDMaAuKcCAyrjQgboNvGofSvMCCgspRTUZ4PE1ny/w640-h360/walthamstowmarsh.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Walthamstow marshes, one of London's most precious environments.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoBodyText">The marshes were once much wetter, but they were likely
drained long before the Normans – by Alfred in 876, according to the not
necessarily reliable Anglo-Saxon chronicles – and managed as lammas land. From
Lady Day, March 25, until Lammas Day on 1 August, a descendant of the Celtic
summer festival of Lugnasad, they were used for hay farming, then opened to
common grazing for the rest of the year. The northern part was taken by gravel
extraction and reservoirs in the 19<sup>th</sup> century but around 37 ha
remarkably survived and was still used for rough grazing until the 1930s.</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">With traditional management in terminal decline, the
council bought the land to safeguard it for recreational use, but plans were
interrupted by World War II and instead the marshes were transferred to the Lea
Valley Park soon after the latter was created in 1965. In the absence of grazing,
taller plants began to grow, and parts developed into secondary woodland, creating
an unusual mix which was almost lost in 1979 when the council and the park authority, then much less concerned about conservation than it is today, planned to lease the site for gravel extraction. Thanks predominantly to the actions of local campaigners, the proposal was rejected by the GLC, and the marshes were designated as a Site of Special Scientific
Interest (SSSI) in 1985: they now also form a Local Nature Reserve (LNR). Grazing
during the summer months was reintroduced in 2003 to further boost diversity. Rare
species here include adder’s tongue fern, an indicator of ancient grassland,
and significant populations of the rare water vole.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring and the Lea Valley Walk, the latter signed with a
swan logo, follow the broad gravel track, though there’s a narrower unsurfaced
path closer to the water’s edge. As the track bends gently left towards the
railway bridge, flats are visible on the opposite bank. A ferry operated here
until the late 19<sup>th</sup> century and its former landing on the Hackney
side was once a tiny extension of Essex west of the Lea. The street is still
called High Hill Ferry today. Just past the flats, on the same bank, is an
imposing three-storey red brick building with an attic, the former Beehive pub.
This was one of two that served the ferry: the second, the Anchor and Hope, a
few doors further along, is a charming place that survives as a pub today.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The railway bridge, known as Ferry Bridge, is part of a
tangle of lines along the valley and into eastern Hertfordshire and western
Essex known, understandably, as the Lea Valley Lines. The oldest visible line
is the one running roughly parallel to the river across the marshes to the
left: this is the West Anglia main line, opened in 1840 by the Northern &
Eastern Railway (N&ER) between Stratford, where it connected with the Eastern
Counties Railway (ECR) to Bishopsgate station on the edge of the City of London,
and Broxbourne via Lea Bridge and Tottenham Hale, later extended to Bishops
Stortford and Cambridge.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The N&ER became part of the ECR in 1844, which in turn
merged into the Great Eastern Railway (GER) in 1862. In 1870 the GER added a
branch curving off the West Anglia line in the marshes towards Walthamstow, eventually
extended to Chingford. Two years later, it added the line that we crossed
earlier, curving off the main Great Eastern line from Bishopsgate at Bethnal
Green towards Hackney Downs, Stoke Newington and Seven Sisters, and the line
we’re about to walk under, a link from Hackney Downs across the marshes to both
the West Anglia main line and Chingford line, giving a more direct route from
central London to destinations along the valley without having to dogleg
through Stratford.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Today, the main West Anglia services to Cambridge, currently
operated by contractor Greater Anglia, start from London Liverpool Street,
which superseded Bishopsgate in 1875, running via Bethnal Green, Hackney Downs
and Clapton and across Ferry Bridge to join the original main line from
Stratford just across the marsh (there’s also still a more local service from
Stratford). TfL’s London Overground local services from Liverpool Street also
cross Ferry Bridge to access the Chingford branch.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">In 1909, aviation pioneer A V (Alliott Verdon) Roe (1877-1958)
took advantage of the open, flat ground for test flights of his experimental triplane,
the Roe I, also known as the Avro, renting two arches of Ferry Bridge to store
the aircraft and other equipment. On 13 July, the plane managed to leave the
ground for 30 m, the first powered flight with an entirely British-built craft:
a plaque on the bridge commemorates the feat and there’s an information board
nearby. Later flights extended the distance and in 1910 Roe founded Avro
Aircraft in Manchester, which sold planes to the Royal Flying Corps and its
successor the Royal Air Force during World War I. My admiration for him sunk a
little when I discovered he later became a keen supporter of the British Union
of Fascists.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">With its railways, canal and adjoining industry, the marsh
unsurprisingly suffered damage during World War II. On the other side of the
bridge you pass a fenced-off pond to the left of the path, known as Bombcrater
Pond, although the hole is actually the legacy of a V2 rocket which fell in
1945.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Leyton Marsh<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara">Not far past the pond, a straight hedgerow approaches
from the left and the track climbs a very slight ramp. This is the old parish
boundary between Walthamstow and Leyton, and Walthamstow Marshes give way to
Leyton Marsh on the other side of the hedge. Long managed as lammas land like
its neighbour, it was once much more extensive, stretching out on both sides of
Lea Bridge Road, but its proximity to the road increased its attractions as a
development site. During the 19<sup>th</sup> century much was taken for
waterworks, gasworks and other industries and what remained was badly polluted
by sewage from adjacent developments. When the East London Water Company began
erecting further fences in 1892, local reaction came to a head and the fences
were torn down during a major demonstration on Lammas day.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">A subsequent court case was resolved by a parliamentary
act of 1904 which obliged the council to preserve what was left as open land in
exchange for local people giving up their common rights to most of it. By that
time, it had already been fragmented: there’s another remnant of it on the southeast
along Marsh Lane, known as Leyton Jubilee Park, part of which is still
officially lammas land.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">This was one of the sites where bomb rubble from the East
End was dumped following World War II, not only raising the level of the land but
effacing anything that remained of the original ancient grassland. You can see
at a glance that this is a less rich and interesting environment than
Walthamstow Marshes. Lee Valley Park compulsorily purchased the site in 1971
and in recent years has introduced a little variety and wildness, as well as
more paths and seating, but it remains essentially a large grassy field. In response to more recent development pressures, the <a href="https://www.saveleamarshes.org.uk/" target="_blank">Save Lea Marshes</a> campaigning group has emerged to protect the marsh and neighbouring Walthamstow and Hackney marshes.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Beyond the trees ahead is the <a href="https://leevalleyicecentre.com/" target="_blank">Lee Valley Ice Centre</a>, one
of the major formal leisure facilities in the park, opened by then well-known
ice skaters Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean in 1984 on a former car park popular
with travelling funfairs and circuses: the circus scenes in classic <i>Doctor
Who</i> serial ‘Terror of the Autons’, introducing enduring adversary the
Master, were filmed there in 1970. In 2020 the original ice centre was
demolished to make way for a £30 million double-sized replacement, a low
building with a distinctively curved red tile roof designed by FaulknerBrowns
architects that includes two full-size rinks. It was vociferously opposed by
local campaigners who were appalled that the park authority’s plans required
the development of further areas of marshland, though surrounding landscaping
will, it’s claimed, increase biodiversity by 30% overall. It’s due to open in
summer 2023.</p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Leyton’s name simply means ‘Lea village’. For many
centuries its official name was Low Leyton as it was situated on the lower
reaches of the river and, despite lobbying from local worthies concerned that
the adjective was open to misinterpretation, it didn’t become plain Leyton
until 1921. The old parish is mentioned in the Domesday survey of 1086 when it
comprised six separate estates, the largest of which was Leyton manor itself,
and a population of only 43, with the village centre some way to the east, north
of where Leyton station is today. It remained relatively rural until the 1860s when
rapid growth followed railway expansion. Like Walthamstow, it was made an urban
district in 1894. Its urban status was further acknowledged when it became a
municipal borough in 1926, though like its northern neighbour it didn’t join
London until it was merged into Waltham Forest in 1965.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The northern boundary with Walthamstow which the Ring
crosses is remarkable, running in a near-straight line northeast for around 5
km from the river here to Epping Forest on the other side of Whipps Cross. Some
authorities have speculated it follows the course of a lost Roman road, though no
conclusive archaeological evidence has yet been found to support this. There
are other boundary curiosities: until 1878 a detached part of Walthamstow known
as the Walthamstow Slip, an irregular ribbon of land between 50-100 m wide,
completely severed the northern part of the parish, running roughly parallel to
the boundary along its entire length, about 500 m to the south of it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Millfields<o:p></o:p></h3><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGDzEJMygVRD0fhtyNYFk1QIa3dOOUB6JXHnlP_b2qHpctCU7Dz997tjin0o8kQt8TIzGlsxeLhAxkAmspZAPEZhz9N5e1U0CFNkMUa69c-TI-cjkS1-V3PxUm_15DkUMdx94vg35fiSvmfpvXJtzFp3LscK9RcC8gdfI5su0H6mIHGqh2o8u1sK-7/s800/friendshiptree.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGDzEJMygVRD0fhtyNYFk1QIa3dOOUB6JXHnlP_b2qHpctCU7Dz997tjin0o8kQt8TIzGlsxeLhAxkAmspZAPEZhz9N5e1U0CFNkMUa69c-TI-cjkS1-V3PxUm_15DkUMdx94vg35fiSvmfpvXJtzFp3LscK9RcC8gdfI5su0H6mIHGqh2o8u1sK-7/w300-h400/friendshiptree.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Friendship Tree, North Millfields, Clapton.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Our visit to Leyton is a brief one: before reaching
the ice centre, the trail crosses the river again at Bridge 19, the Wilton
Point footbridge, returning to Hackney and historic Middlesex. Ahead and
slightly right as you cross, the strip of car park behind a fence marks the
line of Lea Dock, open by the early 19<sup>th</sup> century to serve
brickfields a short distance west. A timber wharf later grew up around the dock
and this patch of former flood meadows was subsequently developed for both
housing and residential use.</div><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The present big blocks with their distinctive curved
profiles were completed in the late 2000s. At a path junction a little further
along the riverside is a rusted metal sculpture in the abstracted shape of a
tree, the Friendship Tree, designed by artist Joel Parkes with the
participation of children from nearby Southwold primary school and installed as
part of the redevelopment in 2008. Turning right here will take you straight to
Clapton station, opened on what was the Chingford branch of the Lea Valley
Lines in 1872.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The line of bollards marching off right demarcates
the northern edge of <a href="https://hackney.gov.uk/millfields-park" target="_blank">Millfields Park</a> along the line of an old field boundary. The
green spaces on both sides of Lea Bridge Road are yet more former lammas land.
This section has been known as North Mill Field since at least 1381 and its
larger opposite number as South Mill Field since at least 1443, both after a
nearby watermill which I’ll mention later. The remaining open land was saved
from development by a local campaign in 1872 when an act of parliament
designated it a metropolitan common, then acquired by the new London County
Council in 1884 as North Millfield and South Millfield recreation grounds. In
the 21<sup>st</sup> century it’s been managed as a single park, Millfields,
with various improvements put in place. The space isn’t particularly distinctive
but is well-used, boasts numerous mature trees and gives a welcome sense of
space to the riverside.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Across the water is an even more recent development
completed in 2019 on a cramped site known as Essex Wharf in a semi-circular
area of land within a river bend southwest of the ice centre. Interestingly, this
land was once a fragment of Hackney and Middlesex on the Essex side of the Lea,
likely associated with the landing of a ferry which operated here before Lea
Bridge was built. The anomaly persisted until boundary changes in 1993 reallocated
it to Waltham Forest.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Considering the straight, broad and busy prospect of Lea
Bridge Road linking Hackney and Clapton with Leytonstone and Epping Forest
across what was once an expanse of marsh, you may conclude it’s a modern
addition, but it’s likely existed in some form since at least the 14<sup>th</sup>
century when it separated the two Mill Fields. It’s recorded in 1443 as Mill
Lane and was also known as Mill Field Lane. In those days, travellers crossed
the river on Jeremy’s Ferry, mentioned above. The road became Lea Bridge Road
in 1745 when the first Lea Bridge, a wooden structure, was opened. In 1758, the
Hackney turnpike trust converted the road into a toll-charging turnpike with a
wider and better surface. The bridge has since been rebuilt twice, with an iron
bridge installed in 1820 and the current bridge (no 18 according to the
waterway numbering) replacing it in 1892.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The towpath originally crossed the road at the bridge but the
trail today takes a more convenient, safe and intriguing route under it on a steel
gantry cantilevered out over the water. But you’ll need to climb to the bridge
itself and cross it back into Leyton to reach Lea Bridge station. When this
opened in 1840 as the first stop north of Stratford on the West Anglia main
line, it was thought to be the first station with its buildings located on a
road bridge, and by all accounts they were attractive and distinctive, featuring
a bell in a turret which was rung to announce the arrival of trains.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Following the completion of the more direct line into
Liverpool Street, traffic declined: the station eventually became an unstaffed
halt in 1976 when the buildings were demolished. The last services were
withdrawn in 1985, but regular trains began running through again in 2005 and
the station was finally reopened in 2016, reflecting 21<sup>st</sup> century
developments in the area and the emergence of Stratford as a major interchange.
Don’t expect anyone to ring a bell, though: the current arrangements are much
simpler and largely outdoor.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Middlesex Filter Beds<o:p></o:p></h3><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguMiUjdgbvkPyKx5b9qGPpZxAPDvZqdqW0yuI9mrQdSJQwu5E4uvKxA4_u2iPneVxvT7gBig501ripgR0N-IA6Ac8J4U38Sv0M5aURepmISi2nAXGxlfE8ylqhKa07Ka-uf1diCaCkl-Wody1CJdpREhpO9qEr-OJdocC4Qt_Gg_PNtfZAfwQ4JvXF/s1000/leabridgeweir.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguMiUjdgbvkPyKx5b9qGPpZxAPDvZqdqW0yuI9mrQdSJQwu5E4uvKxA4_u2iPneVxvT7gBig501ripgR0N-IA6Ac8J4U38Sv0M5aURepmISi2nAXGxlfE8ylqhKa07Ka-uf1diCaCkl-Wody1CJdpREhpO9qEr-OJdocC4Qt_Gg_PNtfZAfwQ4JvXF/w640-h360/leabridgeweir.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lea Bridge weir: the Old River Lea goes over the weir, the Hackney Cut to right of picture.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Emerging from the bridge by the riverside terrace of
the Princess of Wales pub, regendered from Prince of Wales in 1995, you can see
the waterway splits immediately ahead. The branch to the left, over a noisy weir,
is the river’s natural course, known as the Old River Lea. The mill still
remembered in local names was on an island in the middle of the stream just by the
present weir, although the site has since been incorporated into the promontory
of land between the two streams, of which more later. The mill was in operation
by the 14th century and there’s a record of it being up for sale in 1791, by
which time it was a corn mill grinding wheat and other grains into flour. By
the early 19<sup>th</sup> century there was a second mill adjacent on the
Leyton side of the river.</div><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The river itself meanders off in a lengthy curve to the
east here, while the navigation and its towpath, along with the Capital Ring,
Lea Valley Walk and, for a short while at least, the Green London Way, continue
ahead on a stretch of waterway known as the Hackney Cut. This 3.2 km artificial
canal was opened in 1769 as part of a major package of improvements to the
navigation, taking a straighter and more direct route to Old Ford where it
rejoined the original course. At that time the river was still semi-tidal so
locks were provided to protect the cut, including one here, but were later made
redundant by improvements further downstream.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The new channel also had the advantage of avoiding the
mills, not just here but a little further downstream at Temple Mills. These had belonged
to the Knights Templar, who controlled much of Hackney Marshes in the 13<sup>th</sup>
century. Their site was close to where the A12 crosses the Old River Lea but
the area has been much rebuilt and no trace remains other than in street names
and the name of the huge Eurostar rail depot nearby.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Just after the modern flats a view to South Millfield
opens on the right and the towpath humps modestly up and down past a low brick
wall. This is the remains of Bridge 17B over the access to Paradise Dock or,
more prosaically, Lea Bridge Dock, which left the cut at a right angle here before
right-angling again towards the flats, where an open yard still marks its
footprint. Dug prior to the 1830s, it attracted a dense cluster of industry,
including a millwright. The dock was filled in the 1960s but some of the
historic buildings still stand as part of the 2010s residential estate.
Doubtless the developers rubbed their hands with glee at the obvious
opportunity to name this Paradise Park.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Just past the lockhouse for a lock that no longer exists,
the towpath crosses on Bridge 17A to the east side of the cut. This time we
don’t change parishes, counties or boroughs, though, as the boundary here
follows the Old River Lea further east. The sturdy wall that now appears marks
the edge of the major encroachment that angered 19<sup>th</sup> century
commoners: the East London Water Company’s waterworks, built in 1852 and much
expanded following John Snow’s demonstration that cholera was spread by water
and the resultant legal requirement to purify it from 1855.</p><p class="MsoBodyText">Behind the wall are
the original six filter beds, tucked between the two watercourses and known as
the Middlesex Filter Beds to distinguish them from the even bigger Essex Filter
Beds later added on the other side of the Lea. These installations served
London for over a century but were made redundant in 1969 when a more modern
treatment plant opened nearby. The site fell derelict and in the late 1980s the
Lee Valley Park took it over as one of <a href="https://www.visitleevalley.org.uk/waterworks-nature-reserve" target="_blank">London’s most unusual nature reserves</a>.
The park also now manages the Essex beds as the Waterworks Centre nature
reserve.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">There’s a gate a few paces along: the Ring and the Lea
Valley Walk march straight past but if it’s open, as it normally is daily (though
closing in early evening), I recommend you follow the example of the Green
London Way and make a detour through it. Inside is a secluded, almost
dream-like environment, with thick vegetation sprouting and birds singing among
weathered brick and concrete structures and decaying remnants of sluices and
rails, curiously reminiscent of the robot’s garden in Hiyao Miyazaki’s classic anime
<i>Castle in the Sky</i> (1986). The layout doubtless made perfect sense when
the facility was in use but its meaning is now elusive, like an indecipherable
message from a lost civilisation.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">It’s an excellent example of a brownfield site reclaimed
by nature half a century on. Over 200 plant species have been recorded,
including cuckooflower and purple loosestrife, and 60 bird species including
woodpeckers and kestrels, plus a healthy population of amphibians. In truth, the
reserve has been subtly managed to encourage this, with water still pumped into
the beds to maintain them as wetlands. This stopped in the early 2010s when the
pumps were vandalised, and the beds have since dried out, but the park has
found a solution which it intends to implement by 2024.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Turn left through the gate to find one of London’s most
extensive pieces of public art in a grassy space at the top of the site, within
earshot of the rushing weir. <i>Nature’s Throne</i>, or the <span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt;">’</span>Ackney <span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt;">’</span>Enge as it’s
known locally, is a stone circle created by artist Paula Haughney in 1990 using
granite blocks recycled from an old engine house on the site. Many of the
stones are carved and the arrangement takes advantage of holes, bolts and other
found features. The titular throne at the centre shows the scars of fires lit
on its seat, perhaps the work of thoughtless vandals but a piece in the <i>Londonist</i>
wonders semi-seriously if sacred rites have been performed on it.</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0HqI0EuUkydu_pcFZV4uZZ5Vnps66O1mGQ8g88z6H2eYqRPaHX89e-mInlK5iLSwr4l5zMNlFE2ACxEKMTWRm7lLr88_fxtgPIJoj-H5oXr5GB77mdd3lvJcDNeIT6ZUvE3U8w-ueKdIspSO7HxQ6k0_R-BnpNqeWFKfF9IXTKgOLYb3fm_HDIo24/s800/middlesexfilterbeds.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0HqI0EuUkydu_pcFZV4uZZ5Vnps66O1mGQ8g88z6H2eYqRPaHX89e-mInlK5iLSwr4l5zMNlFE2ACxEKMTWRm7lLr88_fxtgPIJoj-H5oXr5GB77mdd3lvJcDNeIT6ZUvE3U8w-ueKdIspSO7HxQ6k0_R-BnpNqeWFKfF9IXTKgOLYb3fm_HDIo24/w480-h640/middlesexfilterbeds.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mysterious concrete tracks at Middlesex Filter Beds, Lea Bridge.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoBodyText">This way is a dead end, so you’ll need to retrace your
steps, continuing beside the rails of a concrete trackway to reach a circular
slab. The wedge-shaped beds radiate out from here. They worked as ‘slow sand
filters’, filled with a layer of gravel and pebbles, topped with sand. A
‘biofilm’ of bacteria and other tiny organisms was then allowed to develop in
the uppermost layer. As dirty water pumped into the beds sunk through, the
organisms in the biofilm naturally absorbed and neutralised contaminants and the
sand trapped any remaining solid particles, resulting in exceptionally clean
water without the need for chemical treatment.</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">In 1993 the last filter bed on the right gained another
artwork, <i>Rise and Shine Magic Fish</i> by Kate Malone, but this rather playful
piece has since been moved to the Waterworks Centre reserve next door. The
strip of woodland on your left as you turn right to leave through another gate
marks a long infilled waste water channel that once swept down to run parallel
to the canal through the marshes, connecting the works with a reservoir near
Hackney Wick.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The gate opens onto Hackney Marshes by cricket pitches,
and Ring walkers fork right, tracing the course of the old channel and
rejoining the towpath by Waterworks Lane Bridge (no 17) and the red brick North
Marsh Pavilion, built in 2018 and home to Stoke Newington Cricket Club. The Green
London Way, meanwhile, follows a more complicated route through the area, heading
left here to pick up the course of the Old River Lea, itself a delightful and
interesting walk but one for another day. The bridge, also known as Cow Bridge,
gained its bright green ‘diagrid’ steel structure in 2013, placed on the
foundations of a 1950s bridge that had once carried motor traffic but had been
closed for safety reasons since 2002. Between 1971 and 2001 it led to a large
campsite known as Tent City, run by an independent charity on what are now
cricket pitches.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Hackney Marshes<o:p></o:p></h3><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQtk_UwLVWKuTnfbZyzI0qSusQNdZv1D4KQfATKIES2m2H5ZXQdjq_LtEnfxZ13_XdrgbixROpxwFAQ5pMlLbevkiyi99QDN9OVp2wekyjSMWdWt6QPsG3ZWPspSsfl9gE6-Esjc1f3ddWFgBnWrF1ghuSpfqrND57rQ-yL0WlJmRbhlHZQfKpKeSN/s800/watersculpturehackneymarsh.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQtk_UwLVWKuTnfbZyzI0qSusQNdZv1D4KQfATKIES2m2H5ZXQdjq_LtEnfxZ13_XdrgbixROpxwFAQ5pMlLbevkiyi99QDN9OVp2wekyjSMWdWt6QPsG3ZWPspSsfl9gE6-Esjc1f3ddWFgBnWrF1ghuSpfqrND57rQ-yL0WlJmRbhlHZQfKpKeSN/w480-h640/watersculpturehackneymarsh.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Water Jugglers, Hackney Marsh, in overgrown state.</td></tr></tbody></table><div>You won’t be surprised to learn that <a href="https://hackney.gov.uk/hackney-marshes" target="_blank">Hackney Marshes</a>
is also former lammas land, once controlled like the mills by the Knights
Templar. Commoners continued to exercise their grazing rights into the 1880s,
creating conflict as the increasing, and increasingly working class, population
of the surrounding areas pushed to use the land for recreation and exercise.
The changing social and political complexion of east London and the premium
this placed on the attraction of the marshes as an open space is wryly captured
in the 1894 music hall song ‘If it wasn’t for the <span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt;">’</span>ouses in between’, written
by Edgar Bateman, composed by George LeBrunn and made famous by Gus Elen:</div><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="Quote1"></p><div style="text-align: center;">Oh it really is a werry pretty garden</div><div style="text-align: center;">And Chingford to the Eastward could be seen.</div><div style="text-align: center;">Wiv a ladder and some glasses</div><div style="text-align: center;">You could see the <span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; text-align: left;">’</span>Ackney Marshes</div><div style="text-align: center;">If it wasn't for the <span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; text-align: left;">’</span>ouses in between.</div><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Among the lobbyists for recreational use was the Eton
Mission, a charitable endeavour set up in 1880 by posh public school Eton
College (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/london-countryway-5-windsor-marlow.html">London Countryway 11</a>) to provide social and religious support to the
poor of Hackney Wick and teach its privileged students about how the other half
lives. The mission later built a boys’ club in the southeast of the marshes, slightly
off our route: the site, which now houses purpose-built 2012 Paralympic venue
the Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre, is still known as Eton Manor.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The situation was resolved in 1890 when the London County
Council bought the land and extinguished commoners’ rights, officially opening
the marshes as a recreation ground in 1894. Like Leyton Marsh, the site was used
in the late 1940s for dumping bomb rubble: the difference in level between the
towpath and the marsh is still evident today. And as at Leyton, such treatment
effaced what was left of its biological richness. Efforts in more recent years
to create variety, particularly around the fringes, have borne fruit, but most
of the space remains a relatively sterile expanse of grass.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Though lacking in ecological interest, the environment is
ideal for the marsh’s most famous function, as a giant football (soccer) field:
it’s nationally known as the ‘spiritual home of Sunday league football’. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Football on the marsh began informally in the early
1880s, when the Glyn Cricket Club, formed of students from Homerton College,
began playing it to keep active during winter. The team evolved into Clapton
Orient FC which between 1900-1930 had a stadium in Millfields Road nearby: it moved
to what’s now the Matchroom Stadium in Leyton in 1937 and renamed itself Leyton
Orient.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The marsh’s popularity for amateur football continued to
grow in the 1950s as players took advantage of the newly levelled surfaces. The
GLC, which took over ownership in 1965, invested in additional pitches and
facilities like changing rooms, peaking at 120 full size pitches in the 1970s
and 1980s. There are only 88 today, but on Sundays in season the place still
rings to the sound of kicked balls, whistles, shouts, cheers and howls of
frustration. Numerous professional footballers played here early in their
careers, including Bobby Moore and David Beckham.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">You’ll mainly hear rather than see the beautiful game in
progress, though, as the towpath is separated from the pitches not only by a
change in level but by a near-continuous woodland strip, these days more
verdant than it once was thanks to modest rewilding, along the line of the
waste water channel: the path once ran here with water on both sides. All the
woodland patches have names: the first one we pass is Jubilee Wood.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">At the next bridge, Pond Lane (or Daubeney) Bridge (no
16), look left to see the <i>Water Jugglers</i> sculpture by Peter Dunn, with two figures
evoking butterfly wings, created from etched steel and glass in 2004 with the
participation of local schools and community groups and supposedly referencing
broader issues of the lack of availability of clean water in the developing
world. It sometimes becomes overgrown and hard to spot but it’s more-or-less
opposite the bridge landing. After Friends Wood, a path on the left leads past
an area set aside for Australian Rules football to Eton Manor and the Velodrome
in the Olympic Park, but our way remains ahead, past three more small woodland
patches – Yew Wood, Dip Wood and Crescent Wood – and under Marshgate Bridge (15)
which carries Homerton Lane.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">On the other side is a woodland of rather different character
and considerable interest, Wick Woodland. This triangle between the canal,
Homerton Road and the A12 was once known as Wick Field as
it was part of the original Hackney Wick estate. After the LCC took ownership
in 1894, rows of planes and black poplars were planted, many of which survive
today including the parade of planes parallel to the canal, but the rest of the site was neglected as it was disconnected physically from the rest of the marsh
and suffered badly from fly-tipping.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">It escaped being covered in bomb rubble in the 1940s, retaining richer soil that's more supportive of vegetation. Until 1990 it was used for
football as an extension of the main marsh, but in 1996 it was designated a
community woodland and tree planting began. It once again suffered extensive
fly-tipping in 1999 but this was cleared and more trees and shrubs planted,
creating the dappled surroundings of today. If you have time, you may want to
detour to wander its paths: it has a secluded environment quite different from
the marsh to the north and the Olympic Park to the south.<o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKjH3n4UoQn2FQ655gbwpSdEkUsd6jj_yK2k1ojuIq7T1o1YA_ymdASFlL5hpM7haaGNcwXhnNg5I1kwBfhSvHGon8GD7iOHsJgkmkbKa2k2qMlvY4bo29Wtlb0auTzeVIdIu7Vtvg0j9eLBTu4i-jYCw_PHRcW8N633-ctlK4ze_2rWnRnytQXmVR/s800/undera12wickwoodland.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKjH3n4UoQn2FQ655gbwpSdEkUsd6jj_yK2k1ojuIq7T1o1YA_ymdASFlL5hpM7haaGNcwXhnNg5I1kwBfhSvHGon8GD7iOHsJgkmkbKa2k2qMlvY4bo29Wtlb0auTzeVIdIu7Vtvg0j9eLBTu4i-jYCw_PHRcW8N633-ctlK4ze_2rWnRnytQXmVR/w480-h640/undera12wickwoodland.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Outsider art under the Eastway road bridge, Hackney Wick.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoBodyText">As is evident from the roar of traffic, the trail now
passes under a much busier road: the Eastway Road Bridge carrying the A12
(bridge 14), which has separate decks for its two carriageways, and Newham Way
Bridge carrying the more local A106 (bridge 14A). As explained in <a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2016/10/london-loop-1819-enfield-lock-chingford.html">Loop 19</a>, the M11 motorway was originally planned to drill deep into east London,
though following protests was ultimately cut short to stop on the North
Circular at South Woodford. The roadbuilders got their way in the late 1990s,
facing down vociferous local opposition to a substitute: the M11 link road,
which connected the end of the East Cross Route at Hackney Wick, itself a legacy
of the abortive 1960s London motorway box scheme, with the M11 on a road of
near-motorway standards eventually designated the A12. It’s this that creates a
rather gloomy stretch of towpath enlivened with colourful expanses of graffiti
and outsider art on the viaduct supports.</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The area has become a gathering place for boat-dwelling alternative
lifestylers, something the Canal and River Trust is trying to end by
withdrawing casual mooring rights alongside this whole stretch of towpath. The
rationale is safety – they say they’re acting on behalf of canoeists, kayakers
and rowers who are endangered through conflict with powered craft. But the move
has been widely interpreted as a form of social cleansing, aligned to the sort
that we’ll see in action as we complete our journey through the rapidly
changing surrounds of the Olympic Park and Hackney Wick.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Here East<o:p></o:p></h3><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMYK7ZonjKYrnthNu1pNpcIynXBjhRYrpqgcgzvn7AIHXW_NA-eJ7KwJPiOP-JVf4cqPWt-CIlw0wCyM0296LLpH3xPIKY5zldwt0Iy9GeHEoWsMxdE4qCQRawhYbmZ9GRuojZ06PboQRxa7qzsds03Z-HKsgnyVdT43C2l4zTmzZAtvLqOFq4tAaY/s1000/hereeast.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMYK7ZonjKYrnthNu1pNpcIynXBjhRYrpqgcgzvn7AIHXW_NA-eJ7KwJPiOP-JVf4cqPWt-CIlw0wCyM0296LLpH3xPIKY5zldwt0Iy9GeHEoWsMxdE4qCQRawhYbmZ9GRuojZ06PboQRxa7qzsds03Z-HKsgnyVdT43C2l4zTmzZAtvLqOFq4tAaY/w640-h360/hereeast.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here East, the former Olympic media centre, Hackney Wick.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>On the other side of the road bridges the trail
reaches the northwest corner of the <a href="https://www.queenelizabetholympicpark.co.uk/" target="_blank">Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park</a>. I’ll say more
about the park in the next section, but the location here brings back some more
personal memories. Over several years in the runup to the Olympics and
Paralympics in 2012 I led walks along this stretch several times a year for
Walk London: I remember well the blue hoardings going up, and the worry about whether
the path would be closed and we’d have to use the signed diversion.</div><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Behind those hoardings they were building the Media Centre
on the former site of the old Hackney Wick Stadium, opened in 1932, which could
once hold 15,000 spectators. By the dawn of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, it had
gone the same way as London’s other greyhound racing stadia and was demolished
in 2003, leaving the site derelict until the Olympic scheme. Up to 20,000 international
broadcasters and journalists covered the games from here in 2012. Like most new
Olympic facilities, it was designed to be repurposed as part of the
much-discussed legacy phase. Since renamed <a href="https://hereeast.com/" target="_blank">Here East</a>, it’s now a combination of
upmarket flats and offices, university buildings and, appropriately, a BT Sport
studio. A ground floor parade of equally upmarket retail units faces the
waterside, across a green strip covering the old waste water channel. On sunny
days it’s become quite a well-used and pleasant space, but I’m told the businesses
sometimes struggle in winter.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Two new footbridges help knit together developments on
both sides of the cut. The first, Gainsborough Bridge, leads straight to
Gainsborough School on the opposite bank. Built between 1899 and 1918, it’s one
of the grandest of the Queen Anne-style primary schools built by the School
Board of London in the wake of the Elementary Education Act of 1870 and is now
Grade II listed. It was the deliberate result of a policy to build the grandest
schools in the poorest areas to ‘carry high the flag of education…like a church
in God’s acre’, as anti-poverty campaigner George Booth, an influence on the
board, put it. Arthur Conan Doyle in <i>The Naval Treaty</i> (1894) has
Sherlock Holmes praise these new landmarks as ‘Capsules with hundreds of bright
little seeds in each, out of which will spring the wiser, better England of the
future’. Look back a little past the bridge to get a view of ‘the dramatic
roof-scape of cupolas and gables and the almost palatial scale’ mentioned in
the listing.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The school once had a private bridge used by students to reach
an open space by the stadium. The 1950s concrete structure was demolished in
2008, in the early days of the Olympic build, having fallen into disrepair. Many
residents opposed its replacement with a public bridge, fearing disruption and
crowds during the Games. The current steel bridge was installed in 2014 but originally
it, too, was restricted to school use, accessing new sports fields in the park
behind Here East. It was finally opened to the public in 2021 in pursuit of
Hackney’s policy of encouraging walking and cycling.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">After another grassy area, Gainsborough Fields, and a newer
primary school is the rather smart Wallis Road footbridge, opened in 2013,
which even has a lift at the far end. There’s a more direct route to Hackney
Wick station here, down an alleyway off Wallis Road. But this wasn’t available
when the Capital Ring was first devised, so we’ll need to continue on the
towpath just a little further.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Hackney Wick<o:p></o:p></h3><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtGBiYV8BnJMbnbKv9HGVwJ4b9wEOxp-lUUd1B8RQ5lS7ukvo8xgqFeksrIprgE6gYQP6HVEpZ8J9sLC7tmZHwKo84JLMpLCGZpalN1fG8FyZAf8Z8SsBGWzoVo9wdbtkYVvf0mG7AdfACQpYnmEaHpMbxQuhjwmGuE0HMhFQRcRFF-5Ydvv-rnSTZ/s1000/hackneywickbridge.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtGBiYV8BnJMbnbKv9HGVwJ4b9wEOxp-lUUd1B8RQ5lS7ukvo8xgqFeksrIprgE6gYQP6HVEpZ8J9sLC7tmZHwKo84JLMpLCGZpalN1fG8FyZAf8Z8SsBGWzoVo9wdbtkYVvf0mG7AdfACQpYnmEaHpMbxQuhjwmGuE0HMhFQRcRFF-5Ydvv-rnSTZ/w640-h360/hackneywickbridge.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hackney Cut by Hackney Wick. The old parish boundary ran where the brightly coloured markers<br />now stand on the left. The borough boundary runs across the 'wicked' railway bridge.<br />The White Building visible behind the bridge is part of the old sweet factory.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>‘Wick’, and variants like ‘wich’ and ‘wych’, can
simply mean ‘place’, from the Latin <i>vicus</i>, or an inlet or harbour, as in
Greenwich. Here, though, it’s a remnant of the rule of the Knights Templar, who
were likely responsible for draining the marshes. In 1185 they effectively created
a new manor by leasing this southeast corner of Hackney Marsh, between the
Hackney brook and the river Lea, to Robert of Wick, perhaps from the Wick on
the south coast that’s now a suburb of Littlehampton. The powerful Templars
were disbanded in 1312 after Philippe IV of France persuaded the Pope to
excommunicate them as heretics and have their leaders burnt at the stake, so
when the lord of the manor in 1400, John de Montagu, earl of Salisbury, was
executed for his continued loyalty to Richard II by his usurper Henry IV, the estate
briefly reverted to the Templars’ successors the Knights Hospitallers, jointly
with the Bishop of London. It was soon granted back to Montagu’s widow Maud and
passed through several subsequent families.</div><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The land was used mainly for dairy farming until the late
18<sup>th</sup> century when industry began to spread east with the opening of
the Hackney Cut – silk and snuff mills, ropemakers – followed by substandard housing.
Developments were accelerated with the opening of the railway in the 1850s, and
by 1879, according to the <i>Victoria County History</i>, the area was ‘notorious
for its jerry building’ and described as ‘a district of 6,000 people who had
sunk to the lowest depths. They included many drifters and, being downtrodden,
were found by the Salvation Army in 1897-8 to be less violent than those of
Bethnal Green’. The cut portioned the district up in a way that’s still
familiar today, a process continued by the railway and, later, the road. The Wick’s
natural boundaries stretched west of the A12 and east of the cut as far as the
Lea. The closest thing to a historic centre was where the tip of Victoria Park
now meets Wick Road.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Hackney Wick’s industrial history, though, is impressive. The
Atlas dye works was built south of the school in 1863, just a few years after
the first synthetic dye was discovered elsewhere in east London in 1856, widening
the potential colour palette of manufactured goods way beyond the natural pigments
that had previously been used. Positioned next to the cut for its water supply,
in its day it was one of the leading dye makers and its research and
development team were responsible for numerous chemical breakthroughs. It was
demolished in the 1980s, still with traces of dye embedded in its walls.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Just south of the Atlas works was the factory which,
between 1866-68, produced the first commercial plastic, a type of cellulose
nitrate invented by chemist Alexander Parkes (1813-90), which with great
modesty he named parkesine. The Victory works, further west on Eastway, made
shellac. Clark Nickolls, or Clarnico as it was later and better known, began as
a jam maker in 1872 and was Britain’s biggest confectionery company by the
1930s, with its biggest factory, on several sites spread over Hackney Wick. It
was sold to Trebor in 1969 and closed in 1973. The Carless oil distillery
operated on the other side of the railway, by the Hertford Union Canal, between
1859-1972: this was where the term ‘petrol’ was first coined in the 1890s.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">1930s municipal improvements included a public baths,
library and social housing, but industry declined later in the 20<sup>th</sup>
century. In the late 1990s, various semi-derelict industrial buildings were
rented at cheap rates by artists and other creative workers as both work and living spaces,
spawning a close-knit community that hosted a now-defunct arts festival,
punningly titled Hackney Wicked. Such developments are often followed by
gentrification, but here the process was accelerated unexpectedly by the
announcement in 2005 that London would be the host city for the 2012 Olympics
and Paralympics, focused on a planned new Olympic park immediately east of the
Hackney cut, including a sizeable proportion of the historic Wick. The district,
much of which forms a conservation area, is still in the process of being
transformed into the sort of residential neighbourhood that estate agents
describe as ‘vibrant’, while rendering it unaffordable to the people who created
that vibrancy in the first place.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">On the left is the distinctive tower of the <a href="https://copperboxarena.org.uk/" target="_blank">Copper Box</a>,
opened in 2011 as a permanent games venue. Seating 7,000, it hosted handball, modern
pentathlon and paralympic goalball and continues to host sporting and other
events. It’s equipped with light pipes to make the maximum use of natural
light. The parish boundary between Hackney and St Mary Bow once zigzagged
across the marsh here, following old field boundaries that marked the limit of
the Templars’ holdings, crossing the cut about where a small area of sand,
grass and brightly coloured blocks today occupies part of the infilled waste
water channel.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The boundary was later realigned to follow the railway bridge
ahead (North London Line rail bridge, no 12), which still separates the London
boroughs of Hackney and Tower Hamlets. There’s an argument to say that once
under the railway you’re no longer in Hackney Wick but the development pattern of
the surroundings here is indistinguishable and today’s residents certainly
think of themselves as Wick dwellers. As we’re only briefly in Bow and Tower
Hamlets in this section, I’ll say more about them next time. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Past the bridge, overlooking the cut on the opposite bank,
is the White Building, once part of the sweet factory. That reliable advanced
guard of gentrification, a craft brewpub, opened here just before the Games in
2012 under the name Crate: it hasn’t brewed since the lockdowns but two other
microbreweries currently operate in Queens Yard behind it. In 2015, Michael
Vallance, who had run a car repair business in the yard since 1992, left
claiming he was forced out by ‘arty types colonising east London’. Without a
trace of irony, Crate, who took over the vacant unit as an events venue, gave
it the suitably funky name ‘Mick’s Garage’.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Ring 13 ends at the next bridge, Carpenters Road Bridge
(no 11), where there’s a short signed link to the station; Ring 14 continues
under it along the towpath. It’s worth pausing on the bridge to take in the
surroundings. Left, Carpenters Road continues into the Olympic Park: behind the
green strip along the cut is a development site, Sweetwater, where the waste
water channel once drained into an East London Water Company reservoir. Beyond
this are the Olympic stadium and Arcelor-Mittal Orbit sculpture, but we’ll get
a closer view of these next time.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Immediately ahead is a waterway junction with another
canal heading off right, the <a href="https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/canal-and-river-network/hertford-union-canal" target="_blank">Hertford Union</a>, also known as Duckett’s Cut after MP
and entrepreneur George Duckett (1777-1856) who promoted it. Opened in 1830, it
runs for just 2 km as a convenient short cut between the Lee Navigation and the
Regents Canal at Mile End. Never a great commercial success, it was taken over
by the Regents in 1857 and the Grand Union Canal in 1929. Running for some distance
along the southern boundary of Victoria Park, it makes for a pleasant walk,
followed by the Jubilee Greenway and the Green London Way. But our way is
right, along White Post Lane, named for a long-vanished pub, passing close to
the old oil distillery on the left, though there’s an unofficial option to cut
through Queens Yard. The big red brick building just past the White Building is
another part of the sweet factory. The lane turns a corner and just before the
station are the western gates of Queens Yard on the right. Next to these is
another late 19<sup>th</sup> century red brick industrial building and the name
of its former owner Achilles Serre is just about visible below the roof. Continuing
the local industrial chemistry tradition, this was the first dry cleaning works
in England.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The history of railways in the area is complex. The first
to be opened was the East and West India Docks and Birmingham Junction Railway,
later known as the North London Railway (NLR), opened in 1850 as part of a
scheme to link the East and West Coast Main Lines with Docklands. The original route
ran from Highbury and Islington, later extended from the WCML at Camden Town,
roughly east before curving south to parallel the east side of Victoria Park
towards Bow, extended in 1852 to Poplar and Blackwall. A station, Victoria Park
and Hackney Wick, opened on the curve near the northeast corner of the park in
1856. By now the Eastern Counties Railway had built a branch line from just
south of the station site to low level platforms at Stratford, completed in 1854. This is the line we can now see, though there wasn't a station here over 125 years afterwards.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The NLR became part of the London and North West Railway
in 1909 and the London Midland and Scottish Railway in 1923. Passenger services
to Stratford and beyond were discontinued in 1942 due to bomb damage and Victoria Park station was closed in 1943 as the other services dwindled. Then in 1970 the East Cross
Route, now the A12, took over much of the north-south alignment towards Bow and
all traces of the old station were lost.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The link to Stratford continued as a goods line, becoming
part of British Rail in 1948. In the 1970s the Greater London Council began
pushing to make better use of London’s local rail infrastructure in relieving
the Tube and buses, and the line reopened to passengers in 1979 as part of the
Crosstown Linkline from Camden Road to North Woolwich via Stratford. At first
trains ran straight through, but the current Hackney Wick station was finally added in
May 1980. The service was superseded by the North London Line from Richmond to
North Woolwich in 1985 and by today’s London Overground service from Richmond
or Clapham Junction to Stratford, managed by Transport for London (TfL), in
2007. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">When I first visited Hackney Wick station in the 1990s it almost
felt like a rural halt. There was no concourse or indeed any significant
buildings: instead, each platform was accessed from its own ramp, either side
of the railway bridge on Wallis Road. Although conveniently placed for the
Olympic Park, its facilities were inadequate during the games and only
eastbound trains stopped there. The new building with its substantial entrance
on White Post Lane finally opened in 2018, partly funded by nearby
developments. A glance at the little piazza outside it early on a Saturday or Sunday
morning during fine weather, when the planters are overflowing with empty cans,
bottles and glasses from the night before, is testimony to the way the area has changed. The
apparently abstract frieze impressed into the concrete wall of the subway
between platforms pleasingly depicts the molecular structures of meldola and
primuline dye, petrol, shellac and parkesine. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoBodyText">A few steps past the station, the Lord Napier pub is emblematic of the area. This capacious 1860s building was closed and derelict in the years of decline in 1995, then squatted and used for raves and guerilla arts events in the 2000s, its expanses of wall and prominent position on the corner of White Post Lane attracting more than its fair share of attention from local street artists. It was restored and reopened in 2021 as a comfortable but determinedly on-trend bar and venue, and the new owners have retained its former decorations, including a slogan across an upper floor which bluntly summarises the recent history of the area as ‘From shithouse to penthouse’.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTrcxNeYkPX7S_BFa0dmYTPPgOahcaN4Feg8MKMw2jykltzcK2dqSKVddAWhd7KlU0TslgzY10ZpfymIfSERNows4GXcBoIl6x_HwdGCkX2LnNCuRBO73Fey1vpMu2WUrmHmqVvg6bXkFp-p1MaHwaDudDLUcPpo2HYqC8X8i_Pz_NFBOuJ1ZdgWKb/s1000/hackneywickstation.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTrcxNeYkPX7S_BFa0dmYTPPgOahcaN4Feg8MKMw2jykltzcK2dqSKVddAWhd7KlU0TslgzY10ZpfymIfSERNows4GXcBoIl6x_HwdGCkX2LnNCuRBO73Fey1vpMu2WUrmHmqVvg6bXkFp-p1MaHwaDudDLUcPpo2HYqC8X8i_Pz_NFBOuJ1ZdgWKb/w640-h360/hackneywickstation.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hackney Wick London Overground station.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><h3 style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; margin: 0px;">Route descriptions<o:p></o:p></h3><p class="BodyTextfirstpara" style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">From 2021, Ramblers volunteers in London have been maintaining a revised and updated set of route descriptions for the Capital Ring in partnership with Transport for London, as part of their Ring Rangers scheme. As these descriptions are an improvement on what was previously available, I’m no longer providing my own, but instead compiling summary information sheets with more detail on distances, facilities, linking trails and alternative routes, surroundings, accessibility and features of interest. These also include corrections and additions to the Ramblers’ descriptions where I thought these were needed.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara" style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"></p><ul style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><li>Ramblers route descriptions: <a href="http://innerlondonramblers.org.uk/capital-ring" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">innerlondonramblers.org.uk/capital-ring</a>. Check the additonal link on this page for current diversions and problems.</li><li><a href="https://1drv.ms/b/s!Ao6Ku7ZAkxE9g5h-xf_Cpx4de4PmlA?e=HSxdxW" target="_blank">London Underfoot information sheet</a> (PDF)</li><li><a href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1dEzj8toHFPhGR8hjigYqpojJJYA&usp=sharing" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Google map</a></li></ul>Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-89249847531433889322021-08-20T16:07:00.005+01:002023-09-25T12:50:53.899+01:00Capital Ring 10/11: South Kenton - Hendon - Highgate<p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu48UoUJO67cqeTe39tSNgyDwGvgpTmKyhkjnYSPVpVbqu876829xtlY0D5yRvlgG9TZBLrKAymEfyxaewYay4q1ZufMSk2ESbGAsWjpnmQumwb5HSZt5exxk2zb9x3kX0o9nBCmEwYEM/s1000/wembleystadium.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu48UoUJO67cqeTe39tSNgyDwGvgpTmKyhkjnYSPVpVbqu876829xtlY0D5yRvlgG9TZBLrKAymEfyxaewYay4q1ZufMSk2ESbGAsWjpnmQumwb5HSZt5exxk2zb9x3kX0o9nBCmEwYEM/w640-h360/wembleystadium.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wembley Stadium from Barn Hill.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">The Capital Ring soon climbs the second pair of its
four Middlesex hills, Barn Hill and Gotfords Hill, both in green surroundings,
before descending through the streets of Kingsbury to follow the rather more
level banks of the Brent (Welsh Harp) reservoir in its flooded river valley. The
trail parallels the Brent north of Brent Cross and through Hendon park and follows
the river itself and its tributary the Mutton Brook through Brent Park and Hampstead
Garden Village to East Finchley. A final section explores several precious
London woodlands, including the famous Highgate Wood, to reach Highgate
station.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">This post covers two consecutive official Ring sections
combined to create a day walk. One ends and the other begins in Hendon Park
with short links to Hendon Central or Brent Cross Underground stations, but there
are plenty of other transport options evenly spaced along the way. The trail
passes the doors of two other stations and close by two more, with bus stops at
numerous road crossings. <o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Preston Park<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara" style="text-align: left;"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidKIOUmD7XLEf0VNRSfILVYkvsOevdozrfF90mKmLAxznWQe_4217RSLkItANK-JjHFMHSjNsbOk6AqocktkPi1R2hZchz-rOxG-7Nh8BLpjQ50isz4VwIdKWyyOxrURz9kd50fOG1zBI/s800/prestonpark.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidKIOUmD7XLEf0VNRSfILVYkvsOevdozrfF90mKmLAxznWQe_4217RSLkItANK-JjHFMHSjNsbOk6AqocktkPi1R2hZchz-rOxG-7Nh8BLpjQ50isz4VwIdKWyyOxrURz9kd50fOG1zBI/w300-h400/prestonpark.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Line of the Crouch Brook through Preston Park<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>As described in the <a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2021/01/capital-ring-89-boston-manor-greenford.html">previous section</a>, the area
around South Kenton station was once part of the very large parish of Harrow in
Gore Hundred, Middlesex, but was split off in 1894 with the creation of Wembley
Urban District. This in turn became a municipal borough in 1937 and, with
Willesden, formed the London Borough of Brent when the Greater London we know
today was created in 1965. Kenton itself has some history, likely beginning as
a Saxon settlement (‘Ceona’s farm’) which by the 13<sup>th</sup> century had
become a small village, but its historic centre was some way to the north,
along Kenton Road, and partly still in Harrow. Until it was built up in the
1920s and 1930s, what’s now South Kenton was farmland and parkland belonging to
the Northwick Park estate, and the location name only really became current
following the opening of the station in 1933.<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">A closer hamlet was Preston, just to the northeast, with a
village green at the junction of Preston Road, Preston Hill and Woodcote Hill,
first mentioned in 1220 but likely also of Saxon origin. The name means
‘Priest’s farm’, though any other evidence of church ownership has been lost to
history. It was a small place, only two farms and a few cottages in the mid-16<sup>th</sup>
century. The northern farm, Lyon’s Farm, was very likely the birthplace of John
Lyon, founder of Harrow School, whom we encountered in the previous section. The
other farm, Preston Farm, stretched southwest, encompassing the area the Ring
now crosses. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">By the early 17<sup>th</sup> century, most of this land, and
on down to Wembley, was owned by the Page family, who began parcelling off and
enclosing areas to create smaller farms and some larger houses, though Preston still
had only 57 residents in 1851. The building of the London and Birmingham
Railway, where our walk begins, in 1837 and the Metropolitan Railway in 1880
initially made little difference as trains ran through non-stop. Preston remained rural well into the early 20<sup>th</sup>
century, but by then significant areas of agricultural land had been given over
to sporting and leisure pursuits like golf and shooting, spilling over from
Wembley Park to the south where a new station and pleasure garden had opened in
1895. Preston House, an early 19<sup>th</sup> century mansion in the village
centre, was a sign of the times, becoming a successful tea garden for day trippers in the 1880s.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Following pressure from the shooting club at Uxendon Farm,
the Met opened a modest halt at Preston Road in 1908 and by 1912 the Harrow Golf
Club occupied the former fields of Preston Farm between the two lines. It
wouldn’t last long as, following World War I, suburban development began in
earnest, partly prompted as at Northwick Park by the British Empire Exhibition at
Wembley, of which more below. The new housing of the Preston Park estate
engulfed the golf course during the 1930s.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">I’ve already mentioned this estate’s most architecturally
significant building in the previous section: the huge Grade II listed
Windermere pub immediately east of South Kenton station. The rest is typical of
the period: gabled semi-detached houses, some with mock-Tudor details, lining neat
streets with strips of grass along the pavements. An alleyway, likely following
the line of an old field path, takes you along a valley where the now-covered
Crouch Brook once meandered eastwards towards the Wealdstone Brook.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Then there’s Preston Park itself, one of numerous modest
but valuable local green spaces that enliven the more suburban sections of the Ring.
Occupying 7.5 ha, it was created as part of the 1930s development. Once again,
you’re following the course of the brook, and although there’s no obvious trace
of it, a slight indentation to the right of the main path gives a clue. This is
lined with some fine specimen trees; elsewhere, flower beds and a bowling
green break up the grassy expanses.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The trail passes Preston Park Primary School, also an
original feature of the estate, to emerge on Preston Road opposite another big
interwar pub, the Preston, opened as the Preston Hotel around 1927. School and
pub were the work of the same builder, Clifford Sabey, also responsible for
many of the houses. Preston Road was one of the mediaeval lanes through the
area, and there were no buildings on this stretch of it up until the end of the
19<sup>th</sup> century except for a lodge guarding the drive to Uxendon Farm. What
changed all this was Preston Road station, a few paces north on its bridge
above the London Underground Metropolitan Line.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Metropolitan Railway originated in 1863 as the world’s
first underground urban railway, linking Paddington and Farringdon around the
northern edge of central London. Various extensions followed, including a
branch northwest from Baker Street to Swiss Cottage, built by another company,
the Metropolitan and St Johns Wood Railway (M&SJWR) but operated and later
taken over by the Met. Traffic on this was initially disappointing, so the
M&SJWR extended it, reaching Harrow-on-the-Hill in 1880. Subsequently the
Met harboured ambitions to turn it into a main line: at its furthest extent in
the 1890s, it reached via Amersham and Aylesbury as far as Verney Junction in
Buckinghamshire, 80 km from Baker Street, where there was a connection with the
London and North Western Railway’s Varsity Line from Oxford to Cambridge (since
largely closed, though part is due to reopen). The Met became an integral part
of the integrated London Transport in 1933 as the Metropolitan Line, which was eventually
cut back to Amersham, with British Rail taking over services beyond, now
provided by Chiltern Railways.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">As already mentioned, there were no stations between Neasden
and Harrow until Preston Road Halt opened in 1908, primarily to serve the
area’s sporting facilities. The original entrance was on the east side of the
road and trains stopped only on request: initially there were complaints that
drivers failed to slow down sufficiently to spot passengers in time. Even so,
the new service prompted the creation of the golf course and several large
villas along Preston Road. As interwar development gathered pace, the halt was converted
to a permanent stop, with the present red brick station on the opposite side
operational by 1932. As often, the station shifted the focus of the settlement,
with today’s busy local shopping street in place by the end of the 1930s and
the old village green to the north becoming a quiet backwater. The latter is
still home to the area’s oldest surviving buildings, a couple of late Victorian
villas: all earlier buildings, including the historic farmhouses, had gone by
the 1960s.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Before turning off Preston Road, fans of John Cleese and
Connie Booth’s classic 1970s TV sitcom <i>Fawlty Towers</i> may want to stroll
a little further to Wings Restaurant at 294. This was André’s Restaurant where
Basil picked up the meals in the classic ‘Gourmet Night’ episode (1975). If
you’ve seen it, you’ll recall that his car broke down while returning to the
hotel, setting up the famous scene where he thrashes it with a twig, filmed 2
km to the northwest at the corner of Mentmore Close, Kenton.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Uxendon<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCmEFBzTVDNe-HL0x_7NGfjvDptVMN_-i7KAYxfBxmTkHdzHcjnNR0iWbux6go0r-Ck458fQnYu2l6eARoxxF7rsaf1IpeHAZbFYhOovvQKkaujGtquo1HUC51_otUwjYv-kisM-uO-ig/s800/wealdstonebrook.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCmEFBzTVDNe-HL0x_7NGfjvDptVMN_-i7KAYxfBxmTkHdzHcjnNR0iWbux6go0r-Ck458fQnYu2l6eARoxxF7rsaf1IpeHAZbFYhOovvQKkaujGtquo1HUC51_otUwjYv-kisM-uO-ig/w300-h400/wealdstonebrook.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wealdstone Brook, with former fields of<br />Uxendon Farm to left.</td></tr></tbody></table>The minor ups and downs as you follow curving
Uxendon Crescent are a reminder of an earlier rolling landscape of farmland, carved
by the Crouch Brook and other streams running west to east between low ridges
to drain into the north-south Wealdstone Brook. By the 13<sup>th</sup> century,
the land east of the brook was a recognised sub-manor of Harrow known as
Uxendon, meaning either ‘Wixan’s Hill’ after an Anglo-Saxon tribe, or ‘Water
Hill’. It was held in 1388 by Richard Bembre, a Lord Mayor of London who illegally
ordered 22 prisoners executed without trial and was then tried and executed
himself. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The manor house overlooked the
brook at the foot of Barn Hill, accessed from the west by a long, straight
drive from Preston Road, which began a few paces north of where the Ring turns
off. Aside from street names, all trace of the farm has vanished under interwar
development: even the line of the drive has been obliterated by the modern
street pattern. Of course, there are thousands of similarly vanished farms and
manors in London and we’ve passed many of them on the Ring. But this one is
significant as it played a minor role in one of the more noteworthy incidents
of English history.<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Tudor period of the 16<sup>th</sup> century was
notable for conflict between Catholics and Protestants following Henry VIII’s
break with Rome in 1534. As often with religious conflict, there’s a political
dimension: Henry, previously a good Catholic, may have been motivated by his
determination to divorce his first wife Catalina de Aragón despite opposition
from the Pope, but in rejecting the latter’s authority he was also asserting
the independence of England as a nation state and distinguishing it from rivals
like France and Spain where papal influence was more powerful. The reign of Henry
and Catalina’s devoutly Roman Catholic daughter Mary I between 1553-58 was a
period of reaction and the bloody suppression of non-Catholics. Her successor Elizabeth
I, Henry and his second wife Anne Boleyn’s daughter, followed a more pragmatic
course, asserting the independence of the Church of England but encouraging
doctrinal compromise and refraining from vigorous suppression of Catholicism. Even
so, many Catholics disputed her legitimacy and looked to overseas powers for
support in re-establishing Roman supremacy.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">One obvious potential rallying point was Elizabeth’s first
cousin Mary Stuart, known as Mary Queen of Scots, who had been raised a
Catholic in France and had a claim to the English throne. Mary fled Scotland,
then still an independent kingdom, in 1567 when she fell under suspicion of
being involved in the murder of her husband and was forced to abdicate. She
sought protection from Elizabeth in England and ended up spending over 18 years
under luxurious house arrest because of the potential threat she posed. But
with little hard evidence to implicate her directly in various attempted coups,
Elizabeth was reluctant to move further against her, fearful of creating a
martyr and believing, too, that as a crowned queen, she’d been anointed by God.
Likely she also harboured some compassion for a relative who, like herself, was
constrained by duty and circumstance. Elizabeth resisted the urgings of
advisers like her spymaster, Francis Walsingham (see <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.no/2017/05/cray-riverway-erith-crayford-foots-cray.html">London Loop 2</a>), who wanted
Mary removed permanently.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">In 1584, Mary was moved to more secure accommodation at
Chartley Hall in Staffordshire. Here, she was banned from communicating with
the outside world, but circumvented this with a system involving letters
smuggled in barrels of beer from nearby Burton upon Trent. This unorthodox line
of communication had been set up by Walsingham deliberately to entrap her, and
every letter in and out was intercepted and read. In 1586, Walsingham got what
he’d been hoping for: a letter in which Mary consented to a plot led by Anthony
Babington to assassinate Elizabeth and put Mary on the throne with Spanish
support. Like many such plots, this one was amateurishly planned,
overoptimistic and highly unlikely to succeed, its instigators already thoroughly
infiltrated by Walsingham’s agents.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Realising the game was up, some of the conspirators
attempted to flee, with Babington himself taking refuge at Uxendon Manor. The
owners at the time were the Bellamy family, devout Catholics who maintained a
‘priest hole’ for sheltering Catholics on the run. But Walsingham had the
property under surveillance: it was soon raided and both Babington and Jerome
Bellamy, younger brother of owner Richard Bellamy, were arrested. Babington and
six of his co-conspirators were hanged, drawn and quartered at St Giles Fields,
Holborn in an execution so barbaric and prolonged it provoked public outrage. After
this, the queen ordered the second group, including Jerome Bellamy, should be
“hanged until quite dead” before being drawn and quartered. Elizabeth now had
no choice but to commit Mary for trial and assent to her beheading the
following year, but the incident continued to haunt the queen until her final
days at Richmond Palace (<a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2018/08/capital-ring-67-wimbledon-park-richmond.html">Ring 7</a>).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Bellamys never quite recovered from these tumultuous
events and in the 17<sup>th</sup> century the property was acquired by the Page
family, already mentioned above. In 1829, it passed with the rest of the Page
estates to Henry Young, junior partner of the family’s solicitor, amid
speculation of fraudulent practice. It was Young who began shifting the land
use from agriculture to sport by setting up a steeplechasing course: it later
became the shooting club that lobbied for the railway halt. The farm held the distinction
of being an Olympic venue, hosting clay pigeon shooting in 1908.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">At the end of Uxendon Crescent, you walk under a
substantial bridge carrying the third railway through the area, just north of the
junction where it splits from the Metropolitan Line north of Wembley Park. It
opened in 1932 as a Met branch to Stanmore, serving yet another new housing
development. Slicing through the farm, it bolstered the argument for developing
the land as housing. Following the creation of London Transport, to relieve congestion
it was reallocated in 1939 to the Bakerloo Line, connected at Finchley Road
with a new underground branch of that line paralleling the existing Met from
Baker Street. In 1979 it was reallocated yet again, becoming the northern part
of the new Jubilee Line, with trains continuing through a new tunnel between Baker
Street and Charing Cross.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Unlike some of its tributaries, the Wealdstone Brook is
still visible today, and the Ring crosses it immediately after the railway
bridge. As its name suggests, the brook rises in Wealdstone north of Harrow and
flows for around 6.5 km southeast and south to join the river Brent amid the
industrial estates east of Wembley Stadium. In the early 20<sup>th</sup>
century, it was described as “one of the most perfect little streams anywhere,
abounding in dace and roach”. Today, sadly, the flow has been ruthlessly
culverted in concrete.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">A little way off the trail, south along the Avenue, is Preston’s
first church, the Church of the Ascension, provided to serve the residential
developments. A temporary church, now used as a church hall, was opened on the
site in 1937 but, following wartime delays, the main church didn’t open until 1957.
The Gothic Revival building, designed by J Harold Gibbons and featuring a noted
mural by Hans Feibusch behind the altar, is now Grade II listed.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Climbing Uxendon Hill, the Ring is beginning its ascent of
Barn Hill. You may care to pause at the junction with Wykeham Hill on the
right: this was the site of the manor house where Babington was arrested. Henry
Young demolished the house sometime in the 1830s, building a new farmhouse to
the north, which still enjoyed uninterrupted views across the Wealdstone valley
and the farmland beyond. This too vanished during the 1930s beneath the semis
with the palm trees at 18-20. There’s lots more about the history of Preston
and Uxendon in a series of informative and well-illustrated posts on the
<a href="https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Wembley Matters</a> blog: search for The
Preston Story. <o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Barn Hill<o:p></o:p></h3><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWD-Lrk9nL7IXxlq06fx0_7pyBes6OGrTf5qH_pTFFqU22cZJsOH8E5jQlVNZim6NSrFJWHUvE7Cwrx30kTrIdkS-I2GisfvV7CZLrp8O6B_XMP3xuMHy1TccPpfOihPzPEfMkJiVF2v4/s1000/barnhillpond.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWD-Lrk9nL7IXxlq06fx0_7pyBes6OGrTf5qH_pTFFqU22cZJsOH8E5jQlVNZim6NSrFJWHUvE7Cwrx30kTrIdkS-I2GisfvV7CZLrp8O6B_XMP3xuMHy1TccPpfOihPzPEfMkJiVF2v4/w640-h360/barnhillpond.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The somewhat surprising Barn Hill Pond.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>So far this section of the Ring has been a little
too suburban, but this changes when you turn off Uxendon Hill on an
easy-to-miss alleyway into a triangle of woodland between the railway and the
backs of houses. Suddenly everything is quiet apart from the rustling of
leaves, bird song and the regular rumble of Jubilee Line trains. This is Rastland
Wood in Barn Hill Open Space, now part of the much larger green space of <a href="https://www.brent.gov.uk/services-for-residents/culture-leisure-and-parks/parks-and-allotments/park-finder/fryent-country-park/" target="_blank">Fryent Country Park</a>. An open hillside meadow that was once part of Preston Farm,
Bugbeards, finally gives a glimpse of countryside, and then you’re passing the
Brache field to re-enter woodland for the final short but rather steep climb to
the 86 m summit of Barn Hill, the third of our string of Middlesex hills begun
in the previous section.</div><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">At the top is the unexpected sight of a placid pond
regularly visited by herons, now slightly disfigured by prominent ‘No Fishing’
signs, surrounded by moody stands of trees. Behind the pond, a gap leads onto
the open hillside, with an Ordnance Survey trig point (see Loop 5) and a fine
view of Wembley Stadium and south to central London. This pleasingly
distinctive spot, though it takes advantage of the underlying topography, is the
result of several centuries of human intervention.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Once, the hill, along with much of the surrounding land,
would have been densely wooded. The woods had long been cleared by the early 18<sup>th</sup>
century when there were farm buildings on the hilltop, part of the Uxendon estate,
with the hillside used as hay meadows. As we learned above, the land passed
into the hands of local landowners the Pages, whose main residence was at
Wembley Park to the south. In 1792, Richard Page decided to rebuild this into a
grand mansion surrounded by parkland, with Barn Hill incorporated into the
scheme. He hired renowned landscape architect Humphrey Repton, who partially
re-wooded the hill, framing the prospect with swathes of oaks, and replaced the
hay meadows with grazing cattle. Repton was likely responsible for the inspired
addition of the pond, alongside a lookout tower, at least one folly and a
dairy. The scheme was never completed and the buildings are long gone, but the
pond and much of the planting pattern have survived.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">A year after the opening of Wembley Park station and
pleasure grounds in 1894, the hill became the 18-hole course of Wembley Golf
Club, with a tee at the summit. As at Preston Park, the golf club was
ultimately sold for housing development. In 1923, with the British Empire
Exhibition imminent, builders Haymills bought it and began building an estate
of mainly mock-Tudor semis like those on the site of the old farmhouse on
Uxendon Hill. Keen to reserve green space for the burgeoning population,
Wembley Urban District agreed with the developer to buy the upper part of the hill,
which would have been challenging to build on, for use as a public park, Barn
Hill Open Space. The housing estate is now largely a conservation area, and
from the hilltop looking right you can see how some of Repton’s plantations
have survived as a strip of trees between the houses.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The stadium, though a much more recent building, also owes
its existence to the British Empire Exhibition, a government-backed propaganda
exercise to boost the image of the Empire at a time when it had already begun
its terminal decline. Taking place on the former Wembley pleasure grounds, it
included pavilions for each colony, various commercial exhibits and a funfair. Its
centrepiece was the Empire Stadium, built on the site of Watkin’s Tower, an
abortive attempt to rival the Tour d’Eiffel in Paris. The huge sports venue,
later renamed Wembley Stadium, combined neo-Classical architecture with northern
Indian Mughal-inspired flourishes, dominated by two distinctive towers. It opened
to host the FA Cup Final in 1923, beginning a long career as the ‘hallowed
turf’ of English football. The exhibition opened for the summer season of 1924,
then reopened in 1925 in the vain hope of recouping some of its losses –
despite 27 million visitors, it ended up costing the taxpayer around £20
million, the equivalent of £1.25 billion today.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL3qIjSTzRynwxX9ZJP1t8HUBLXHLy0yOsSLbWxsYC0FqPF8BSdPGRdvde62J1nKJbI4kn41gwSRkdWbpeA51Yl_JQQ1B7ZpvuKqSaJhjhyfNmdrxgKyIeQ6SPu6PNnUinYOOQwSeu6GA/s800/eldestrete.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL3qIjSTzRynwxX9ZJP1t8HUBLXHLy0yOsSLbWxsYC0FqPF8BSdPGRdvde62J1nKJbI4kn41gwSRkdWbpeA51Yl_JQQ1B7ZpvuKqSaJhjhyfNmdrxgKyIeQ6SPu6PNnUinYOOQwSeu6GA/w300-h400/eldestrete.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The line of Eldestrete running left to right.</td></tr></tbody></table>Most of the buildings were then demolished but the stadium
survived: it hosted the final and many other matches in the 1966 World Cup and
various European competitions besides the Football League and was the main
venue for the 1948 Olympics, the so-called 'austerity games' where the Dutch 'flying housewife' Fanny Blankers-Koen won four gold medals. The stadium was
demolished amid some controversy in 2002 and replaced by the current building,
partly designed by Norman Foster, in 2007.<p></p><p class="MsoBodyText">The distinctive lattice arch, at 315
m the world’s longest unsupported roof structure, rises to a height of 133 m
and has become a familiar feature of the London skyline. A retractable roof
gives the venue the largest covered seating capacity in the world, with 90,000 seats
and 2,618 toilets, another world record, but it was also one of the most
expensive stadia to build, costing around £800 million. Inevitably it’s been
dogged by further controversy and legal and financial troubles: the original
pitch attracted widespread criticism from players and had to be relayed in
2010.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">A link path from here leads south through the estate along
the street called Barn Hill to Wembley Park station, now on both the Metropolitan
and Jubilee lines. The main trail heads north from the pond, passing a path to
the right lined with Lombardy poplars, not the work of Repton but a 1930s council
improvement. You continue downhill under the trees then east inside the edge of
the Saltcroft Wood to reach a crosspaths just short of a car park, where a
wooden fingerpost identifies the well-defined track the Ring crosses as
Eldestrete.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">‘Elde’ means ‘old’ in and this is indeed one of the oldest
highways in the area, part of an ancient route between Westminster and Hertfordshire.
‘Strete’ indicates at latest a Roman origin, as in Old English the word meant a
substantial paved road, but Roman Watling Street not far away runs roughly
parallel, so Eldestrete may date back still further. It was likely used by
pilgrims visiting the shrine of Our Lady of Willesden as well as St Albans
cathedral. Some of it has been incorporated into the modern road network but
here, where it’s also known as Hell Lane, it survives as an unsurfaced track. Like
many old highways, it’s been used as a boundary: though today both sides are
part of Brent, this is the point where the Ring finally leaves the sprawling ancient
parish of Harrow and enters the parish of Kingsbury.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Fryent Country Park</h3><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA0uYmyMO7HF4qv_cLNcRFx7pah9aSSb30AsrLEZ4Mh8-5OJMjxLKifcmLxnWcaDM6pHOMGORs45PaW-S1ZNgkTqDMBTseOJccJoUdifr-L3-4R0XkXwMYYx7iSuwfeRnr0a504WMRvGY/s1000/fryentpond.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA0uYmyMO7HF4qv_cLNcRFx7pah9aSSb30AsrLEZ4Mh8-5OJMjxLKifcmLxnWcaDM6pHOMGORs45PaW-S1ZNgkTqDMBTseOJccJoUdifr-L3-4R0XkXwMYYx7iSuwfeRnr0a504WMRvGY/w640-h360/fryentpond.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A restored field pond in Fryent Country Park.</td></tr></tbody></table><div>The fields of Preston, Uxendon and Kingsbury have
seen a variety of agricultural uses through the years, but by the 18<sup>th</sup>
century, as in most of Middlesex, they were mainly used as hay meadows, supplying
fodder to the growing legions of London horses. Much of the land east of
Eldestrete was owned by All Souls College, but one of the farms a little
further east was named Fryent Farm as, prior to 1543, it belonged to the friars
of St John of Jerusalem, before passing to St Paul’s Cathedral. In 1935, as the
population of the area began to grow, Wembley Urban District Council opened a
new north-south road roughly parallel to Eldestrete and named it Fryent Way. Immediately
developers, primarily Wimpey and Salmon Estates, began buying up the remaining
farmland and drawing up plans for still more housing.</div><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">But this period also saw the emergence of modern-style
town planning in London, and the idea of a green belt as a buffer against
rapacious suburbanisation, with county councils given compulsory purchase
powers for this purpose. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1936,
Middlesex County Council moved to buy up the threatened land, a process which,
following a court challenge, was completed in 1938, with Wembley contributing
25% of the cost. The land to the west of Fryent Way was added to the existing
Barn Hill Open Space, while the eastern section became the new Fryent Way
Regional Open Space, managed by the county. Farming activities continued for
some time afterwards, with public access restricted. Some of the public land was
used for food production during World War II and for prefabricated housing
after the war. But in the 1970s when both sites had passed to the new London
Borough of Brent, nearly all of it was opened for recreation.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The 1968 Countryside Act introduced numerous improved
arrangements for recreation and access to countryside and green spaces, among them
a new designation of Country Park, a large informal green space often in
suburbia or the urban fringes and intended to give city dwellers easy access to
a rural experience. For a while, the government provided dedicated funding to
support their creation. In 1984, the spaces on both sides of Fryent Way were
amalgamated, becoming Fryent Country Park, at 103 ha one of the biggest
continuous green spaces in the area and incidentally the only official Country
Park on the Capital Ring, though there are many more around the edges of
London. Since the 1990s, it’s also been a designated Local Nature Reserve.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Thanks to the persistence of small-scale farming until
well into the second half of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, the site retained a
surprisingly traditional character for somewhere so close to central London. Much
had been neglected, though, and the creation of the Country Park sparked a
restoration plan largely implemented by a voluntary organisation, the <a href="https://bhcg.chessck.co.uk/" target="_blank">Barn Hill Conservation Group</a> (BHCG), still active today. The object
was to return the park to something like its depiction on a 1597 map of field
boundaries, with missing hedgerows regrown using species taken from surviving
ones, field ponds restored, new ones added and hay cultivation reintroduced.
The result is an environment unique on the Ring and perhaps in London, with an
intimate pattern of small fields separated by verdant hedgerows, still showing
the imprint of the medieval practice of ‘assarting’, where woodland was cleared
in small patches with narrow strips of trees left in between. It gives a
genuine feel for how much of London must have looked in centuries past.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Gotfords Hill<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhma_Ez59QCiaKqDADl9ZYRrLE7UX4jtKaMZTHKBxw5CFW3HOuGBRIeVo2KuvvzNY-0RNcLx2ZZbZj4jM8gR5bK1jxxa63tJYiodVzuFXNI7CAEPiT1-liYqyXvUuRJTet_WWJDn7kU0Ydn/s321/Bunker2.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="202" data-original-width="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhma_Ez59QCiaKqDADl9ZYRrLE7UX4jtKaMZTHKBxw5CFW3HOuGBRIeVo2KuvvzNY-0RNcLx2ZZbZj4jM8gR5bK1jxxa63tJYiodVzuFXNI7CAEPiT1-liYqyXvUuRJTet_WWJDn7kU0Ydn/s16000/Bunker2.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Royal Observer Corps members at the Gotfords<br />Hill bunker in 1968, from Wembley Matters.</td></tr></tbody></table>After crossing Fryent Way, the Ring breaches an
earth bank installed in the 1990s as a vehicle barrier. It continues through a
succession of fields – Dormers Mead with its corner pond, Warrens and Goldringe
Fields – to the last of its four Middlesex hills and the lowest at 63 m. Gotfords
Hill, also known as Mole Hill, on a 1730 map as Gaffers Hill and more recently
as Tellytubby Hill (for obvious reasons to anyone who’s seen the children’s TV
show), is a modest peak in the middle of a grassy field but its summit is airy
and windy enough, with all-round views. There’s a more distanced view of Wembley
stadium to the south and Barn Hill is obvious to the southwest, with the spires
of Harrow on the Hill beyond it. To the north are more rolling fields and
interwar housing, with the wooded ridge of Scratchwood (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/london-loop-16-borehamwood-cockfosters.html">Loop 16</a>) in the
distance. It's worth taking a minute here to recall how varied these four hills have been.<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Buried underground is a near-forgotten remnant of the Cold
War, a Royal Observer Corps (ROC) bunker installed in 1961 when the hill was
still closed to the public. The ROC, a uniformed volunteer civil defence
organisation attached to the Royal Air Force, staffed a surface observation
post here during World War II, providing information about German aircraft
movements to RAF Fighter Command at Bentley Priory (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/london-loop-15-hatch-end-borehamwood.html">Loop 15</a>). In the late
1950s, the Corps was repurposed to deal with a potential nuclear attack, with a
network of underground bunkers throughout the country, many of them, as here,
on former observation post sites.</p><p class="MsoBodyText">This one was officially known as ROC Post
Colindale: it consisted of two rooms enclosed by 300 mm concrete walls at the
foot of a 4.5 m shaft, accessed by a hatch and a ladder. In the event of an
attack, two or three ROC members would be expected to seal themselves in for
weeks on end, monitoring and reporting on bomb impacts and the spread of
fallout. The bunker was closed and sealed off in 1968, and nothing remains on
the surface. You do wonder, as I did when passing the larger Woodlands Park
bunker in Gravesend (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/london-countryway-1-original-route.html">London Countryway 1 original route</a>), if the value of such installations
was more in propaganda than practicality.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring turns south again through Home Field: over on the
left as you enter is what remains of Bush Farm, now mainly horse paddocks. A
short detour towards them will take you to Bush Farm Orchard, marked on the
1597 map and restored in the late 1980s with traditional local varieties of
apples, pears, plums, damsons, mulberries, medlars, cobnuts and hops. You
follow the edge of Warrens Field again, then Black Landes and Great Hillcroach.
Approaching the woodland of Beane Hill, the trail leaves the site along an
alley onto Salmon Street, once the drive to High Hill Farm. <a href="https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Wembley Matters</a> also has a useful series of posts entitled the Fryent Country Park Story.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Kingsbury<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcQy3LJfznNfh0-MiJyBzMoLAaQRFcEo_XoYj0nVh8maFoXVDPfd0m7VpTT6WQusdAM6cDbYa69q6xQK_bSYQuji3vtwSnTTc5YqgA0hjNEEln8-jh-J4m9TSe2SjVlFujyCZZC5xQg7Q/s800/kingsburyoldchurch.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcQy3LJfznNfh0-MiJyBzMoLAaQRFcEo_XoYj0nVh8maFoXVDPfd0m7VpTT6WQusdAM6cDbYa69q6xQK_bSYQuji3vtwSnTTc5YqgA0hjNEEln8-jh-J4m9TSe2SjVlFujyCZZC5xQg7Q/w300-h400/kingsburyoldchurch.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old St Andrew's Church, Kingsbury</td></tr></tbody></table>As its name, meaning ‘king’s fort’, suggests,
Kingsbury has royal connections, but way back in pre-Norman times: by the
Domesday survey in 1086, the manor was held by a minor noble. For many
centuries it was a small and rural Middlesex parish, a fraction of the size of
neighbouring Harrow, with a sparse and scattered population, occupying the land
between the parallel north-south routes of Edelstrete, known to the north as
Honeypot Lane, and Watling Street, now Edgware Road.<p></p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">The old village centre was
around the church to the south, but this was severely depopulated by the Black
Death in the 1350s, and by the 15<sup>th</sup> century a new centre was growing
around the hamlet of Kingsbury Green to the north, some way off our route. The
opening of Kingsbury station on the Metropolitan Railway’s Stanmore branch (now
the Jubilee Line) in 1932 shifted the centre again, to the west. The area has
some celebrity connections: Anglo-Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith (1728-74) wrote
his play <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i> while living here in the early 1770s, and
singer George Michael (1963-2016) spent his childhood and early teens here.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">As in Preston, development pressures grew following the
British Empire Exhibition, by which time most of the land was owned by All
Souls College, Oxford. Several plots, including much of Fryent Farm, had
already been developed by the time what’s now Fryent Country Park was saved in
1938, and the trail winds through some of these to reach Church Lane, the
historic highway connecting the original village with the Green. Fryent Farm
itself was about 200 m north of this corner, on a site that’s now a Coop. But
our way is south, towards the original village. Although nothing remains of
this except the medieval church and the street pattern, several significant
newer buildings have helped qualify it as the St Andrew’s Conservation Area.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The most prominent of these is the monumental St
Andrews Parish Church, which rises beside Church Lane, opposite the entrance to
Tudor Close, an estate of cute mock-Tudor bungalows from the late 1920s. It’s
only stood here since 1933, yet puzzlingly has the typical look of the
Victorian Gothic revival. The answer is that it was originally consecrated in
1847 at a more central location on Wells Street in Fitzrovia, round the corner
from Oxford Circus. By the 1930s, the churchgoing population of the West End
had declined while demand in suburbs like Kingsbury had rocketed, and the
Church Commissioners found it cost-effective to move the building brick by
brick to its current site. Designed by Samuel Dawkes and containing several
other features by renowned Victorians, the Grade II* listed building is
currently on the at-risk register due to problems with the roof and spire.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Round the corner in Old Church Lane, you pass the entrance
to another attractive interwar estate, Blackbird Farm, completed in 1929. With
a wooded churchyard to your left, you soon reach the driveway to the new
church’s small, simple and picturesque predecessor. Old St Andrews is likely the
oldest building in Brent and the only one that’s Grade I listed. It was built
around 1200 on a site that was likely occupied long before that, with some
Roman masonry used in the building’s fabric and scattered around the
churchyard, still surrounded by a medieval ditch and embankment. Several funerary
monuments are also listed. Following the arrival of its successor, the old
church was only used occasionally, and declared redundant in 1977. Plans to
convert it into a museum or an arts centre fell through and since 2008, in
response to further demographic changes, it’s been used as a Romanian Orthodox
church.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Brent Reservoir<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxG2_e96fVLXHZ5fHWJGXEENB_1JPNDJo6pIRO2yofSwsmW2IeBFA5ge2R0-wpsUcFG6ZW3tXNjgwCzvRNdE3JvvVYIMa5Cv1AfYSnMo0I-qSSbpmB7CIXjS9QfEq5vuzC9AkTfP8eHek/s1000/brentreservoir.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxG2_e96fVLXHZ5fHWJGXEENB_1JPNDJo6pIRO2yofSwsmW2IeBFA5ge2R0-wpsUcFG6ZW3tXNjgwCzvRNdE3JvvVYIMa5Cv1AfYSnMo0I-qSSbpmB7CIXjS9QfEq5vuzC9AkTfP8eHek/w640-h360/brentreservoir.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The watery expanse of Brent Reservoir, seen from the eastern end.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">Following
Church Lane downhill, the Ring has been descending from the hilly heights to
rejoin the Brent valley, and we soon encounter the river again for the first
time since Greenford, though not quite in the form you might expect. A large
area of the valley floor has been flooded east of Kingsbury, around the
confluence of the Brent and Silk Stream, to form the Brent Reservoir. It was
originally constructed to </span>maintain the Grand Union Canal, which shares
some of its course with the river, as we discovered at Brentford on <a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2018/08/capital-ring-67-wimbledon-park-richmond.html">Ring 7</a>.</p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Artificial watercourses need constant topping up, and the
first stretch of the canal drew water from the lower part of the Brent. Following
the opening of the canal’s Paddington Arm (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2021/01/capital-ring-89-boston-manor-greenford.html">Ring 9</a>) in 1801, this proved
increasingly inadequate, and in 1811 the canal company completed a feeder
channel taking water from further upriver at Kingsbury. This channel can still
be traced today, flowing gently downhill southwards through Willesden and
Stonebridge Park to join the Paddington Arm at Park Royal. But even this wasn’t
enough, especially after the Regents Canal from Paddington to Limehouse opened
in 1820, and a drought in 1833 finally prompted the creation of the reservoir.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Work to dam the Brent across the line of the feeder
channel at Kingsbury and to flood the fields to the northeast proceeded quickly
and by 1835 four local brothers had become the first people to drown in the new
reservoir. The capacity was subsequently extended several times and the dam
strengthened in 1843 after it broke, causing another death. At its peak in the
mid-19<sup>th</sup> century, the reservoir covered over 160 ha and stretched
beyond Edgware Road, inundating some of the land that’s now Brent Cross
Shopping Centre.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">In the following decades, water supply became less of an
issue as canal traffic declined and other sources were found. Following
downsizing in the 1890s and 1920s, the reservoir now covers around 50 ha and
contains an estimated 1.6 million m<sup>3</sup> of water. In 1948, along with
the canal and many other waterways, it was nationalised, becoming part of
British Waterways, which in turn became arms-length charity the Canal and River
Trust in 2012. In the closing years of the 20<sup>th</sup> century it was little
used for its original purpose, but following work on the dam between 2005 and
2007 it’s been contributing water to the canal once more. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Informally, the reservoir is known as the Welsh Harp,
which puzzles some people as, although its outline on the map conceivably
resembles a musical instrument of some sort, it isn’t really shaped like a
harp, Welsh or otherwise. The name turns out to be from another source, a
coaching inn opened on Edgware Road in 1736, overlooking the future reservoir
site from the rear. During the 1850s expansion, the canal company bought this
up and surrounded it with a flood wall. William Warner became the tenant in
1856 and immediately saw the potential of the unusual waterside site,
particularly as a horse bus service had just started along the road from
central London. He extended the pub, adding dining areas and a music hall,
leased the surrounding fields for pleasure gardens and sports facilities and negotiated
rights to fishing and boating on the reservoir.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The result was a major London leisure destination, which
grew still further after 1873 when Warner persuaded the Midland Railway to open
Welsh Harp station on its newly built line nearby (see below), with special
trains on bank holidays bringing customers in their thousands. Besides catching
some of the top music hall stars of the day, visitors could enjoy everything
from museum exhibits and garden strolls to swimming, shooting, sailing, horse
and greyhound racing and even skating when the weather allowed.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Following Warner’s death in 1889, his widow continued with
the business for another decade, but footfall was already declining as
transport in London improved and competition from other venues increased,
including the pleasure gardens in nearby Wembley which preceded the Empire
Exhibition. The station closed in 1903 and the pleasure gardens had largely
gone by the time the pub was rebuilt in the 1930s. It was demolished in 1971
when the road junction at Staples Corner was expanded: its former site is now a
sliproad alongside the A5. But its name lives on, as does the reservoir’s
association with sport and leisure. In the 1930s, as the area rapidly filled up
with housing, local authorities started acquiring surrounding plots, with the
result that today the reservoir is ringed by 120 ha of open land, much of it
public green space.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Another hugely significant aspect of the reservoir is its
value to wildlife. The ecological impact of its construction was noted back in
the 1850s when naturalist James Edmund Harting began recording exotic visiting
birds for his 1866 book <i>Birds of Middlesex</i>. This is one of the best
sites in London, and in some cases the UK, for breeding populations of great
crested grebe, cormorants, herons and various species of duck. The first
sighting in London of a great white egret was here in 1997, the first Iberian
chiffchaff in the UK in 1972. Altogether, 253 different bird species have been
recorded. This ornithological richness, together with the plant life on the
water’s edge, justified the reservoir’s designation as a Site of Special
Scientific Interest in 1950: the designation mainly covers the reservoir
itself, though much of the surroundings have been a designated Local Nature
Reserve since 2005. When in the early 1970s British Waterways proposed to
develop the area behind the former Welsh Harp site as a marina, it was
ornithologists who led the opposition, resulting in the establishment of the <a href="https://brentres.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Welsh Harp Conservation Group</a> which is still very active today in protecting the site as a wildlife haven.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The water straddles three ancient parish, two ancient
hundred and two modern borough boundaries. The division between Gore hundred to
the north and Hampstead parish in Ossulstone hundred to the south followed the
river Brent, while the parish boundary between Kingsbury and Hendon in Gore ran
along field edges to join the river from the north. The northwestern part of
Hampstead became Willesden Urban District and is now, like Kingsbury, part of
Brent. But Hendon is now in the London Borough of Barnet, and the borough
boundary still follows the field edges before faithfully tracing the meanders
of the submerged Brent eastwards out in the open water. When the reservoir is
drained, as it is from time to time for cleaning and maintenance, the original
channel is still visible, snaking through the mud. Though ownership of the
site is split between <a href="https://www.brent.gov.uk/services-for-residents/culture-leisure-and-parks/parks-and-allotments/park-finder/welsh-harp-reservoir/" target="_blank">Brent</a> and <a href="https://www.barnet.gov.uk/directories/parks/welsh-harp-marginal-land" target="_blank">Barnet</a> boroughs and the <a href="https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/places-to-visit/brent-reservoir-welsh-harp" target="_blank">Canal and River Trust</a>, which as
well as the reservoir itself owns the waterfront and the dam, it’s managed
jointly through a consultative committee.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring passes the gates to the <a href="https://www.thames21.org.uk/welsh-harp/" target="_blank">Welsh Harp Environmental Education Centre</a>, now managed by environmental charity Thames21, which protects
London’s rivers. The imposing green gates look
rather sombre for such a cheerful place, as they were originally intended to
open on to a cemetery. This land was part of the first council purchase, oddly
enough bought by Willesden council in 1928 though it was on the Kingsbury side
of the water. The council planned to build a large cemetery but a complex and
lengthy dispute with Kingsbury and then Wembley councils delayed
this. The plan was finally approved in 1950 and the gates and a chapel were constructed, but more delays halted further progress. Both councils then became
part of Brent which in 1973 opted to use part of the site for the education
centre instead, converting the chapel into classrooms and renting out the rest
to businesses, including a garden centre.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Past the main car park, a diversion on the right takes you
to a waterside viewpoint, with Wembley Sailing Club and Sea Cadet station to
the right and the dam visible across the water, a small black hut teetering
over the river outlet. Back on the trail, you follow the main path to the north
of the waterside, through an area known as Shrike Field in Welsh Harp Open
Space. This was included in Willesden’s 1928 purchase but because of the
dispute passed to Kingsbury in the early 1930s and became part of the public
space.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">After crossing a band of woodland, you can identify the
borough boundary from a change in the path surface from hard tarmac to softer
gravel. Now in Barnet, you pass Phoenix Canoe Club to reach a more open area called
Woodfield Park: though mainly grassland and sports fields, this shows some evidence
of its former use as pasture. More scrubby woodland follows, and just before
the end of the path there’s another viewpoint on the right which gives a fine
panorama across the water.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring emerges on the attractively named Cool Oak Lane
by a Victorian bridge which crosses the north arm of the reservoir. In fact,
this is the flooded lower course of the Silk Stream, which originally flowed
into the Brent a little to the south – the confluence is covered by the
reservoir. The stream begins as two separate watercourses, the Stoney Brook,
which rises in Stoney Wood, Mill Hill, and the Edgware Brook, rising in
Stanmore. These combine at Edgware Hospital, flowing southeast and south for 4
km via Colindale. For many years this narrow bridge was a pinch point on the
Ring, where walkers had to share the carriageway rather perilously with cars
passing in alternate directions controlled by traffic lights. In 2021 it was
finally supplemented by a handsome new footbridge just to the north.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The bridge, along with an attractive waterside ‘relaxing
area’ was provided as part of the public benefit obligations of the major redevelopment
of the West Hendon estate now visible ahead, branded as Hendon Waterside. Originally
this land was Cookman’s Farm, then became a small housing estate known as New
Hendon in the 1880s, taking advantage of the nearby Midland Railway. Much of it
was flattened by a German bomb in 1941, which destroyed 40 homes and killed 85
people. It was rebuilt in the 1960s as a large council estate which is now
being redeveloped privately amid some controversy: residents of many former
council homes who had bought their properties have been moved on by compulsory
purchase and the scheme has also destroyed a small public park created as a
memorial to the victims of the wartime bomb.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoBodyText"><a href="https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Wembley Matters</a> is also well worth consulting on the history of the reservoir: search for The Welsh Harp Reservoir Story.</p>
<h3>Hendon<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSnVzsOfzpoL-tQTwOQkzkIh7abP8ZLoxU2WMGckEEEJRH7Yo5WtvJoXEG4NCN2KvZAGNcpwTJk5Wcy5wjsTT2ymGbSxclkxGSMudmfy1KxZXcX96zV-7RLM22g4HPH8ThtZK8maje_7s/s800/watlingstreet.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSnVzsOfzpoL-tQTwOQkzkIh7abP8ZLoxU2WMGckEEEJRH7Yo5WtvJoXEG4NCN2KvZAGNcpwTJk5Wcy5wjsTT2ymGbSxclkxGSMudmfy1KxZXcX96zV-7RLM22g4HPH8ThtZK8maje_7s/w400-h300/watlingstreet.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">West Hendon Broadway looking north,<br />also known as Edgware Road, Watling Street and Iter II.</td></tr></tbody></table>West Hendon Broadway, the straight and busy high
street the Ring crosses at the end of Cool Oak Lane, is part of one of
Britain’s oldest and once one of its most important highways, Watling Street. In
Roman times it was the southern length of <i>Iter II</i>, connecting the Kent
coast at Richborough, where ferries linked to the mainland and the roads to
Rome, with London. The road passed through the capital, turning northwest to
Wroxeter, close to modern Shrewsbury in Shropshire, from where a connecting
road continued to the northernmost reaches of the empire at Birrens, just over
the modern Scottish border in Dumfries and Galloway between Carlisle and
Lockerbie. Much of the route already existed as a prehistoric trackway before
the Romans paved it. The term ‘Watling Street’ dates from Anglo-Saxon times and
refers to the Wæclingas, a tribe who lived alongside the road in St Albans.
We’ve encountered Watling Street several times before in London Underfoot, south
of Gravesend on <a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2015/03/london-countryway-alternative-gravesend.html">London Countryway 1</a>, at St Albans on <a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2010/05/london-countryway-10-kings-langley-st.html">London Countryway 16</a>, at
Crayford on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/london-loop-1-erith-bexley.html">Loop 1</a>, at Elstree on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/london-loop-15-hatch-end-borehamwood.html">Loop 15</a> and at Woolwich common on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/capital-ring-12-woolwich-grove-park.html">Ring 1</a>.
Unsurprisingly the surrounding area has yielded numerous Roman archaeological finds.<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The stretch of Watling Street immediately northwest from
London to Edgware, starting at Marble Arch, once the grisly landmark of Tyburn
Tree gallows, has long been known as Edgware Road, with several local
alternatives, here West Hendon Broadway. This section was turnpiked in 1711 and
in the 1820s improved further as part of the first state-funded civilian main
road project since Roman times: the Holyhead Road. The United Kingdom had been
officially expanded to include Ireland in 1800 and the government was keen to
improve communications. It commissioned famed engineer Thomas Telford to oversee
a major upgrade of the roads from London to Holyhead (Caergybi) on Anglesey,
the ferry port for Dublin. The route has been numbered A5 since 1922, though
parts of it further northwest were renumbered in the 1980s to discourage
through traffic once alternative motorway routes were open.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Hendon (‘high down’, in the sense of ‘hill’) is first
mentioned as a parish in the 10<sup>th</sup> century, centred some way north of
the Ring and the railway stations, around the church at Church End. By this
point the manor was held by Westminster Abbey and remained in ecclesiastical
hands until the 1550s. Numerous lords of the manor followed, one of them the
celebrated actor David Garrick (1717-79). Despite being crossed by a busy road,
the area retained its rural character for much of its history, and by the 18<sup>th</sup>
century boasted several mansions used as country retreats by wealthy Londoners.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Before the railway opened, there were no significant
buildings along this stretch of the Edgware Road except a couple of pubs,
including the Welsh Harp. A little further northwest was a roadside hamlet
known as The Hyde, first recorded in 1281 and extending to perhaps 20 houses by
the mid-18<sup>th</sup> century. As already mentioned, the railway prompted
housing development in the 1880s, initially under the name New Hendon, later
West Hendon. With improved communications, industrial concerns began moving to
the area – the Hyde was the home of the Schweppes mineral water factory between
1896 and 1980, as well as the Hendon Brewery which began around 1850 but
substantially expanded in the 1890s (it closed in 1959). An electric tram
service along Edgware Road began in 1904, and by the start of World War I, the
houses were already spreading eastwards on the other side of the railway line.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Hendon became an Urban District in 1895, then was merged
with Barnet, East Barnet, Friern Barnet and Finchley in 1965 to create the
London Borough of Barnet, the largest by population and the fourth largest by
area of all the boroughs. Perhaps the district’s best-known feature, Hendon
Aerodrome, originated as a small aircraft works in 1908 and was later used both
as an RAF base and civilian airport before closing in 1968. The site still
houses the <a href="https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/" target="_blank">Royal Air Force Museum</a> and has been home to Hendon Police College,
the Metropolitan Police’s main training facility, since 1934, but it’s some distance
off our route to the north, in Colindale.<o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ZxesUivIjNm20z_OSUBQF8c3hwO7FKalAICqwvlqHDEYwGs3YNyUO4-sNrwVpDbVewnoizURr1bwcqqMalY91oRZohUZ8MGnVQa-_47I7Wuccv9mGc4SRebZ-p1u-nxcEqEX8tvmmR4/s1000/m1andmidlandrailway.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ZxesUivIjNm20z_OSUBQF8c3hwO7FKalAICqwvlqHDEYwGs3YNyUO4-sNrwVpDbVewnoizURr1bwcqqMalY91oRZohUZ8MGnVQa-_47I7Wuccv9mGc4SRebZ-p1u-nxcEqEX8tvmmR4/w640-h360/m1andmidlandrailway.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Transport arteries of two different eras, looking south from Park Road, Hendon:<br />M1 motorway, with Staples Corner flyover in the distance, and Midland Main Line.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring briefly follows the A5 before turning off at the
Post Office along Park Road, soon crossing a long bridge that spans two more
recent transport routes, visible on the right. The Midland Main Line was built
by the Midland Railway (MR), formed in 1844 through a merger of several
regional companies in central England, the oldest of which was started with the
aim of connecting Birmingham and Derby in 1832. Originally its trains reached
London using other companies’ tracks, first the London and Birmingham to Euston
and later the Great Northern (GNR) to Kings Cross. These arrangements proved
inconvenient and expensive and in 1868 the MR finally opened its own route into
London, leaving its existing tracks at Bedford and running via Luton and St
Albans to a grand new Gothic Revival station at St Pancras, on Euston Road next
door to its rival the GNR at Kings Cross.</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Welsh Harp station was just a little south of our
viewpoint, with an island platform between the slow lines on the right, but no
visible trace of it remains. There’s a signed Ring link from the Post Office to
Hendon station a little to the north: this is one of the original stops but the
current buildings date from the 1970s. Today the East Midlands Railway
intercity trains to Nottingham and Sheffield run
straight through on the fast lines, while since 1988 stopping services have
been provided by Thameslink trains continuing to and from destinations south of
the Thames.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Curving alongside the railway is the M1 motorway from
London to Leeds, the most recent and furthest west of several iterations of the
main road from London to the northeast of England we’ll need to cross. Although
not technically the first British motorway (that was the 1958 Preston bypass in
Lancashire, now part of the M6), it was the first of any significant length.
The first section opened north of here, between Watford and Crick near Rugby,
in 1959 (<a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2010/05/london-countryway-10-kings-langley-st.html">London Countryway 10</a>), extended to Leeds by 1968: for more about its history and motorways in general, see <a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2016/08/london-loop-15-hatch-end-borehamwood.html">Loop 15</a>. We’re overlooking the final southern
extension of 1977, less than a kilometre north of its start point at Staples
Corner, marked by the flyover carrying the North Circular Road that you can see
in the distance. The area around the junction was once inundated by the Brent
Reservoir, and you might just spot the long brick viaduct that still carries
the Midland Main Line through the tangle of roads.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Following the mildly rolling contours of Park Road, you
can just about imagine it as the rural byway it once was, known as Gutters
Hedge Lane after Gutters Hedge Farm where the children’s centre now is. Another
farm, Brent Hill, stood a little further along, on the site of Parkfield school.
The area to the south as you approach the end of the street was once a manor
called Renters, held in the 14<sup>th</sup> century by St Bartholomew’s priory
in Smithfield (now St Bartholomew’s hospital). All trace of its former
agricultural past has been erased by housing, road junctions and the Brent
Cross shopping centre, opened in 1976 as Britain’s first US-style out-of-town
mall, which is on the other side of the houses here. Now there’s another main road
to cross, Hendon Way, a 1920s radial route bypassing the A5 through Hendon,
Edgware and Watford. It was originally numbered A5088 but in 1961 became part
of the A41 trunk route from London to Birkenhead.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The trail finally turns away from the 1920s housing on
Cheyne Walk just north of its junction with Renters Avenue, its name recalling
the old estate. Here a footbridge takes it into Hendon Park across yet another
railway, the Edgware extension of the London Underground Northern Line. This
opened in 1923 from Golders Green to Hendon Central, a little northwest of
here, and was completed to Edgware the following year. Despite its name, the
station at first stood “in lonely glory amid fields” some way from Hendon’s
historic centre, though was always intended to be the focus of the urbanisation
which rapidly followed. Designed by Stanley Heaps in neo-Georgian style with an
imposing colonnaded portico, it’s now Grade II listed. I’ll have quite a bit
more to say about the tortuous history of the Northern Line at the beginning of
the next section.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Hendon Park<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8NKU4Ros-QifCCmXWqqV1R0R5WbWb7sYu1Wrf3b6V0gckP7igY7fKIaNZEGC-X7LZoqnu3vcKLQJ5iIaik2jmmgb3LJdmb0_-8FQvNg7UlAoeepJCatVkenv6_cK0wIHVrdTuKPURk5A/s800/hendonparkholocaustmemorial.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8NKU4Ros-QifCCmXWqqV1R0R5WbWb7sYu1Wrf3b6V0gckP7igY7fKIaNZEGC-X7LZoqnu3vcKLQJ5iIaik2jmmgb3LJdmb0_-8FQvNg7UlAoeepJCatVkenv6_cK0wIHVrdTuKPURk5A/w300-h400/hendonparkholocaustmemorial.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Holocaust Memorial Garden, Hendon Park</td></tr></tbody></table>Hendon Urban District council showed commendable
foresight at the beginning of the 20<sup>th</sup> century when it bought 12 ha
of farmland known as Steps Field on the hillside above Renters Farm for use as
a public park. It wasn’t long after <a href="https://www.barnet.gov.uk/directories/parks/hendon-park" target="_blank">Hendon Park</a> opened in 1903 that it was
surrounded by houses, but it remains a pleasant and welcome green space
preserving some of its Edwardian features alongside more recent additions and
you can still see across the Brent valley to Hampstead Heath from its highest
points. One of its busiest days was Sunday 21 July 1940 when, to the annoyance
of local clergymen who objected to 'entertainment' on the sabbath, 20,000 people attended the first Ministry of Information
Rout the Rumour Rally, a morale-boosting wartime event intended to “chase the
chatter-bugs and rout the rumour-mongers” with the help of celebrities like
Will Hay and Jack Warner.<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Section 10 of the Ring ends just inside the park,
immediately on the other side of the footbridge, where there’s a signed link to
Hendon Central station. If you’re continuing straight onto Section 11, you’ll simply
cross the green space in a straight line, missing some of its more interesting
features, so a detour is advisable if you have the time. The strip of trees
immediately to the left is the Millennium Woodland, planted by local schoolchildren
in 2000 and now maturing nicely. The station link turns alongside it, climbing
parallel to the railway past a playground and tennis courts to reach the park
café in the northwest corner, which claims to be the only kosher park café in
Britain.</p><p class="MsoBodyText">There’s been a significant Jewish community in Hendon since soon after
the underground railway opened to Golders Green in 1907. The first dedicated
synagogue was consecrated in 1922, and the population grew still further following
the establishment of the Third Reich in Germany in 1933 and the wartime bombing
of the East End, where many Jewish Londoners had traditionally lived. A 1959 survey
estimated that Jewish people then accounted for a quarter of Hendon’s
population, and the community remains strong today.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The rose garden, just east of the café, is a post-World
War II addition to the park, featuring rose beds and pergolas around a
kidney-shaped pond. On Holocaust Memorial Day 2000, this was rededicated as a memorial
garden, commemorating not only the victims of the mass exterminations
perpetrated by Nazi Germany but of other genocidal acts since. The entrance
arch, designed by John Creed, incorporates a Hebrew inscription pronounced
‘lezikaron’, referring to the need to look to the future as well as remember
the past. You can return to the Ring via the avenue of lime trees along the
eastern edge of the park, named Veterans Avenue in 2007 in commemoration of UK
forces veterans. This way, you’ll pass the rather dilapidated pink marble and
granite drinking fountain, donated in 1905 by a local magistrate.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Brent Street and Brent Park<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVxx4He-La8RX3TPKWh4wvDpy_VgPMaRkn1pdhotmc73hgS3fjXWj89Kucq5rB1731jlhQB4iqsBBkoRowzgWSS3-4OsFnlChFuXc14alB3lR1x-hr5RQ1fQHYAOfNYRoAodrbaN5Bz98/s800/brentparksummerhouses.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVxx4He-La8RX3TPKWh4wvDpy_VgPMaRkn1pdhotmc73hgS3fjXWj89Kucq5rB1731jlhQB4iqsBBkoRowzgWSS3-4OsFnlChFuXc14alB3lR1x-hr5RQ1fQHYAOfNYRoAodrbaN5Bz98/w300-h400/brentparksummerhouses.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Now-derelict summerhouses by Brent Bridge,<br />with the river flowing between them.</td></tr></tbody></table>Another hamlet in Hendon parish was Brent Street,
first recorded in the early 17<sup>th</sup> century as a straggle of cottages
along the old highway between Hendon, Golders Green and Hampstead just north of
where it crossed the Brent at Brent Bridge. By the end of the 18<sup>th</sup>
century, it had become a favoured location for smart country houses, like Shire
Hall which gives it name to Shirehall Lane, the street the Ring now follows.
The house itself was in the opposite direction, just south of the park. In
1876, Brent Street was described as a “genteel hamlet”; by then, its centre, a
little to the north around the junction with Bell Lane, had become the main parish
shopping centre.<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">By the 1920s, Shire Hall and most of the other big houses
had been demolished to make way for the semis that now line the streets, but if
you continue to the end of the lane, rather than strictly following the line of
the Ring through back streets, you’ll find a handful of older buildings. Two
handsome partly late 17<sup>th</sup> century red brick houses at numbers 8 and
10 are now used by Hasmonean Primary School. The semi-detached cottages at
numbers 2 and 4, set a little back from the road, still display their fire
insurance plaques. Just around the corner on Brent Street itself is Penfold
House, a stuccoed building with a pictorial roundel above the front door, built
as a hostel for passing drovers in 1713.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Whether you follow the official route or divert, you’ll
end up making a final descent to rejoin the Brent, passing 1970s housing at
Woodburn Close on the left, on the site of Brent Bridge House, a substantial 18<sup>th</sup>
century stuccoed mansion. In the 1920s it was converted into the Brent Bridge
Hotel, with Brent Lodge, a farmhouse just on the other side of the river which
had been rebuilt as a ‘gentleman’s residence’ in the 1820s, as an annexe.
The riverside provided attractively verdant and genteel surrounds, and some
remnants of those days are still visible as you reach Brent Bridge. Two curious
round shelters with pointed roofs looking like something out of a fantasy novel
stand each side of the water just east of the bridge, originally summerhouses
for hotel guests but now slowly crumbling. The Ring uses a footbridge a little
upstream to cross into Brent Park: this is a recent replacement for a flimsier
earlier bridge linking the two sites. The annexe was demolished in 1935 and
replaced with a large block of no-nonsense moderne-style apartments; the main
house went in 1974.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Spotting the busy road which crosses Brent Street a little
south of the river, you may realise why someone thought to open a hotel here. This
is the North Circular Road A406, voted the noisiest road in Britain in 2003 and
identified in 2013 as London’s most polluted road. It was conceived in the
1920s as an orbital route between the A4 at Chiswick and the A13 at Barking,
not only to improve connections for motor vehicles but to help repurpose
munitions factories into industrial sites and create jobs for servicemen
recently demobilised following World War I. This section was completed as a
dual carriageway by the early 1930s and further extended as part of the
Ringways scheme in the early 1970s, when the Staples Corner junction was
remodelled to accommodate the M1. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoBodyText"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUdP6XE1XN7LmojT53ItJUIM5ZgIrqmhEuoYEl4Yf4e-pPmH-BoHInmq8d2R8sq02_MiN_MVAlMkCsl74wBosJZg_wNR14UjzePDmAkWL_AjsmZreeyJJzd-RycsYXdYnng5t3hNBpRNw/s800/brentparkdecoy.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUdP6XE1XN7LmojT53ItJUIM5ZgIrqmhEuoYEl4Yf4e-pPmH-BoHInmq8d2R8sq02_MiN_MVAlMkCsl74wBosJZg_wNR14UjzePDmAkWL_AjsmZreeyJJzd-RycsYXdYnng5t3hNBpRNw/w300-h400/brentparkdecoy.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Decoy Lake, Brent Park.</td></tr></tbody></table>If there are future problems with the footbridge you may
find yourself having to walk a short stretch of the A405 but otherwise the green
surrounds of Brent Park shelter Ring walkers from the worst of the traffic. The
Brent was remodelled here perhaps as early as the 11<sup>th</sup> century when
the land was held by Westminster Abbey, to run alongside a long, sinuous lake. This
once had a practical purpose as a duck decoy: the birds were encouraged to
congregate in the open lake, then driven by dogs or lured by food downwind into
ever-narrowing channels topped with hoops, trapped in nets and taken for the
table. The idea was likely a Dutch one – the English word ‘decoy’ is from the
Dutch <i>eendenkooi</i>, ‘duck cage’ – and although numerous such structures
survive in the Netherlands, they’re now rare in Britain.<p></p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The surrounding land was once Decoy Farm but was remodelled
in the early 19<sup>th</sup> century to become gardens and parkland for Brent
Lodge. In 1934, with the lodge due for demolition, it was bought by Hendon
council as a public park. It’s an atmospheric, perhaps slightly gloomy, jumble
of lively streams, placid open water, overgrown parkland, scrub and neat lawns,
with a rustic stone bridge spanning the northern end of the lake. Noting that farm
buildings once stood opposite where you leave the park to cross Bridge Lane at
the point where it becomes Bell Lane, you join the footpath that completes our
journey upstream beside the Brent.<i><o:p></o:p></i></p>
<h3>Along the Mutton Brook<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg4lCTXyz9ltN_IazwGfM-l824-macCtTJ5OahZNlrKcbeWQeAL_2Mmg9L9-i9eDnye3sYxW1D6FLRWWXyByA1gEuB2sVG0goOvLfmWNjljehnKb1EjSFLf7rLKEfTtMXm8XDfGiKdsec/s800/dollisgreenwalksigns.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg4lCTXyz9ltN_IazwGfM-l824-macCtTJ5OahZNlrKcbeWQeAL_2Mmg9L9-i9eDnye3sYxW1D6FLRWWXyByA1gEuB2sVG0goOvLfmWNjljehnKb1EjSFLf7rLKEfTtMXm8XDfGiKdsec/w300-h400/dollisgreenwalksigns.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Disturbing signs in Brookside Walk.</td></tr></tbody></table>The Brent is one of those curious rivers that
officially starts not at a spring but at a confluence. There are two main
headstreams. The Dollis Brook rises at Moat Mount between Stanmore and Barnet
(<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/london-loop-16-borehamwood-cockfosters.html">Loop 16</a>) and flows for around 15 km, roughly east to Totteridge then south between
Hendon and Finchley. The Mutton Brook rises in Cherry Tree Wood, East Finchley,
and flows east for around 5 km: we’re about to follow almost its entire length. Here
at Mutton Bridge in a little triangle of green space, they join to become the Brent.<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Mutton Brook formed an ancient hundred and parish
boundary: crossing it, we leave Hendon in Gore Hundred to enter Finchley in
Ossulstone Hundred, though both are now part of the London Borough of Barnet.
Ossulstone was the largest of the Middlesex hundreds and became the most
metropolitan, covering all of what’s now central London north of the Thames
apart from the City itself and extending to Brentford, Ealing, Willesden,
Finchley, Friern Barnet, Hornsey, Stoke Newington, Hackney, Bow and Poplar. It
was so big that it was subdivided in the 17<sup>th</sup> century into
‘divisions’ – Finchley is part of the Finsbury division. The unusual name is
from the meeting place of the hundred court at St Oswald’s Stone, a pre-Roman monolith
by the Tyburn Tree at the foot of Edgware Road, which mysteriously disappeared
in 1869. Ossulstone is the last of the Ring’s Middlesex hundreds, though we’ll briefly
dodge back into Gore when we’re forced onto the other side of the brook.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">In the 1930s, an enlightened local councillor came up with
the idea of a waterside walking trail through what was then the Municipal Borough
of Finchley, alongside the Mutton Brook and the Dollis Brook. In 1992, at a
time when the idea of urban walks was gaining traction through the work of the
London Walking Forum and others, the London Borough of Barnet improved and
expanded this trail to create the <a href="https://www.barnet.gov.uk/parks-sport-and-leisure/walks-and-trails/dollis-valley-greenwalk" target="_blank">Dollis Valley Greenwalk</a>, from Moat Mount
along the Dollis and continuing along the Mutton to Hampstead Garden Village.
In the 2010s, the Greenwalk was improved with money from the Mayor of London
awarded following a popular vote: one of the most obvious outcomes here is the
broad surfaced path, which also forms part of a cycle route. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The London Loop uses the upper west-east
section of the Greenwalk, while the Ring now follows much of the Mutton Brook
section, initially through a strip of park called Brookside Walk. The rest of
the the trail, which joins here from the north, provides a useful link between
the two orbitals.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">One thing the recent investment apparently hasn’t been
able to fix is the water quality. Concern about this was first raised in 1990
when an independent survey commissioned by residents reported that the Dollis
and Mutton brooks were dangerously polluted. Barnet council claimed it was
unable to trace the source of the pollution and resorted to installing warning
signs alongside the water. The problem continues to this day, with conservation
groups regularly reporting spills of raw sewage, thought to originate from modern
housing with shoddy plumbing that discharges into the storm drains and thence
into the brook. Sadly, you’ll see the warning signs remain in place along
Brookside Walk.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkQ1T2x50myTrAk1ttWj2hIWrSfUjYO8zuHUieGIhd8zQmNR-E6HuoBeE5aEE3GlACf4-KobvO1S0Cj8tWP521KycB8pxA0wky0FL6kEb6T9OXNDPBHVY4v8xnBwR15DlifmzqNobDATM/s800/ladelivrance.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkQ1T2x50myTrAk1ttWj2hIWrSfUjYO8zuHUieGIhd8zQmNR-E6HuoBeE5aEE3GlACf4-KobvO1S0Cj8tWP521KycB8pxA0wky0FL6kEb6T9OXNDPBHVY4v8xnBwR15DlifmzqNobDATM/w300-h400/ladelivrance.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>La délivrance</i> at Charter Green. Designed by<br />a pacifist, installed by a fascist.</td></tr></tbody></table>A short tunnel takes the Ring under the North Circular
Road to continue between the road and the brook past grass lawns and play areas.
We’re soon paralleling not just the A405 but the A1, which briefly shares the
tarmac with the North Circular here. Reaching the often-congested road junction
of Henlys Corner, it’s worth making a short detour to Charter Green, a small open
space much valued by locals despite the heavy traffic on surrounding streets,
on the other side of the A405.<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">At its northern end you’ll find a striking bronze sculpture
of a naked woman with outstretched arms, one holding a sword: <i>La deliverance</i> by
the French sculptor Émile Oscar Guillaume (1867-1954), created in 1920 to commemorate
the war dead of Nantes. This copy, known locally as simply as ‘the Naked Lady’,
was commissioned by newspaper tycoon Harold Harmsworth, Viscount Rothermere,
owner of the <i>Daily Mail</i>, and donated to Finchley Council in memory of
his mother in 1927. As Harmsworth and his newspaper became prominent British
supporters of Nazi Germany and the British Union of Fascists, it doesn’t appear
he got Guillaume’s intended pacifist message.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The other main road that crosses here is Finchley Road (A598),
a turnpike built in 1835 as an improved route from the West End to the
north, avoiding steep climbs at Haverstock Hill and Hampstead. Known as Regents
Park Road north of the junction, it runs from Marylebone by what’s now Baker
Street station to North Finchley where it joins the Great North Road, of which
more later. Crossing a partly wooded grassy space on the other side of Finchley
Road to rejoin the brook, you’re walking over the former forecourt and
showrooms of Henly’s Garage, one of the biggest branches of a well-known but now defunct London
car dealing chain, which stood here between 1935 and 1989 and gave the junction
its name.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">A footbridge takes the trail back into Hendon again along
the south side of the brook on a shady, wooded path. On the other side of the
water, the A406 is disentangling itself and heading northeast towards New
Southgate, while the brook continues to parallel the A1. Meanwhile, our path is
briefly forced away from the waterside to emerge into Hampstead Garden Suburb.<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<h3>Hampstead Garden Suburb<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaVdf__76HarvnylytmO1QATHZREhp1AdVpJ-GTIQBOWI6lPYaxwrzEnzYkBgliJqJ_Ld4InzCu9fE3LLDXhuS9I8c10JteTaYBPSRdwYMmlW8gexsBxhlAT_goe20PtuK4aZ1F0A9m5o/s800/northwaygardens.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaVdf__76HarvnylytmO1QATHZREhp1AdVpJ-GTIQBOWI6lPYaxwrzEnzYkBgliJqJ_Ld4InzCu9fE3LLDXhuS9I8c10JteTaYBPSRdwYMmlW8gexsBxhlAT_goe20PtuK4aZ1F0A9m5o/w300-h400/northwaygardens.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Mutton Brook in genteel Northway Gardens.</td></tr></tbody></table>I won’t go into great detail about ‘the Suburb’, as
its inhabitants know it, as we’ll explore it in more detail when I cover all of
the Dollis Valley Greenwalk in a later post: although the Ring spends some time
traversing the estate, it misses the most notable architecture. But to give
some context, the development was the contribution to the garden city movement
of philanthropist Henrietta Barnett, also responsible for Toynbee Hall and the
Whitechapel Art Gallery in the East End. In 1907, the <a href="https://www.hgstrust.org/" target="_blank">trust</a> she set up purchased
an initial 99 ha of land from Eton College and began to lay it out as low-density
housing with plenty of green space under a master plan drawn up architect
Raymond Unwin, with several other prominent architects of the day designing
individual buildings.<p></p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">The area we’re in is known as the Artisans’ Quarter,
which provides a clue to both the plan’s good intentions and its flaws. It was supposed
to provide accommodation for people of all classes and income groups, but still
retained segregation between them. There were two big churches but few shops
and no pubs, deterring those who couldn’t afford their own transport, and the estate
soon became a redoubt of the privileged, much favoured by upper middle-class
intellectuals and artists.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Just upstream of where we leave the brook, the parish boundary
turned south to follow the edge of what’s now Little Wood, so after the first
terrace of housing, the trail leaves Hendon for Finchley for the last time. This
was also the edge of the original freehold plot developed by the trust before
World War I on the Hendon side of the boundary, but the Suburb subsequently grew
considerably beyond this. The first expansion was into the area we now enter, where
land leased from the Church Commissioners in 1911 was largely built up in the years
following the war.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Dollis Valley Greenwalk soon leaves to the right on a
footpath through Little Wood, one of two preserved patches of ancient woodland,
ending a little to the south at the Hampstead Heath Extension. The Green London
Way also chooses this path, haring off on a long dogleg via Hampstead village. Our
way, meanwhile, converges with the A1 for a few paces to rejoin the Mutton Brook
through Northway Gardens, laid out by Raymond Unwin as part of the post-1911 expansion.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">At first the surroundings are well-wooded, with willow and
ash, but then the character changes dramatically: you’re in a neat but charming
traditional park with tennis courts, a pergola, flower beds tended by a local
community group and the brook running politely in a stone-lined channel now
narrow enough to step across. No doubt it would all still meet the approval of
the Edwardian philanthropists. To retain the pre-World War II impression, there’s a
listed red K6 phone box at the end of the park, tucked down an alley a little
to the left along Northway, just past the terrace café with its floral planters.
This spot is the Market Place, the only retail facility in the original plan. Beyond
this is a smaller patch of park, Fletchers Gardens, with specimen trees and shrubs
on a landscaped green slope.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4F5niNJt7kKg7TvRnwjr8X2EXWTkzmwz4E8Ofd2Q_ANr_iK7xp1pL7tgZWi1Yr0oquo3woqEAAL9DQTsNxGSpt_MChLZe6hippspUZkiN_w1bOiDwkhv4RD-Ko_Bi43RMZWDpplZhW0o/s800/hampsteadgardensynagogue.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4F5niNJt7kKg7TvRnwjr8X2EXWTkzmwz4E8Ofd2Q_ANr_iK7xp1pL7tgZWi1Yr0oquo3woqEAAL9DQTsNxGSpt_MChLZe6hippspUZkiN_w1bOiDwkhv4RD-Ko_Bi43RMZWDpplZhW0o/w300-h400/hampsteadgardensynagogue.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hampstead Garden Suburb Synagogue.</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;"><br />The next street, Kingsley
Way, marks the limit of the development directly overseen by the trust: the rest
dates from the late 1920s and 1930s and was the work of private developers who paid
a fee for the privilege of marketing it as part of the Suburb. The housing is
built to higher densities with fewer distinctive architectural quirks, although
it shares some of the red brick charm and today is almost as desirable and
expensive. The Mutton Brook continues through another open space, Lyttleton
Playing Fields, originally laid out in the 1920s: the strip of woodland north
of the brook, Watery Wood, is ancient, but the Ring diverges from it through
surroundings with a more municipal atmosphere. A large grassy sports field, planned
as a cricket ground, stretches to the right, with a café in a sturdy 1930s
building to the left. The Ring leaves past a bowling green onto Norrice Lea and
passes the Hampstead Garden Suburb Synagogue with its imposing neoclassical portico,
purpose-built in 1935.<o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">After paralleling
the A1 for some distance, the Ring finally crosses it. As originally designated
in the 1920s, the A1 followed the Great North Road, of which more below. The
road here, which runs east-west rather than south-north, was a diversion built
at the same time as the surrounding houses in the 1930s, part of a series of new
lengths of road which bypassed the busy bottleneck of central Barnet on the
original coaching route. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">The privately
developed reaches of the Suburb spill over the A1. Just to the east is the
Grade II-listed modernist flat block Belvedere Court, while the streets away from
the main road have a very exclusive feel, laid out around cul-de-sacs and geometric
grass patches like the semi-circular Vivian Way Open Space. Finally, there’s a
collection of nostalgic timber-framed houses along Edmund Walk, built from
recycled materials. The Ring leaves the suburb along an alleyway to East Finchley
station, where a public walkway through the concourse takes it to the Great
North Road.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>East Finchley<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9hzFbv6RXYLQZVKwY33ZOUAQPYIpRyeX4FKw8aguMIezvM_Btkk3ZWh5chh63sNAL4IKUBaHg3nEqxrgrlyXAj7j6NxbEuNmkG6m-6BYaVccla_oUfGIbvT8ThKoQCbZTNfYI5mLVF3w/s800/thearcher.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9hzFbv6RXYLQZVKwY33ZOUAQPYIpRyeX4FKw8aguMIezvM_Btkk3ZWh5chh63sNAL4IKUBaHg3nEqxrgrlyXAj7j6NxbEuNmkG6m-6BYaVccla_oUfGIbvT8ThKoQCbZTNfYI5mLVF3w/w300-h400/thearcher.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The archer atop East Finchley station,<br />pointing the way to London.</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">Though Finchley
has an Anglo-Saxon name, meaning ‘Finch’s woodland clearing’ (likely a personal
name rather than a reference to the bird species), the parish isn’t mentioned
in the Domesday survey and doesn’t appear in the historical record until the
early 13<sup>th</sup> century. This is likely because it was long part of the extensive
holdings of the Bishops of London and was simply counted in with their estates
in Fulham, despite being some distance away. The bishops also held Hornsey, the
neighbouring parish to the east, and there was some overlap: the area of Hampstead
Garden Village we’ve just walked through was once part of Hornsey Great Park,
the episcopal hunting park.<o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Like Hendon, Finchley was a scattered parish: the historic
nucleus was around the church in the west, some way off our route and, as in
Hendon, named Church End. By the 17<sup>th</sup> century there were more
populous clusters around North End (now North Finchley) and Whetstone in the
north and the area where we now find ourselves in the southeast corner, then
known as East End. The main reason for this settlement pattern was the Great
North Road, which bisects the parish, connecting East End and North End through
what was once the extensive Finchley Common, a favoured haunt of highway
robbers.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The oldest surviving main road from London to the northeast
is Roman Ermine Street from London to York, also known as the Old North Road
and equivalent for much of its route to today’s A10. This begins at Bishopsgate
and runs via Stoke Newington (where we’ll cross it in the next section, and see also <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/london-countryway-12-welham-green.html">London Countryway 18</a> and <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2016/10/london-loop-17-cockfosters-enfield-lock.html">Loop 17</a>), Tottenham
and Royston. With no organised national system of road maintenance in place for
many centuries following the Roman withdrawal, there were various problems with
this road, particularly where it crossed the river Lea at Ware, and several alternatives
emerged. By the 14<sup>th</sup> century a road ran from Smithfield through
Islington, along the Holloway Road and through Highgate, East End, North End
and Whetstone to Barnet. In the coaching era of the 17<sup>th</sup> century,
this was adopted as part of what became known as the Great North Road from
London to York, Durham and Edinburgh, continuing from Barnet (<a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2016/09/london-loop-16-borehamwood-cockfosters.html">Loop 16</a>),through Hatfield (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/london-countryway-12-welham-green.html">Countryway 18</a>) to Alconbury in Cambridgeshire where it joined the Old North Road.</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">As many as 130 coaches a day passed this way, supporting
numerous coaching inns, the motorway services of the day. The Old White Lion,
just to the right on the other side of the railway bridge, originated as just
such an inn, though the current building is from the 1930s. The Bald Faced
Stag, a little to the north at East End’s central crossroads, is another example,
now in a 19<sup>th</sup> century building.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxcreRMZFX18gQzYst2hn6l5YIkt48S24oog5n7fhc_UVrrtgSdet8NpBZAYpJmdmaZyso5JfIz-wGNaGyMg0r7yhVIJWuQVLlmSnOAxiMsufCctiNzQxa2vF-t8ofYPT3Rj-3pCEJ3WE/s800/greatnorthroad.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxcreRMZFX18gQzYst2hn6l5YIkt48S24oog5n7fhc_UVrrtgSdet8NpBZAYpJmdmaZyso5JfIz-wGNaGyMg0r7yhVIJWuQVLlmSnOAxiMsufCctiNzQxa2vF-t8ofYPT3Rj-3pCEJ3WE/w300-h400/greatnorthroad.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Great North Road at East Finchley, looking<br />north with former Hamburger University left.</td></tr></tbody></table>But the passage wasn’t easy, as Samuel Pepys found when he
visited Barnet in 1660, noting the road across Finchley common was “only one
path and torne, plowed, and digged up, owing to the waggoners carrying
excessive weights”. Such problems were initially addressed by turnpike trusts, authorised
to charge road users tolls on designated sections of road to fund improvements and
maintenance. This stretch was first improved by the Highgate and Whetstone
Turnpike Trust in the 1730s. Road management was eventually taken over by local
authorities overseen by government, but tolls were still charged at the White
Lion until 1901. Carts carrying night soil and manure from central London for
use as fertiliser traditionally used the pub as a distribution point to paying for passage beyond it, earning it the nickname the Dirt House. Acknowledging
its centrality to the trunk road network, the Great North Road was designated A1
in the 1920s, though as through traffic is now diverted just north of Highgate
along the more modern road we recently crossed, the old alignment has been
renumbered A1000.<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">By the 18<sup>th</sup> century, Finchley was a patchwork
of tenanted farms, common and rural settlements augmented by the big country
houses of wealthy Londoners attracted by the road connections. Following the
inclosure of the common in 1816, the Church Commissioners, realising the
earnings potential, began buying back some of the tenancies and leasing out
plots for building, and the Great North Road and the other main highways were
soon lined with housing. Development pressures were boosted in 1867 when the Great
Northern Railway began services along a new line built as the Edgware, Highgate
and London Railway from Finsbury Park, where it connected with the main line
from Kings Cross, via Highgate, Finchley and Mill Hill to Edgware, with a
branch to High Barnet added in 1872. East Finchley was one of the original
stations, known as East End before gaining its current name in 1887: unsurprisingly,
this name then spread to the whole district. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>East End was
already the most populous part of the parish in the 1860s, known for its poorer
cottages as well as big villas. Following the opening of the railway, the posh
houses began to disappear in favour of dense terraced streets inhabited by “struggling
clerks, small tradesmen, and artisans”. This social change prompted some indignation
from the more respectable classes: the local vicar, who had worked in the ‘other’
East End, noted in 1899 that he’d “rarely seen the Finchley boy equalled for
profanity and rudeness” (perhaps why the narrator of David Bowie's song 'Dirty Boys' (2013) is so keen to go to Finchley Fair). Finchley became an urban district in 1895 and a
municipal borough in 1933 before forming part of the London Borough of Barnet
in 1965.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">East Finchley was bombed relatively badly in World War II
and today many of its buildings are modern. Of note just a short stroll to the
north is the Phoenix Cinema, built in 1910 and saved from demolition in 1983
following a community campaign. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The big
red brick horseshoe-shaped building immediately north of the station on the same
side is Hospitality House, completed in 1992 as the UK head office of fast food
chain McDonalds and once home to their ‘hamburger university’: since 2013 they’ve
donated part of it for use as a catering and hospitality college.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Rail services were radically reconfigured in 1939 under
the Northern Heights plan, which brought the London Underground Northern Line to
East Finchley. As I’ll explain in the next section, the plan was only
half-completed and the line between East Finchley and Edgware was later severed
so trains now only run to and from Barnet and Mill Hill. But the work did yield
the current Grade II-listed red brick and concrete station building designed by
noted Underground architect Charles Holden in the moderne style and now
considered one of his best. Typically for its type, it makes good use of glass
to provide plenty of natural light, with three tall and simple but elegant
windows at the front, one incorporating the Underground roundel, and semi-circular
glazed stairwells to the platforms. <span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">The
jewel in the crown is the 3 m stylised sculpture of a kneeling archer by Eric
Aumonier, high above the left entrance. He’s both a nod to the area’s past as a
hunting park and a celebration of the speedy new electric service, having just loosed
his arrow straight up the line in the direction of central London.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Cherry Tree Wood<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghSoELe9qERYp3e4hPX4VEGQD_KjazD9CvidN6AOciDxLfQe_JOKf33L6_wE3nrPBn3_1_mRyNwww2Y4sRMXgDlAFAaAREDZ8UsohakrhOapMYse-p93-KgQSUMOlGrZrvivlnLoNne68/s800/cherrytreewood.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghSoELe9qERYp3e4hPX4VEGQD_KjazD9CvidN6AOciDxLfQe_JOKf33L6_wE3nrPBn3_1_mRyNwww2Y4sRMXgDlAFAaAREDZ8UsohakrhOapMYse-p93-KgQSUMOlGrZrvivlnLoNne68/w400-h300/cherrytreewood.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Site of watercress beds in Cherry Tree Wood, looking towards<br />the source of the Mutton Brook.</td></tr></tbody></table>Regular readers of London Underfoot will know that London’s
terrain is naturally wooded, and that from the Norman Conquest to 1218, a vast
area of woodland and scrub stretching north from the City walls to the Hertfordshire
boundary was designated the Royal Forest of Middlesex, where freemen of London
had a right to hunt. Following disafforestation, part of it became the Bishops
of London’s Hornsey Great Park mentioned above, with the wooded parts known as
Finchley Wood in the west and Hornsey Wood in the east. A few fragments survive,
and the rest of this section visits three of them in rapid succession,
including perhaps the most famous one. The first, though, is lesser known, more
modest, and something of a pleasant surprise.<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Remarkably, a fragment of woodland survived right by the
Great North Road at East End, once known as Rayle Fall then as Dirthouse Wood
because of its proximity to the muck depot at the White Lion. Some of it was lost
to the railway, but the current triangle survived to 1914 when it was bought by
Finchley council as a public open space and opened the following year under the
rather more salubrious name of <a href="https://www.barnet.gov.uk/directories/parks/cherry-tree-wood" target="_blank">Cherry Tree Wood</a> after nearby Cherry Tree Hill.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The source of the Mutton Brook is just on the other side
of the line: it runs through the wood and crosses the Great North Road here,
but now in a covered culvert with barely a trace on the surface. The railway
obstructed its flow, and the resulting flooded area was used as watercress
beds. Traces of these survive a little further along as a broad, slightly sunken
grass field that’s still prone to flooding. The park had become quite badly
neglected by the 1980s but an enthusiastic <a href="https://friendsofcherrytreewood.home.blog/" target="_blank">Friends Group</a> has helped restore it
as a varied and attractive space, most recently with the addition of a
community orchard to help it live up to its name.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Historically the wood straddled both Finchley and Hornsey
parishes and their successor districts: the boundary ran north to south across
your path by the junction past the play area on the right, just before the
sunken green. Hornsey didn’t contribute anything to its purchase as a public
park, an enduring bone of contention until 1965 when the boundaries were tweaked
and all of the site placed in Barnet. Past the refreshment kiosk (currently
untenanted, sadly), you cross the redrawn line to enter the London Borough of Haringey
through some smart decorative gates onto Fordington Road.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Hornsey parish covered a much bigger area than the urban
centre and former principal village to the northeast we know by that name today.
It included Muswell Hill, Crouch End, Finsbury Park and most of Highgate and
stretched southeast as far as Clissold Park on the boundary of Stoke Newington.
Like Finchley it was held by the Bishops of London “since time immemorial”, with
the difference that it was regarded as part of their estates at Stepney rather
than Fulham. The names Hornsey and Harringay have a common Anglo-Saxon origin as
<i>Hæringshege</i> meaning ‘enclosure belonging to Hæring’. The ‘Hornsey’ form
came to be used for the parish and village, the Harringay form for a specific
part of the parish and, more recently, the alternative spelling Haringey for the
borough, formed by combining the former parishes of Hornsey and Tottenham in
1965.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The history of Hornsey is a long story of clearing woods
for farmland. About half the parish was wooded in 1390, reduced to a third in
1648, with only a few patches left today. The hilly countryside attracted a
quotient of big houses from the 18<sup>th</sup> century, but intensive
development happened more slowly than in neighbouring Finchley due to poor drainage.
The pace accelerated in the 1890s, mainly through the construction of smaller,
cheaper terraced homes with a few posh enclaves. Following World War II the
area fell into deprivation, with the notable exception of Highgate, but like
much of working-class London it’s been transformed in recent years with trendy
new private housing. The area we’re now in is on the edges of Fortis Green:
this began to emerge as a distinct suburb in the 1820s, later boosted by the
arrival of the railway, but the streets we pass through were some of the last
to be built up, about a century later. Behind the houses on the left side of
Fordington Road, not visible from the trail, a playing field covers an
underground reservoir, Fortis Green Reservoir, built to service the New River
in 1886: we’ll encounter the watercourse itself in the next section.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Highgate Wood<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu9M04_KVRK0xDZS_xZfc9Ew__bv0_GZ04W_pwKWFKJ2HUbFODg68PXWuWNDjJHd5zuHbx4UGAh6Kv6YDRKRvnAL-g652xndTILLYuf41WJZYr-lqKQPKhXp58vG_IWtlucvBwsrJ3MRM/s800/highgatewoodfountain.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu9M04_KVRK0xDZS_xZfc9Ew__bv0_GZ04W_pwKWFKJ2HUbFODg68PXWuWNDjJHd5zuHbx4UGAh6Kv6YDRKRvnAL-g652xndTILLYuf41WJZYr-lqKQPKhXp58vG_IWtlucvBwsrJ3MRM/w300-h400/highgatewoodfountain.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Coleridge Fountain, Highgate Wood.</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">An alley
between the semis of Lanchester Road leads to one of London’s best-loved green
treasures, <a href="https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/green-spaces/highgate-wood/visit-highgate-wood" target="_blank">Highgate Wood</a>. At 28 ha, this oak and hornbeam woodland is the
largest remnant of the Bishops of London’s share of the Forest of Middlesex, mentioned
in the Domesday survey and possibly continuously wooded since the end of the
last glacial period about 11,700 years ago. But its character as ancient
woodland is mediated by the legacy of changing management regimes during its
more recent, and comparatively lengthy, career as a public open space.<o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Once it was ‘woodland pasture’ grazed by cattle, but from
the 16<sup>th</sup> century, when it was known as Brewhouse Wood, it was subdivided
and leased to tenants for commercial forestry. The hornbeams were periodically
coppiced – cut back to a ‘stool’ just above the ground – to yield sticks for
charcoal and firewood, while the oaks grew into tall ‘standards’ which were
then felled for use in building and shipbuilding. Timber from Highgate found
its way into many Royal Navy ships as well as the new churches demanded by
London’s expansion.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">This activity declined during the later 19<sup>th</sup>
century and in the 1860s gravel was being extracted from part of the site to
surface local roads, providing a new name, Gravel Pit Wood. The last lease
expired in the 1880s and the Church Commissioners began planning to sell off
the wood for housing. But local people were already using it for informal
recreation and in the 1880s Henry Reader Williams, a local councillor and wine
merchant who was also involved in campaigning for free education for poor
children, launched a call to preserve it as public space, generating
considerable correspondence in <i>The Times</i> newspaper.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Commissioners, clearly <i>Times</i> readers, eventually yielded to public pressure,
agreeing in 1885 to donate the site to be “maintained in perpetuity for the
benefit of Londoners”. But the wood was just outside the territory of the
Metropolitan Board of Works, predecessor of the London County Council, and the
urban districts of Middlesex were yet to be created. So as with several other large
sites around the capital which were protected during the 19<sup>th</sup> century,
the City of London became the new owner, even though the wood was a
considerable distance beyond its boundaries. Highgate Wood, as it was renamed,
remains in the City’s portfolio of extra-mural green spaces today: it’s the
first and only one on the Ring, though there are several more on the London
Loop.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Perhaps reflecting the more urban surroundings and the proximity
to central London, the City’s management over the following decades was more
interventionist than we’d expect for a patch of remnant countryside today. Trees
were thinned out, their lower branches removed, and areas cleared for grass sports
pitches. coppicing ceased and the ground was kept scrupulously clear with
fallen branches swiftly removed. Various structures were installed: a network
of tarmac paths, staff lodges and a drinking fountain. Not only did this change
the character of the site, it reduced the biodiversity, particularly on the woodland
floor and understorey.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Things began to change in 1968 when a complaint from the
London Natural History Society successfully halted a programme of new plantings
using exotic conifers rather than native broadleaved trees. In recent decades
the City has pursued a more wildlife-friendly policy, allowing fallen branches
and trees to decay naturally and encouraging fungi and invertebrates. Coppicing
has been restored and areas of the wood are periodically fenced off to allow
regeneration.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The legacy of the previous regime remains visible but now
seems another component of the site’s special character as an unusual hybrid of
woodland and Victorian park. The surroundings are still much less dense than
the neighbouring, and more ‘natural’, Queen's Wood, as we’ll shortly see: in
summer the tall standards with their high canopies seem to march through a
succession of dappled glades, creating an almost dream-like atmosphere when the
sun shines. Yet it’s once again rich in wildlife: 70 species of birds have been
identified, along with five bat species, 180 moth, 12 butterfly and 80 spider.
50 different types of tree and shrub grow here, including the wild service
tree, a reliable indicator of ancient woodland. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Deservedly, the wood boasts a Green Heritage
award alongside its Green Flag, and since 1990 has been a Site of Metropolitan
Importance for Nature Conservation.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring enters through Bridge Gate, which indeed involves
crossing a bridge over what appears to be a deep canyon filled with greenery. It’s
actually the cutting of the Muswell Hill Railway, operational between 1873 and
1956. There’s much more to this story which I plan on covering at the start of
the next section when it has a major bearing on the surroundings, so let’s simply
note it for now. Just through the elaborate gate, two Ring waymarks are
attached to short posts made from curved branches looking curiously like embracing
figures.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Our old friend the Green London Way rejoins at this first
path crossing, following its long diversion via Hampstead. This is also our
first encounter with the Better Haringey Trail, which takes a slightly different
route through the woods before rejoining the Ring a little further on. It originated
in 2004 when the council held a competition for suggestions from the public for
improvements to the borough. The proposal for the trail was the winning entry
and it was designated the following year using existing access: it isn’t signed
but is shown on <a href="https://www.haringey.gov.uk/sites/haringeygovuk/files/933_43_-_walking_map_p1-2.pdf" target="_blank">Haringey’s cycling and walking map</a> (PDF). It <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>makes a 19 km circuit of the borough with
optional linking routes, starting and ending at Bruce Castle in Tottenham and
running via the Lea Valley, Finsbury Park, Highgate Wood and Alexandra Palace.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The path you follow, lined by bluebells in spring, passes through
a portion of the wood with the oldest known evidence for habitation. Archaeological
investigation in the late 1960s and early 1970s unearthed evidence of Romano-British
pottery kilns deep in the wood to the left, active in the 1<sup>st</sup> and 2<sup>nd</sup>
centuries. A little further on, you cross the line of a still visible ancient earthwork:
its origin is obscure, but it could have formed an animal enclosure or a defensive
boundary.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Perhaps the most attractive of the Victorian additions
stands at a crosspaths in the middle of the wood: a drinking fountain topped
with a pink granite obelisk, donated by generous locals in 1888, though like
nearly all historic London drinking fountains it no longer serves its original
purpose. It’s sometimes known as the Coleridge Fountain after the Romantic poet
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), whose lines adorn the base, taken from a
poem appropriately named ‘Inscription for a Fountain on a Heath’. The choice of
poet is appropriate too as Coleridge lived in Highgate from 1816 until his
death. There’s no direct evidence he walked here, but it seems highly likely.
The words read:<o:p></o:p></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoBodyText">Drink, Pilgrim, here; Here rest! and if thy heart </p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoBodyText">Be innocent, here too shalt thou refresh</p><p class="MsoBodyText">Thy spirit, listening to some gentle sound</p><p class="MsoBodyText">Or passing gale or hum of murmuring bees!</p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoBodyText">From here you can see the rear of the Pavilion Café straight
ahead, occupying a former cricket pavilion built in 1937 which fronts onto the sports
field. But the Ring turns east towards the edge of the wood, passing the Lodge
on the left by the next path junction. This was built as the Head Keeper’s
lodgings in 1886 to a mock-Tudor design by architect Horace Jones, also responsible
for several larger City of London projects, like Leadenhall Market and Old
Billingsgate Market. He was clearly keen to remind passers-by of the site’s new
owners: the City’s logo, a white shield with a red cross and an upturned sword
in the upper left quadrant, is prominently displayed on a gable. <o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Queen’s Wood<o:p></o:p></h3><div><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmewVODMub1DcLaHPPyirfFL8ooqCuPTRXvem0oAIDdzzWo2FcRWPFxP-x7r_soPLh02Moz7Boqc9HyFjcSJoNBxjbAgWECdqm2971too7GNNaLhpXHiZrg1csXEnxE8jRvK1xXuKy60E/s800/queenswoodpond.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmewVODMub1DcLaHPPyirfFL8ooqCuPTRXvem0oAIDdzzWo2FcRWPFxP-x7r_soPLh02Moz7Boqc9HyFjcSJoNBxjbAgWECdqm2971too7GNNaLhpXHiZrg1csXEnxE8jRvK1xXuKy60E/w300-h400/queenswoodpond.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lower Pool, Queen's Wood.</td></tr></tbody></table>Immediately opposite Highgate Wood on the other side of Muswell Hill Road is <a href="https://www.haringey.gov.uk/libraries-sport-and-leisure/parks-and-open-spaces/z-parks-and-open-spaces/queens-wood-local-nature-reserve" target="_blank">Queen’s Wood</a>, another coppiced woodland that was part of the Bishops of London’s estate but long regarded as a separate portion which in the 19<sup>th</sup> century was known as Churchyard Bottom Wood. There’s a long local tradition that the wood contains a plague pit, a mass burial site for victims of the 1665 plague outbreak, but no hard evidence. Following their loss of Highgate Wood, the Church Commissioners began eyeing up its neighbour as a development site, but once again local campaigners sprang into action. The newly formed Hornsey Urban District bought it “for the free use of the public forever” in 1898 for £25,000, some of which was raised from public donations. The name was changed to Queen’s Wood to mark Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee the previous year.</div><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The council's improvements included the
charmingly rustic Keeper’s Lodge of 1899, with its clock tower and veranda, on
the left shortly after you enter the space. It’s now a park café, using some
ingredients grown in what was once the keeper’s private garden, now an organic
garden maintained by volunteers. But the council and its successors lacked the
resources of the City, resulting in an less interventionist management regime which
in retrospect was more beneficial for wildlife. This wood has quite a different
atmosphere to its neighbour, with more densely packed trees, a thicker
understorey and rougher paths clambering over its hilly terrain. It had become neglected
by 1990 when it was designated as a Local Nature Reserve and since then an
active <a href="https://www.fqw.org.uk/" target="_blank">Friends Group</a> has helped turn things round.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">One Friends project was to restore three woodland ponds,
and we pass a small but valuable example, Lower Pool, shortly after the entrance.
Soon after this, at a fork, the Ring crosses the remains of a woodbank constructed
in the second half of the 16<sup>th</sup> century. Around this time the management
regime changed from wood pasture, where grazing animals roamed freely, to more
intensive commercial coppicing and timber production, and the bank was designed
to keep out not only livestock but also wild deer who otherwise would have
eaten the shoots of newly coppiced trees. It’s worth making a short detour along
the left fork to the largest pond, Frog Pool. It was converted to a concrete
paddling pool in 1935 but fell into dereliction and was turned back into a
nature pond in 2011.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The ponds are a reminder that we’ve crossed the watershed
from the Brent valley into the Lea valley: they’re sources of the river
Moselle, which flows for around 11 km through Crouch End and Tottenham to join
the river Lea near Markfield Park. Much of the flow is now culverted and some
of it is buried: you can trace it along an unsigned trail, the Moselle River
Walk, which begins at the fork and is also shown on the walking and cycling map. Its name means ‘moss hill’, also found in the
placename Muswell Hill, and in origin is nothing to do with the rather more
famous and substantial Rhine tributary which flows through France, Luxembourg
and Germany.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Back on the Ring along the right-hand fork, the area to
the right is one where coppicing was restored in 1992. You then need to cross a
quiet wooded lane – a rarity in London – to pass through a further patch of
wood. A steep ramp then emerges onto Priory Gardens in the Highgate
Conservation Area, with its mix of early 20<sup>th</sup> century and late
Victorian terraced and semi-detached housing. Ring 11 ends at an Edwardian lamp
standard with a sign that indicates the trail continues up a side alley, and to
leave the walk here you simply keep ahead for a short distance to Highgate
station.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Highgate station<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara">The Ring reaches Highgate station through the back
door: a steep wooded ridge rears up behind it, giving some idea of how the
streets and other infrastructure have been cut into the hilly terrain. Atop
this ridge is the main traffic artery of Archway Road, but I’ll reserve comment
on this and the surrounding area of Highgate until the beginning of the next
section when we’ll see a bit more of it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Before diving into the Tube, though, walk a few steps
uphill along the footpath that heads right just before the station entrance and
have a good look through the fence. The view is obscured by trees, but you
should be able to make out some buildings that look like they belong on a
station platform. That’s exactly where they are: this is Highgate high level
station on the trackbed of the original railway through the area. Had the
Northern Heights plans mentioned above been completed in full, it would be an
integral part of a busy interchange station with trains to Finsbury Park, Moorgate,
Muswell Hill, Alexandra Palace, Edgware and Bushey Heath as well as today’s familiar
Northern Line destinations. But it’s been closed since 1954, though
occasionally accessible on guided tours run by the London Transport Museum. As
we’ll soon discover on our next walk, its loss was ultimately walkers’ gain.<o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBFoPMu9o3UgzMOO9LSHtTNauzCXaka8db57DZXySt6g4vuQgS8L7v5jg4qqxNFL87lVRMUGxYxyRVkPwxQIfZdxK1YUTshPmFvDT-9mHUAeNzKQky5f98F8R1zsVeKTJ6Looh1sveOe0/s1000/highgatehighlevel.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBFoPMu9o3UgzMOO9LSHtTNauzCXaka8db57DZXySt6g4vuQgS8L7v5jg4qqxNFL87lVRMUGxYxyRVkPwxQIfZdxK1YUTshPmFvDT-9mHUAeNzKQky5f98F8R1zsVeKTJ6Looh1sveOe0/w640-h360/highgatehighlevel.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Highgate High Level Station, glimpsed from the end of Priory Gardens.</td></tr></tbody></table>
<h3>Route descriptions<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara">From 2021, Ramblers volunteers in London have been
maintaining a revised and updated set of route descriptions for the Capital
Ring in partnership with Transport for London, as part of their Ring Rangers
scheme. As these descriptions are an improvement on what was previously
available, I’m no longer providing my own, but instead compiling summary
information sheets with more detail on distances, facilities, linking trails
and alternative routes, surroundings, accessibility and features of interest.
These also include corrections and additions to the Ramblers’ descriptions
where I thought these were needed.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Ramblers route descriptions: <a href="http://innerlondonramblers.org.uk/capital-ring" target="_blank">innerlondonramblers.org.uk/capital-ring</a>. There's an addional link on this page to check for the latest changes and diversions.</li><li><a href="https://1drv.ms/b/s!Ao6Ku7ZAkxE9gr0G1JnxeTZmg2nlKQ?e=fexyUP" target="_blank">London Underfoot information sheet</a> (PDF)</li><li><a href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1dEzj8toHFPhGR8hjigYqpojJJYA&usp=sharing" target="_blank">Google map</a></li></ul><div><br /></div><p></p>Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-41098374318990660362021-01-02T11:42:00.008+00:002024-01-17T11:27:32.384+00:00Capital Ring 8/9: Boston Manor - Greenford - South Kenton<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH2O27Hucsk396yFRx2w16YYh3ipii09dOOGNk23kAAexHKJlheZC9VEWpGXNa-HsLLZ8R9JJjor9fwya-5s4JlLlkBNS2IIQYVrlbIrheG1n9B-RISKsqx6h0jXHA6SbnNW0cSdcj3iY/s1000/brentlodgepark.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH2O27Hucsk396yFRx2w16YYh3ipii09dOOGNk23kAAexHKJlheZC9VEWpGXNa-HsLLZ8R9JJjor9fwya-5s4JlLlkBNS2IIQYVrlbIrheG1n9B-RISKsqx6h0jXHA6SbnNW0cSdcj3iY/w640-h360/brentlodgepark.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The river Brent in Brent Lodge Park.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">The landscape of this walk is impressively varied.
It begins with an easy stroll through the Brent River Park in the wide, flat
flood plain of the Brent valley, with plenty of waterside walking including two
branches of the Grand Union Canal and a stretch of the river Brent itself. Then
the terrain changes suddenly as the trail climbs steeply over two Middlesex
hills of very different character. Horsenden Hill, a patchwork of woodland and
old hay meadows, is a surprisingly rural oasis amid suburbia. Harrow on the
Hill, in contrast, is largely built-up, with the historic buildings of Harrow
School creating an unusual environment. The final stretch descends on ancient
footpaths across the school playing fields and Northwick Park.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">This post covers two consecutive official Ring sections
combined to create a day walk. One ends and the other begins near Greenford
station, but there are plenty of other transport options evenly spaced along
the way. The trail passes the entrances to three additional stations and there
are easy links to five more, before even mentioning bus stops. <o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Brent River Park<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara">The river Brent is one of the longest Thames
tributaries in London, longer still if you include its upper tributary which
traditionally goes by a different name. This stream, the 13 km Dollis Brook,
rises at Moat Mount between Barnet and Edgware: <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2016/09/london-loop-16-borehamwood-cockfosters.html">London Loop 16</a> passes one of its
sources then follows the infant brook roughly east to Barnet. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here the brook turns south, leaving the Loop,
although it remains tracked by another signed trail, the Dollis Valley
Greenwalk. At Bridge Lane in Hendon on the next section of the Capital Ring, the Dollis Brook becomes the Brent at its confluence with the much shorter Mutton Brook,
which rises in Cherry Tree Wood, East Finchley, about 3.5 km away.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">From Hendon the combined flow runs
southwest via Brent Cross and Wembley, joined by the Silk Stream and Wealdstone
and Wembley Brooks, to Greenford, then south and southwest through Hanwell and
into the Thames at Brentford, a distance of about 16 km. The stretch between
Hanwell and Brentford was substantially remodelled in the early 19<sup>th</sup>
century to create the southernmost part of what’s now the Grand Union Canal,
although the natural course of the river survives in places, leaving then
rejoining the artificial watercourse. The origin of the name isn’t clear and
it’s not known whether Brentford or the river was named first: it may derive
from an ancient Celtic term meaning a high place. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">As often with urban rivers, the need for flood control has
deterred housing development too close to the banks, and while the navigable lower
section has inevitably attracted industry, the canal towpath has kept it
accessible, creating a green ribbon along much of the river’s course. In 1973 a
group of local people set up the Brent River and Canal Society (BRCS), which
advocated to make the most of the lower part of the valley between Hanger Lane
and Brentford through the creation of an integrated park. The result was
today’s <a href="https://www.brcs.org.uk/" target="_blank">Brent River Park</a>, around 400 ha of continuous green space on both sides
of the river between the A4 and the A40, nearly all of it in the London Borough
of Ealing and most of it publicly-accessible. BRCS is still active today in
protecting the park, including from austerity-led threats like the recent
proposal by the council to lease Warren Farm to Queens Park Rangers FC as a
training ground. Meanwhile a loose collective of councils and organisations
like the London Wildlife Trust collaborates over a wider area of the valley as
the <a href="http://www.brentcatchmentrivers.org.uk/" target="_blank">Brent Catchment Partnership</a>, with a variety of projects to improve it for
wildlife and public access.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="color: red;"><b>Update</b> September 2023</span>. The QPR scheme at Warren Farm was never built and the planning permission lapsed in 2020. But in early 2023 Ealing council voted to 'de-wild' over half the site, which has become an important nature resource, by constructing a sports centre and pitches, provoking further vociferous local opposition: see <a href="http://warrenfarmnaturereserve.co.uk" target="_blank">warrenfarmnaturereserve.co.uk</a>.</p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring entered the Brent River Park on the <a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2018/08/capital-ring-67-wimbledon-park-richmond.html">last section</a> when
it passed under the A4 by the GSK building in Brentford. Since Brentford Bridge,
it’s been following the Brent River Park Walk, an 11 km riverside route through
the park to Hanger Lane first promoted in the late 1980s. The Catchment
Partnership has a long-term plan to improve and extend this trail, creating a
continuous link on to Hendon and Barnet and incidentally providing a tempting corner-cutting
alternative to the Ring. Both trails make use of the towpath of the <a href="https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/canal-and-river-network/grand-union-canal" target="_blank">Grand Union Canal</a>, also the route of the Grand Union Canal Walk linking London and
Birmingham. You can read more about the canal under <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/london-loop-1112-hayes-hillingdon.html">London Loop 11</a>, which
follows a longer section of towpath.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Osterley Lock to Hanwell Locks<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsDIfTtgLnty59hQOwJCLvSa4hrLI8qnCKPAzIPj6aiGoIV2_I3q06FnPD4_yzWYvOocAy_J5UGg3hoeKRcUpCeiy2nUnAFASRRGIxh5QyrL0In2x4HY2lTqsIapvNapHiZBb4UQ-FXIE/s500/britishwaterwayssign.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsDIfTtgLnty59hQOwJCLvSa4hrLI8qnCKPAzIPj6aiGoIV2_I3q06FnPD4_yzWYvOocAy_J5UGg3hoeKRcUpCeiy2nUnAFASRRGIxh5QyrL0In2x4HY2lTqsIapvNapHiZBb4UQ-FXIE/w400-h300/britishwaterwayssign.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>As stated in the previous section, though Boston
Manor station, where the linking trail to this section starts, is in the London
Borough of Hounslow, the boundary runs along the Piccadilly Line so as soon as
you leave the station, you’re in the London Borough of Ealing, created in 1965
by merging the former Municipal Boroughs of Acton, Ealing and Southall. Once,
this area was all Boston or New Brentford manor, part of the long, thin parish
of Hanwell in the Elthorne hundred of Middlesex. The name Elthorne is little
used today, though in the 1880s there was a local campaign to revive it as a
replacement name for Hanwell. This made little historical sense as the parish
had no special significance in the hundred, but it explains contemporary names like
Elthorne Park, Elthorne Riverside and Elthorne Woods.<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The western boundary of Hanwell followed the Brent, and as
the towpath is on the east of the canal here, where the canal follows the
original course of the river, the trail runs inside the old parish. But where
the course has been straightened to leave loops of river to the east, the
towpath ventures out of ancient Hanwell. This happens almost immediately you
join it by the M4 motorway bridge, where a meander of the Brent runs over a
weir at Osterley Lock, creating a semi-circular island and taking you briefly
back into ancient Isleworth.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The lock is so-named as it’s on land that once formed part
of the Osterley estate, first noted as a separate manor within Isleworth in
1274. In 1562 it was bought by Elizabethan statesman and financier Thomas
Gresham, who also later acquired Boston Manor. Gresham had the old farmhouse
rebuilt as a splendid mansion, which was remodelled by Robert Adam in 1760 and
is now owned by the National Trust. Surrounded by parkland, it makes for a
worthwhile visit, but it’s some way off our route to the west, now cut off by
the canal and the M4.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The peaceful surroundings of the lock have received a
boost recently thanks to the <a href="https://orchardtrail.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Hanwell & Norwood Green Orchard Trail</a>, a
community project to establish and maintain small orchards locally. As was
standard practice, a lock keeper’s cottage was originally provided, and though
this had been demolished by the 1980s, remains of its garden, complete with
small orchard, survived on the island enclosed by canal and river. Between 2015
and 2017 the dense undergrowth on this site was cleared by volunteers and a
dozen new fruit trees planted to join the two surviving pear trees from the
original garden, along with bulbs and other plants. The history of this stretch
of the Brent is rather less pleasant: the loop of river beyond the orchard was
the site of Gallows Bridge, from where a track led to gallows used for public
executions.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Beyond the lock, the towpath returns to ancient Hanwell by
crossing the Brent again where it rejoins the canal by a weir. Just past here,
a broad sandy path forks off uphill, taking the Brent River Park Walk and the
unofficial Green London Way on a parallel route close by, along the top of the
slope to the right, with more open views across the Elthorne Park Extension. This
is a former landfill site, thus the change of level, but it’s been a public
open space since the 1970s and was one of the original additions to the Brent
River Park. The official Ring route, meanwhile, stays on the towpath, where
you’ll pass a curiosity: a large plaque with an inscription recording a prize
awarded to a British Waterways (predecessor of the Canal and River Trust) team
for the length of its piling in a pile driving competition in 1959.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The two paths converge again at the ‘new’ Gallows Bridge,
which takes Trumpers Way across the canal and into an industrial estate on the
west side. Connoisseurs of new London breweries may be interested to know that Weird
Beard, founded in 2013, occupies units here. After the bridge, several
irregularly shaped informal green spaces separate the canal from the housing:
the natural course of the Brent once meandered to the east here although it’s
been long-since filled in. This means you’ve once again temporarily left
ancient Hanwell, now entering the old parish of Hayes, which I’ve said more
about under <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/london-loop-1112-hayes-hillingdon.html">Loop 11</a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The first little green space is known as the Piggeries, a
reminder of one of its previous uses. It’s now another of the community
orchards, planted with fruit trees in 2018. Here, at the base of a mature tree
set back from the canal, is a Hanwell parish boundary stone. The canalside is the
site of Hume’s Wharf, said to have been constructed in the first half of the 19<sup>th</sup>
century by Thomas Hume, a former physician to the Duke of Wellington, and used
for transporting gravel dug nearby. Beyond this, the canalside and many of the
surrounding streets are part of the St Mark’s and Canal Conservation Area.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Brent rejoins the canal, and the trail re-enters old
Hanwell, where the waterway starts to bend left beside allotments. These are a recent
addition, on formerly derelict land converted in 2011 into the William Hobayne
Community Gardens, which also include nature areas and an apiary. Hobayne was a
local man who in 1484 gave a house and a plot of land to fund a charity for the
poor and needy of Hanwell. The charity still makes individual grants to people
in distress, and maintains this site and others, including a local community
centre. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Next along on the right is St Margarets Open Space, named
after a nearby road. In 2016 this became the site of the third community
orchard along this stretch of the trail, and the project is also helping manage
other parts of the space to create hay and flower meadows. Just past this along
Green Lane, a former drove route, is the Fox pub, built in 1848 and a now a
much-loved local with a reputation for its cask beer. As its name suggests,
this was the meeting place for the local hunt until the 1920s: the area to the
east here, now entirely built up, was once the expanse of Hanwell Heath, a
popular site for chasing foxes. Over on the west side of the canal here is the
disputed site of Warren Farm.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Just past Green Lane, the Grand Union Canal finally parts
company with the Brent, which forks off right. The lock immediately ahead here
is the lowest of the six Hanwell Locks, one of the most remarkable engineering
features of the entire canal, as well as a picturesque setting that caught the
eye of painter J M W Turner among others. Completed as part of the original
canal structure in 1796, the locks raise the water level 16.2 m over 500 m,
lifting the canal out of the Brent valley and setting it on a westward course towards
the Colne valley. Anyone who has ever had to work a boat through them, a
process taking at least an hour, will understand why though as a mode of
transport the canals were an improvement on the roads of the day, they were
quickly eclipsed by the railways for speed and convenience.<o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqnwdFoGQ8YXYvfrH_oVztkli9Ebd5je95ChkdgjsVS8NFWQ734EIadmHDE0BmvjggHNH0d1kxegv8zTY2UigUtdgAdVvZ_U9GSBVybDicV2UfKqiriCko-lOUlTpXr7BRIJ9NtxjXoTc/s1000/hanwelllocks.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqnwdFoGQ8YXYvfrH_oVztkli9Ebd5je95ChkdgjsVS8NFWQ734EIadmHDE0BmvjggHNH0d1kxegv8zTY2UigUtdgAdVvZ_U9GSBVybDicV2UfKqiriCko-lOUlTpXr7BRIJ9NtxjXoTc/w640-h360/hanwelllocks.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hanwell Locks</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoBodyText">The towpath and the signed Grand Union Canal Walk continue
here towards Hayes, where they link with the London Loop, and more energetic
walkers can continue all the way to Birmingham if they wish. But the Capital
Ring sticks with the Brent River Park Walk, alongside the Brent towards Hanwell
proper.</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Hanwell<o:p></o:p></h3>Hanwell has a Saxon name meaning ‘cockerel’s spring’
and there’s archaeological evidence of settlement as early as the 6<sup>th</sup>
century. The original village likely grew up around Cuckoo Hill, where the church
stands today, further along our walk, overlooking the Brent and beside an
ancient track leading southwards along the valley to Brentford. Today’s main
east-west highway, the Uxbridge Road, is thought to be more recent, dating from
the early middle ages. As mentioned previously, Hanwell evolved into a
strip-shaped parish on the east bank of the Brent, between the bend of that
river at Greenford and the Thames, though the development of the southernmost
part, New Brentford, was more closely bound up with the emergence of
neighbouring Old Brentford in Ealing parish. Until relatively recent times,
much of the central part of the parish, to the east of our route, was an open
waste known as Hanwell Heath: today it’s been entirely developed but even into
the early 19<sup>th</sup> century there were few houses south of the Uxbridge
Road.<p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Hanwell’s modern appearance was shaped not only by transport
developments like the turnpiking of the Uxbridge Road in 1714, the canal in 1796,
the Great Western Railway in 1838 and the tramline between Ealing and Southall
in 1901, but by the establishment of large-scale amenities for London’s growing
population that took advantage of those links. One of these was the Central
London School, a combined school and workhouse for poor children which moved
from Norwood to a purpose-built site on Cuckoo Hill accommodating 1,200
children in 1856. Its most famous inmate was Charles Chaplin who was here
between 1896 and 1898 along with his brother Sydney. The school was closed in
1933 but some of the buildings are still in use as a community centre.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Another local site dedicated to managing the problems of a
vast metropolis was the First Middlesex County Asylum, the first purpose-built institution
of its kind in England, opened in 1831 on land immediately west of the Brent. In
an era where the distinction between mental illness and mental disability still
wasn’t entirely appreciated, the asylum was the expression of a new approach
which recognised that some ‘lunatics’ at least might be cured and didn’t have
to be restrained for life in appalling conditions. Its first superintendent Dr
William Charles Ellis was firmly convinced of this, prescribing fresh air,
physical activity and what we’d now call occupational therapy: the asylum was
as self-sufficient as possible with its own carpentry, bakery and brewery
worked by patients, though the last was closed in 1888 as it was considered
inappropriate for the “habitual drunkards” then being sent to Hanwell. One of
Ellis’ successors, John Connolly, who took over in 1839, abolished the use of
mechanical restraints.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The regime at Hanwell was a major improvement on previous
approaches to mental health and disability and achieved notable results. But
there was an economic imperative too: locking up someone for life might
ultimately cost the authorities more than rehabilitating them as a productive
individual. The institution was renamed the London County Asylum in 1889 and
again as St Bernard’s Hospital in 1937. During the 1960s it was the site of
several advances in the treatment of alcohol dependency. In the 1970s the site
was redeveloped as a general hospital, Ealing Hospital, though several original
buildings still stand and remain in psychiatric use as the St Bernard’s Wing.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The pleasantly wooded footpath along the Brent from
Hanwell Locks to Hanwell Bridge is known as FitzHerbert Walk after Luke
FitzHerbert (1937-2007), a Dublin-born local teacher who was a prime mover in
the creation of the Brent River Park, and later made a career switch to become
an influential fundraising expert in the charities and voluntary sector,
helping establish the Directory of Social Change. Across the river is Billets
Hart, once a common meadow, now another larger area of allotments managed by
the William Hobbayne charity; to the left, the hospital buildings can be
glimpsed through the trees. Strictly speaking, as the path, the locks and the
hospital are on the west side of the Brent, they’re not within the ancient
boundary of Hanwell parish but in Southall, in what was once an
ecclesiastically independent precinct of Hayes parish known as Norwood (not to
be confused with the area of same name along Ring 4).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring arrives at Brent Bridge, more commonly known as
Hanwell Bridge, where the Uxbridge Road crosses the Brent. The date of the
earliest crossing here isn’t known but there are references to repairs as far
back as 1396 and the outer arches on the south side, facing you as you
approach, remain from the mediaeval bridge. The bridge was rebuilt in stone in
the late 15<sup>th</sup> or early 16<sup>th</sup> century, then in brick by 1675.
The Uxbridge Turnpike Trust rebuilt and widened it in 1762, and the inner
arches on the south side date from this period, though faced with Victorian
stonework. In 1906 it was refaced again and widened on the north side, resulting
in the current Grade II-listed structure. The riverside path continues under
the bridge but this section is often wet and muddy so you may have to cross
Uxbridge Road at street level.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Turning right along the road from the bridge takes you
along the shopping street of Hanwell Broadway with its rather stumpy though
oddly charming concrete art deco clock tower installed in 1937 to commemorate the
coronation of George VI. This street flourished with the progress of the tram
line along the Uxbridge Road in the early 20<sup>th</sup> century: much more
affordable than trains, the trams completed the transformation of Hanwell and
neighbouring Southall (see <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/hillingdon-trail-1-cranford-west-ruislip.html">Hillingdon Trail 1</a>) into working class and lower middle-class
suburbs in the first half of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, with most of the
remaining open land disappearing beneath streets.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Facing these development pressures, the old boroughs of
Southall and Ealing made some efforts to preserve green spaces, many of which
now form part of the Brent River Park. North of Uxbridge Road on the Southall
side, the trail threads along the edge of Brent Meadow, a former hay meadow
that’s now a mix of mowed and more natural grassland and has recently become
the site of another community orchard. It provides a fine platform from which
to appreciate one of the most important historic structures in the area: the
magnificent Wharncliffe Viaduct.<o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsJpCTz5MCOTB4eS2ZdjVhNLSIlmWrEsV-6Q5ZWfJattvGuzXsFI7EK5YmojsYZJTH0jaQvACejYb0J0xqe57YetKHmt6OBn8_EnqVI5G4jQxBlFVsFfqYwNaSxxwoD63CCpcqImzAJkw/s1000/wharncliffeviaduct.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsJpCTz5MCOTB4eS2ZdjVhNLSIlmWrEsV-6Q5ZWfJattvGuzXsFI7EK5YmojsYZJTH0jaQvACejYb0J0xqe57YetKHmt6OBn8_EnqVI5G4jQxBlFVsFfqYwNaSxxwoD63CCpcqImzAJkw/w640-h360/wharncliffeviaduct.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Wharncliffe Viaduct, as recommended by all local bats.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoBodyText">A good example of the 19<sup>th</sup> century engineer’s
knack for designing infrastructure that could be both practical and attractive,
this was the first major work of Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-59) and the first
large structure along the line of his celebrated Great Western Railway (GWR). Completed
in 1837 and now Grade I-listed, it spans 270 m of the Brent valley on eight 5.3
m-high arches. It’s named after James Mackenzie, Lord Wharncliffe, who chaired
the parliamentary committee which steered the bill for the line’s construction
through parliament, and whose arms can be seen on the central pier as you
approach. The supporting piers are hollow – one of Brunel’s innovations, which
greatly reduced the cost – and have subsequently become home to colonies of
bats.</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The viaduct was part of the first section of the GWR to
open to the public, from Paddington to Maidenhead in 1838. Originally it was laid
with ‘broad gauge’ track, the rails spaced seven feet (2134 mm) apart, though
later converted to standard gauge. When this section was electrified for the
Heathrow Express service in the 1990s, the gantries supporting the overhead
catenary were aligned with the viaduct piers to reduce their impact on the
structure’s elegant lines.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Just before passing under the viaduct, the trail swaps to
the east bank of the Brent and back into Hanwell proper. A Ring link route on
the other side runs through small local parks and streets to Hanwell station. This
opened in 1838 a few months after the railway itself, though it later moved
sites: originally it was accessed from the first road you encounter along the
link, still called Station Road, but was rebuilt in 1877 about 200 m to the
east. The current Grade II-listed station, which is scheduled to become part of
the Elizabeth Line in the next couple of years, preserves some historic
buildings, canopies and wooden platform structures. It was known as Hanwell and
Elthorne between 1896 and 1974, in response to the renaming campaign mentioned
above, and historic GWR signs bearing this name remain on the platforms.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Incidentally, there’s another way of walking to the
station on the south side of the viaduct which runs through the woodland of Half
Acre Field, another area of land gifted to the poor of the parish by William
Hobayne; and Connolly Dell, named after John Connolly (1794-1866), the
superintendent of Hanwell Asylum who abolished the use of restraints: this
pleasant hidden gem was once his private garden.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Brent Lodge Park<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara">On the other side of the viaduct, the trail runs
through Churchfields Recreation Ground and the adjoining Brent Lodge Park, now one
of the most popular and attractive green spaces in Ealing but originally the
private creation of an ill-fated property speculating clergyman. In the 1780s, when
grand country homes for prosperous Londoners began to appear on parts of the
old manorial estate of Hanwell Park, the rector, George Henry Glasse (1761-1809), started buying parcels of land close to his church, including a large house known
as Brent End, later renamed Brent Lodge. It was Glasse who first landscaped the
grounds into a park, and built a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cottage
orné</i>, the Hermitage, which still stands on Church Road just off our route.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Glasse, who had succeeded his father as rector, enjoyed
some recognition as a Classical scholar, novelist and author, translating
Milton into Greek and contributing humorous Latin versions of popular songs to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Gentleman’s Magazine</i>. He borrowed
money to carry out the work at Brent Lodge, hoping to profit by selling it on to
a wealthy owner. But he failed to find a buyer and had to take out a further
loan from a City bank to cover his debts. Writer and diarist Hester Thrale, whom
we encountered at Streatham Park on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/capital-ring-45-crystal-palace.html">Ring 5</a>, records that Glasse inadvertently
left this money in a cab when he stopped off for a meal at a famous coaching
inn of the day, the Bull and Mouth in St Martins Le Grand, and hanged himself
in despair when he realised what he’d done. In a final twist, the honest cabbie
returned the lost property to the pub the following day.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Ownership of the estate eventually passed through marriage
back to Montague Sharpe, the heir of Hanwell Park, the manor from which it had
been carved. Sharpe sold Churchfields to the Hanwell Urban District Council for
use as a public park in 1898, then sold Brent Lodge to its successor Ealing
Borough Council in 1931. Between them, Brent Lodge Park and Churchfields now
total 16 ha of formal parkland, open grassland, historic gardens, woodland
patches and riverside meadows.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">After the viaduct, the Brent bends west and the Capital
Ring follows it, with Churchfields stretching out to the right. Before
Glasses’s alterations, this was glebe land originally allocated to provide a
living for the parish priest, and you can still just about imagine it as water
meadows. The Brent River Park Walk takes an alternative route here, on an old
diagonal path northwest across Churchfields which once linked the church with
the Uxbridge Road. Entering Brent Lodge Park past a hedge, the Ring continues
to track the meandering Brent along the edge of the lawns and meadows, but you
may prefer to follow the unofficial Green London Way by keeping left along the
main surfaced path which takes you through the more formal garden areas and past
several key features of interest.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">First there’s the entrance to the Millennium Maze, also
visible from the riverside route: constructed of exactly 2,000 yew trees, this
was opened in May 2000 on the former site of a bowling green and tennis courts.
Brent Lodge house itself once stood just northeast of here but was demolished
after a serious fire in 1936. The site is now occupied by a park café and the
park’s most celebrated feature, Hanwell Zoo, which explains local nickname
Bunny Park. The zoo, formerly known as Brent Lodge Park Animal Centre, grew
from aviaries established in the 1960s, became an official licensed zoo in 1975
and has expanded several times since, though it’s still one of the smallest
zoos in the country. Admission was free
for most of its history, but this was too good to be true in the age of
austerity, so charges, still relatively modest, were introduced in
2017. The collection includes water birds, butterflies, exotic amphibians and
small mammals like lemurs, mara, meerkats and pygmy goats and pigs.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">To the north of the zoo is a yellow brick two-storey
stable block originally built for Glasse in the late 18<sup>th</sup> or early
19<sup>th</sup> century and now Grade II-listed: this, and parts of a
wall running between the block and the zoo, are the only substantial buildings surviving from the historic estate. Opposite are formal gardens with a more
recent park shelter.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The main path out of the park leads to St Mary’s Church on
its promontory above the river, likely the focus of the original village. This
has changed its appearance dramatically since Glasse was the incumbent: the
current Grade II*-listed building was designed by celebrated Gothic revivalist
George Gilbert Scott, of St Pancras fame, in 1841, with several subsequent
additions. But the first record of a church on the site is from 958, and there
was possibly a pre-Christian shrine here before then. Grade II-listed Rectory
Cottage opposite was built for Glasse about 1800, while a further detour a
little along Church Road will bring you to the Hermitage mentioned above, a
deliberately quaint thatched stucco affair from 1809 which demonstrates that
twee ‘olde worlde’ pastiche dates back much further than the early 20<sup>th</sup>
century.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The official Ring route, the Brent River Park Walk and the
Green London Way merge again at a footbridge at the foot of the footpath
downhill from the church, which also marks the northern boundary of the park,
with Boles Meadow on the other side. Here the trail crosses the Brent again onto
what used to be the Norwood/Southall side, although as the river’s course has been
straightened radically upstream of the footbridge, it’s difficult to work out
where the old boundary ran. The land on the other side was farmland around 1910
when it became the Brent Valley Golf Club, originally a private initiative but
bought by Ealing council in 1938 as part of its strategy to preserve green
space along the valley: stretches of the old hedgerows still survive. Within
the course to the left is the Hanwell Cricket Club ground, now part of Ealing
Cricket Club and known as Ealing Hanwellians.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The path where the Ring turns back towards the river again
once marked the boundary between Southall to the south and Greenford to the
north, but you’re soon back on the Hanwell side of the river walking through
more green spaces. A short but attractive stretch right alongside the river as
it passes along the west edge of Mayfield can be avoided if too damp by
sticking to the surfaced path that carries the Brent River Park Walk. Beyond
this is a large former landfill site known as Bitterns Field: sadly there are
no bitterns to be seen but it’s being managed to encourage other wildlife. The trail
stays on an embankment above the river, passing school playing fields before a
welcome patch of woodland brings you to the road by Greenford Bridge.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Greenford Bridge<o:p></o:p></h3>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8XWpnLsu5UQ5L8cRbM9HLUbjKMlz7SxcSqk5K6nuPE3PBgevMH88mV7oFAKY5hKmdf9njjmkJk_vEbZy6N2rH1AQha690ZQDcdC58T4XbMCOPioXTVg6UKunK8inrQpaTuBr6OLWyD4Y/s1000/greenfordbridge.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8XWpnLsu5UQ5L8cRbM9HLUbjKMlz7SxcSqk5K6nuPE3PBgevMH88mV7oFAKY5hKmdf9njjmkJk_vEbZy6N2rH1AQha690ZQDcdC58T4XbMCOPioXTVg6UKunK8inrQpaTuBr6OLWyD4Y/w640-h360/greenfordbridge.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Today's Greenford Bridge, looking towards Greenford Broadway.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">It’s hard to imagine, but until a hundred or so
years ago Greenford was a rural backwater of Middlesex. A trade directory
published in 1838 describes it as “very secluded”, and there were no main roads
across it until the 1920s. It emerged from the mediaeval period a relatively
large parish, its population scattered across several small and widely
dispersed clusters of housing: Stickleton, along the Ruislip Road in the south;
Brabsden Green on the edge of Horsenden Hill in the northeast; the church and
manor house in the centre; and Greenford Green in the north (these last two are
off our route). Even the opening of
what’s now the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal in 1801 brought little building
in its wake, and the first factory, the Perkins chemical works which pioneered
the production of aniline dyes, didn’t appear until the 1850s. Then over a couple
of decades between the two world wars, Greenford was transformed into the dense
patchwork of suburban housing, industrial sites and mercifully preserved green
spaces we see today.</p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Anglo-Saxon origins of the name remain transparent to
modern readers: the ‘green ford’ by which ancient lanes connecting Ruislip,
Harrow and Hanwell crossed the Brent at the elbow where its course turned from
west to south. Partly because of the former lack of a dominant population
centre, the old parish name is still applied across what now appears to be a
large and undifferentiated swathe of development, and it’s not entirely clear
when locals say ‘Greenford’ precisely which bit they mean.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Greenford manor was held by Westminster Abbey since before
the Norman conquest and became the property of the bishop of London in 1550.
Most of it remained in church hands well into the 19<sup>th</sup> century, and
the Church Commissioners maintained an interest in land here into the 1950s. Though the manor remained rural for so long, the metropolis exerted an influence on
local agriculture: over the course of the 18<sup>th</sup> century, fields used
for wheat and other arable crops for many centuries were progressively given
over to the production of hay to help feed London’s growing horse population.
The parish became an urban district in 1894 and was merged with Ealing in 1926.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The location of the original ford is not entirely clear
but it was likely somewhere close to where the Ring enters the old parish
across Greenford Bridge, parting company with the Brent River Park Walk which
continues along the river. The river was bridged by the end of the 13<sup>th</sup>
century: indeed there were then at least two bridges close to this point, one
of which, Stickleton Bridge, was likely a little way further upriver.
Stickleton itself was further west along Ruislip Road, although the name has
all but disappeared, and the current busy high street of Greenford Broadway is
almost entirely a 1920s phenomenon. A wooden bridge stood on the site of the
current Greenford Bridge by 1614, and at some point in the 17<sup>th</sup>
century it seems Stickleton Bridge was closed, with its approach from the north
along Costons Lane diverted to Greenford Bridge. The current stone structure
dates from 1922.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring now follows Costons Lane, the bend of which is
the legacy of that 17<sup>th</sup> century diversion: it once ran on a
straighter course to connect on the Hanwell side with a road that still
survives as a footpath to the east. The lane is named after a prominent
landowning family in that century. There’s a folk tale retold in an 1890 local
history book but probably apocryphal, of how a local orphan once enriched
himself with a horde of money stolen from a miserly miller whom he stumbled
upon dead in Perivale Mill, concocting a story about a ghost to cover his
tracks before disappearing without trace. Twenty years later, when prosperous
merchant Simon Coston turned up in Greenford to buy himself a country estate,
locals with long memories noted his resemblance to the vanished orphan. So the
story goes, Coston later committed suicide, leaving a confession among his
papers which confirmed he was indeed the orphan who had disappeared with the miller’s
fortune.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The family is also commemorated in the name of the short Brent
tributary Costons Brook, which rises a little to the northwest. The trail
crosses this in Perivale Park, the last Brent River Park site along the Ring, which
was open fields until 1930 when it became public sports grounds and the
nine-hole Perivale Park Golf Course. Much of the site is still given over to golf
and dull expanses of mown grass pitches, but there are some old hedgerows, wildflower
meadows and a community orchard planted in 2018. On the other side of the
brook, a mature tree stands on a path corner and you can just about imagine it
towering above hay meadows. Here the trail turns north, following the ancient
line of Cowgate Lane, which likely once connected Greenford church with Hanwell
across another now-vanished bridge: it still runs outside the park as a
residential street now called Cowgate Road.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Perivale Park, incidentally, is historically in Greenford.
Perivale itself was a separate parish to the east, although it originated as
part of Greenford, becoming a distinct manor in the 12<sup>th</sup> century and
a separate parish over the next two centuries. Until the 16<sup>th</sup>
century it was more commonly known as Greenford Parva or Little Greenford and
this has sometimes been suggested as the origin of its current name, though a
more likely derivation is ‘pear tree valley’. Greenford itself was
correspondingly sometimes called Great Greenford or Greenford Magna to avoid
confusion.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">There’s an opportunity to avoid Cow Lane and the dogleg
around the park perimeter by cutting diagonally across the pitches when they’re
not in use, but then you’ll miss one of the more unusual memorials on the
trail: a bench designed to evoke a piano keyboard. Installed in 2018, it
commemorates Nicky Hopkins (1944-94), the renowned session pianist who worked with
some of the most prominent names in 1960s and 1970s rock music, including the
Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Kinks and Jefferson Airplane. Hopkins
was born nearby in Perivale and knew the park well: the memorial was
crowdfunded alongside a scholarship scheme at the Royal Academy of Music and
the contributors included Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Yoko Ono, Roger Daltrey
and Jimmy Page.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>South Greenford to Greenford<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioI_K_hRkPnP-p_W7ZQv2xWISh5tfupoiWfIaUTKJdQV656vgo48hSjQnQ7j23rdXcpUy0EQ3fEn8AOSdz0NckkM87YlS8uiCdq3tHdRc8JpgaPEyBKsHen82Ip_eXJj1veSlGG3AwW6c/s500/southgreenford.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioI_K_hRkPnP-p_W7ZQv2xWISh5tfupoiWfIaUTKJdQV656vgo48hSjQnQ7j23rdXcpUy0EQ3fEn8AOSdz0NckkM87YlS8uiCdq3tHdRc8JpgaPEyBKsHen82Ip_eXJj1veSlGG3AwW6c/w400-h225/southgreenford.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Greenford branch line crossing Western Avenue.</td></tr></tbody></table>The Ring emerges from the park into residential
streets right beside two pieces of early 20<sup>th</sup> century infrastructure
that made them possible by opening up Greenford to development. To the right is
the Greenford Branch Line, opened by the Great Western Railway in 1904 as one
of two new railway lines through the area, connecting the main
line at West Ealing to Greenford. On opening the railway ran non-stop largely
through fields, but as development began in earnest a station was added here,
originally known as South Greenford Halt. The signing still bears an
alternative name, West Perivale, which is no more historically and
geographically accurate than its official name, South Greenford. Today it’s on
one of London’s more obscure rail services, with a half-hourly shuttle train to
West Ealing except on Sundays when the line is closed: in 2020 this was the
capital’s least used National Rail station.<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Rather busier and more intrusive is the dual carriageway
road the trail now has to cross. This is Western Avenue, one of the new roads
constructed to prepare Britain for the age of the motor car. Linking White City
with Uxbridge as part of a new trunk route between London and Oxford, it opened
in stages from the late 1920s: this stretch dates from 1934. Originally it was
numbered A403 but was renumbered A40 after World War II. Like the ‘Golden Mile’
stretch of the A4 to the south, which dates from a similar period (see <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/capital-ring-45-crystal-palace.html">Ring 7</a>),
it’s known for its art deco industrial buildings, of which the most famous is
the Hoover Building, now a supermarket, about 1.3 km east of here (right). But
more ubiquitous are the 1930s semis which line it, set back as here along
parallel service roads. When traffic was still relatively light, a house along
a major trunk road would have been attractive enough: I wonder quite when their
owners started to question whether they’d really made such a good buy.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Western Avenue still ran through meadows here in the
mid-1930s, but by the outbreak of World War II these were largely filled by
streets. One open space was preserved as playing fields, Cayton Green Park,
which since the mid-1990s has been home to Northolt Rugby Football Club. This
began in 1958 as a works team attached to the Lucas CAV fuel systems plant in Northolt,
hence its name. When the area was developed, a convenient footpath was provided
between the railway and the sports ground.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The trail briefly follows another main road, the Greenford
Road (A4127), though it’s rather quieter than Western Avenue. This is the first
modern highway constructed through Greenford, an early arterial road scheme opened
in 1924 to link the Uxbridge Road between Southall and Hanwell with Harrow and
the routes north. Under the Greenford Branch Line, you arrive at the crossing
with Rockware Avenue with the Westway Cross retail park opposite, a glassy but rather soulless American-style mall with retail units behind a massive car park. Interestingly, this patch of ground wasn’t
built up until the late 1990s, despite its proximity to one of the area’s
largest industrial sites.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Rockware Avenue commemorates Rockware Glass, originally W
A Bailey, a glass container factory just to the east (right), which was one of
the earliest 20<sup>th</sup> century industrial arrivals in the area, opening
in 1900. It expanded to take over a lead works next door and by 1959 occupied a
14 ha site employing over 1,200 people. The works closed in 1973 and was
redeveloped as a distribution centre for the US-based computer giant IBM (International
Business Machines), with a bold modern building designed by Norman Foster which
is now Grade II listed. The open land to the west by the road junction was
acquired by Rockware but was never built on: part of it was used as a golf
course, and during the 1970s part of it was landscaped to provide a green
setting for the IBM building. Sadly, this context has now been lost as the
retail park now occupies the landscaped space, but the rest of the area has
become a valuable ecological and recreational resource, as we’ll soon see. IBM
still uses its building as a data centre.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">This corner is the official end of Loop 8, with a station
link west (left) along Rockware Avenue, following the branch line to Greenford
station and another outcrop of 1920s-style retail along Oldfield Lane. As well
as being the terminus of the branch line, the station stands on the New North
Main Line, now officially known as the Acton-Northolt Line, which like the
branch line opened in 1904. This was a joint project of the Great Western
Railway (GWR) and Great Central Railway (GCR), linking Old Oak Common on the
former’s main line with Denham on the latter’s, now the Chiltern line from
Marylebone. Its main purpose was to give the GWR better access to Birmingham
and the north of England, in competition with the London and North Eastern
Railway (LNER), and the GCR access to the GWR’s terminus at Paddington, though
it was also prompted by the need to serve the Royal Agricultural Society’s
showgrounds at Park Royal.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The original station entrance was on the north side of the
line, where there’s still a street called Station Approach, but in 1947 London
Underground’s Central Line was extended alongside the NNML tracks to West
Ruislip and the current smart ‘moderne’ Underground station was built on the
other side, designed by Frederick Francis Charles Curtis. Rail nationalisation removed
the original rationale for the main line and the old station was closed in
1963. The remaining occasional services from Paddington to Birmingham and
beyond via the NNML were withdrawn in the 1990s, and a token weekly service to
High Wycombe ended in December 2018 when work on the Elizabeth Line broke the
link to Paddington at Old Oak Common. But Network Rail still owns through
tracks here which are used for freight, and a daily ‘ghost’ passenger service
runs instead non-stop from West Ealing via the Greenford branch line and on to
Wycombe. One unusual feature of the station is a lift on sloping rails beside a
staircase, like a miniature funicular, which replaced the last wooden escalator
on the Underground in 2015.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Along the Paddington Arm<o:p></o:p></h3>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoPuOWKpMOaXXPurWHa44Jp2kOulIDbIWNRl482YZZ8qdVF22_LKplKlzzB7CIbX-fYFr2_nH4VkBeKQJKO-14Dm3yGgtRlz3XAw2nBHO74sEWDD0Z49zQvjm9jWS-UXoESttJelBxmMg/s1000/paradisefields.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoPuOWKpMOaXXPurWHa44Jp2kOulIDbIWNRl482YZZ8qdVF22_LKplKlzzB7CIbX-fYFr2_nH4VkBeKQJKO-14Dm3yGgtRlz3XAw2nBHO74sEWDD0Z49zQvjm9jWS-UXoESttJelBxmMg/w640-h360/paradisefields.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wetlands at the aptly-named Paradise Fields</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">A few paces from the retail
park, the surroundings change abruptly for the better as the trail emerges from a subway into
a peaceful oasis of ponds, reeds and scrubby secondary woodland. Paradise
Fields revives the name of a field here shown on an 18<sup>th</sup> century
map, but on a sunny day when damselflies buzz over the lagoons and the sunlight
dapples through the willows, you may well conclude the site is still entitled
to it. This is the remainder of the undeveloped Rockware land, occupied by a
golf course until annexed to Horsenden Hill and remodelled in 2000 with funds
released as a part of the public benefit obligation of the Westway Cross
development. You pass the Subway Lagoon then the Main Lagoon on the right: a
short detour leads to a wooden platform overlooking the latter. Further on, the
woodlands on the right are known as the Flood and the Oaks while the more open
meadows on the left are Bramble Patch Field and Brook Field.</p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring approaches IBM Footbridge, opened with the site
in 2000 to replace an earlier bridge across the Grand Union Canal Paddington
Arm a little further south. A well-defined footpath and cycleway continues
across the bridge and through the meadows of Horsenden West to Brabsden Green,
and Google Maps has this labelled as the Capital Ring, but the official trail
stays on this side of the canal for the time being. A glance at the map reveals
this is a notably less direct route, but it includes an excursion over
Horsenden Hill which you really wouldn’t want to miss.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">I’ve said a bit more about the Paddington Arm on
<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/hillingdon-trail-1-cranford-west-ruislip.html">Hillingdon Trail 1</a>: it was opened from Bulls Bridge to Paddington in 1801 to provide
a more direct route into central London for traffic on the Grand Union Canal than
working through the Hanwell Flight to Brentford and continuing downstream along
the Thames. Following the towpath, you can soon glimpse the IBM building on the
right, followed by the ancient oak woodland of the 11 ha Perivale Wood Local
Nature Reserve (LNR).</p><p class="MsoBodyText">This is one of London’s oldest nature reserves and the
last reserve managed by the <a href="https://selbornesociety.org.uk/" target="_blank">Selborne Society</a>, originally a national
organisation founded in 1885 to commemorate the work of the naturalist Gilbert
White, who had lived at Selborne in Hampshire, hence the name. The early
history of the society is entangled with the emergence of better-known heritage
and environmental charities like the National Trust and RSPB and in its heyday
it owned and managed numerous properties. It’s looked after the wood since 1902
and bought it in 1923 using funds from an anonymous donation. Sadly, the LNR
isn’t open to the public, only to society members and pre-booked educational
groups.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Like Perivale Park, Perivale Wood was actually in
Greenford, outside the old boundaries of Perivale itself, though as soon as you
pass the woodland edge, with the more open area of Lower Thrifts Field to the
right, you finally enter the former parish, if only for a brief visit. Ballot
Box Bridge, where the Ring leaves the towpath, is named after a pub along
Horsenden Lane, of which more later. In fact there are two bridges: the
original humped road bridge, numbered 13, and a more recent parallel
footbridge, numbered 13A. You walk under both before crossing the latter to
reach one of the highlights of the whole trail.<o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCsNo1Ru7z80ZlWPXeMm_mf2ZTi3RanQnFduq_pa7CN9SNmffXe0T0eN4FjMrJxABjSUc3Uxh9CU99zPFNOQ1AATcHotVFmHlkIPpEMseByz9_dFh7rkz25A5ZiqPGJi9G3QgfY2yZcmE/s800/paddingtonarm.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCsNo1Ru7z80ZlWPXeMm_mf2ZTi3RanQnFduq_pa7CN9SNmffXe0T0eN4FjMrJxABjSUc3Uxh9CU99zPFNOQ1AATcHotVFmHlkIPpEMseByz9_dFh7rkz25A5ZiqPGJi9G3QgfY2yZcmE/w640-h480/paddingtonarm.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grand Union Canal Paddington Arm approaching Ballot Box Bridge.</td></tr></tbody></table>
<h3>Horsenden Hill<o:p></o:p></h3>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxvHUXbkuZjorS3zqzVuhHf_WNu8pvpS2OfGL8pkZi0NToQxjaFKs720vMTCDqPBGNw3qbHEO8MOSBIPUKg9xFM7iW7ZBGcMb6FB3IDqs4wpwiRBilVbSb56lQ23UfuXNLieUx7yHeqRk/s1000/horsendenhill.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxvHUXbkuZjorS3zqzVuhHf_WNu8pvpS2OfGL8pkZi0NToQxjaFKs720vMTCDqPBGNw3qbHEO8MOSBIPUKg9xFM7iW7ZBGcMb6FB3IDqs4wpwiRBilVbSb56lQ23UfuXNLieUx7yHeqRk/w640-h360/horsendenhill.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View west from Horsenden Hill towards Northolt.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">Horsenden Hill is one of London’s, and the Ring’s,
brightest green gems, an expanse of old hay meadows, fields, grassland and
woodland, rising to a lofty height of 85 m, the highest in Ealing, above a sea
of largely interwar suburbia. Partly thanks to the discouraging terrain, it
remained undeveloped long enough to be protected by local authorities in an
early version of the Green Belt scheme. In 1933, by which time the eastern
slope had become a golf club, a partnership of Middlesex County Council and
Ealing and Wembley boroughs bought the rest for £98,000 to use as a public open
space. Management was passed to Ealing, and its successor London borough still
looks after the whole site, now much expanded to 100 ha with the addition of
adjacent areas.</p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The name means ‘Horsa’s hill’, resulting in a popular
association with the legendary Horsa who with his brother Hengist is said to
have led the Anglo-Saxon occupation of England in the 5<sup>th</sup> century. Alternatively,
according to a Victorian account, it’s the burial place of a Saxon chief called
Horsa who fought a battle with his son-in-law Bren at Brentford over his
daughter’s honour. But this seems equally fanciful: ‘Horsa’ was a common Saxon
name and the first attested Battle of Brentford was between the Anglo-Saxons
and the Danes (see <a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2018/08/capital-ring-67-wimbledon-park-richmond.html">Ring 6</a>). In fact, the hill was settled long before Saxon times
and may have been farmed 7,000 years ago. Partial archaeological excavations
have unearthed evidence of a Celtic Iron Age settlement on the summit, now a
scheduled Ancient Monument.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">I’ve described three different routes to the top. The preferred
Ring route up the western flank is admirably direct and not too steep until the
final flight of steps, but there’s a longer and perhaps more interesting signed
alternative that includes a bit more of the canal and the buildings of
Horsenden Farm, including toilets. The unofficial Green London Way, meanwhile,
follows the alternative route through the farm then opts for a more direct
climb up the southern slope: this is the most challenging option, with a stile
and a long flight of rough steps through woodland, but all three involve some
effort, rewarded by the views.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The main trail ignores the formal entrance to the site and
heads instead across Horsenden Green, once the locus of a small settlement. Through
a band of woodland, you emerge into a meadow known as Home Mead, striated by
the remains of ancient hedgerows, with the views improving as you climb. You
might even encounter cattle, as grazing has been reintroduced to the site. Crossing
a flat terrace below the summit, you’re walking over a large covered reservoir
constructed in 1951, though disused since the early 1960s. Then there’s the
final flight of steps to the top.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The signed alternative goes through the main gate and soon
runs close to the canal past private moorings on the opposite side of the
towpath, before ascending to the 1860s farmhouse and its surrounding buildings
nestling attractively under the hillside. There was once a visitor centre and
café here, though both are sadly no longer open, though there are numerous
information boards, toilets and other features. In 2014 the farm was leased to a social enterprise which planned to reopen the café and create a horticultural
centre supporting people with mental health difficulties and learning
disabilities. Unfortunately, this project soon went bust, and the farm is
currently managed by voluntary group the Friends of Horsenden Hill. They
maintain the very pleasant front garden and are gradually recreating the
orchard that once stood to the southwest of the house. The tiny Perivale
Brewery occupies an outhouse and is occasionally open for summer events.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The straight track running east-west through the woodlands
behind the farm once marked the northern boundary of Perivale: uphill from
here, you’re back in Greenford. Along the way are signs for the Gruffalo Trail,
installed in 2016 to encourage children to explore the woods: it includes
several chainsaw tree sculptures of the popular characters created by author Julia
Donaldson and illustrator Axel Scheffler. The signed alternative then meanders
back east again through a field known as Long Mead to rejoin the main trail,
while the Green London Way heads more directly uphill.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Whichever way you reach the top, you’ll find a rough
grassy plateau with breath-taking views stretching on a clear day to
Buckinghamshire, Windsor and Surrey. Not too far away and
particularly significant are the twin spires of Harrow on the Hill, the next
major landmarks on our journey. During World War I, this high but flat expanse
was used as an anti-aircraft gun station, then a platform for searchlights in
World War II. There are now no remnants of either these or the Iron Age
settlement, just a few lone trees and a well-preserved Ordnance Survey
triangulation pillar or ‘trig point’, one of the few on the Ring: for more
about these now-redundant structures see <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/london-loop-56-hamsey-green-coulsdon.html">Loop 5</a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The trail descends the hill through Horsenden Woods, part
of which is ancient woodland, a fragment of the Forest of Middlesex. In the
early 19<sup>th</sup> century a local farmer began clearing the trees to create
arable land: the wood was only saved because he went bankrupt and now forms a
valuable part of the patchwork. At the foot of the hill the trail turns west
again, bringing you past Whittlers Wood and back to Horsenden Lane North, a
continuation of Ballot Box Lane, by the Ballot Box itself. The current
pub-restaurant was built in the 1950s some 400 m north of its original location.
The historic pub had completely vanished by the 1970s, its site reabsorbed into
the woodland of the park.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The streets north of the hill were developed in the 1930s
and afterwards. The most prominent building is the brown brick All Hallows
Church, opened on its triangular site in 1940. Designed in the unfussy style of
the day by architect Cyril A Farey, with its squat tower it looks to me like a
cross between a church and a power station. In front is the more recent
addition of a millennium garden. The trail crosses Whitton Avenue, the third of
the main roads which opened up the area in the 20<sup>th</sup> century,
constructed in the early 1930s.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">One welcome patch of green tucked away in the residential
streets across the road is Ridding Lane Open Space, a remnant of the parish
common lands that once covered much of north Greenford, still boasting some
mature trees. The Ring runs alongside it on a stretch of Ridding Lane which bends
west to parallel the railway. Approaching the main road, you’re following the
old parish boundary, though the modern boundary has been realigned slightly
north along the railway tracks. Crossing the railway on Greenford Road, you finally
leave the old Greenford parish and today’s Ealing borough to enter the old
parish and modern borough of Harrow, although the area to the east of the road
has been separated off into Brent.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Sudbury Hill<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis3zL6ysOF_WUWi6nEub5-6TsuXkteM0BM-GOOlDtAyycmxj-Aea8x6PjivNZ7USm6nOxecIK0HE629GcbP-whyIzyZ6X3yDUYQepongjD7dtnsRNEncdXWwQsFBxm0C_QPy-hEQTSTkU/s500/sudburyhillstation.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis3zL6ysOF_WUWi6nEub5-6TsuXkteM0BM-GOOlDtAyycmxj-Aea8x6PjivNZ7USm6nOxecIK0HE629GcbP-whyIzyZ6X3yDUYQepongjD7dtnsRNEncdXWwQsFBxm0C_QPy-hEQTSTkU/w400-h300/sudburyhillstation.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another Holden masterpiece: Sudbury Hill station.</td></tr></tbody></table>The geographical feature that gives Sudbury Hill its
name is a little to the north of our route, part of what was once the ‘south
borough’, of Harrow, of which more later. A stretch of the ancient road between
Harrow and London passes over a hump of the hill and at some point took its
name. In 1903, the District Railway chose the same name for a new station on
its extension from Park Royal to South Harrow, the first of the surface and
sub-surface sections of the London Underground to be electrified from the
start.<p></p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">The railway drove the rapid development of the area into the 1930s and,
as often, the station ended up lending its name to the wider neighbourhood. The
line was extended further in 1910 to Rayners Lane to join the Metropolitan
Railway to Uxbridge and then incorporated into the rapidly expanding Piccadilly
Line in 1932. In preparation for this change, the old station building was
demolished and replaced with the current handsome moderne structure, with its
glazed red brick box incorporating the Underground roundel. It’s now Grade
II-listed as a particularly notably example of the work of architect Charles
Holden, also responsible for several other landmark Piccadilly Line stations of
the same period.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Just a few steps further is a more architecturally modest station, Sudbury Hill Harrow, on the National Rail Chiltern line. It’s
the slightly younger of the two, opened in 1906 on what was then the Great
Central Railway’s link between its Marylebone line at Neasden and the joint
line it operated with the Great Western Railway from Paddington at Northolt
(now South Ruislip). Originally it was named South Harrow, which though more
historically accurate was confusing as the Underground’s South Harrow station
was some distance away, so it was renamed in 1926. As mentioned at South
Greenford station above, services from Paddington on the joint line have all
but ceased, so this is now the main route for Chiltern trains towards places
like High Wycombe and Birmingham.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">After crossing this second railway the Ring forks off
along South Vale, but a few steps further along the main road is another Grade
II-listed building, the former St Andrews Church Institute, a whimsical
Victorian Gothic fake flint cottage from 1849, now a private college. Prior to
1928 when Greenford Road here was incorporated into the arterial road we
previously encountered by Westway Cross, it was a more minor thoroughfare: the
Ring follows the older, more direct route to Harrow, part of which is now a
wooded urban footpath officially known as Green Lane, though locally as Piggy
Lane, another unexpected remnant of hilly rural Middlesex.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The steep climb up the lane begins the Ring’s ascent of
Harrow Hill, merging at the top with the main London road, known here, as just
mentioned, as Sudbury Hill. As usual in London, poshness increases with height, and you’re soon surrounded by large private properties in leafy surrounds. There are some notable listed buildings
in what’s now a conservation area. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
second house on the left, set back from the road and painted white with timbered
gables, is the White Cottage, built in 1908 to a design by the Scottish Arts
and Crafts architect Baillie Scott (1865-1945). On the next bend is another
early 20<sup>th</sup> century Tudor-inspired designer house, the Orchards, with
a distinctive arched gateway: architect Arnold Mitchell built it for himself in
1900. A little further up, you can glimpse a large pale yellow painted house
behind a red brick wall and trees, now known as the Mount House but built around
1810 as the Convent of St Dominic.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">At the top of the slope, the main road bends left downhill
again, but our way is ahead along the old London Road towards Harrow village. At
the corner are two more listed buildings. The three-storey house with the
protruding porch and arched passageway in the centre of the range on the right
just before the junction is Highlands, a particularly handsome mid-19<sup>th</sup>
century house. A much smaller cream-painted building with charming dormer
windows just around the corner is known as Toll Gate Cottage, recalling the fact
that tolls were collected here when the road from Harrow to Paddington became a
turnpike in 1801. The 17<sup>th</sup> century timber-framed building wasn’t a
toll house, however, but a timbered-framed stables and coach house connected to
a bigger propery on the site, likely converted to a freestanding cottage in 1864.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Harrow on the Hill<o:p></o:p></h3>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkGpZNtEbUzdJIgmutB35FFTkJYUAmbvTw3COtnYNZAN23xX3ueqzbok89TV-kDNVk3OAlUddU7CQvHI6bVXb6oyPuhyS_Vey_H4J-MmOxxit09N4J7U_a2XLJoVVS-qwevFO9sAOyQX4/s1000/thegreenharrow.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkGpZNtEbUzdJIgmutB35FFTkJYUAmbvTw3COtnYNZAN23xX3ueqzbok89TV-kDNVk3OAlUddU7CQvHI6bVXb6oyPuhyS_Vey_H4J-MmOxxit09N4J7U_a2XLJoVVS-qwevFO9sAOyQX4/w640-h360/thegreenharrow.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A man who held the manor for a mere weeks surveys the Green at Harrow on the Hill.<br />The Kings Head is the three-storey white building centre left.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">As mentioned under <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/london-loop-1314-harefield-moor-park.html">London Loop 14</a>, Harrow was once a
large parish and manor in the Middlesex hundred of Gore, stretching all the way
from Pinner and Harrow Weald on the boundary of Hertfordshire south to the
river Brent, including places like Wembley and Alperton which are now in Brent
borough. This was a ‘dispersed parish’ of numerous small hamlets linked by
paths, though a centre of sorts developed atop Harrow Hill, one of several
gravel-topped hills rising from the London clay above the river Brent and its
tributaries, at 124 m not quite the highest point in the parish but made conspicuous
by its isolation. This was the location of the <i>hearg</i> or pre-Christian
temple that gave Harrow its name, later replaced by a church.</p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The manor is first mentioned in land grants by King Offa
of Mercia in 767, and at one point belonged to the monks of Christ Church,
Canterbury. After the Norman conquest it was granted directly to the Archbishop
of Canterbury, and the Domesday surveyors recorded 113 inhabitants in 1086. In 1545,
Henry VIII forced Archbishop Thomas Cranmer to hand over the property and
almost immediately sold it into private hands. The manor, for centuries largely
rented out as farmland, passed through several owners, with sections gradually split
off and sold separately: perhaps the most significant holders, between the 17<sup>th</sup>
and 19<sup>th</sup> centuries were the Rushouts, Barons of Northwick, of more
later. The property finally descended to a member of the Spencer-Churchill
family, who sold the remainder in 1920.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Doubtless Harrow would have developed like many other
London ‘villages’ but for an event in 1572 which shifted its fortunes forever. John
Lyon, a wealthy local farmer, obtained a charter from Elizabeth I to establish
a school offering free education to local boys. That school still survives
today, having grown from a charity for the poor into one of the biggest and
most prestigious of British fee-paying independent ‘public’ boarding schools, a bastion
of privilege which has educated seven prime ministers including Winston
Churchill and Robert Peel, and numerous other members of the elite, with other
alumni including George Gordon Byron, John Galsworthy, Richard Curtis and
Benedict Cumberbatch.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Bob Gilbert, whose Green London Way route also passes this
way, identifies three reasons why things worked out as they did. The founding
charter allowed the school to take in paying ‘foreigners’ to help subsidise the
local ‘foundationers’, but with no limit on their numbers or fees, they rapidly
became the focus of attention. Lyon stipulated that the only compulsory subject
was Latin, which pupils were required to speak both in and out of class, posing
a barrier to the poor lads of the parish. Finally, as Eton College near Windsor
(<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/london-countryway-5-windsor-marlow.html">London Countryway 11</a>) positioned itself as the High Tory educational
establishment of choice during the later 18<sup>th</sup> century, Harrow
provided a useful alternative close to London for families with opposing Whig
sympathies. A legal move by local people to force the school back to its
original mission failed in 1805, and by 1867 the <i>Harrow Gazette</i> was
bemoaning that “aristocratic invaders like the Vandals of old have by sheer
force of numbers taken possession and overrun the hill”.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The school’s influence has resulted in an environment
that’s unique, fascinating and completely free of the 20<sup>th</sup> century
suburban blandness typical of so many of London’s outlying centres, but not in
an entirely pleasing way. There’s no single enclosed campus: the many school
buildings are distributed around the village, giving an odd sense of
apartness, like a private space that’s somehow open to the public. You might
have to reassure yourself that you’re allowed to be here even though you’re not
in school uniform with a boater on your head and a chauffeur waiting to waft
you home to mummy.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The village's isolation grew with the opening of the
Metropolitan Railway in 1880. This inevitably crossed the flatter ground below,
and the station known as Harrow-on-the-Hill was some distance from the school,
in a hitherto sparsely populated area then known as Greenhill. The railway
triggered a housebuilding boom, soon creating a dense new town around the
station, now one of the most important local centres in this part of London,
and leaving the hill largely abandoned to the <i>Gazette</i>’s aristocratic
Vandals.</p><p class="MsoBodyText">Most of the private residences up here are occupied by teachers and
other staff, and even the businesses are geared to the school, with prices
pitched at the sort of proud parents who can afford over £14,000 a term for
their sons’ education, so don’t expect a cheap lunch. The remaining pub, the
Castle, just off our route on steep West Street, with a listed multi-roomed
interior preserving numerous late 19<sup>th</sup> century features, would be upmarket
in most other parts of London: here it seems positively earthy. The streets are
eerily spotless, thanks to the practice of sending naughty boys out litter
picking.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Space precludes mention of every significant feature on
this stretch – if you’re seriously interested, there are several dedicated
guides – but I’ll try to draw attention to the important ones, starting with
London Road itself. This ancient highway was another of John Lyon’s passions:
he left more in his will to maintain the road than the school, as commemorated
in the latter’s Long Ducker sporting event in November which includes a run
along the road. As you approach the village centre, note the 1930s K6 phone box
in front of West Acre, the first school building you pass on the left – school
buildings are easily identifiable by their discreet dark blue signing. Next
door is Mount Pleasant, a Grade II-listed three-storey mansion from the early
19<sup>th</sup> century, followed by two shops separated by a passageway in an 1855
building at numbers 104-106.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The small but attractive grassy patch known as The Green at
the junction with Byron Hill indeed looks like a miniature village green, and
in recent years planners have tried to encourage the creation of a small
shopping centre here, though it isn’t the original local centre, which is
further along. As the pub sign on its gantry on the grass testifies, it was
originally the forecourt of an old inn, the Kings Head Hotel, the substantial
three-storey white stucco building set back a little from the street, in line with the gantry.
Local legend holds that this was built on the site of a Tudor hunting lodge,
but it’s unlikely Henry VIII, whose likeness has appeared on the sign since at least 1770, ever visited,
as he only held the manor for a matter of weeks. Still, there are records of an
inn and sign going back to the 16<sup>th</sup> century, though the current
building is 18<sup>th</sup> century. It closed as a pub in 2001 and was
subsequently converted to flats, leaving its sign to deteriorate. The current gantry was installed in 2013 to a historical design and is maintained by the <a href="http://www.harrowhilltrust.org.uk/the_gantry_project" target="_blank">Harrow Hill Trust</a>, who have compiled a detailed history.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Immediately to its right is a listed 18<sup>th</sup>
century house with three shop fronts added in 1895, the middle one of which (84)
retains its original interior fittings as a tailor’s shop, though it now sells antique
light fittings. Overlooking the Green to the left, another K6 phone box stands outside
a solid two-storey brick building topped by a louvred cupola, the Old Council
House built for the parish council in 1913. On the right (north) side of the
High Street is a Victorian Gothic building with three shop fronts (45-49); another
similarly fanciful Gothic building a few doors down (41), now a café, has a
stepped gable and decorated arches above the first-floor windows.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Further along, on
the right, is a brown gate set in a brick wall, and behind it a dun-coloured
mansion clearly built in stages, with one narrow white wall protruding as far
as the street. Up on this wall is a relief of a lion in Coade stone, and there are lions adorning other local buildings too, recalling the name of the
school founder. As you walk a few steps further, the building reveals itself as
even bigger than it first appeared. This is the Park, commanding a country
estate once known as Flambards which dates from the 14<sup>th</sup> century.</span></p><p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The
original house, once the largest in Harrow, was a little further south, back
towards the Green, where a terrace of low shops now stands. Work on its
replacement, designed by John Nash, commenced in 1797, though it’s been much
altered since, including by Lord Northwick, who owned it between 1806 and 1823.
In the 1830s, one of the school's teachers bought the house and part of the grounds for school
use, and by 1885 the whole estate belonged to the institution. The grounds,
remodelled in the 1760s by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown and Henry Holland, are
on the register of historic parks and gardens but are sadly closed to the
public, used by the school largely as a private golf course.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The red brick
building with the distinctive gable end at no 52, rebuilt in 1870 but likely
around a 16<sup>th</sup> century timber frame, is listed, as are the
white-painted cottages beyond it, dating from the 17<sup>th</sup> century or
earlier. The flight of steps past these, leading to West Street, is one of several
in the village necessitated by the hilly surrounds. The junction of High Street
and West Street was once the commercial centre, hosting a weekly market granted
by a charter from Henry III in 1231. The market lapsed by the end of the end of
the 16<sup>th</sup> century and now only a granite drinking fountain installed
in 1880 provides a focus to the space.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">A succession of
substantial listed buildings lines the right side of the High Street’s final
stretch. Moretons, an 18<sup>th</sup> century three-storey house in white stucco,
looms over the top of West Street. No 7, next door, is from a similar period. The
Old House, with its passageway leading to school offices, was rebuilt in the 18<sup>th</sup>
century to incorporate parts of an earlier structure. No 3 was built in 1850
from gault brick, with an elegantly recessed ground floor. No 1 High Street, just by the width restriction, is a fanciful Gothic Revival building from 1866,
with decorated brickwork and a circular turret. Close by is a particularly fine
example of an 1870s pillar box to the hexagonal design by John Penfold, the first
series of post boxes to be painted in the now-familiar red.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd8iBSXck7G4a5GUDYm0k8eA-IlzmYVZbmr4blKffs_Ay6EoG0MNxF9U-GZ-HySjNj_vQoiiW50ixOfr6nGOhToi1TiZxnvY8gg-HwWymiQg7__VsJp8611j1MOg5i_z8oZfP7L5mDSLo/s500/harrowvaughanlibrary.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd8iBSXck7G4a5GUDYm0k8eA-IlzmYVZbmr4blKffs_Ay6EoG0MNxF9U-GZ-HySjNj_vQoiiW50ixOfr6nGOhToi1TiZxnvY8gg-HwWymiQg7__VsJp8611j1MOg5i_z8oZfP7L5mDSLo/w400-h300/harrowvaughanlibrary.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vaughan Library, Harrow on the Hill.</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The main school
buildings are clustered around the fork formed by the High Street and Church
Hill, many of them dating from the second half of the 19<sup>th</sup> century
when the institution expanded dramatically. Standing in front of the
substantial porch of Decimus Burton’s 1845 Headmaster’s House, surmounted by a
shield depicting a rampant lion, and looking towards the fork you can see a red
brick building with two stepped gables and a little white clock tower between
them. This is the Old Schools, substantially rebuilt in 1820 but incorporating the
original 1615 panelled schoolroom.<o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The tip of the
spire of St Mary’s Church just peeks above it. The church is along Church Hill
at its summit and you’ll pass it if you break your journey here by following
the signed Ring link to Harrow-on-the-Hill station. But even if you’re
continuing it’s worth a detour to the oldest building in the village, on the
site that gave the area its name.</span></p><p class="MsoBodyText">The current church was consecrated in 1094
though little of its 11<sup>th</sup> century structure is still visible except
for the lower section of its tower. The most extensive alterations took place
under George Gilbert Scott in 1846-49. John Lyon is buried here, as is George
Gordon Byron’s illegitimate daughter Allegra, who died aged only five. Byron
himself spent much time in the churchyard during his schooldays: his favourite
spot was the Peachey Tomb, now known as Byron’s View, overlooking the green
slopes of Churchfields where the Harrow Fair took place annually between 1261
and 1872. The poet recalled the site in ‘<a href="https://www.bartleby.com/270/1/190.html" target="_blank">Lines written beneath an elm in the churchyard of Harrow</a>’, though the elm burned down in the 1930s.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The wedge between
the two streets is occupied by the Harrow School War Memorial building
completed in 1926, its design by Herbert Baker cleverly weaving ceremonial steps
into the hilly site. Behind it is the1877 neo-medieval Speech Room, designed by
William Burges. Our way runs past perhaps the most striking building, on the
right side of the High Street: George Gilbert Scott’s Vaughan Library of 1863,
a little chapel to knowledge with its stained-glass Gothic windows. It
commemorates Charles Vaughan, an Anglican vicar who became a modernising headmaster
in 1844.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqIjhOE2obdCjqmJ5wODv_4AbNKKT2P8Fb7rz52nzs-juh3jR1PT_3TkADSCJ6nLv-L58WzCFK-Wzj750rOkTtfJSLI3jwZE8TdwgMAIvrynoiAPdEpjvR_ztdKYCvkNoftDmdZ0OPYl8/s500/harrowmusicschool.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqIjhOE2obdCjqmJ5wODv_4AbNKKT2P8Fb7rz52nzs-juh3jR1PT_3TkADSCJ6nLv-L58WzCFK-Wzj750rOkTtfJSLI3jwZE8TdwgMAIvrynoiAPdEpjvR_ztdKYCvkNoftDmdZ0OPYl8/w400-h300/harrowmusicschool.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Music School, arguably the most handsome of<br />Harrow School's buildings.</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The phase of rapid
expansion initiated by Vaughan continued over several decades, though the man
himself resigned unexpectedly in 1859. He pursued a policy of relentless suppression
of homosexuality, which had previously flourished among the students in a culture
described by historian of English public schools Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy as “an
adolescent boy's jungle…where lust and brute strength raged completely
unrestrained”. But according to some accounts he was himself secretly involved
in a passionate gay relationship and was forced to resign or be exposed. Vaughan
himself commissioned Scott to build the Harrow School Chapel next door,
completed in 1857, when student numbers were overwhelming the parish church: in
contrast to the library, it’s a big but dull mock-Medieval affair. Beyond it is
another legacy of Vaughan’s ambition, </span>the mock-Tudor New Schools of 1855
with its looming brick chimneys.<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ring keeps right along Peterborough Road then descends
from the hill along Football Lane, which unsurprisingly given its name leads
down to the sports grounds. The tall red brick building with Dutch gables just
around the corner on the right is the former Butler Museum named after
Vaughan’s successor, built in 1886 and now used as part of the science school. Where
the route ahead becomes a footpath known as Music Hill, you’ll see the Music
School tucked away in its own grounds on the right. It was created by E S Prior
in 1891 in what its listing calls a “highly individual style”, with a
barrel-vaulted roof flanked with square turrets, creating an acoustically
favourable indoor space. Smaller and more modest than many of the other grander
but sometimes aesthetically questionable school buildings, and with a
simplicity that looks forward to the next century, it’s many people’s
favourite.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>Harrow School Playing Fields<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara">Descending past the extensive 1980s school sports
centre to the foot of Music Hill, you’ll find a bristle of footpath fingerposts
pointing out across playing fields These are a legacy of a long-running public
rights of way dispute in which walkers took on the considerable wealth and
influence of Harrow School, winning a victory that had implications for many
other paths.</p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">Once, these grounds with their views of Wembley stadium were mainly
hay meadows, and the agricultural tradition continues at the school’s own farm,
across the fields in the distant corner, partly run by students and now home to
a notable herd of English Longhorn cattle and a flock of Shetland sheep. Ancient
field paths provided useful links for locals and schoolboys alike. Footpath 58,
straight ahead, led to the Ducker Pool, the old school bathing pond, while 57, branching
half-right, ran to the manor house at Sudbury. Then the meadows were drained
and levelled to create rugby and soccer pitches, some of which were marked out
across the lines of paths. For years walkers simply did the sensible, courteous
thing of diverting around the pitches when they were in use.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The problems began in the early 2000s when the school
planned major improvements to its sports facilities at the same time as the
Capital Ring was in development along Footpath 58. Wanting to avoid encouraging
what was technically trespass by requiring walkers to make informal diversions,
Harrow council suggested the creation of additional permissive routes for use
during matches. The school agreed to this in 2003 but that same year, the
council separately granted planning permission for a new astroturf pitch and
tennis courts without reference to the fact that these would lie right across Footpath
57. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems the school took advantage
of the fact that in some legal documents the paths were listed as ‘undefined’, meaning
that while their entry and exit points were specified, their exact alignments
across the fields were not. In seeming contradiction to this, the official
‘definitive’ rights of way maps clearly showed the paths as exact lines, and
this evidence should have prevailed.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7vd8c8QiJDijyM2DrXqGZ17imfs8yEHhXdmcoRFzTOerPJTpyradLVoQs-FtcG8Kamu1VFOU0nSFJl0z1lAzasU4I3e5VG6zhxyEniNv3tg33HA6XuFHXNUMk6O1FIE4sNtzgB7o2YT4/s500/harrowstile.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7vd8c8QiJDijyM2DrXqGZ17imfs8yEHhXdmcoRFzTOerPJTpyradLVoQs-FtcG8Kamu1VFOU0nSFJl0z1lAzasU4I3e5VG6zhxyEniNv3tg33HA6XuFHXNUMk6O1FIE4sNtzgB7o2YT4/w400-h300/harrowstile.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The only and now last stile on the Capital Ring in 2018.</td></tr></tbody></table>The new pitch and courts were duly built and locals soon
began complaining that Footpath 57 was illegally obstructed by fences, locked
gates and heavy machinery. In 2012 the school finally bowed to local pressure
to reopen it, but then attempted to divert both paths officially through legal means
with the support of the council, claiming problems with dog mess on the rugby pitches
and safeguarding concerns. In 2017 the case ended up at a public inquiry,
where the Ramblers, the local MP and numerous other path users argued against
the diversions. The inspector ultimately agreed with the objectors, finding little
evidence for the school’s concerns. She also agreed that the convoluted routes
of the diversions compared to the direct straight lines of the existing paths and
the negative impact on several attractive and historic views would
significantly reduce public enjoyment. This last point has since been referred
to in several other footpath disputes, underlining that decisions on proposed
changes to rights of way must take wider issues into account than simple
distance and convenience.<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The upshot of all this is that we can still walk straight across
the fields, thus the gaps in the tennis court fence for Footpath 57 and the grass markings showing the line of Footpath 58. The permissive
routes are also still in place and the Ring signing encourages you to use one
of these, but feel free to keep straight across the grass instead. Unless of
course there’s a match on, but as the evidence to the inquiry showed, that’s
only likely to be the case for 6% of daylight hours.</p><p class="MsoBodyText">As you walk, make sure to take
advantage of one of those significant views by looking back. You’ll see a
classic profile of Harrow on the Hill, where the spire of St Mary’s church, which
once commanded the surrounding countryside, is now less prominent than the neighbouring spire of the school
chapel, an eloquent symbol of how Lyon’s good deed has swallowed his home
village.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">On the other side of the field the path becomes a
boardwalk across a small brook, a minor tributary of the river Brent.
For years, walkers reached the busy Watford Road here by climbing over what was
famously the only stile on the Capital Ring, but was replaced by a kissing gate in 2020. Once through this and onto the
pavement, you’ve left the London Borough of Harrow for the London Borough of
Brent.</p>
<h3>Northwick Park<o:p></o:p></h3>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhggnP8qQJHzFVuz35sP_u5y2zNtxfKgZUiGG00eTFjimU_qiu0xftn3rSC7koT4DxbwclisYLxZ9iBQtMygYAnJEF2uT0lWKAx8EySjw_EFYI9vTxwpBdnxLM97KSUHqs7xrpLKqNnURg/s1000/northwickparkhospital.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="567" data-original-width="1000" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhggnP8qQJHzFVuz35sP_u5y2zNtxfKgZUiGG00eTFjimU_qiu0xftn3rSC7koT4DxbwclisYLxZ9iBQtMygYAnJEF2uT0lWKAx8EySjw_EFYI9vTxwpBdnxLM97KSUHqs7xrpLKqNnURg/w640-h362/northwickparkhospital.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The 'indefinite' buildings of Northwick Park Hospital glimpsed from the Ducker Path.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="BodyTextfirstpara">The Watford Road is a centuries-old highway
branching from Harrow Road at Sudbury towards Harrow Weald and Watford. By the
19<sup>th</sup> century it had become a popular diversion avoiding the steep
climb of the traditional main road through Harrow on the Hill, which by the
1830s was little used as a through route: instead, travellers from London could
branch onto the Watford Road and turn left at Greenhill through what was to
become the new suburb of Harrow around the station. This itinerary was
recognised as an important, if not trunk, route from London in the road
numbering scheme of 1922, which numbered it A404, continuing from Harrow
towards Rickmansworth and Amersham.</p><p class="BodyTextfirstpara"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The road forms the western edge of a near-rectangle of
land known as Northwick Park, bounded by the Metropolitan Line to the north,
the West Coast Main Line railway to the east and the streets and houses of the
Sudbury Court estate to the south. Historically all this was included in Harrow
parish and manor, part of a large area of ‘desmene’ farmland used directly by
the lord of the manor rather than sublet. By the 14<sup>th</sup> century the wider
area was known as Sudbury – the ‘south borough’ --- to distinguish it from other
parts of the large and sprawling manor. In the 1630s the Sudbury lands were
split up into separate farms and let to tenants, including Sheepcote Farm which
covered most of what’s now Northwick Park.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Following the rapid population increases of the later 19<sup>th</sup>
century, Sudbury was split administratively from Harrow and placed into Wembley
civil parish. Along with Kingsbury, historically a separate parish, this formed the new Wembley Urban District, which became a municipal borough
in 1937. When London was enlarged and the present-day boroughs created in 1965,
Wembley wasn’t reunited with Harrow but instead merged with Willesden as the London
Borough of Brent.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Much of the population growth that shaped the area was
driven by local landowners' fondness for enriching themselves through development. Harrow School, keen to
protect its own potential for expansion, bought much of Sheepcote Farm in 1905
to protect it from housebuilding: the last tenant farmer was Thomas Grimwade, a
noted producer of dried milk using a process he’d patented in 1855.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Across the road, the Ring follows the Ducker Path through a
patch of wood with a hoarding on the right. This encloses the Ducker Pool, originally
a cattle pond on the farm which was used by schoolboys for bathing. In 1907 the
site was rebuilt by the school into one of the largest private outdoor swimming
pools in the country, surrounded by a newly planted coppice woodland. In 1985
its function was usurped by the school sports centre passed earlier on Music
Hill and it was sold for redevelopment as a Hindu temple. But planning
permission for this was refused, and the pool is currently derelict and
inaccessible, with the surrounding area including the woodland designated as a
Site of Local Importance for Nature Conservation.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The rest of the land is now council-owned, originally
acquired by Wembley borough council and Middlesex county council in 1936, again
as a buffer against housing. Sadly, what could have become an extensive and
diverse area of public green space and parkland was then further parcelled out,
with sections put to other uses. One of these is clearly visible through the
trees on the left as you continue along the path: Northwick Park Hospital, a
massive NHS general hospital opened in 1970 on a site used as a field hospital
in World War II. Its blocky architecture was supposedly indeterminate, designed
for continuous obsolescence with no final plan. One of its most famous patients
was Chilean ex-dictator and friend of Margaret Thatcher General Augusto
Pinochet, who was treated here while fighting extradition for murder and
torture in 2000. Another campus-based development opened to the north in 1971:
Harrow Technical College, now part of the University of Westminster.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The area to the south (right) of the path was first used
for landfill, then let in the early 2000s to a private operator as a nine-hole
golf course, Northwick Park Golf, thus the tall nets visible above the trees. The
operator promptly put a driving range right across a public footpath that runs south
from the Ducker Path towards Sudbury Court, requiring walkers to ring a bell
when approaching. Then, with council support, it attempted to replace the path with
a dogleg diversion, prompting another footpath dispute that should have been
avoided. The public inquiry inspector found the original disruption to the path
was illegal and ordered that it was reinstated and made safe, but this still
hasn’t been done. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The Ducker Path finally reaches the fraction of land that
did eventually become a public park, also known as Northwick Park. This is
largely an uninteresting expanse of mown grass and sports fields, though there
are some mature trees, remains of old hedgerows, a community garden (off our
route to the northeast), play facilities and a smart 1950s sports pavilion, and
the space is well-used and valued locally.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">From the pavilion, a Capital Ring link heads northwards
along the Pryors Path to Northwick Park station on London Underground’s
Metropolitan Liine. The line was opened in 1880 as the Metropolitan Railway’s
extension to Harrow-on-the-Hill and trains originally ran non-stop through the
fields of Sheepcote Farm here. The station, accessed by a simple subway under
the line, was added in 1923 to serve new housing, and was originally known as
Northwick Park and Kenton.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Looking around the park, you can’t help but think it could
have been so much better, with the preservation of a broader public space
allowing the persistence of wilder and more natural areas alongside the grass. In
2019, Brent council in partnership with the local NHS trust, the University of
Westminster and others launched a combined proposal for a comprehensive remodelling
of the whole area called the One Public Estate programme. This promises
improvements to the park and the creation of new green spaces, cycleways and
footpaths, but at the same time the prospect of 1,600 homes on parts of the
hospital site and elsewhere. Meanwhile, the owners of the Ducker Pond have been
pushing, so far unsuccessfully, to cancel its nature conservation status so
they can build a sports centre.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The shoddy treatment of this patch of land seems
curiously appropriate given that its name commemorates the Rushout family and
their country seat at Northwick Park in Worcester. John Rushout (1770-1859), the
second Baron Northwick, was an enthusiastic incloser of common lands who operated
largely as an absentee landlord through ruthless local bailiffs, described by his
tenants as “a cormorant who was eating us up”. The early 19<sup>th</sup>
century was a terrible time for rural workers in England as inclosure robbed
them of commoners’ rights, increasing mechanisation reduced employment, wages
fell and rents and prices increased. Following two disastrous harvests in 1828
and 1829, a wave of violent local uprisings swept southern England, largely
targeting the new horse-powered threshing machines.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The disorder was termed the Swing Riots as it was accompanied
by a series of threatening letters sent to landowners by a mysterious Captain
Swing. Rushout was among the recipients, in a missive warning he had “ground
the labouring man for too long”. Local farmers wrote to him in more reasonable
terms asking for rent relief: his response was to accuse them of conspiracy. And
he had the authorities on his side: the riots were ruthlessly suppressed with 19 people hung and a further 481 transported. Ultimately the troubles
led to reforms which ameliorated conditions, but Rushout and his descendants
continued to enrich themselves through the exploitation of inherited manorial
lands, resulting in the dense developments we’re about to cross.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h3>South Kenton station<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p class="BodyTextfirstpara"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCXEG80oeOsdYUb3PoLO_nVx0fyVdyPxqn2xEQxPMBtvAVwCJpspD46vrngHmJ15V0TkV1hlpVi7LhhoZtOYXN0a4FyXCmPG_8y9RnM3vMy-Uy01eZr6Pq0w9hSxvSUurKry9rSD4xc74/s500/southkentonstation.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCXEG80oeOsdYUb3PoLO_nVx0fyVdyPxqn2xEQxPMBtvAVwCJpspD46vrngHmJ15V0TkV1hlpVi7LhhoZtOYXN0a4FyXCmPG_8y9RnM3vMy-Uy01eZr6Pq0w9hSxvSUurKry9rSD4xc74/s320/southkentonstation.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">South Kenton station.</td></tr></tbody></table>Rounding the edge of Northwick Park, you approach a
busy railway embankment: streamlined tilting Pendolini rush through on their
way to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool or Glasgow, while in between the more
modest trains of the London Overground shuffle to and from Watford, mingling
with silver Tube trains looking comically out of scale. This is the London and
Birmingham Railway, opened in 1837 under engineer Robert Stephenson as London’s
second passenger steam railway and its first intercity line, now part of the
West Coast Main Line. Infrastructure like this radically changed the size and
shape of the capital in the 19<sup>th</sup> century and into the 20<sup>th</sup>
by creating swathes of suburbia, so it’s interesting that this particular line
was initially intended only for long distance services.<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">This stretch was part of the first section between London
Euston and what’s now Harrow and Wealdstone station, originally with no
intermediate stops. The full 180 km length to Birmingham opened in 1838, with trains
taking 5½ hours to reach the Midlands city. Local services weren’t added until 1912 when
the London and North Western Railway (LNWR), successor to the London and
Birmingham, built a new pair of tracks, electrified on a direct current fourth
rail system, along the route from Euston to Watford to improve capacity, now
known as the Watford DC line. Three years later, the London Underground Bakerloo Line was extended from Baker Street to Queens Park on the Watford
line, with Tube trains continuing to Watford, though these have subsequently
been cut back to Harrow. The local trains from Euston have been part of the
London Overground since 2007.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The land to the south of Northwick Park was once Sudbury
Court Farm, another of the desmene farms of Harrow. Edward Spencer-Churchill,
first cousin of Winston Churchill and the Rushouts’ successor by marriage,
first proposed to develop it soon after inheriting it in 1912 but the plans
were interrupted by World War I. It was finally built up between 1927 and 1936,
taking advantage of increased awareness of the area following the British
Empire Exhibition in Wembley in 1924-25. Nearly all the houses are in the
uniform mock-Tudor style popular at the time, and many of the streets take
their names from places around the original Northwick Park in Worcestershire.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">South Kenton station opened to serve the new estate in 1933,
with a single island platform which, like most intermediate stations on the
route, faces only the Watford DC lines. Less typical for this stretch of
railway is the Modernist waiting room with its stylish concrete and glass. Originally
the platform was accessed by a simple footbridge, later replaced by the current
subway.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">A more impressive 1930s survivor stands immediately on the
other side of the railway: the Windermere pub. You can see it from the station
platforms but as services are frequent here, it’s worth continuing through the
subway for a closer look, even if this brings us into Kenton in the next
section. Built by the Courage brewery in 1938 to serve the new housing
developments, it’s a fine example of a big new ‘improved’ pub of the period,
designed for a middle-class clientele. The exterior is in fanciful
Dutch-inspired style with shapely gables, but its Grade II listing and entry on
the National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors are ensured by its tasteful
indoor fittings, which have somehow avoided the vandalism inflicted on many pubs in the 1960s and 1970s. One of the three separate bars is now used as
a function room and the old jug and bottle has gone, but the wooden panelling,
interior porches and fireplaces with pictorial tiling all remain. The huge pub now seems disproportionate to modern needs, and
though friendly it does have something of a neglected air, so enjoy it while
you can.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoBodyText"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://innerlondonramblers.org.uk/ideasforwalks/capital-ring-guides.html" target="_blank">Ramblers Capital Ring guides</a>. These are currently the most up-to-date detailed walking guides and maps. Check this page too for current diversions and problems.</li><li><a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1dEzj8toHFPhGR8hjigYqpojJJYA&usp=sharing" target="_blank">Google map</a></li><li>My original <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/9cxskhzrn7cqw3b/8-9-bostonmanor-southkenton.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank">Route description</a> (PDF), not recently updated and included for completeness.</li></ul><p></p>Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-67542450668911312672018-10-16T11:24:00.002+01:002018-10-16T12:01:00.945+01:00London Countryway 2: Sole Street - Borough Green<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Signature Kent architecture: oast houses originally for drying hops at Aldon Farm near Addington.</td></tr>
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Just out of Gravesend and not that far from London
itself, the London Countryway plunges into deeply rural surroundings: a rolling
West Kent landscape of chalk hills and picturesque hamlets, dotted with
overgrown orchards and oast houses as a reminder this was once the Garden of
England. The first two-thirds of today’s walk are through a lesser-known corner
of the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), including a
delightful wooded ridgetop path and a crossing of the main escarpment through
ancient woodland, with a prehistoric long barrow nestling at the bottom of the
slope. From Addington on, the trail is outside the AONB but there are pleasant
locations such as lush Platt Woods to compensate for two golf courses.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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There are good rail connections at start and finish, but
not much opportunity to split the section further: bus stops at a couple of
points have an infrequent service, and the best bus options, at least on
weekdays, are at Platt, which is quite close to the end. One other option is to
divert at the foot of the escarpment along the North Downs Way National Trail
to Vigo Village where there’s an hourly bus to Gravesend or Borough Green (except
on Sundays) but I haven’t explained this in detail as I plan on covering it in
a future post on the national trail. The Countryway intertwines with a
well-established signed trail, the Wealdway, as far as Platt, giving various
options for circular walks. This post is an expanded and updated version of <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2009/03/london-countryway-18-sole-street.html">my earlier post on this section</a>, originally numbered 18, in March 2008.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty<o:p></o:p></h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From one ridge to the next: view east from Brimstone Hill, Luddesdown.</td></tr>
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Geology is a curious thing, a set of processes
outside human or animal influence, with timescales so slow they approach
immutability. Its reference frame is not society or history or culture but the
universe, its matter the stuff of solar systems: though an atmosphere makes
things more interesting, lifeless planets do geology too. The power to
influence geology through will, like the Prophet moving his mountains, still
seems remote and god-like even in science fiction, where terraforming is often
presented as the ultimate technological milestone of the most advanced
civilisations.</div>
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And while that may be changing, if global warming theory is to
be believed, it’s still a bit cold and scary to feel insignificant out here
where the universe just gets on with things as it always has. The palaeozoic
rocks of the ‘London platform’, at the deepest levels beneath London, are more
than 400 million years old, a length of time so vast it seems meaningless.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The next layer up, and the one that will interest us most
today, is admittedly a product of life, though there was certainly no conscious
agency involved. During the Cretaceous period, 142-65 million years ago and
before the formation of the Alps, a tropical sea washed over these rocks, and
the calcium carbonate shed by microorganisms inhabiting that sea collected as a
bed of what has now become chalk, a particularly pure form of limestone. This
was later smothered by clays and gravels, but subsequent millennia of erosion
have exposed the underlying chalk as ridges along the edges of the shelf to
create the structure known as the London Basin.</div>
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London itself sits within a
triangle of chalk, with the edges marked by the North Downs in the south and
the Chilterns in the northwest, while much of the eastern edge is submerged by
the Thames estuary. The Thames runs roughly east-west through the basin, but
its own drainage basin stretches much further west, and long predates the river.
This once ran on a more northerly course, until forced into its present alignment
by glaciation, as we’ll discover when we reach the Vale of St Albans on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2015/05/london-countryway-alternative-st-albans.html">section 17</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The chalk hills, with their shallow dip slopes reaching inward
towards the city and their steep, wall-like scarp slopes facing sternly
outwards, form one of the more concrete boundaries of London. They are part of
a larger system of chalk deposits that covers much of southern and eastern
England and stretches to Champagne in France, with skeins of chalk hills
sweeping from Dorset to the Yorkshire Wolds. The same chalky, well-drained
soils that produce some of the world’s best hops also sustain some of its most
prized vines.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Chalk ridges were firmly established features of the
scenery when humanity first walked across the land bridge from what's now mainland Europe, and they played an important role as early channels of communication,
scored along their length by ancient trackways that probably began as animal
tracks and have sometimes ended up as part of the modern road network. The
springy tracks and airy open views most people associate with downland are a
result of human management, particularly for grazing -- left to their own
devices, like most of England they quickly revert to woodland, which is how the
first downs walkers must have found them. Some sections, including those we’ll
discover today, are wooded still.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Most of England’s undeveloped chalk downs now enjoy
special protection. Here they form part of the <a href="https://www.kentdowns.org.uk/" target="_blank">Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty</a> (AONB), which you’ll enter through the gate opposite Sole Street
station. The upper-case initials indicate this isn’t just any old area of
outstanding natural beauty but one which has been officially certified as such
through a statutory process.</div>
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It seems a curious thing that an aesthetic,
subjective judgement can be institutionalised, with officials and lobby groups
debating the presence and extent of beauty, and you might expect such
judgements to err in favour of traditional conceptions rather than, say, the
beauty some of us might see in a derelict industrial site or a tranche of
particularly interesting early 20th century social housing. Indeed, in the past
there was considerable subjectivity involved in defining AONB boundaries,
though as I explain when <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/london-loop-4-hayes-west-wickham-common.html">London Loop 4</a> dips into another designation – an Area
of Great Landscape Value – in recent years the criteria have been made more
specific.<o:p></o:p></div>
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AONBs also struggle with the perception that they’re a
kind of second division of National Parks. Both designations result from the
same post-war legislation, both are vehicles for managing areas of land in
mixed and private ownership (unlike national parks and their equivalents in
many other countries, where most of the land is in public ownership), and AONBs
will tell you their landscapes are just as valuable as those of the national
parks. But they were nonetheless set up in recognition that the resources required
for a national park, which has its own statutory authority, would not stretch
to covering all deserving landscape areas.</div>
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AONBs are managed instead by
partnerships of local authorities and offer less protection than national
parks. The ones around London are all based on chalk ridges and the Countryway
crosses all three: the Kent Downs, Surrey Hills and the Chilterns AONB. Further
south, the South Downs, once an AONB, has since become the closest national
park to the capital.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Interestingly, the primary purposes of an AONB don’t
include recreation but are ‘to conserve and enhance natural beauty’ – though
demands for recreation should be met where they’re consistent with this. For
AONBs like these, so close to the UK’s biggest city, there’s certainly a demand,
as well as massive pressure for developments which would detract from the
areas’ unique attractions. For visitors surveyed in 2013, the scenery and views
and the footpath network figured highly in the features of the Kent Downs they
most valued. When asked to isolate components of natural beauty, respondents
large plumped for chalk downland, woodland and ancient lanes and paths.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Designated in 1968, the Kent Downs AONB covers 880 km<sup>2</sup>
in an uneven and ragged band of varying depth, stretching from the boundary
with Surrey eastwards to the coast. Examined more closely, the shape resembles
more a circumflex accent than a straight line, following the orientation of the
main ridge. In the west, there’s a thick donut around Sevenoaks, then the line
deflects northeast to meet the Medway before heading southeast on the other
side of the river, at first a thin strip below the sprawl of the Medway Towns then
thickening out to embrace the famous White Cliffs between Hythe and Deal. The
boundary includes not only the chalk ridge and associated valleys but related
ridges and escarpments, including the Greensand Ridge running roughly parallel
to the south, which provides the AONB with its highest point of 250 m at Toys
Hill.<o:p></o:p></div>
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All the AONB is in
the traditional county of Kent but smaller parts are now outside the modern
administrative county, in Medway unitary authority and the London Borough of
Bromley. District councils, the Environment Agency and land management
organisations like the NFU and the CLA participate in the partnership. The AONB
works closely with its neighbour, the Surrey Hills AONB, covering the rest of
the North Downs west of the boundary, and has further links to the east, with
the Parc Naturel Régional des Caps et Marais d'Opale, safeguarding the coastal
chalk cliffs on the other side of the English Channel.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The AONB has been subdivided into landscape character
areas, and the first one the trail encounters is known as the West Kent Downs:
Luddesdown. Kent County Council assessors have noted the importance of woodland
to the landscape, particularly atop the ridges, and there are good examples on
today’s walk. These woods, once part of the much larger area of Rochester
Forest, help frame large fields which undulate across dry valleys, and are
particularly important to the structure of the landscape because many of the
hedgerows which once portioned out the fields have been lost.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Henley Street and Luddesdown<o:p></o:p></h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Classic country pub: the Cock at Henley Street near Luddesdown.</td></tr>
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The London Countryway peels away from the <a href="https://explorekent.org/activities/wealdway/" target="_blank">Wealdway</a>
(which I talked about in more detail in the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2015/03/london-countryway-alternative-gravesend.html">previous section</a>) immediately on
leaving the station, the first of several such partings today as the two routes
intertwine round each other like hesitant suitors for much of the way. Your route
is a nice straight path across a field roughly parallel to the railway, which
soon reaches a junction with the previous section, approaching from a
footbridge (that’s if you’ve chosen to follow my revised section 1: you’re
already on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2018/03/london-countryway-1-original-route.html">the original route via Wrotham Road</a>).<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the ancient divisions of Kent dating back to Saxon
times, this was all part of the Lathe of Aylesford. Sole Street was a hamlet of
Cobham in the hundred of Shamel and is still part of the modern civil parish: you’re
roughly following its southern boundary through the field. Turning south on
Gold Street, you enter both the ancient and the modern parish of Luddesdown,
which is long, thin and very rural, consisting mainly of woodlands, fields and
scattered villages. Historically this was a different hundred, the delightfully
named Toltingtrough.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The name Luddesdown, pronounced ‘Ludsden’, is Anglo-Saxon
in origin, meaning ‘Hlud’s hill.’ The parish is mentioned in the Domesday
Survey of 1086 when it was part of the vast swathes of land around London
gifted by William of Normandy to his half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux (see under
Crofton on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2015/10/london-loop-3-petts-wood-hayes.html">London Loop 3</a>). It was through Odo that Luddesdown was linked to the
estates of Rochester cathedral and Swanscombe manor, links which persisted even
after the bishop fell out of favour and had most of his land confiscated in
1083.</div>
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There were numerous lords of the manor over the succeeding centuries,
including ‘marcher lord’ Reginald Grey, Baron of Ruthin, who had to sell it to
pay off his ransom when held hostage by Welsh rebel Owain Glyndŵr in 1402. His
successor William Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, died from injuries sustained from
being hit by a cannonball during the Siege of Orléans, where Jeanne d’Arc was
among his opponents.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The manorial centre was to the south in Luddesdown village,
where the old manor house, Luddesdown Court, still stands: partly dating from around
1100, this is one of the claimants to the title of the oldest inhabited house
in England, but it’s off our route, though on the Wealdway. The latter route
will also take you close to another Luddesdown curiosity, the lost village of
Dode, decimated by the Black Death in the 14<sup>th</sup> century and
abandoned, though its church still stands and is now used as a wedding venue. But
the Countryway chooses a route via one of Luddesdown’s hamlets, Henley Street,
passing a very tempting pub, the Cock Inn, a solid building dating from 1713. The
pub has an excellent reputation for its beer but sadly it’s a bit early in the
route for a refreshment stop – you could always schedule a visit at the end of
the previous section.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The trail turns off the road just after the pub, but a
little further along is the Grade II-listed Reynolds Farmhouse, an 18<sup>th</sup>
century red brick building with a vaguely Dutch-looking half-hipped roof and an
imposing front door. Back on the trail, the fields start to roll as you
approach the corner of the first major patch of woodland, known as Henley Wood.
The Countryway crosses the Wealdway again here and following the latter left
will take you to Luddesdown and Dode, but our trail keeps on along the woodland
edge. The field to the left was also once wooded and was known as Woodfield
Shaw. Emerging into a field, you’ll see the buildings of Bramblehall Farm over
on the left before reaching Oakenden Road and the boundary of the parish of
Meopham.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Brimstone ridge<o:p></o:p></h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spring flowers on a chalky bank along the Brimstone ridge.</td></tr>
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Once again, the Countryway passes through a historic
parish while avoiding its main village, which is along Oakenden Road to the
right. Meopham (pronounced ‘Meppem’) has a lengthy documented history. It was a
Roman-British farmstead back in the 1<sup>st</sup> century BCE, and the first
written reference to it dates from 798, with numerous records of land transfers
from the 10<sup>th</sup> century. It’s mentioned in the Domesday survey, by
which time it had been attached to Christ Church Priory, Canterbury, to help
provide a living for the monks. One archbishop, Simon de Meopham, was born in
the parish in 1272.</div>
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It retained its connection with Canterbury even after the
dissolution, remaining church property until the lands were gradually sold off
in the 19<sup>th</sup> and early 20<sup>th</sup> centuries. The parish council
finally bought out the title of lord of the manor in 1949. Perhaps the
best-known Meopham native is John Tradescant the younger (1608-62), botanist
and royal gardener, responsible for introducing numerous exotic species to
English gardens.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The path follows the Meopham boundary through the first
field then turns decisively into the parish in the second field, climbing the
slope of Mill Bank and crossing a track known as Brimstone Lane, part of an old
road between the main village and the subsidiary manor of Dene. The path beyond
is one my favourites on the whole trail, a lengthy and relatively direct stride
through a strip of woodland atop Brimstone Hill, a subsidiary north-south ridge
that runs to the west of the main North Downs spine. It can be muddy and uneven
and in places it’s a little precipitous, clinging to a contour a few metres
down from the crest.</div>
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In places it passes the back gardens of houses along the
lane to the west but it’s mostly uninterrupted woodland, with glimpses of open
country through the trees particularly when they’re not in leaf, and wild primroses
in the dense undergrowth in early spring. Brimstone Wood, the first big wood on
the right, is ancient woodland, then there’s Long Gorse Shaw and John’s Croft
Shaw. To the south the hill is known as Chambers Hill, then the path emerges on
Chandlers Road in the hamlet of Priestwood (perhaps a reference to the former
connection between the manor and the church).<o:p></o:p></div>
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The footpath continues on the other side of the lane
through a mix of woodland and more open country. Still tracking the contour, it
rounds another patch of woodland, Deanmead Wood, then bends left to Dene Garth,
where it joins Dean Lane, another road from Dean Manor, to the green at Harvel.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<h3>
Harvel<o:p></o:p></h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaaUj4KAi9PN_XYUInQNvZ9JEVUe5I_ObQMjh4swowrgNYHInCkDje2hXRj4Uk0YI6qAsGm9qZJ6sXtDNI87YamMOf-FMY-cOaJOe1zi7EYTU5jTQ1dw_OQ4PAOLs1ggnqjN_8OUqI7e8/s1600/harvel-roundhouse.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaaUj4KAi9PN_XYUInQNvZ9JEVUe5I_ObQMjh4swowrgNYHInCkDje2hXRj4Uk0YI6qAsGm9qZJ6sXtDNI87YamMOf-FMY-cOaJOe1zi7EYTU5jTQ1dw_OQ4PAOLs1ggnqjN_8OUqI7e8/s400/harvel-roundhouse.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">No place for evil spirits: converted oast house in Harvel.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
The unusual village name is of uncertain origin: it may derive from a ‘holy field’ or a ‘hart [male deer] field’ mentioned on Anglo-Saxon charters. For centuries Harvel was a tiny southern hamlet of Meopham, a few farm buildings, cottages and a pub around a green and a pond, and though it grew a little in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries, it’s still small and isolated, with a population of only 250.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Judging by the Meopham chronology on the history pages of the <a href="https://www.meopham.org/" target="_blank">parish council’s website</a>, life in Harvel has been quiet for centuries, with nothing listed for the hamlet before the 1830s and then mainly petty crimes and incidents like traction engines accidentally reversing into the pond. Its greatest claim to fame seems to be that in 1950 it was the site of a BBC microwave relay station for the first live television pictures broadcast to the UK from mainland Europe, covering a street festival in Calais.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The Countryway emerges by a curious cottage with a cylindrical
wing. While some houses were deliberately designed in circular shapes for
superstitious reasons, to prevent evil spirits from hiding in corners, this one
was converted from an oast house, a characteristic Kentish structure designed
for drying hops: there are some more complete examples further along the trail.
Your route from here is across the green, now a pleasant public space equipped
with a millennial village sign depicting agricultural silhouettes of tractors,
sheep, shepherds and ducks. But there are a few features of interest close by
in the opposite direction, including the surviving pub.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Just past the round building, set back from the road and
overlooking the pond, is Old Pond House, a Grade II-listed 15<sup>th </sup>century
timber-framed and thatched farmhouse on a mediaeval hall house design. Right
along Harvel Street is Crickfield Farmhouse, another hall house of similar age,
no longer thatched but with classic exposed timber and plaster facings. Further
along on the same side is the wooden village hall, built in 1912 as a
nonconformist chapel.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Forge Cottage, opposite, is a Grade II-listed 16<sup>th</sup>
century building: this was once an alehouse as well as a smithy. Its
refreshment function was superseded by the Amazon and Tiger, which was
originally the building opposite the current pub, now a private home. Today’s
pub was purpose-built in 1914 at a time when the population was expanding. It
was designed to look like a range of cottages rather than a public house in
deference to the wishes of the chapel congregation. A very occasional bus stops
outside here.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Back on the trail, there’s a reminder that the
agricultural functions of the area aren’t quite what they used to be. White
Horse Farm is now a large equestrian centre, and the Countryway threads past horse
paddocks over some very chunky wooden stiles. Crossing into the last small
field before Leywood Road, the trail returns to Luddesdown parish. The original
Countryway route cut a corner across the field on the other side of the road,
but this path now seems to have been lost to ploughing and cropping, and it’s
not too much of an imposition to follow the lane to the next bend, where the
Wealdway rejoins from the north. A broad field-edge path now heads south,
passing another patch of ancient woodland, Round Wood, on the right, to reach White
Horse Road by Poundgate Farm.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<h3>
Halling to Trottiscliffe Escarpment<o:p></o:p></h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ancient boundaries, coppices and plenty of mud in Whitehorse Wood.</td></tr>
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<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
On the other side of White Horse Road, the trail
enters Whitehorse Wood, part of a large and rich patch of woodland, much of it
ancient, covering the shallow dip slope of the main North Downs ridge as it
passes between Wrotham and Cuxton. The white horse Invicta is of course the
emblem of Kent, but the wood and the road take their names from a long-vanished
White Horse pub which once stood just to the right of the path into the wood: the
site now contains modern houses.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
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<div class="MsoBodyText">
The woodland here is still managed commercially by the
ancient practice of coppicing: cutting the trees right back to stumpy coppice ‘stools’
just above the ground on a decades-long cycle to encourage the growth of a
profusion of thin trunks for use as poles. Coppiced trees live to great ages
and often grow into spooky shapes, like massive gnarled hands, the sort that
come to life in twisted fairy-tales. The various patches of woodland each side
of the path have different names, and soon you’re passing Lodge Wood right,
Evers Broom left and Goldings Wood right.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The 1981 trail guide records that parts of this wood are
being cleared, making it difficult to find the way; the stick-cluster trees seen
today have grown back in the decades since. Wayfinding is easier now thanks to
a profusion of Wealdway waymarks and a well-defined path, but more of a problem
is the mud, a thick and sticky wet clay that sucks on your soles. Deep in the
wood, a crossroads of tracks has become a virtual pond, though it’s possible to
avoid it by picking through the trees.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Immediately south of the muddy crossroads, a low woodbank
crosses the path, marking an ancient boundary between Lullingstone in
Toltingtrough hundred and Addington in Larkfield hundred. The path originally
followed a north-south kink in the east-west boundary line before plunging into
Addington, but the modern civil parishes have been rearranged so you
immediately enter Trottiscliffe. The trail also enters its second district
council area here, leaving Gravesham Borough for Tonbridge and Malling Borough,
created in 1974 by merging Tonbridge Urban District, Malling Rural District and
parts of Tonbridge Rural District. A few paces further, a sudden flash of open
country through the trees reveals you’re on the crest of the Downs, in fact the
highest point of the trail so far at 200 m. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The path instantly starts to descend
steeply, cutting a diagonal line across the sharp slope. The woodland here, Ley Shaw, is part of a 600 ha area
known by the cumbersome label of the <a href="https://designatedsites.naturalengland.org.uk/SiteDetail.aspx?SiteCode=S1003779&SiteName=north%20downs&countyCode=&responsiblePerson=&unitId=&SeaArea=&IFCAArea=" target="_blank">Halling to Trottiscliffe Escarpment Site of Special Scientific Interest</a> (SSSI), designated in 1951. You’ll notice the
character of the woodland has changed: rather than the oaks and hornbeams that
grow on the clay above, the trees here are birches and yews which prefer the more
meagre environment of the steep and exposed chalk hillside. Between them you
might spot rare orchids and the delightfully named Stinking Iris.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Trottiscliffe, which may originally have meant ‘the tract
of cliff’, is another name spelt in a way that seems designed to expose
strangers to ridicule: it’s pronounced ‘Trozlee’ and sometimes more logically
spelt ‘Trosley’, including in the name of the country park a little further
along the ridge to the west. It first appears in records in 788, and at the
time of the Domesday survey was part of the property of the Bishop of
Rochester. The bishop had a palace here, and the parish church is interesting,
though off our route to the southwest.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Trottiscliffe itself has since been eclipsed by the much
bigger village of Vigo, just to the west of the trail and accessible via the
North Downs Way. This originated to serve a late 19<sup>th</sup> century
estate, Trosley Towers, which now forms the basis of the country park, then
during World War II it became home to the biggest army officer training camp in
the UK. After the war, the camp was used to rehouse people who’d lost their
homes in the Blitz and was turned into a permanent settlement in the 1950s. The
unusual name is from a once-isolated pub, which in turn was named after Vigo
Bay off the coast of southern Spain, site of a naval battle in 1702 during the
War of Spanish Succession. Beware of another pronunciation trap: the locals
rhyme the first syllable with ‘eye’.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking south from the Pilgrims Way near Little Commodity at the foot of the Halling to Trottiscliffe Escarpment.</td></tr>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The path emerges on a trackway following the line of the
ridge, traditionally known as the Pilgrim’s Way, which here, as in several
other places, also provides the official street name. Despite its Chaucerian
flavour, the name is likely a Victorian invention, though the track itself is
much older, one of the chalk ridgeways in use from prehistoric times.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
This
section also carries a more modern invention, the <a href="https://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/north-downs-way" target="_blank">North Downs Way National Trail</a> (also here part of <a href="https://www.traildino.com/trace/continents-Europe/countries-European_Trails/trails-E2" target="_blank">European long-distance path E2</a>) -- we’ll have more to
say about both routes when we follow lengthy sections of them later, but at
this point we share only a few metres of their alignment before both Wealdway
and Countryway turn decisively south. Sitting just above the Pilgrim’s Way
opposite this junction is a Grade II-listed house by the unusual name of Little
Commodity, something of a patchwork of weatherboarding and plaster over a
timber frame. The core of this is 16<sup>th</sup> century though the facing was
rebuilt in the 18<sup>th</sup> century.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<h3>
Coldrum Long Barrow<o:p></o:p></h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYGcd2KQUky5jBXTDQjIinrL6nX3ksFebnFMgvtt0pUM4_mqsJ5bi2TMnaEIoptUiLHEAaqX8sDL1i-QyqnLp2E3gVekmt8DA2pcvjU0kxLfL_630Rw3VN_sZ-9p8UyQHm-K6YBIxDJ9A/s1600/coldrumlongbarrow.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYGcd2KQUky5jBXTDQjIinrL6nX3ksFebnFMgvtt0pUM4_mqsJ5bi2TMnaEIoptUiLHEAaqX8sDL1i-QyqnLp2E3gVekmt8DA2pcvjU0kxLfL_630Rw3VN_sZ-9p8UyQHm-K6YBIxDJ9A/s640/coldrumlongbarrow.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Favourite rendezvous of modern mystics: Coldrum Long Barrow near Trottiscliffe.</td></tr>
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<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
The path descends more gently along the edge of a
field, shortly passing <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/coldrum-long-barrow" target="_blank">Coldrum Long Barrow</a>, a prehistoric burial chamber: you
can see more of it on a very short diversion off the path. It was constructed
in the early Neolithic period around 4000 BCE, at a time when humans in Europe
were adopting a more settled lifestyle based on agriculture, rather than surviving
as nomadic hunter-gatherers.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
The earliest stone monuments in Britain are from
this period, including this one. It’s the best-preserved of a cluster of
similar structures known as the Medway Megaliths, communal tombs oriented on an
east-west axis, consisting of a stone chamber buried under an earth mound and
surrounded by sarsen stones. Coldrum, which sits on an artificial lynchet ridge
of a type associated with prehistoric agriculture, originally consisted of
around 50 stones and was wedge-shaped, about 20 m long and varying from 12 to
15 m in width.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The millennia have
taken their toll in erosion, landslips and deliberate pillaging, as most of the
stones aren’t in their original positions and the burial chamber is exposed. Archaeological
excavations in 1910 and between 1922-26 retrieved human remains as well as
pottery and tools, which were all removed and taken to Maidstone museum.
Various examinations since have concluded they represent at least 17
individuals, both adults and children, interred around 3900 BCE. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indications that the corpses had been
systematically dismembered led 1920s archaeologists to speculate they were
sacrificial victims, but there’s no strong evidence for this. It’s more likely they
were excamated, with their flesh and organs ritualistically removed. The barrow
was very likely not just a tomb but a site for ongoing ancestor worship, with
bodies added, removed and rearranged over time.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The long barrow was given to the National Trust in 1926 as
a memorial to Kent historian Benjamin Harrison, still commemorated with a
plaque which erroneously describes it as a stone circle. It remains in the Trust’s management and is free to visit, now a favourite rendezvous for
modern-day mystics and pagans who have turned some of the surrounding trees
into ‘wish trees’ bedecked with votive ribbons. Morris Men dance here at dawn on
Mayday, and in the late 1990s the site hosted a ritual aimed at preventing the
building of the High Speed 1 rail line. As Countryway walkers who crossed this
line south of Gravesend will realise, the attempt was unsuccessful. But even
if, like me, you’ve little patience with such stuff, you may still find the
stones have a striking atmosphere even on bright and sunny day, especially in
their dramatic setting below the Downs.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoBodyText">
The path past the barrow once followed the parish
boundaries of Addington to the east (left) and Trottiscliffe to the west but is
now entirely in the latter. It continues through another patch of ancient
woodland, Ryarsh Wood, named after another village and parish to the east
thought to have a Saxon history. The trail finally enters today’s Addington
parish at a road junction where the Wealdway peels off again to the west, while
you continue straight ahead: the trees to the right conceal one of several
still-operational chalk quarries in the area. Then you leave the AONB by
crossing the bridge over the M20, the main route from London to the Channel
Tunnel and mainland Europe and part of European route E15 from Thurso to
Algericas, unsigned in Britain. This section was built in the early 1970s, some
time before the tunnel.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<h3>
Addington<o:p></o:p></h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNZG4YoCY6sT6L4WzAHt1jNWDkhYjnpixRCqMmhm759b-z37cuO7Q8LIgVe6Ecj58DucTsOKkedXgZF5P0-Ct-38P_x0DF6k3OzBdXialEXxUf98gziZ87aa6Cjo-LRBQGPCcf3FxQ9Ys/s1600/addingtongreen.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNZG4YoCY6sT6L4WzAHt1jNWDkhYjnpixRCqMmhm759b-z37cuO7Q8LIgVe6Ecj58DucTsOKkedXgZF5P0-Ct-38P_x0DF6k3OzBdXialEXxUf98gziZ87aa6Cjo-LRBQGPCcf3FxQ9Ys/s640/addingtongreen.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Addington Green and the Angel pub. All together now: "Rambler!"</td></tr>
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<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
The first time I visited Addington was also the
first time I walked the London Countryway. Pausing on the pretty village green
to check my map, I was surprised to hear a passing driver bellowing at me over
a thudding baseline from his 4x4 -- “Rambler!” -- in that singsong football
chant tone that people once used to shout “Skinhead!” at anyone with slightly
short hair. I don’t imagine it was intended as a compliment, but as I worked
for the Ramblers at the time, the incident provided much amusement when
recounted to colleagues and became something of a running joke.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
A few minutes
later, on the same green, I witnessed a toddler taking a few stumbling steps to
the evident pride and delight of his father and recalled how I once read that
walking is a controlled form of falling. So natural is walking to us as a
species that, alongside first words, first steps upright on your own two feet
are treated as a significant milestone on the journey towards being fully
human. How odd, then, that something everyone does should yield its own special
class of people identifiable enough to get shouted at from passing cars.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Addington claims over 5,000 years of continuous habitation
based on the presence of further Neolithic sites: there are two other long
barrows here, both from the same period and of the same design as Coldrum, but
less well-preserved. The name, though, derived from a personal name and meaning
‘Eadda’s property’, dates from Anglo-Saxon times and there’s no documentation
of what happened in between. At the time of Domesday, Addington was yet another
page in Bishop Odo’s bulging property portfolio, but the most enduring lords of
the manor were the Watton family, who held it from the early 15<sup>th</sup>
century until the 1750s.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Pleasant pub the Angel Inn, overlooking the green, was
originally a timber-framed farmhouse dating from the 16<sup>th</sup> century,
though the outer facings were rebuilt in the 18<sup>th</sup> century. The red
brick stable block across the yard behind the pub is early 19<sup>th</sup>
century and is also Grade II-listed. The trail follows Park Road away from the
green then down the church drive, though by staying on the lane a little
further you’ll cross the site of Addington Long Barrow, with a few sarsen
stones visible in the adjacent private field. The village’s second prehistoric
site, Chestnuts Long Barrow, is just to the north of this, and can only be
viewed by prior arrangement with the landowner.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Various buildings and other facilities attached to the manor
house once occupied the land to either side of the church drive. The house
itself, known as Addington Place, was immediately behind the church, but was
demolished in 1949 following a serious fire. In 1932, a spiritualist
organisation called the <a href="http://www.theseekerstrust.com/" target="_blank">Seeker’s Trust</a> bought the manorial complex and still
occupies it today, using the old stable block to the right as well as various
newer buildings. Aerial photographs reveal a star-like symbol on one of the
lawns. The Trust describes itself as a non-denominational Christian “Centre for
Prayer and Spiritual Healing” and according to the website, its work is “guided
by a ‘Dr Lascelles’, a medical practitioner already in the spirit world.” Between
the Trust and the long barrows, the locality certainly has its attractions for
the less scientifically-minded.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The nave of the rather blocky and squat Grade I-listed St
Margaret’s Church likely dates from the 11<sup>th</sup> century, though windows
and doors were replaced at various times from the 13<sup>th</sup> century
onwards, the tower was added towards the end of the 15<sup>th</sup> century and
there was some Victorian rebuilding too. The church includes a 15<sup>th</sup>
century private chapel added by the Watton family, including a lavish 17<sup>th</sup>
century monument. There are two other listed structures in the churchyard: an
early 18<sup>th</sup> century chest tomb with a now-illegible inscription, and
a 6 m stone obelisk commemorating William Locker, a late 18<sup>th</sup>
century Governor of Greenwich Hospital.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoUMrI-uXcMi7vToEOmXi5gjlm_I6MLWPmo0GuFOWzRPs5gJ9MxlEmi7jfRNFHusr35eqGnUIalTvCBb3DpLCrhO_aZ5yjpUk09aHWglIUiiWEQWwXyx_TzWitKsevKQVpPYYiBFs7WLQ/s1600/addington-garages.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoUMrI-uXcMi7vToEOmXi5gjlm_I6MLWPmo0GuFOWzRPs5gJ9MxlEmi7jfRNFHusr35eqGnUIalTvCBb3DpLCrhO_aZ5yjpUk09aHWglIUiiWEQWwXyx_TzWitKsevKQVpPYYiBFs7WLQ/s400/addington-garages.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Half-buried but definitely non-prehistoric garages at Addington.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The path from the church passes some curious half-buried
buildings: not more prehistoric tombs but modern garages. You then walk alongside
what’s thought to be one of the oldest cricket grounds in the world: it’s not
known quite when Addington Cricket Club was founded but in the mid-18<sup>th</sup>
century it was noted as one of the best teams in England despite drawing its
players from such a tiny village.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
On the other side of the ground is the first, but by no
means the last, golf course we’ll encounter on the trail, West Malling Golf
Club, opened in 1974 on former parkland attached to Addington Place. The
footpath runs rather dangerously straight across a driving range in direct line
of fire of golf balls. Yet another pronunciation trap here: for Malling say ‘mawling’.
Beyond the course you cross the A20 London Road, originally built as part of
the turnpike between Foots Cray and Maidstone by the Wrotham and Maidstone
Turnpike Trust in 1773. It’s no longer a trunk road here, as through traffic is
directed to the M20, but remains a busy local road.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
A traditional orchard, long abandoned and overgrown but
still with trees that produce copious apples in season, lies beside the road
here, and the Countryway originally followed a public footpath through it. But
last time I tried to walk this, it was near-impassable, thick with nettles and
brambles in the orchard and obstructed by fences in the meadow beyond. So it’s
better to continue a little further on the pavement beside the A20 then duck
down quiet Aldon Lane to the railway bridge where the original route rejoins. The
orchard was once in Ryarsh parish, with the boundary partly following the lane:
today the parish boundary between Addington and Offham simply follows the
railway, the Maidstone East line which we’ll meet again at the end of this
section.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
Offham and Wrotham Heath<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMK1BQ3dX4NmtQThVTVNEYShBaJZp1Pw7UQfcrN4sd0hMcED0xlFWJKOr6SHnNGJfcYM32h2T8oBfbHWZ0dv4Tn7KGCauTxfa618EmgMl3ah2LgshKqSpbbRCQZXPDCkn4bmr9XbWKESM/s1600/orchards-wrothamheath-w800.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMK1BQ3dX4NmtQThVTVNEYShBaJZp1Pw7UQfcrN4sd0hMcED0xlFWJKOr6SHnNGJfcYM32h2T8oBfbHWZ0dv4Tn7KGCauTxfa618EmgMl3ah2LgshKqSpbbRCQZXPDCkn4bmr9XbWKESM/s400/orchards-wrothamheath-w800.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Matrix-style orchards at Wrotham Heath.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
The village of Offham – ‘Offa’s homestead’ – is some
way to the east of the Countryway, which passes through the wider parish. There
are property records here from the 9<sup>th</sup> century and a Domesday record
that notes this was yet another of Odo’s properties. Divided into several
sub-let manors, it was owned by Christ Church Canterbury until reclaimed by
Henry VIII who divided it between various cronies. One of the smaller manors,
Pepingstraw, was likely the birthplace of Jack Straw, a leader of the 14<sup>th</sup>
century Peasants’ Revolt. On the village green is a mediaeval quintain, a
device used for jousting practice, the last surviving example of its kind.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
There’s a pleasant cluster of listed buildings at Aldon
Farm, just over the railway, the most obvious feature of which is a trio of oast
house cowls sprouting above a fence. A granary is also part of this mid-19<sup>th</sup>
century construction which has since been converted into private houses. The farmhouse
is much older, with parts dating from the late 16<sup>th</sup> century. The big
house opposite is an 18<sup>th</sup> century former rectory.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Leaving the lane on a footpath you would once have been entering
a ‘detached part’ of Addington. Across Teston Road, which likely follows the
course of a Roman road from Wrotham towards the Weald, large traditional
orchards stood as recently as the last edition of the Countryway guide in 1981.
But they’ve since gone decidedly hi-tech, with grey plastic cloches partly
occupied by strange arch wire frameworks to which twiggy saplings are wired,
threaded by plastic tubes like something from The Matrix. Bending around these
you’re back in the historic territory of Offham.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Today’s second golf course is Wrotham Heath Golf Club, created
in 1906 on an area of former heathland to the southeast of Wrotham described by
historian Edward Hasted in 1798 as consisting of “a barren sandy soil, both red
and black, but on which great quantities of peat is dug”. You pass the
clubhouse, in a former now cowl-less oast, then, turning onto the main part of
the course and reaching the end of a line of trees where the path becomes a
track, you cross another ancient boundary, entering what was once the parish
and hundred of Wrotham (pronounced ‘Rootem’). This was a very large parish and as some of
the villages have grown and developed, it’s been subdivided, so you’re now in
the modern civil parish of Platt.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
Platt<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu1XPw8wKA1RWXXfGqG-udPWTQz_lTMSUIIJuDcAbeXsioe96DdMOb3HjaUD-2_1WWUcGcYKJdzZRANGgHhgNq5E2DRsTMuiJqaGbGDtcs5lZ_CFM_9hAirBT2sLWQC8uns2-G63U6FcA/s1600/plattwoods-rhododendrons.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu1XPw8wKA1RWXXfGqG-udPWTQz_lTMSUIIJuDcAbeXsioe96DdMOb3HjaUD-2_1WWUcGcYKJdzZRANGgHhgNq5E2DRsTMuiJqaGbGDtcs5lZ_CFM_9hAirBT2sLWQC8uns2-G63U6FcA/s400/plattwoods-rhododendrons.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rhododendrons in Platt Woods.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
Beyond the golf course, the trail crosses Platt
Wood, an atmospheric, park-like place where broadleaf trees mix with rhododendrons
and pine. This mixed complexion is the result of deliberate planting in ancient
Wealden woodland which formed part of the Great Comp Estate a little to the
south, creating a space that was used partly for private leisure, partly for commercial
forestry. </div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
Some of the trees were felled for timber during World War I, then the
wood was threatened with development after World War II but saved as a public amenity
following a local campaign. The 17.5 ha site is now owned by Tonbridge and
Malling borough council and managed by a parish council-led committee with help
from the Forestry Commission. Among the oaks, chestnuts, Scots pines and
Douglas firs are a few tall giant sequoias or Wellingtonia (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sequoiadendron giganteum</i>) planted in
Victorian times.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The Wealdway rejoins along the lane before the wood but peels
off again for the last time just inside the trees, heading definitively south,
while the Countryway slowly starts to bend west. Just over halfway through the
wood to the right is an area known as Potters Hole, a former clay working, then
the path descends steeply to reach the village and its rather imposing church
at the bottom of St Mary’s Slope.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC9YXAuFaEW9EEg02kmgZIrrQS9cYLfaqM_WETRZOHr7-CWVwHoLPc14kpMVeBlqqDlfdsnZaZRREwhtqYeQf1R9_8H29HWEiV5nPd9A91SbJl5OY0gwGQBZS-sPNS48zYda3o40UfQ5o/s1600/plattchurch.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC9YXAuFaEW9EEg02kmgZIrrQS9cYLfaqM_WETRZOHr7-CWVwHoLPc14kpMVeBlqqDlfdsnZaZRREwhtqYeQf1R9_8H29HWEiV5nPd9A91SbJl5OY0gwGQBZS-sPNS48zYda3o40UfQ5o/s400/plattchurch.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St Mary's Church, Platt.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The church was a response to the village’s 19<sup>th</sup>
century development. Originally this was a tiny hamlet attached to Wrotham,
with no church of its own, but as the population increased with the
establishment of a flour mill and other industries along the Maidstone Road to
the north, demand for more local facilities increased. Local landowner William
Lambard donated the site in 1841, and the church, designed by Whichcord and
Walker architects of Maidstone, was consecrated in 1843, originally as a chapel
of Wrotham. The date is commemorated in a weathervane atop the tower, in fact
an addition from 1900. Just inside the churchyard on the other side of the wall
from the car park is a mounting block, a reminder of the days when some
parishioners arrived on horseback.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Platt, subsequently sometimes known as St Marys Platt
after the dedication of the church, became a civil parish in its own right in
the late 1860s. A little north of the church and just off the trail is Captains
Walk, a terrace of Tudor-style almshouses dating from 1850 and managed by the
Betenson Trust, a charity established in 1788 with a bequest from a well-off
local resident.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
But your way is south along Long Mill Lane, past more chocolate-box
cottages. Rose Cottage on the left and the former farmhouse known as Dales with
its exposed timber frame on the right both date partly from the 16<sup>th</sup>
century. The Countryway uses a bridleway beside the latter, but a little
further along the lane, past a thatched barn, is a particularly well-preserved
oast house, Platt Oast, with three 19<sup>th</sup> century cowls attached to 17<sup>th</sup>
century building with more exposed timber framing. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
Borough Green<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdN6Zk71vJ-AqBtPvZQ5IRKoFLrT8HCHsd4sMULFVi-EgUSW4nXu4Ycs__BVMVtiSnO0wuotaNE_AC2GrvfccvYuONM2_vzk1VlyDknJcI7dforffRSoa60DT8QAqNfVRrf9AadLgeXhc/s1600/crouchlane.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdN6Zk71vJ-AqBtPvZQ5IRKoFLrT8HCHsd4sMULFVi-EgUSW4nXu4Ycs__BVMVtiSnO0wuotaNE_AC2GrvfccvYuONM2_vzk1VlyDknJcI7dforffRSoa60DT8QAqNfVRrf9AadLgeXhc/s640/crouchlane.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Farm signs on Crouch Lane near Borough Green.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
The bridleway leads straightforwardly beside fields
to Crouch Lane where another bridleway parallel to the road hides behind a line
of trees opposite. This section of the trail ends here, with the next section
heading south, but to end the walk there’s an easy link north on the bridleway,
across the end of the drive to Black Horse Farm and along the lane towards the
station at Borough Green. Long Wood on the left is partly ancient woodland, and
around the bend just past the drive to Beech House you cross from Platt into
Borough Green civil parish.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Borough Green is a large village, really a small town,
which Keith Chesterton terms ‘workmanlike’. Wrotham, further to the north just
under the Downs, was historically the more important settlement, centre of an
ancient parish and hundred, attached back in the 10<sup>th</sup> century to
Canterbury cathedral and remaining among its holdings until Tudor times, with
an archbishop’s palace next to its church. But the changing pattern of
transport by road and then railway saw Borough Green grow to eclipse its northern
neighbour, becoming a separate parish.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
There was indeed a small green here, and ‘borough’ usually
indicates a Saxon fortification or, later, a unit of local government, but in
this case, it might be derived from ‘barrow’, as there’s a tumulus in the
village which has yielded Celtic and Roman remains. Before the 19<sup>th</sup>
century it was a tiny and insignificant hamlet amid orchards, hop gardens,
fields and sand, clay and ragstone quarries, at the point where a road from
Gravesend to Hastings crossed an east-west route from Guildford to Maidstone
paralleling the Downs. The latter is now the A25, a road perhaps best known for
sharing its number with London’s orbital motorway, which superseded part of it.
By the 17<sup>th</sup> century a cluster of coaching inns had appeared, but it
wasn’t until the 1820s, after both roads had been turnpiked, that a distinct
high street developed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The settlement became more substantial after the London,
Chatham and Dover Railway (LC&DR) opened a station just north of the
village centre in 1874. By the end of the century several large farms nearby
had been redeveloped and the area was populous enough to justify becoming part
of Wrotham Urban District Council in 1894. The most dramatic expansion,
however, followed World War II when reconstruction prompted the appearance of
both large social housing estates and private developments, increasing the population
from 400 in 1946 to 1,300 in 1982. This pattern of post-railway age
developments is also typical of many outer London suburbs and Borough Green looks
just like one, with a distinctly urban feel. That may be about to intensify as
current strategic plans envisage a 3,000-home Borough Green Garden Village on
tracts of former Metropolitan Green Belt.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Hunt’s Farmhouse, on the A25 opposite the Crouch Lane
junction, is a mid-18<sup>th</sup> century Grade II-listed building, while the
Black Horse pub dates from early coaching days. It opened in 1592 as the Black
Bull, though has been rebuilt several times since: the current pub dates largely
from the 1920s though the centre block preserves part of an earlier iteration.
The trail swings off the main road along Station Road, passing a couple of
rustic-looking Grade II-listed cottages: late 17<sup>th</sup> century Forge
Cottage, a timber-framed ragstone building, and no 89 next-door, the remains of
a 16<sup>th</sup> century hall house. At the next junction the high street is a
few steps away to the left, while the station is to the right.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT2W_85hbTYk3BmX1XgHSP50d48rWEsx_zGRKwjDeGGKOIu3o27HhArLVjjjSc8-FzODU7SQqsuv65eu03RQHKra1ACVkQfIkD3KJ1G-Txa18wkblFoSKBylpzGIi613SIMMkaE_krCq8/s1600/boroughgreenstation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT2W_85hbTYk3BmX1XgHSP50d48rWEsx_zGRKwjDeGGKOIu3o27HhArLVjjjSc8-FzODU7SQqsuv65eu03RQHKra1ACVkQfIkD3KJ1G-Txa18wkblFoSKBylpzGIi613SIMMkaE_krCq8/s400/boroughgreenstation.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Borough Green's civilised station booking hall.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
It’s an indication of how the relative perception of
Borough Green has shifted that when it opened the station was known only as
Wrotham, even though it was a considerable distance from that village. It was
shortly renamed Wrotham & Boro Green, but the names didn’t swap to the
current Borough Green & Wrotham until 1962.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
It’s on the Maidstone East
line, originally a branch line from the LC&DR’s Sevenoaks line at Otford to
Maidstone, but later extended to rejoin the company’s main line at Ashford. The
cottagey red brick station building is original, and today looks rather
incongruous amid car parks and a modern late-opening supermarket. There’s a
welcoming touch, though, in the homely ticket office with its pot plants and
second-hand books, and after a day’s walking through some of the more remote
parts of west Kent, the conveniences of urban life may seem surprisingly
welcome.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/zi6m6mw77xe3i6e/2-solestreet-boroughgreen.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank">Detailed route description</a> (PDF)</li>
<li><a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NQbHT71QxMgsJ6X1Gj5hDVYd2NE&usp=sharing" target="_blank">Google map</a></li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-58311903014713721762018-08-13T08:07:00.003+01:002024-01-17T11:26:23.876+00:00Capital Ring 6/7: Wimbledon Park - Richmond - Boston Manor<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUv1K2xebXpdJvLkt18D0mwtpH9c8CYFv65Q8lOS3DqFnAjKsk4J-KGP8PU8vbVov4tmLXn-lMBKWeLr5DcNrSjnHYU2LuimreS8OR4Z_tGfzrfS3r7qRiAXbujBPd-q2relSTk8F47AQ/s1600/richmondpark-durybench.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="359" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUv1K2xebXpdJvLkt18D0mwtpH9c8CYFv65Q8lOS3DqFnAjKsk4J-KGP8PU8vbVov4tmLXn-lMBKWeLr5DcNrSjnHYU2LuimreS8OR4Z_tGfzrfS3r7qRiAXbujBPd-q2relSTk8F47AQ/s640/richmondpark-durybench.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ian Dury Memorial Bench.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
You’ll enjoy some of the best green walking in
London on this stretch of the Capital Ring, as it crosses two of the city’s
biggest and best-known open spaces, Wimbledon and Putney Commons and adjacent
Richmond Park, a National Nature Reserve and Royal Park. Remarkably, it
includes over 10 km of almost entirely off-road walking, all within Transport
for London’s fare zone 4, through the Commons, the Park and along the Thames
Path. Crossing the Thames at Richmond Lock, the trail continues through pretty
Isleworth village and stately Syon Park with its mansion to Brentford and then along
part of the Grand Union Canal. The section also boasts the densest collection
of major heritage features on the entire trail and as a result this post is
abnormally long even by the standards of this blog.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
I’ve combined two official sections again to create a
longer walk, but as the first one includes some of the more rugged walking on
the Ring, you may feel you deserve a rest at the official break point of
Richmond upon Thames. Once you reach the Thames, though, the going is much
flatter and easier. There are various bus stops along the way and another
station close to the trail at Brentford, not far from the end, but also some
longer stretches away from transport options through the commons and the royal
park. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
Wimbledon Park<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg53Q9hJDjhgCF-M4wvRAtcVijRmRLLzqUIYWFIZxhyGxF2r2OjA3-Nuvd1lDhafvtQDmr2-VKKoEYvR0Z18GIU9TeOcG1BVWhptr2lisEYrmengW1tA5SzkRopTbWVXJk9M2ghx0eUYDA/s1600/wimbledonparklake.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg53Q9hJDjhgCF-M4wvRAtcVijRmRLLzqUIYWFIZxhyGxF2r2OjA3-Nuvd1lDhafvtQDmr2-VKKoEYvR0Z18GIU9TeOcG1BVWhptr2lisEYrmengW1tA5SzkRopTbWVXJk9M2ghx0eUYDA/s640/wimbledonparklake.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wimbledon Park Lake, brought to you by the ever-busy Capability Brown.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
Wimbledon boasts one of the most internationally
recognised names of any London suburb, for two reasons: tennis and wombles,
both of which I’ll have more to say about later. But for most of its existence
it was a relatively unimportant place. The name is probably Saxon in origin,
meaning ‘Wynman’s hill’. There are prehistoric remains in the area, and an
ancient trackway likely passed through to the ford at Kingston upon Thames. Wimbledon
doesn’t merit its own entry in the Domesday survey of 1086, because back then
its land, along with that of neighbouring Putney, was included in the much
bigger manor of Mortlake, in the old Surrey hundred of Brixton. This at one
point was claimed by the ambitious Bishop Odo, mentioned many times in London
Underfoot, but quickly passed into the hands of the archbishops of Canterbury.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Wimbledon appears to have become a separate manor by 1328 but
remained in the control of the archbishops until 1536 when then-incumbent
Thomas Cranmer exchanged it with Henry VIII. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The king gave it to another of his cronies,
chief minister Thomas Cromwell, who was born in Putney – historically a part of
the parish until relatively modern times. There were numerous subsequent
owners, including royalty, then in 1717 it was bought by one of the directors
of the speculative South Sea Company, Theodore Jannsen, who was forced to sell
it just six years later after that company collapsed in the infamous ‘South Sea
Bubble’ incident.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The estate was snapped up by Sarah Churchill, the Duchess
of Marlborough, one of the richest and most influential women of her age. This
is how Wimbledon came into the hands of the aristocratic Spencer family, whom
we’ve already encountered in Wandsworth in <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2018/04/capital-ring-45-crystal-palace.html">section 5</a>. They formally remained lords
of the manor of Wimbledon until 1996 when the title was sold to an un-named
Brazilian for £171,000 – an extraordinary sum given that all property and
rights in the area had long since been sold or relinquished and the status was
purely honorary.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
As often in London, the mediaeval geography has been
skewed by the railway. The original village centre was atop a hill to the south
of our trail, around the Green and on the edge of the common. The manorial
centre was close to St Mary’s Church nearby: the original manor house was
probably the building now known as the Old Rectory, dating from the early 16<sup>th</sup>
century and still standing behind the church.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
It was often occupied separately
from the estate: Elizabeth I gave the house but not the manor to her close
adviser Christopher Hatton, who lived at what’s now Hatton Garden off Holborn,
in 1576. He immediately sold it on to the politician and military leader Thomas
Cecil, who later built an entirely new manor house on a grand scale nearby. This
house was subsequently rebuilt completely three times before being demolished
in 1949: the site is now a school playing field. The London and South Western
Railway, opened in 1838, ran through the rather easier terrain at the bottom of
the hill to the southwest, eventually prompting the development of Wimbledon
Broadway, the busy commercial centre around today’s Wimbledon station, some
distance off our route.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Wimbledon Park was once the estate’s private parkland.
Cecil added a deer park and 8 ha of formal gardens to his new house, and
diarist and gardener John Evelyn had a hand in remodelling these in the late 17<sup>th</sup>
century. Churchill’s great-grandson John Spencer, the first Earl Spencer, expanded
the park and grounds to 480 ha, and in 1765 commissioned the celebrated
landscape gardener Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown (1716-83) to redesign them.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The
Spencers sold the property in 1846 to an insurance magnate, John Augustus
Beaumont, who soon began parcelling off portions of the park for housing
development. At first, large upmarket houses were built but many of these have
since been demolished and replaced with smaller houses and flats. The remaining
park was briefly a potential candidate for a new site for the Crystal Palace,
though as we saw in section 3, this eventually went to Norwood. The opening of Wimbledon
Park station on the Wimbledon and Fulham Railway, as described in section 5, accelerated
the emergence of today’s Wimbledon Park residential area.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Wimbledon Borough Council, one of the predecessors to
today’s London Borough of Merton, bought a portion of still-undeveloped
parkland in 1915 as a green lung for the increasingly densely-populated area. While
part was turned into today’s <a href="https://www2.merton.gov.uk/environment/openspaces/parks/parks_in_the_wimbledon_area/wimbledon-park.htm" target="_blank">public park</a>, the substantial western portion was
leased to the Wimbledon Park Golf Club. This section remains in use as a
private golf course, though Merton sold it on in the 1990s to the All England
Tennis Club, of which much more later. In recent years the tennis club has been
attempting to buy the golfers out of their lease, which runs to 2041, so it can
further expand its already extensive facilities in the area.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
In recognition of their history and remaining heritage
features, both park and golf course are included on the Register of Parks and
Gardens: a heritage trail in and around the site points out some of these
features with informative plaques. There’s a keen local <a href="https://www.wphg.org.uk/" target="_blank">Heritage Group</a> too,
protecting both the historic features and the present-day amenities of this
popular local park, also the site of one of London’s biggest fireworks displays
every November.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The Capital Ring enters from Home Park Road at Heritage
Trail point 1, where a grand stone balcony provides a viewpoint over the
eastern section of the park. Most of the built facilities are clustered at this
end: you can see the old paddling pool, as well as a new pool, playgrounds and
tennis courts. The steps descend past a recently-restored early 20<sup>th</sup>
century pavilion, now used by the local police. The proximity to the All
England Club is already evident: alongside the Ring waymarks are others
illustrated with crossed tennis racquets indicating the walking route from
Wimbledon Park station to the club. It’s best to avoid walking this section
during the Championships fortnight, usually in early July, not only because of
the increased footfall but because much of the park is converted into temporary
car parks.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
A little further and just off the trail to the right is
the Café Pavilion, likely built in the 1920s at the same time as the tennis
courts and still functioning as a café. Astonishingly a recent masterplan for
improvements to the park proposed to demolish this, but it appears to have been
saved for now. You soon reach the side of the lake, the most prominent of the
features created by Lancelot Brown in the 1760s.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The path here runs atop the dam
built by Brown to trap the water from two streams, now running almost entirely
underground. These rise on Wimbledon Common, merge in the park and drain into
the river Wandle at Earlsfield: the lower part of this watercourse once formed
the boundary between Wandsworth and Wimbledon. The lake is now used for sailing,
and you pass the 1960s watersports centre before turning away from the
waterside to circumnavigate another 20<sup>th</sup> century addition, the Wimbledon
Park Athletics Stadium. About halfway along, you cross the boundary following
the old streams and re-enter Wandsworth, though the park is entirely managed by
Merton so there’s no evidence on the ground.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The surroundings here are mainly open grassy sports
fields, but ahead and right there’s a view of a small woodland, Horse Close
Wood, which predates the mid-18<sup>th</sup> century work and is now an
important nature site. The Ring leaves the park through the main entrance onto Wimbledon
Park Road: look out here for Heritage Trail point 8, marking one of the best
viewpoints back over both the public park and the golf course. From here you
can see the contours of Brown’s landscaping, and rising above it on the far
side, the spire of St Mary’s church marking the old manorial centre.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
The tennis capital<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHNP7M53qiS3OlRyfyZLptUbqFHV5Wpl9EM8X926P9ofPBPk-VGfLi8Q2YOwMjfhChtRJa8whiovx1jLwHENtr7yXRj-TtVGm6iz5o3OI7cihI9acDz0LRwzjHq3Xld6Vf5IAmTN-_8gU/s1600/800px-Anthony_Wilding_and_Beals_Wright%252C_Wimbledon_1910.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHNP7M53qiS3OlRyfyZLptUbqFHV5Wpl9EM8X926P9ofPBPk-VGfLi8Q2YOwMjfhChtRJa8whiovx1jLwHENtr7yXRj-TtVGm6iz5o3OI7cihI9acDz0LRwzjHq3Xld6Vf5IAmTN-_8gU/s640/800px-Anthony_Wilding_and_Beals_Wright%252C_Wimbledon_1910.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> New Zealand's Tony Wilding in the process of beating Beals Wright of the US at the 1910 Wimbledon men's final.<br />
Pic: Wikimedia Commons</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
Unless and until the golf course is handed over, the
All England Club is off the trail, but if you want to see the place where the
<a href="http://www.wimbledon.com/" target="_blank">world’s most famous tennis tournament</a> is played, it’s only a little further
along Church Road (and back into Merton) from where the Ring turns off along
Bathgate Road. The most obvious visible buildings in this extensive complex are
the two oval stadia of No 1 Court, opened in 2013, and Centre Court, built in
1922 though enlarged several times and with a fully retractable roof added in
2009. While the overwhelming focus of activity here is the two weeks of the
Championships, it’s used as a members’ club throughout the year, with
occasional competitive fixtures such as Davis Cup matches. For those with a
specialist interest, there’s a <a href="https://bookings.wimbledon.com/stadiumtours/" target="_blank">Lawn Tennis Museum</a> open daily, a souvenir shop,
and a guided behind-the-scenes tour.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Interestingly, Wimbledon’s roots as the world capital of
tennis are in a completely different sport. The club was founded in 1868 as the
All England Croquet Club, by six members of the team behind <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Field</i> magazine who leased a meadow
off Worple Road, southwest of Wimbledon station, as their first ground. Croquet
today is regarded as a rather obscure and eccentric game, but in the 1860s it
was a fashionable craze, thus Lewis Carroll’s surreal version of it in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland</i> (1865).</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The club management, doubtless aware that crazes often decline as quickly as
they arise, diversified in 1875 by setting aside space for lawn tennis, then in
the process of emerging as an adapted and simplified version of so-called ‘real
tennis’, a much older game dating back at least to mediaeval France and once keenly
played by Tudor royals. Tennis soon eclipsed croquet, and since 1899 the club’s
full title has been the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. The latter
game is still played but on a much smaller scale than tennis, since 2007 at a
separate ground in Roehampton.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
From its early days the club raised funds by organising
croquet tournaments and in 1877 it applied the same approach to tennis. This
first iteration of what became the Championships involved 22 male players in
singles matches only. As the rules of the game weren’t yet standardised, the
club issued its own rulebook, only finally superseded by the International
Tennis Federation rules in 1924. Around 200 spectators paid 1s (5p) each to witness
the final between Spencer Gore and William Marshall. Gore, who lived nearby and
much preferred playing cricket, won 6-1, 6-2, 6-4, then told the press that
“lawn tennis will never rank among our great games.” Women’s singles and men’s
doubles were added in 1884, women’s and mixed doubles in 1913.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
By then, defying Gore’s prediction, tennis had become
hugely popular, and the increasing numbers wanting to see top players like Suzanne
Lenglen, known in her native France as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">la
Divine</i>, forced the club to find a new site. It moved to its current corner
of the former Wimbledon Park in 1922, though some of the courts it left behind
at Worple Lane are still there today. The new No 1 Court, closest to the Ring,
is on a portion of land added in 1967 with the absorption of the New Zealand
Sports & Social Club, known as Aorangi Park from a Maori name for Mount
Cook meaning ‘cloud piercer’. Wimbledon’s growth into the phenomenon it is
today, though, really dates from the following year, when restrictions on
professional players competing in the big tournaments were removed. It’s now one
of the four international ‘grand slam’ contests offering the biggest prize
money, and the only one of these still played on grass.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Though the tennis scene has evolved hugely from its
genteel Victorian origins, the whiff of upper class privilege still hangs about
the game. The legacy of the sporting gentleman founders is preserved at
Wimbledon not just in some of its rather stuffy traditions such as the
consumption of strawberries and cream (spectators got through 34,000 kg and
10,000 l respectively in 2017) and the insistence on players wearing whites,
but in its secretive and exclusive structure as a private club with less than
400 carefully selected members. Black players weren’t permitted until 1951 and
Jewish players had to wait until the following year. Women’s prize money was
lower than men’s until 2007. Angela Buxton, joint women’s doubles champion and
singles finalist in 1956, alleged in 2004 that antisemitism had kept her on the
membership waiting list for decades.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Back on the Ring, Bathgate Road and Queensmere Road follow
the boundary between Merton to the south (left) and Wandsworth. The tennis
courts in the triangle where these streets divide inevitably also belong to the
All England Club and are used as practice facilities during the Championships:
you can sometimes spot well-known players using them. Further on are numerous
upmarket residences, including Queensmere House, once part of Southlands
teacher training college but converted to luxury flats in the 1990s, and a 21<sup>st</sup>
century apartment block built after seven separate owner-occupiers of
consecutive houses on the south side agreed simultaneously to sell up to a
developer.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
Wimbledon and Putney Commons<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbodsz_yLnjWZC0sxpfk1lOLhva9u0eU-O6YY7QbhhQDhzuq_plZDCtOk3J7Gw1kAoIQVTuEeWAWHwOusnWIDh4wADo5AI2Rky9Do3ny9z0VycpbSqN73mB5-PbfUOdTzhxrJCGYGmHAc/s1600/putneyheath.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbodsz_yLnjWZC0sxpfk1lOLhva9u0eU-O6YY7QbhhQDhzuq_plZDCtOk3J7Gw1kAoIQVTuEeWAWHwOusnWIDh4wADo5AI2Rky9Do3ny9z0VycpbSqN73mB5-PbfUOdTzhxrJCGYGmHAc/s640/putneyheath.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Putney Heath.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
The adjacent open spaces of Wimbledon Common and
Putney Heath between them cover just under 450 ha, making them about 40% bigger
than Hampstead Heath. The area is one of London’s most valuable green assets,
with terrain that varies from a high and open plateau topped with gravels,
giving rise to heath and acidic grassland, to thick woods that sprout from the
clay lining the valley of the Beverley Brook in the west. Half the heathland
left in London can be found here, which is one of the reasons why around 364 ha
are a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest and European Special Area
of Conservation.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Ling and bell heather grow on the dry heath, with reeds
and rushes in damper areas. Around 100 species of birds can be seen, a
remarkable number for an urban area, including kestrels and a pair of breeding
skylarks, while badgers and various bats are perhaps the most notable mammals. 30
species of butterfly, over 500 of moths and 20 of dragonflies and damselflies
have been recorded. The common is noted as an important habitat for stag
beetles, which can grow to 75 mm long, and the globally rare false click
beetle. There have even been reports of sugar gliders, small arboreal
marsupials native to Australia, with membranes between their limbs that help them
glide between trees: presumably they arrived as escaped or dumped exotic pets.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Among the large mammals listed on the <a href="https://www.wpcc.org.uk/" target="_blank">Commons Conservators website</a> is the extremely local speciality <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Womblus
commonus subsp. Litterpickerus</i>, though in truth you’ll find these harder to
spot than the sugar gliders. The wombles, secretive, long-lived, pointy-nosed
and highly intelligent tunnelling creatures, are the fictional creation of children’s
author Elisabeth Beresford (1926-2010), who got the idea when, during a walk on
the common, her young daughter mispronounced the name as ‘Wombledon’.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Beresford
published five novels and a short story collection between 1968 and 1976. The
fame of her creations and of their southwest London home was boosted further by
a stop-motion animation TV series narrated by Bernard Cribbins, made between
1973 and 1975, with a revived version in 1996. Created at a time of rising
environmental concern, the wombles spend their days gathering and recycling rubbish
left behind on the common by humans, and in the books it’s revealed they have a
sixth sense for green spaces. They would be perfect mascots for a green
capital, though I do wonder if any child ever deliberately dropped litter here just
so Orinoco or Wellington had something to pick up.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Like most of the surrounding area, the wombles’
magnificent habitat could so easily have been lost for good in the second half
of the 19<sup>th</sup> century. Thankfully it was protected from development by
legal action, and since 1871, Wimbledon Common and Putney Heath have been owned
and managed by the Wimbledon and Putney Commons board of conservators, who also
look after the separate and much smaller Putney Lower Common, off our trail to
the north. The joint management of the two adjacent open spaces, each in a
different London borough, reflects their shared history.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
As mentioned above, in mediaeval times both Wimbledon and
Putney were part of the large parish of Mortlake and among the estates of the
Archbishops of Canterbury. The modern green spaces are the surviving remnants
of the extensive parish common lands, where local people had the right to graze
cattle, gather fuel and food and dig gravel between Michaelmas (28 September) and
Lady Day (25 March).</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Putney, with its important ferry crossing and later bridge
across the Thames in the north, gradually assumed its own distinct identity
centred on a busy riverside town. By the 15<sup>th</sup> century, it had its
own manorial estate, Putney Park, excluded in 1548 when Wimbledon manor was
given to Thomas Cecil by Edward VI’s regency council. In 1658 Putney briefly
became a distinct parish, and though the parish church reverted to a ‘curacy’
of Wimbledon two years later, the separation of the two areas persisted, even
after John Spencer acquired both the park and the manorial rights to Putney,
including control of commons, to add to his Wimbledon holdings in 1780.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
When the territory covered by the Metropolitan Board of
Works was drawn up in 1855, the more urbanised Putney was grouped in with
Wandsworth as part of the ‘Metropolis’ while Wimbledon was excluded. Putney
then went on to become part of London with the advent of the MBW’s successor
the London County Council in 1889, while Wimbledon remained in Surrey (though
in the London postal district and Metropolitan Police district) until the creation
of Greater London in 1965 when it became part of the London Borough of Merton. So
once again the Ring finds itself tracking what was until relatively recently
the limit of the capital.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Spencer and his descendants both exploited and neglected
the commons, authorising illegal encroachments, failing to protect them from
dumping and in 1812 felling all the pollarded oaks to sell for timber. The
Manor Court, which since at least the 15<sup>th</sup> century had arbitrated
disputes, had become a toothless body. It rapidly acquiesced when the fifth
earl, John Poyntz Spencer, a liberal peer also known as Viscount Althorp, presented
a plan to extinguish commoners’ rights, sell off Putney Heath and use the
proceeds to inclose Wimbledon Common, building himself a new manor house by the
windmill. This, he said, was the best way to manage the “boggy” land with its “noxious
mists and fogs” and to protect it from “great nuisance [that] was caused by
gypsies”.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Spencer reckoned without Henry Peek, one of the new middle-class
residents of the area, a tea and spice trader whose home, Wimbledon House, faced
the common from across Parkside. Peek formed a local opposition group, the
Wimbledon Commons Committee. This in turn influenced the broader-based Commons
Preservation Society, founded in 1865 and now known as the Open Spaces Society,
and the parliamentary enquiry which resulted in the Metropolitan Commons Act of
1866. Meanwhile, as Spencer attempted to advance a private member’s bill
through Parliament to further his plans, the Committee took legal action
against him over the state of the land. The complex dispute continued for
several years, during which Spencer intensified gravel extraction and leased
out land as brickfields and sewage farms.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The situation was resolved with an act of parliament in
1871, which protected the remaining commons and placed them in the care of the
Board of Conservators – but at a price. Spencer was to receive the
then-substantial sum of £1,200 a year to compensate him for loss of earnings,
raised from an additional levy on local property rates. The Spencer family
continued to profit from the commons for the best part of a further century until
the Conservators bought out the annuity in 1968. Today, the Conservators, now a
registered charity, manage the land mainly for informal recreation and
biodiversity, though some of it is allocated to golf courses. Unusually, none
of the board members is a local authority appointee: five are elected by
levy-payers, three appointed by central government departments.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The Capital Ring is usually described as crossing
Wimbledon Common though this is only just true. Its route is almost entirely either
along the historic east-west boundary between the Common, in Merton to the
south (left), and Putney Heath, in Wandsworth to the north, or within the
Putney side. Entering the site from Parkside, the trail is just within Putney, running
through one of the thicker patches of woodland on Putney Heath towards the
cluster of buildings around the famous windmill, where it meets and joins the
boundary at a boundary stone. The buildings themselves are within Wimbledon:
the boundary runs on the path between the café and the car park.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg80YC72hhvh5wwIgRI0yuUkRZhqfw2z1ftewKo9tu8Sa2rwxb-zOLlVbbzpq1y0NFz8BVNwau75XjXePwk2oSD1tdXkjSmuA-l6y3JUNCd1UZCQ9SZPyjEgebqtv4F_ZFK6INnisv4VBk/s1600/wimbledonwindmill.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg80YC72hhvh5wwIgRI0yuUkRZhqfw2z1ftewKo9tu8Sa2rwxb-zOLlVbbzpq1y0NFz8BVNwau75XjXePwk2oSD1tdXkjSmuA-l6y3JUNCd1UZCQ9SZPyjEgebqtv4F_ZFK6INnisv4VBk/s400/wimbledonwindmill.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wimbledon's landmark windmill, designed by mistake.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Permission for a windmill was granted in 1817 on the
condition that it provided a public facility. It’s a hollow post mill, common
in the Netherlands but rare in England. This is likely because its builder and
first miller Charles March was a carpenter and not a millwright, and simply
copied a similar mill which once stood on Bankside in central London, without
realising it was of an unusual design. March exploited the high vantage point
by taking a second job as constable, looking out for duellists among other
miscreants. Duelling was technically illegal in England, though still widely
practiced in the early 19<sup>th</sup> century, and Wimbledon was a popular
venue for it: in 1798 the prime minister William Pitt the Younger faced William
Tierney, MP for Southwark, in a duel where both opponents missed twice, perhaps
deliberately.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Milling ceased in 1864 when Spencer persuaded the Marsh
family to sell up. To prevent the mill from operating in competition with them
in future, they took the millstones and much of the machinery with them. The
building was used as a family home in the later 19<sup>th</sup> century, and
part of it became a <a href="https://www.wimbledonwindmill.org.uk/" target="_blank">museum</a> in 1975. In the early 2000s the sails were restored
to working order thanks to a Heritage Lottery Fund grant, and the museum
improved and expanded: it’s now open on summer weekends and bank holidays. The grant
also covered improvement to the adjacent park ranger headquarters, including an
information centre which is open daily. The café, known as the Windmill Tea
Rooms, is also well worth a look.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The Ring dips into Wimbledon to pass the clubhouse of the
London Scottish Golf Club behind the windmill. Golf is a Scottish game by
origin so it’s appropriate that there’s a northern connection to the second
oldest golf club in London and the third oldest in England, as well as links to
the use of commons for military purposes, which go back to George III’s time
when it was the site of Royal military reviews.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
In 1860 Spencer offered to host
the inaugural meeting of the National Rifle Association, founded as a corps of
volunteers raised to defend Britain from a potential French invasion, with
Queen Victoria firing the first shot. Rifle ranges were a permanent feature
until 1894, when a stray shot accidentally killed a gardener in the adjacent
Putney Vale cemetery, but the commons were used for army training again in both
world wars, and the Ministry of Defence still appoints one of the Conservators.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Soon after 1860, golf-playing members of the London
Scottish Rifle Volunteers dug seven holes on the common. A formal club followed
in 1865: the current clubhouse is the third such building, dating from 1897. A
second club, Wimbledon Common Golf Club, founded in 1908, plays on the same
course but has a separate clubhouse and a different starting hole. Golfers from
both are easily recognised as for safety reasons the Conservators require them
to wear pillar-box red tops.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Downhill through more trees, the trail arrives at Queensmere,
by far the deepest of the nine lakes and ponds on the commons. It was created
to mark Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee at the end of the 19<sup>th</sup>
century by damming a stream that crossed a marshy area once popular with
duellists. It’s evolved into an atmospheric, perhaps slightly gloomy place,
surrounded by trees on all sides, with water lilies flourishing in summer and
large tench and pike patrolling the depths. Past the pond and once again tracing
the Wimbledon-Putney boundary, the woods on the right cover the former rifle
butts, then you cross a sandy area on the edge of the golf course that retains
something of a heath-like appearance.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The trail descends again to join a path known as the Stag
Ride. Through the trees here, only a short detour away and on the alternative
Green London Way, is the First World War Memorial, a granite cross encircled by
trees, with the suggestion – presumably unintentional – of an ancient stone
circle. Created in 1925, it bears no names but a lyrical inscription:<o:p></o:p></div>
<blockquote>
Nature provides the best monument. The perfecting of the work
must be left to the gentle hand of time but each returning spring will bring a
fresh tribute to those whom it is desired to keep in everlasting remembrance.</blockquote>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The memorial stands on one of the former fields of
Newlands Farm, part of a 17 ha portion of land acquired by the Conservators in
the 1920s. Most of this, visible through the trees past the memorial, is now
managed as sports fields, named Richardson Evans Playing Fields after someone
who was instrumental in securing the land for public use.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The Ring then meets and briefly follows the Beverley
Brook. The official source of this river is near Worcester Park station, from
where it flows roughly north for 14.3 km via New Malden, Wimbledon Common and
Richmond Park to Barnes. Here it turns east to join the river Thames at Barn
Elms just above Putney. There’s also a substantial tributary, the 5.3 km Pyl
Brook, which rises in Sutton and joins the Beverley at New Malden.<br />
<br />
The brook's name harks back to a rural past when it was noted for beavers, but it's now an urban river which has been straightened and culverted in many places. It suffered from
the dumping of poorly treated sewage until 1998 when improvements in water
treatment increased its wildlife. Further restoration is now taking place,
including in Richmond Park. A 10.5 km signed trail, the <a href="https://www.merton.gov.uk/leisure-recreation-and-culture/tourism-and-travel/local-attractions/beverley-brook-walk" target="_blank">Beverley Brook Walk</a>,
was created by the Ramblers and the local boroughs in the early 2000s,
following the brook from New Malden to Barn Elms.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The course of the brook has long served as an ancient
boundary, marking the western edge of Wimbledon and Putney and the Hundred of
Brixton, and large stretches of it still demarcate Wandsworth and Merton from
the boroughs to the east. So when just short of a sports pavilion the Ring
turns left to cross it, you finally leave the commons and Wandsworth for a
brief visit to the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Kingston Vale<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Lhx-qu74JDgD1n19SmDPGmc-92nKWkRw8_CYhHHyhBcTOzaLPbzpjw1rvniQKQKxBkdgRxdP4tttwdPN-3gMrzzhyphenhyphen7BYUg2yrC3BbNblE0RtgiGtdVGkM8LjR7aR0wjDQ5VyyG03x40/s1600/robinhoodgate.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Lhx-qu74JDgD1n19SmDPGmc-92nKWkRw8_CYhHHyhBcTOzaLPbzpjw1rvniQKQKxBkdgRxdP4tttwdPN-3gMrzzhyphenhyphen7BYUg2yrC3BbNblE0RtgiGtdVGkM8LjR7aR0wjDQ5VyyG03x40/s640/robinhoodgate.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Robin Hood Gate, not quite a roundabout.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The Capital Ring crosses one of the University of
Roehampton’s sports fields to arrive at the busy Robin Hood Gate road junction,
where the A3 Kingston Bypass peels away from the old Portsmouth Road through
Kingston, here known like the district as Kingston Vale. This is the only
interruption of a lengthy stretch of green walking, but it’s now about a
painless as it could be despite the busy roads. A Pegasus crossing – so called as it accommodates horse
riders as well as walkers and cyclists – takes you across the westbound traffic
and onto a teardrop-shaped patch of ground at the apex of the junction.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Despite
its shape, this was treated as a roundabout until 1995 and is still sometimes
called the Robin Hood Roundabout locally. The pipe sprouting from a plinth to
the left is not some strange monument but a sewage vent or ‘stink pole’ for a
pumping station beneath the junction. Then another crossing allows passage
across the eastbound traffic from both the A3 and Kingston, leading straight to
the stump of a street that ends in the Robin Hood Gate of Richmond Park. Until
the early 2010s the only safe way across here was an ugly footbridge which
still stands to the left, so the at-grade crossing is a major improvement.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Kingston Vale today is a sharp triangle inserted between Richmond
and Wandsworth, its point just to the northeast of the junction, where the Beverley
Brook enters Richmond Park. But the historic boundaries were much less angular,
as the land now forming the southern part of the park was also part of the
parish of Kingston upon Thames. As outlined on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/london-loop-78-banstead-ewell-kingston.html">London Loop 8</a>, which passes
right through it, Kingston is one of the most historic centres in suburban
London, the place where several Saxon kings were crowned. It was the basis not
only of a large parish but also of one of the Surrey hundreds, bounded by the
brook to the east.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Kingston stood on the major highway between London and
Portsmouth, which branched off Roman Stane Street (crossed in the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2018/04/capital-ring-45-crystal-palace.html">last section</a>)
at Clapham. This route only increased in strategic importance as Portsmouth
developed into England’s foremost naval port. The road now known as Kingston
Vale formed a part of the highway, its name distinguishing it from Kingston
Hill, the stretch that climbs the promontory above the Thames where the town
centre stands. The locality was once known as Kingston Bottom, and only adopted
its current name sometime in the 19<sup>th</sup> century, presumably encouraged
by developers who favoured something less likely to make schoolchildren giggle.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The original road junction here was a relatively minor one.
It still exists today, a little southwest of where we cross, where Robin Hood
Lane leaves Kingston Vale. The lane was once a farm track leading to Robin Hood
Farm, and by the 18<sup>th</sup> century a coaching inn known as the Robin Hood
had appeared on the corner, as well as a scattering of houses around both the
junction and the gate into the park. In 1870, to accommodate increasing traffic,
the inn moved to a larger site opposite, on the Richmond Park side of the main
road, with stabling for 30 horses: this building also still stands as Robin
Hood House, converted into flats in 2004.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Kingston had long been known as a bottleneck on the Portsmouth
road, a problem exacerbated by the growth of motor traffic in the early 20<sup>th</sup>
century. The campaign for a bypass began in 1910, and the road was completed in
1927, by which time it had been designated part of the A3. At 13.7 km, it was
one of the longest bypasses built at the time, leaving the old road here at
Robin Hood Gate and rejoining it at Ditton Common near Esher. It was opened by
the prime minister himself, Stanley Baldwin. Soon more houses appeared
alongside the road and on the surrounding fields, creating the cluster familiar
today. Now regarded as having a particularly attractive mix of architecture
despite the busy junction, the locality has become a designated Conservation
Area.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Stag Lodge Stables, on the right just before the gate, was
known as Parkside until the mid-1960s. Its core is likely 18<sup>th</sup>
century though its current mock-Regency stucco façades date from a remodelling
in the following century. In the days of horse-drawn transport it was the place
where the ‘cock horse’ was stationed – the additional horse who joined the team
to help haul heavy wagons up Kingston Hill. Its business is still equestrian
but rather more leisure-oriented, as a riding school and livery stables ideally
positioned for both common and park.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Richmond Park<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX4PqDVPl4kF2RjXGY9jp2q3tjxTHZ-q5W2eDjaKZ266El5kPwuwGTD4mJZfSmNbUVwpXL2Sf4qaygW65NKUZCznhTyYixqITaSPEQSglkFwjeRXsUTKrf491nFD4nMuHaNZaTtdY1MXA/s1600/richmondparkpenponds.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX4PqDVPl4kF2RjXGY9jp2q3tjxTHZ-q5W2eDjaKZ266El5kPwuwGTD4mJZfSmNbUVwpXL2Sf4qaygW65NKUZCznhTyYixqITaSPEQSglkFwjeRXsUTKrf491nFD4nMuHaNZaTtdY1MXA/s640/richmondparkpenponds.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pen Ponds, Richmond Park.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
At 955 ha, around three times the size of New York
City’s Central Park, <a href="https://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/richmond-park" target="_blank">Richmond Park</a> is the single biggest and perhaps the most beautiful
and valuable public open space entirely in London and the biggest urban park in
Europe. Although there are areas of formal gardens and mown playing fields, most
of it is rough, rugged and astonishingly rural, a rolling expanse of largely
undisturbed acid grassland dotted with lone mature trees, patches of bracken
and small woods. Its character is maintained by the centuries-old practice of
grazing with deer, who roam freely. Most of the park is a designated Site of
Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), in particularly because of its population
of rare beetles that flourish on old dead wood, and since 2000 it’s been a
National Nature Reserve (NNR), one of only two in London (the other, Ruislip
Woods, is on the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2017/08/hillingdon-trail-2-west-ruislip.html">Hillingdon Trail</a>).<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The story of how this giant patch of urban countryside was
preserved as the well-loved public resource it is today begins, rather
ironically, with the actions of a selfish monarch. In 1625 Charles I took
refuge from an outbreak of plague in London at Richmond Palace and took a
liking to the place, except for one thing: the existing hunting park, in a bend
of the river to the north of the palace, simply wasn’t big enough for him. In
1637 he seized a much bigger portion of land to the southeast as the ‘New Park’,
inclosing it with a 13 km-long wall, much of which still stands today, and
introducing 2,000 deer. Some of this was already in royal ownership and used
for hunting, but the rest was a mix of farmland and common land spanning
several parishes: Ham, Kingston, Mortlake, Petersham, Putney, Richmond and
Wimbledon.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Understandably the King’s action provoked an outcry. He
eventually agreed to compensate local landowners and to create six gates so
that local people could continue to gather firewood and cross the park on
public rights of way rather than making long detours around the wall. This was
only one of numerous issues over which Charles, a fervent believer in the
divine right of kings, clashed with his subjects and undoubtedly added to his
declining popularity. His repeated conflicts with both the English and Scottish
parliaments eventually provoked revolution and civil war. Following the
establishment of the English Commonwealth, so far the only republic in mainland
Britain, the king was executed for high treason in 1649.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Richmond Park was vested in the City of London during the
Commonwealth period, on the basis that it would be “preserved as a Park still,
without Destruction; and to remain as an Ornament to the City”. It was returned
to royal hands following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. The idea of
the park as an ‘ornament to the City’ was challenged again in 1751 when George
II’s daughter Amelia was appointed ranger. She claimed the park as her personal
pleasure ground, locking all the gates and only permitting entry to the select
few. Several years of both legal moves and direct action followed: the vicar of
Richmond defiantly led his parishioners through holes in the wall so they could
complete the annual Beating the Bounds ceremony.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
In 1755, a Richmond brewer, John Lewis, followed a
carriage through the Sheen gate and, when challenged, insisted on his right to
walk through the park. Forcibly expelled by the gatekeeper, Lewis went to court.
Doubtless nervous of provoking Royal irritation, the Surrey Assizes found reasons
to delay hearing the case, and there was an attempt to discredit Lewis by associating
him with a seditious pamphlet.<br />
<br />
But growing public support finally forced the
issue, and in 1758 the justices found in his favour. The princess reluctantly installed
ladder stiles but placed the rungs so far apart only the most athletic adults
could use them, and Lewis had to return to court to get this fixed. The
financial burden, combined with a flood in his brewery, reduced him to penury,
and he lived for several years until his death in 1792 on a modest annuity
established by grateful locals. He’s buried in Richmond church.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Amelia, now bored with the park, resigned her post as
ranger in 1761, and the access regime relaxed again, although for many years
carriage drivers had to obtain special tickets and walkers were restricted to a
few well-defined rights of way. Under Queen Victoria in the next century, the official
view of the Royal Parks in London gradually shifted from private playground to community
asset, culminating in the Parks Regulation Act of 1872 which provided for their
management as public open space. An essay on Lewis by Max Lankester of the
Friends of Richmond Park speculates that without him, political and social
changes would eventually have led to the reopening of the park, but perhaps not
for another century. “The determination and shrewdness of John Lewis remain a
landmark in the Park's history, and worthy of being celebrated,” concludes
Lankester.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The job of looking after Richmond and the other Royal
Parks passed to the government, which in 1993 created the Royal Parks Agency to
manage them. As part of the contemporary mania for disposing of such state
responsibilities, this was succeeded by an independent charity in 2017, though
the land itself is still Crown property. Meanwhile the elision of the historic
boundaries within the park walls was made official in 1890 when the entire site
became part of Richmond municipal borough, the predecessor of the London
Borough of Richmond. The park had its own constabulary until 2005 when it was
merged with the Metropolitan Police.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Robin Hood’s Gate is one of the six original gates in
Charles I’s wall. It was rebuilt in the 1780s to designs by John Soane, though
widened in 1896 and again in 1907 to admit motor vehicles, which inherited the
right to pass through the park on certain routes originally established for
horse-drawn transport. Today the intrusion of traffic is seen as unwelcome, and
although there are a couple of through-routes still in use during daylight
hours, this gate was closed to motor vehicles as part of a raft of reduction
measures in 2003. A round-the-park walking and cycling route, the <a href="https://www.sustrans.org.uk/ncn/map/route/tamsin-trail-richmond-park" target="_blank">Tamsin Trail</a>, crosses here.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The Ring avoids the surfaced drives and heads instead up
the flank of a grassy slope, atop which is Spankers Hill Wood. Like many of the
woodlands in the park, this is a relatively recent plantation, created in two
stages in 1819 and 1824 – as deer graze tree bark and destroy saplings, the
reintroduction of woodland areas had to be managed carefully. Beyond the next
car park with its popular refreshment kiosk, another woodland, the King George
V Plantation, is to the left. As its name suggests, this is more recent,
planted to commemorate the silver jubilee of the titular monarch in 1935: he
died the next year. Far over to the right you might glimpse White Lodge, a
Grade I listed hunting lodge built for George II in 1730, and where Edward VIII
was born (I said a bit more about him in connection with a rare pillar box on
section 3). It’s now occupied by the Royal Ballet School.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
You’re now on a broad stony track that soon follows the
causeway between two of the park’s most striking features, the twin Pen Ponds,
which between them occupy 12 ha. Fed by various streams, these were dug for
George II in 1746 and are shown on a 1777 map as ‘canals’. They have functioned
as fishponds and as part of drainage systems as well as decorative features and
are still used by anglers in season. They were temporarily drained during World
War II to make them less obvious a navigation aid for enemy pilots.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
It’s at this point, walking between placid ponds set among
a vast expanse of rolling grassland punctuated by raggedy woodlands and clumps
of trees, that you might well have to remind yourself you’re really still in
London. Traffic noises from the surrounding roads have almost entirely faded
away, and all is quiet except for the planes passing overhead on their way to
Heathrow. Your sense of isolation might be reinforced in winter by the chilly
temperatures: the ponds lie in a notorious frost hollow and regularly freeze
over. The feeling persists as you climb the slope beyond the ponds, with the
much smaller Leg of Mutton Pond over to the left, then cut across the rough grass
towar<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">ds Sidmouth Wood.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
This is one of the most likely places on the trail to spot
the deer. There are now around 630 of them, some with an ancestry that predates
Charles’ inclosure, with two distinct species. Fallow deer, tan in colour and
often with a distinctive dappling of lighter spots, were introduced to Britain
in Norman times and are now the most widespread. The larger red deer, with a
reddish-brown coat, are a native species, the island’s largest land mammals. To
regular park users, the deer are familiar and even seem tame, but the Royal
Parks are keen to remind people they’re wild animals, so keep a distance of at
least 50 m and consult the official safety advice before taking a dog. You’ll
need to take special care in the rutting season in September and October, when
the males compete aggressively for females, and the birthing season of May to
July when the females are protective of their young.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Another, more controversial, seasonal issue affecting the
deer is the regular cull. Left to their own devices in this enclosed space, the
herds would rapidly expand to unsustainable levels, with severe consequences
both to the health of the animals themselves and their environment. So park
rangers selectively kill deer by shooting them through the head, the males in
February, the females in November, with temporary closures of park gates,
usually at quieter times. There’s considerable opposition to this practice, and
calls to use contraception instead, but park managers insist they continue to
review all options and no other alternative is currently practical. Contraception
couldn’t be administered reliably except by injection, involving rounding up
the deer and subjecting them to severe stress and injury.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
At a complex junction of paths by the fence around
Sidmouth Wood, you can see a large fenced-off oak tree just to the left: this
is the Richmond Royal Oak, one of the Great Trees of London designated by Trees
for Cities. The woodland on the other side is the largest of the park’s 19<sup>th</sup>
century plantations, dating from the 1820s. It’s named after politician Henry
Addington, 1<sup>st</sup> Viscount Sidmouth (1757-1844), who was deputy ranger
at the time, and had been prime minister between 1801-1804.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
When the trees aren’t in leaf on the left, you’ll catch a
glimpse of one of the oldest buildings in the park: White Ash Lodge, an
unpretentious brown brick house dating from the 1740s. This is currently rented
out as a private house, surely one of the most exclusive addresses in London.
Then you follow part of the drive of Oak Lodge, built within the plantation around
1852 as a home for the park bailiff and now a base for the park rangers. It’s
rather curiously named, as its woodland surroundings consist of rather more
chestnut than oak.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Around Pembroke Lodge<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br />
The Ring arrives on Queen’s Road, a remaining
traffic through route along one of the old rights of<br />
way. You’re within sight
here of Pembroke Lodge, surrounded by public gardens with numerous features of
interest. If you stick rigorously to the official route, you’ll dodge entirely
around them, but there are options to dip in and out of it via gates, or you
can use the alternative Green London Way instead, which goes right past the
lodge itself and up King Henry’s Mound. If you’ve never visited the park
before, I highly recommend a detour. An adjacent refreshment kiosk and a
<a href="http://www.frp.org.uk/" target="_blank">Friends of Richmond Park</a> information centre also provide a convenient pitstop.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The lodge is on the site of a much-humbler dwelling. In
1754 a cottage known as Hill Lodge was built here to house the park
molecatcher, a position created in 1702 after William III had a riding accident
in the park, falling <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and breaking his
collarbone when his horse tripped on a mole tunnel. Complications from the
fracture ultimately caused the king’s death from pneumonia. The prime location
at the highest point in the park, overlooking the Thames valley, later caught
the attention of Elizabeth Herbert, Countess of Pembroke and Montgomery. She
persuaded George III to grant her the site, and commissioned John Soane to
design a painted brick mansion, completed in 1796.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Victoria later granted it to Whig prime minister John
Russell, in office 1865-66, and his grandson, the philosopher Bertrand Russell
(1872-1970) grew up here. Actor David Niven knew the place when it was the
headquarters of his regiment, the GHQ Liaison Regiment, a specialist army reconnaissance
and intelligence unit, during World War II. It’s currently leased by a private
company and used as an upmarket tea room and events venue. 5 ha of landscaped
formal gardens around the buildings house a monument to the Russells and the
grave of a dog belonging to a later resident, the Countess of Dudley.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
King Henry’s Mound, to the north, may well be a Bronze Age
burial chamber and was used as a lookout in hunting park days. On 17<sup>th</sup>
century maps the site was marked as King’s Standing, though the tradition that
Henry VIII stood here to observe a rocket fired from the Tower of London
confirming the execution of his second wife Anne Boleyn almost certainly has no
factual basis.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Since 1710 the mound has provided a ‘keyhole’ view of the
dome of St Paul’s Cathedral in the City, with a tree-framed sightline carefully
preserved by landscapers through the centuries. As one of the protected views
of the cathedral, it can’t legally be obstructed, but a 143 m residential
block, the Manhattan Loft Gardens building, is currently under construction in
Stratford immediately behind it. Whereas previously the dome stood out against
an empty sky, now it’s backed by a modern geometric skyscraper. To anyone with
any degree of aesthetic awareness, the result is almost as bad as the view
being blocked entirely, yet supposedly nobody thought of this before the new
tower was authorised.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Your mind might turn to reasons to be more cheerful if you
explore further north of the mound, following the rose arbour to Poets Corner,
a pretty landscaped garden with views towards the Thames. This began in 1851 as
a simple memorial board attached to a tree nearby, dedicated to the Scottish
poet James Thomson (1700-48), best known for his series of poems <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Seasons</i> and the text of ‘Rule
Britannia’, who died in Richmond. In 1895 the Selbourne Society installed the
first version of the current board on its present site.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Today’s visitors are perhaps more familiar with the
subject of a second memorial here, the singer, songwriter and actor Ian Dury (1942-2000),
commemorated by a bench designed by Mil Stricevic and installed in 2012. Dury
regularly visited the park with his children and favoured the view from here.
The bench is equipped with a solar-powered digital player so visitors can plug
earphones in and listen to songs and an interview, though like many such
features its performance over the years has been erratic. More enduring is the
text “Reasons to be Cheerful” carved into the backrest, and if you need
reminding, here are a few:<o:p></o:p></div>
<blockquote>
Summer, Buddy Holly, the working folly,<br />
Good golly Miss Molly and boats,<br />
Hammersmith Palais, the Bolshoi Ballet,<br />
Jump back in the alley and nanny goats,<br />
18 wheeler Scammels, dominica camels,<br />
All other mammals plus equal votes,<br />
Seeing Piccadilly, Fanny sniffing Willie,<br />
Being rather silly and porridge oats.</blockquote>
<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
Petersham</h3>
<h3>
<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIycdWpZuYMJlKI2tolfDQAJ4j47GLjyULyvvxHev6nXi65yzUHnaj7xMpvINIDjDbZN52cPHzWRXln59-jlfLny_kb4pSh3GzZOh_NHiIjM4hKlZ8ehIMotGj1_RoscY9sZn2QrpbO3c/s1600/petershamparkview.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIycdWpZuYMJlKI2tolfDQAJ4j47GLjyULyvvxHev6nXi65yzUHnaj7xMpvINIDjDbZN52cPHzWRXln59-jlfLny_kb4pSh3GzZOh_NHiIjM4hKlZ8ehIMotGj1_RoscY9sZn2QrpbO3c/s640/petershamparkview.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The view from Petersham Park.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
As previously mentioned, the Ring avoids the lodge,
heading straight across the drive and passing a gate into the gardens on the
right. Then it’s through another gate into a separate area of the park known as
Petersham Park, following a path that curves around the western perimeter of the
gardens, with the ground falling away steeply to the river Thames on your left.
The views from here across the broad valley are exhilarating. Most prominent
are the two rugby stadia in Twickenham, the main Twickenham Stadium, known as
the ‘Cabbage Patch’ and home to the England team, and the smaller Twickenham
Stoop, where the Harlequins are based, but you might even be able to spot
Windsor Castle on a good day.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
This part of the park was once common land in Petersham manor
and included a manor house. Soon after Charles I’s land-grab the house, renamed
Petersham Lodge, became the home of one of the park’s deputy keepers, renowned
playwright Ludovic Carlile, whose wife Joan was one of the first women in
England to paint professionally.<br />
<br />
Its separate character was reinforced when it
was leased in 1686 to Lawrence Hyde, the Earl of Rochester, who developed it
into a grand estate known as New Park. Rebuilt in 1721 by William, Earl of
Harrington, the lodge is referred to by James Thomson, who writes in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Seasons</i> of “the pendent woods that
nodding hang o’er Harrington’s retreat”. The house (not the building now known
as Petersham Lodge on River Lane) was derelict by 1835 and was demolished, with
the surroundings incorporated once more into Richmond Park. It was located on
the lower slopes of the meadows but there are no visible remains.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The path reaches a flight of steps on the right, your last
chance to visit King Henry’s Mound and Poet’s Corner. Downhill from here is one
of the steepest, and most precipitous when wet, descents on the whole trail. You
leave the park past a children’s playground and through Petersham Gate, not one
of the originals.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
There are records of a manor at Petersham from early in
the 10<sup>th</sup> century, when it belonged to Chertsey Abbey. It remained
abbey property at the time of the Domesday survey and was only given up in 1415
when the abbot surrendered it to the crown and it was annexed to Richmond. Henry
VIII gave land at Petersham to his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, as part of
their divorce settlement, and it later passed through several private hands. A
portion further upstream was carved out to become the separate parish of Ham, home
to Ham House, seat of the Dysart family, which still stands and is now owned by
the National Trust. Swathes of both Ham and Petersham were then included in
Richmond Park.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The Dysart Arms pub opposite the park gate was known as
the Plough and Harrow until the early 19<sup>th</sup> century when it was
renamed after the local bigwigs. The current building is a ‘Brewers’ Tudor’
rebuild from 1904, and the fact that since 2005 it’s been operated as an upmarket
restaurant rather than a pub speaks to the way this corner of an already prosperous
borough has become one of London’s most desirable addresses. Following a
footpath rounding the side of the church, the green Capital Ring waymarks
temporarily replaced by black ones to conform to Richmond’s planning rules,
it’s easy to see why, as Petersham still gives the passable impression of a
chocolate box English village.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPpisyIvJuRu7J7MPBcjeVy7UZTeqXjC5I44gW4fzm7GGq-hoirS8Yn-GHDVY3-9lGMvaGsPfK1hj9M6t2gMchRogYTBIyEs_IKTrhfWaqPeODLp-CfXW2_UZz_KA-WHPEf0qpmqsm29I/s1600/petersham-vancouver.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPpisyIvJuRu7J7MPBcjeVy7UZTeqXjC5I44gW4fzm7GGq-hoirS8Yn-GHDVY3-9lGMvaGsPfK1hj9M6t2gMchRogYTBIyEs_IKTrhfWaqPeODLp-CfXW2_UZz_KA-WHPEf0qpmqsm29I/s400/petersham-vancouver.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">George Vancouver's grave in Petersham church.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Grade II*-listed St Peter’s Church, described by Nikolaus
Pevsner as “of uncommon charm”, is likely a Saxon foundation, as it’s mentioned
in the Domesday survey. Much of the fabric of today’s building is 16<sup>th</sup>
century, with 13<sup>th</sup> century fragments in the chancel, and it’s
thankfully avoided the worst excesses of Victorian improvers. Inside are some
18<sup>th</sup> century box pews segregated by panelling and intended to allow
families to sit together, a once-common design that is now rare.<br />
<br />
There are
numerous memorials and headstones of interest inside and out, including the
grave of explorer George Vancouver (1757-98), who charted the northwest Pacific
coast of North America and gave his name to Vancouver Island and the cities of
Vancouver in both British Columbia, Canada and Washington state, USA. Another naval
explorer interred here is Henry Ligbird Hall, who first charted Lord Howe
Island in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand in 1788.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
A track from the village continues the rural theme by
crossing Petersham Meadows, a remarkable agricultural survival noted among
other things for being painted by J M W Turner in 1815. These water meadows
have been grazed by cattle since at least the 17<sup>th</sup> century when they
were attached to the Ham House estate. When this was broken up at the end of
the 19<sup>th</sup> century the fields were threatened with housing
development, but campaigners succeeded in securing parliamentary support for
the Richmond, Petersham and Ham Open Spaces Act 1902 which transferred
ownership of these and several other commons and open spaces to Richmond
council for the purposes of public enjoyment.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Alongside public access, for decades the council continued
to lease the grazing rights to a well-known local dairy firm, Hornby and
Clarke, and when this closed the lease passed to private investors. By the end
of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, the tenants were becoming reluctant to maintain
grazing on such a small area where there was no longer potential for profit, so
in 1998 local people led by athlete and outdoor enthusiast Chris Brasher formed
the Petersham Trust, dedicated to retaining the ancient practice.<br />
<br />
This trust leased
the meadows from the council and began fundraising with the intention of
passing them on to the National Trust with an endowment to ensure grazing
continues, an objective achieved in 2010. The meadows are currently home
between spring and autumn to a small herd of Belted Galloway beef cattle, and
the Trust retains the tradition of paying an annual rent to the council in the
form of a posy of wild flowers.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Before you get too deep into the meadows, look up the hill
on the right for a view of the enormous red brick Grade II-listed Royal Star and
Garter Home, opened in 1924 as a care home for disabled ex-servicemen on a site
donated by Queen Mary. It took its name from the Star and Garter Hotel which
previously stood here. The charity that ran it still cares for forces veterans
and their partners with disability and dementia but moved out in 2013 and now
operates at several other locations with more modern facilities. Predictably,
the original home has been converted to luxury flats. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Richmond riverside<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTv4UJ6ekEhSc4WpU1oyQsG-ZdiQIMeaX2p1haWVXU1-DMfl6lMglUUILkeBk30zhPPyjji31nMGaSx42ymVKZw9rtWrhVR_fVCbR8tkT-m7cfcFqyaDMFrbvyTwfy5BnS5ocu6z_-pMc/s1600/richmondbridge.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTv4UJ6ekEhSc4WpU1oyQsG-ZdiQIMeaX2p1haWVXU1-DMfl6lMglUUILkeBk30zhPPyjji31nMGaSx42ymVKZw9rtWrhVR_fVCbR8tkT-m7cfcFqyaDMFrbvyTwfy5BnS5ocu6z_-pMc/s640/richmondbridge.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View towards Richmond Bridge.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The Capital Ring now reaches the side of the river
Thames in Buccleuch Gardens, merging with the <a href="https://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/thames-path" target="_blank">Thames Path National Trail</a>. From
here it follows the towpath upstream towards central London for around 1.6 km.
As I’m planning to cover the Thames Path in more detail later, I’ll say more
about the Trail and the river then. But take a few moments to think back to the
last time the Ring ran alongside the Thames, where it’s much wider and
beginning to turn estuarine at Woolwich, and the gentler aspect it presents
here as an inland navigation. Note that sections of the towpath may be
underwater during particularly high tides, especially between Richmond Bridge
and Richmond Lock.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
A succession of points of interest lines this stretch. <a href="https://www.richmond.gov.uk/services/parks_and_open_spaces/find_a_park/buccleuch_gardens" target="_blank">Buccleuch Gardens</a> and its much bigger sister, Terrace Gardens, on the other side of
Petersham Road to the right, are the remains of another aristocratic estate. The
land was once part of the common attached to Richmond manor, and in the 1630s
the slopes were peppered with tile kilns making use of clay dug from the
hillside. In the 1760s George Brudenell, Earl of Cardigan and Duke of Montagu,
built a riverside mansion on the site where a brick shelter now stands, just as
the trail reaches the riverside.<br />
<br />
The Duke began acquiring land on the other
side of the road to extend his private gardens up the hill, linking the two sides
with a barrel-vaulted subway in the style of a grotto, still open today and a
little further along the trail. The estate passed by marriage to the Dukes of
Buccleuch who in the mid-19<sup>th</sup> century entertained visiting royalty
here, including Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Leopold I of Belgium, and the
Ottoman Sultan Abdülaziz I.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The Buccleuchs sold Terrace Gardens to the parish vestry,
predecessor of the Metropolitan and London boroughs, in 1886 for use as a
public park, but Buccleuch Gardens remained private property until 1937 when it
was bought by Richmond council. The house was demolished soon afterwards,
although some of its arcades are still visible, and replaced with the current
shelter. Both sites are on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens and
enjoyed a major refurbishment in 2009, so it’s well worth a detour via the
grotto for a more detailed exploration.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The building with the three pitched roofs visible to the
right just after the gardens is the Three Pigeons, a residential rebuild of an
old pub that burned down in 1993. You then pass the boathouse of Richmond Canoe
Club, founded in 1944, with the distinctive curved roofs of modern Blade House above.
Then there’s <a href="https://www.richmond.gov.uk/services/parks_and_open_spaces/find_a_park/riverdale_gardens" target="_blank">Riverdale Gardens</a>, a small park on the site of a house of that
name which had been demolished by 1930. Past this are the backs of the remaining
buildings of what was once a spectacular 1720s terrace called the Paragon.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Stein’s restaurant with its terrace is on the site of the
Lansdown Brewery, founded sometime before the 1880s and closed in 1915: the
brewery stores still stands, fronting onto Petersham Road. There were once
several breweries along the riverside here, including the one belonging to
Richmond Park access campaigner John Lewis, mentioned above. While the danger
of flooding was ever-present, the river provided both power and a convenient
way of getting ingredients in and beer out: contrary to popular opinion,
breweries would not have sourced their brewing liquor from the already-polluted
Thames. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The next small garden is known as the <a href="https://www.richmond.gov.uk/services/parks_and_open_spaces/find_a_park/gothic_site" target="_blank">Gothic Garden</a>, after
Gothic House, part of the Paragon but demolished for road-widening in 1938. Another
Great Tree of London, the Richmond Riverside Plane, the tallest of its species
in the capital, stands in the garden of Gaucho’s restaurant. Just past this is
<a href="https://tfl.gov.uk/river-tour/stop/930GRLS/richmond-landing-stage?lineId=westminster-passenger-service-association" target="_blank">Richmond Landing Stage</a>: from spring to autumn boats leave from here to Kew
Gardens and central London as well as upriver to Hampton Court. <a href="https://www.richmond.gov.uk/services/parks_and_open_spaces/find_a_park/rotary_gardens" target="_blank">Rotary Gardens</a>,
further along, is on part of the grounds of a Queen Anne house, Northumberland
House, demolished in 1969. Moored here is a historic Thames lighter, the Duke
of Cambridgeshire, built around 1900 and now home to a social enterprise, the
<a href="http://riverthamesvisitorcentre.com/" target="_blank">River Thames Visitor Centre</a>, open daily with exhibitions, information and a
café. The smaller flats downstream of this are on the site of the old house.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Finally, you reach <a href="https://www.richmond.gov.uk/services/parks_and_open_spaces/find_a_park/bridge_house_gardens" target="_blank">Bridge House Gardens</a>, on the site of
another vanished house built in the 1690s. In the early 20<sup>th</sup> century
it was a fashionable riverside tea room but had become derelict by 1959 when it
was largely demolished to make way for the current park. A fragment of its
lower level survives as part of the Tide Tables Café, the main part of which
occupies some of the arches of Richmond Bridge. A bust overlooking the gardens
commemorates Bernardo O'Higgins Riquelme (1778-1842), leader of the
revolutionary movement that freed Chile from Spanish rule in 1818 and the
country’s first Supreme Director. He lived in Richmond while a student in the
1790s.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Richmond Bridge, opened in 1777, is the oldest bridge
across the Thames in London still in use. There are several older crossing
points where the current bridges are more recent, but Richmond still retains
its initial structure. The bridge was widened and its hump reduced in 1937 and
you can spot the join as you walk under it, but the original Portland stone facings
were replaced to keep the historic appearance.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The bridge answered a growing need for a more reliable
crossing point in this developing part of the capital than the existing ferry,
which was regularly disrupted by flooding and high tides. In 1774, with the bridge
already under construction, the novelist and Whig politician Horace Walpole,
who lived at Strawberry Hill House on the Twickenham side, wrote to a cousin
who had served in Austria that after a month of rain:<o:p></o:p></div>
<blockquote>
The Thames is as broad as your Danube, and all my meadows are
under water…The ferry-boat was turned round by the current, and carried to
Isleworth. Then we ran against the piers of our new bridge.<o:p></o:p></blockquote>
The bridge cost £26,000, raised from private shareholders
who earned profits for life on tolls charged to cross it. The last of the
investors died in 1859, having spent her last years living comfortably on an annual
income of £800 from tolls, at which point the crossing became free.<o:p></o:p>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Past the Richmond Bridge Boathouses, where master
boatbuilder Mark Edwards perpetuates this traditional riverside industry, you
reach what at first glance appears to be a preserved Georgian square
surrounding a series of grass terraces and steps descending to the towpath. But
a closer look reveals that, though a few of the buildings are genuinely old,
much is modern pastiche. In places you can even spot the false ceilings through
the Georgian-style sash windows. This is the controversial Richmond Riverside
development masterminded by architect Quinlan Terry in the late 1980s, praised
by some, including Prince Charles, derided by many others who dismiss Terry as
“the Andrew Lloyd Webber of architecture.”<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM8AXgmI9tdYfriZvErEVliCpkLBpjhD9WgJPpXIeZVXVQVw-Xpzj1SUb5HmR8iMTiVrwUtkBQQQ_NnQucpIWsgJeQSG4scSURv5MHJ713MKGKl4e2uW-4fOLVcj22IWTJAiObK0PzfiA/s1600/richmondriverside.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM8AXgmI9tdYfriZvErEVliCpkLBpjhD9WgJPpXIeZVXVQVw-Xpzj1SUb5HmR8iMTiVrwUtkBQQQ_NnQucpIWsgJeQSG4scSURv5MHJ713MKGKl4e2uW-4fOLVcj22IWTJAiObK0PzfiA/s640/richmondriverside.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Richmond Riverside: contemporary architecture's answer to <i>Cats</i>?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The oldest buildings, all Grade II-listed, are the ones just
downriver from the bridge, though they’ve been altered as part of the
redevelopment. The one-bay Tower House, immediately above the boathouse and
easily recognisable from the Italianate belvedere that explains its name, dates
from the mid-19<sup>th</sup> century. The next bay, also with a terrace above
the boathouse, is the Royal Family Hotel, built in 1820.<br />
<br />
Above the grassy
terrace and in a similar style is the Palm Court Hotel: built in the 1850s, it
absorbed its smaller neighbour in 1947. To the left (upstream) of the archway
is the oldest building in the group, red brick Heron House, built in the early
18<sup>th</sup> century though extended several times. Hotham House next door
is perhaps the most egregious modern fake, borrowing the name of a 17<sup>th</sup>
century building on the site which collapsed in 1960. The war memorial to its
left is an original feature from the 1920s.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
A century ago the hotels lived up to their names, with
their suggestions of elegance and luxury. The grassy slopes were then private
terraces and you can just about imagine them populated by Edwardian
sophisticates sipping cocktails rather than the boozy crowds that now spill out
of the Pitcher and Piano. By the 1970s, though, the area was decayed and partly
derelict. In 1975, a group of campaigners led by writer and activist Erin
Pizzey squatted the Palm Court to set up one of the earliest refuges in the UK
for women victims of domestic violence. Today, when developers seize on any
available riverside property for conversion to prestigious offices,
unaffordable flats and globalised catering chains, it’s hard to imagine a
London in which properties like this could be put to such informal and socially
valuable use.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The white riverfront buildings further on are also fakes,
but Riverside House and the stock brick warehouse on the corner of Water Lane
are older: the latter dates from the 18<sup>th</sup> century and is Grade
II-listed. They were once part of another brewery, Collins, which operated
between the 1720s and the 1870s, after which the warehouse, slightly
ironically, housed a municipal waterworks. The picturesque lane led to the
ferry departure point, in operation from at least Norman times until the bridge
opened. For most of this time two boats were used, a smaller one for passengers,
and a larger one for horses and small vehicles: the steep incline on the
Twickenham bank precluded larger carriages and carts. A slipway here still
provides river access.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The White Cross, also Grade II listed, was originally
known as the Watermans Arms and was the Collins brewery tap. The current building
is an 1835 rebuild with an additional storey added in the 1860s. It overlooks
<a href="https://www.turks.co.uk/st-helena-pier-richmond/" target="_blank">St Helena Pier</a>, from where Turks Cruises sail upriver to Kingston and Hampton
Court. The pier takes its name from the adjacent St Helena House with its
terrace and boathouses below, built in 1837 for Collins. Section 6 of the Ring
ends where Friars Lane reaches the riverside, with a signed link to Richmond
station: Section 7 simply continues along the Thames Path, but even if you’re
not breaking your journey here, it’s worth wandering a little away from the towpath
to explore Richmond’s historic heart.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Richmond Green and Palace<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSMdQTzPasDAQ5wIDfLAzgxodJBNYhmqISEwEFdoPY3zjBJFQWQiodrci1f-0vVTF8wr3OqhcxriCUseENBGyWJ6ioY6-Rb0ODu-rlbD8DLSVAA9sXAbMjqU7Yi6c5CyG5XnWRrt1ipcM/s1600/richmondasgillhouse.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSMdQTzPasDAQ5wIDfLAzgxodJBNYhmqISEwEFdoPY3zjBJFQWQiodrci1f-0vVTF8wr3OqhcxriCUseENBGyWJ6ioY6-Rb0ODu-rlbD8DLSVAA9sXAbMjqU7Yi6c5CyG5XnWRrt1ipcM/s640/richmondasgillhouse.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Asgill House with its ex-Great Tree of London.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Richmond’s full name is Richmond upon Thames, to
distinguish it from the other Richmond, a market town in Swaledale, North
Yorkshire, on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The duplication of
names is not coincidental. Until 1501, our Richmond was known as Sheen, meaning
‘shelter’, a name that survives in the adjacent neighbourhood of East Sheen. The
village and its ferry likely grew to serve the palace which existed here for
many centuries as one of a chain of royal residences along the river.<br />
<br />
Sheen
isn’t listed in the Domesday survey and there’s no clear record of when the
palace was first built: the first mention of royal use is by Edward I in 1299. Richard
II had it destroyed out of grief for his deceased wife Anne of Bohemia, who
died here in 1394, but it was rebuilt by Henry V a couple of decades later as
part of a project known as the King’s Great Work. This also ultimately led to
the creation of Syon Park, of which more later.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The English aristocracy spent most of the second half of
the 15<sup>th</sup> century locked in a bitter power struggle known as the Wars
of the Roses between the houses of Lancaster and York. At the Battle of
Bosworth Field in 1485, the reigning monarch, the Lancastrian Richard III, was finally
defeated by Yorkist forces led by challenger Henry Tudor, who took the throne
as Henry VII. Henry was the Earl of Richmond, the Yorkshire town, and when
Sheen became his favoured residence, he decreed it renamed after his ancestral
estates.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
It was Henry who had the palace rebuilt and extended in
1501 after much of it was destroyed by fire in 1493. The original Richmond,
incidentally, takes in name from the village of Richemont in Normandy, in the
modern <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">département</i> of Seine-Maritime:
in French the name means ‘rich [as in fertile] hill’, so the geographical term
‘Richmond Hill’ has an internal redundancy. London’s Richmond, in turn, has
given its name to various places in the New World, perhaps most famously
Richmond, Virginia, so called because the James river reminded one of the
original settlers of the Thames.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The rest of the Tudor dynasty also made use of the palace,
though Henry Tudor’s son Henry VIII preferred Hampton Court on the opposite
bank (see Bushy Park on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/london-loop-1112-kingston-hatton-cross.html">London Loop 9</a>). This belonged to Thomas Wolsey, the
Lord Chancellor who buttered up the king by giving it to him and obtaining his
permission to live in Richmond instead.<br />
<br />
Being imprisoned there briefly during
the reign of Mary I didn’t deter Henry’s daughter, Elizabeth I, from spending her
winters at the palace, where she died in 1603. As already discussed, Charles I
annexed vast tracts of adjacent countryside to satisfy his love of hunting,
creating the present Richmond Park, but following his execution the palace was
sold and large parts of it demolished, its masonry recycled for new buildings. The
land became royal property again after the Restoration but the palace was never
rebuilt and its site was sold off in several portions in 1793.<br />
<br />
The station link
follows Friars Lane, so-called because it separated the precincts of the
palace, on the downstream (left) side, from the Franciscan friary on the
opposite side, founded by Henry VII in 1499 and suppressed by his son in 1534. The
lane didn’t originally extend to the riverside: the kink in it marks its
extension around a group of 1740s houses on Cholmondeley Walk. The curious hexagonal
building on the corner is a decorative gazebo, probably dating from the mid-18<sup>th</sup>
century, in the garden of Queensbury House, the large red brick 1930s apartment
building that now dominates most of the left side of the lane. This replaced a
1740s mansion on part of the palace site, built for the Earls of Cholmondeley (after
the village in Cheshire, pronounced ‘chumly’) and renamed when it was bought in
the 1760s by one of the Dukes of Queensberry.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The lane leads out to <a href="https://www.richmond.gov.uk/services/parks_and_open_spaces/find_a_park/richmond_green" target="_blank">Richmond Green</a>, a 5 ha expanse of
grass dotted with trees that was described by Nikolaus Pevsner as “one of the
most beautiful urban greens surviving anywhere in England”. Originally this was
common land immediately outside the palace and surrounded by houses and
workshops for palace staff, visitors and supporting tradespeople. Grazing sheep
shared space with archery practice and regular jousting tournaments. Historian
John Stow, writing at the end of the 16<sup>th</sup> century, describes how in
1492 there took place (I’ve modernised the spelling):</div>
<blockquote>
…a great and valiant jousting within the king’s manor of Sheen…which
endured by the space of a month, sometime within the said manor, and sometime
without, upon the green without the gate of the said manor. In the which space
a combat was held and done betwixt Sir James Parker, knight, and Hugh Vaughan,
gentleman usher…and Sir James Parker was slain at the first course.</blockquote>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The green is still owned by the Crown Estate, though
managed by the council. The contests that take place here now are rather less
hazardous than in Tudor times: regular cricket matches have been a feature
since the early 19<sup>th</sup> century. There are too many listed structures
and features of interest to mention all of them, but if you continue to follow
the official station link, you’ll pass an early 18<sup>th</sup> century terrace
that ends at no 32 (Richmond Green is also a street address) and a late 19<sup>th</sup>
century Grade II-listed Portland stone drinking fountain on the green itself, more-or-less
opposite the Cricketers pub. The row of buildings facing the southeast side, including
the pub, is entirely listed: note the early 18<sup>th</sup> century houses at nos
10-12. Just before the corner with Dukes Street is an early 19<sup>th</sup>
century cast iron lamp standard, also listed.<br />
<o:p></o:p><br />
The smaller patch of grass across the road ahead is known
as <a href="https://www.richmond.gov.uk/services/parks_and_open_spaces/find_a_park/richmond_little_green" target="_blank">Little Green</a> and is also overlooked by historic buildings, the most
prominent of which is Richmond Theatre, with its twin domes and elaborate
terracotta detailing. Built in 1899 as the Theatre Royal and Opera House, it’s considered
one of the finest works of celebrated theatre designer Frank Matcham, and the
most completely preserved, both outside and in. The neo-Gothic Richmond Central
Lending Library next door is the oldest library building in London still in its
original use, opened in 1881. On the other side of Little Green, across from
the theatre and library, is Fitzwilliam House, where Harold Wilson, Labour
prime minister from 1964-70 and 1974-76, had a flat.</div><div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Continuing ahead, you cross the railway, where a passage on
the right leads to Richmond station. The rails arrived in 1846 when the
Richmond and West End Railway opened a branch from Clapham Junction, though the
original station, a terminus, has since vanished beneath the NCP car park to
the south. This line was extended two years later towards Windsor. The London
and South Western Railway opened an adjacent station on a line from Kensington
Olympia in 1869, which was later connected to the District Railway: this
stretch is now used by London Overground towards Stratford and by the London
Underground District Line. The fine Moderne-style frontage in Portland stone
with its imposing square clock was designed by James Robb Scott for a 1937
rebuild merging both stations.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Rejoining the route from the station, consider branching
off the official link route on a path that heads diagonally right across both
greens, towards the palace gate. The two rows behind and to the right are slightly
less distinguished than the others, but still contribute pleasantly to the
overall view. Richmond Terrace, on the northeast side behind you, includes some
more recent buildings, as well as two pairs of imposing white stucco Italianate
villas just past Little Green, dating from the 1850s. To your right and on the
northwest side is a row of rather sterner-looking yellow brick houses from the
same period, Pembroke Villas.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Ahead and to the left, in simpler but impressively elegant
style, is what’s generally thought to be the finest row of old houses around
the Green, the Grade I-listed three-storey Maids of Honour Row. Built in 1720,
these get their name because they were built to house maids of honour to
Caroline of Anspach, wife of the future George II, when he was Prince of Wales.<br />
<br />
The diagonal path ends at a pillar box opposite a driveway known as the
Wardrobe, with another Great Tree of London, an umbrella pine, on the left and
the Old Court House to the right, from the same period and originally in the
same style as the Maids of Honour but much altered. Even if you aren’t breaking
your journey in Richmond I suggest you at least divert temporarily away from
the riverside at Friars Lane, walk past Maids of Honour Row while admiring the
green, and cut back along the Wardrobe through the palace site.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The drive passes through an arch, the original Tudor
gateway from 1501, though the arms of Henry VII in the porch above have been
restored more recently. To the left of this is the old gatehouse, essentially
Tudor though much altered in both the 18<sup>th</sup> and 19<sup>th</sup>
centuries. Old Palace Yard beyond gives something of an idea of what the site
must have been like as an enclosed and fortified space, though the view ahead
today is of the back of the Trumpeters House, an early 18<sup>th</sup> century
private mansion, built on the site of the Middle Gate which led to the heart of
the palace with its great hall and privy chambers where the monarch lived. The
building didn’t house the royal brass players, as some imagine, but was named
after two mediaeval stone figures of trumpeters that once stood in the yard.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The building on the left (east) side of the yard, the
Wardrobe, may be the oldest still standing on the site: its timber frame is thought
to predate Henry VII’s rebuild, having survived the 1493 fire. The masonry is
mainly 16<sup>th</sup> century and the brick facing is partly from the 18<sup>th</sup>
century redevelopment. The building was most likely intended as servants’
quarters, but it’s also said to have housed Elizabeth I’s extensive royal
wardrobe and is claimed to be the building where she died in 1603, spending her
last days refusing to lie down and haunted by guilt at having ordered the
execution of her cousin Mary Queen of Scots.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Back on the riverside along picturesque Old Palace Lane,
it’s worth backtracking upstream a little for some further features of
interest: if you stick faithfully to the official route which simply follows
the Thames Path, you’ll pass them anyway. This section of towpath, like most of
the promenade on land reclaimed from what was once a wider river, is known as
Chomondley Walk. The castellated structure in the wall of Trumpeters House is a
mid-18<sup>th</sup> century gazebo or summer house, originally a bathing
pavilion for riverside swimmers, its design intended to recall the Tudor palace.
Behind it you can glimpse the façade of Trumpeters House itself. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
On the upstream corner of Old Palace Lane stands Asgill
House, a compact and rather beautiful Palladian villa built in the early 1760s
for Charles Asgill, merchant banker and former Lord Mayor of London, on the
site of former palace brewhouse. Its architect Robert Taylor also designed the
Lord Mayor’s Coach still in use today. It’s an unusual example of a building
that’s been restored to its original form, in 1970 when some 1840s additions were
removed. In the garden is a twisted tree trunk dotted with the stumps of cruelly
lopped branches: this was formerly a magnificent copper beech, one of the Great
Trees of London, but tragically was badly damaged by a storm in 2012. All its
branches were removed for safety reasons, with the trunk retained as a home for
invertebrates. Its Great Tree status has since been removed.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div><div class="MsoBodyText"><span style="color: red;"><b>Update</b> September 2023</span>. Sadly, the Asgill copper beech subsequently suffered further damage from fungal growth and was felled in the early 2020s.</div><div class="MsoBodyText"><br /></div>
<h3>
To Richmond Lock<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtkNi1mkYFmPJtgsofHiEOO_Bp5KbOw6j26Hq3a_zoDmy96sw_OwCTm0VNOazjeBSRZM18VAD5J1gSMWzBamLzwhDWhhECxo67TX9ftVa_4h0CKhWVOrp2_TYE-jkzFRkXy7R3q5_Ht2k/s1600/richmondlock.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtkNi1mkYFmPJtgsofHiEOO_Bp5KbOw6j26Hq3a_zoDmy96sw_OwCTm0VNOazjeBSRZM18VAD5J1gSMWzBamLzwhDWhhECxo67TX9ftVa_4h0CKhWVOrp2_TYE-jkzFRkXy7R3q5_Ht2k/s640/richmondlock.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking upstream from the Richmond Lock footbridge.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The river Thames now passes under two bridges in
quick succession. The first carries the railway to Windsor, opened, as
mentioned above, in 1848. The piers date from then, but the rest of the
structure, now Grade II-listed, was rebuilt in 1908. Twickenham Bridge was
built in 1933 to carry the new A316 Great Chertsey Arterial Road connecting the
A4 in Chiswick (and therefore the West End) with various routes to the
southwest: since 1967 it’s been a feeder for the M3 to Southampton. The final
design by architect Maxwell Ayrton was the outcome of much wrangling over what
was and was not visually appropriate in such a historic and picturesque setting.
The result, in art deco reinforced concrete with distinctive bronze lamp
standards, is now regarded as distinguished enough to merit a Grade II* listing.
The bridge housed the first static speed camera in the UK, installed in 1992.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The road and railway line have severed the palace site
from its historic hunting park, the one that Charles I found inadequate. Since Charles’
creation of Richmond Park, the site has been known, literally enough, as the <a href="https://www.richmond.gov.uk/services/parks_and_open_spaces/find_a_park/old_deer_park" target="_blank">Old Deer Park</a>. Although it’s ultimately still owned by the Crown Estate, it’s become
something of a patchwork, with a council-operated public park and recreation
ground, a private golf course and a cricket ground. The royal holdings encompass
nearly all the riverside land upstream as far as Kew, though the land to the
north of the Old Deer Park was historically managed separately, some of it
leased out to courtiers as private estates. In 1801, George III reunited these,
and an existing exotic garden in the northern part, close to Kew, evolved into
the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, officially opened in 1840.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
We’ll turn off the Thames Path before reaching Kew
Gardens, so I’ll discuss them in more detail in a future post. But Ring walkers
can still lay claim to having visited the <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1084" target="_blank">Royal Botanic Gardens Kew World Heritage Site</a>, designated by UNESCO in 2003. There are only four such sites in
London, with another on the tentative list, and this is the only one on the
Ring. An earlier Grade I designation on the Register of Parks and Gardens includes
the Old Deer Park downstream of the railway bridge and right of the towpath, on
the other side of the ditch, but not the path itself. The World Heritage Site includes
a more expansive buffer zone, beginning on the immediate upstream side of the
road bridge and encompassing the Thames Path on both sides of the river, as
well as the whole of Syon Park, which we cross later.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBTCVlK4P0-hwAtaR4jvET48mH25S1BAiJHlRDRlmjPdhmbu1QHa0VMrf_CszAvdwzMcctb_zF3WP80WXSbweUbRuvo4X27J7er7zmmN9Io8eXNqBpUdPnxZbwsm8MlnmFsHAS-y3NJag/s1600/richmondmeridian.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBTCVlK4P0-hwAtaR4jvET48mH25S1BAiJHlRDRlmjPdhmbu1QHa0VMrf_CszAvdwzMcctb_zF3WP80WXSbweUbRuvo4X27J7er7zmmN9Io8eXNqBpUdPnxZbwsm8MlnmFsHAS-y3NJag/s640/richmondmeridian.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The obelisks in the Old Deer Park, Richmond, once used for setting London's time.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
A curiosity of the Old Deer Park is the pair of stone obelisks
soon visible from the towpath. They date from 1769, and the construction of the
King’s Observatory for George III, a keen astronomer: this still stands and can
be viewed through the slot in the nearby information post. The obelisks, and a
third some way to the north, mark out a north-south meridian used to calibrate
the instruments. London’s official time was once calculated from observations
made here, with noon occurring when the sun was at its highest point in the sky
above the meridian, although this job eventually shifted to Greenwich. If the ditch
separating the towpath from the Old Deer Park makes you feel like you’re
walking on a causeway, you’re right: the towpath is on an artificially
constructed embankment here.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
And so you reach <a href="http://www.pla.co.uk/About-Us/Richmond-Lock-and-Weir" target="_blank">Richmond Lock</a> with its attached
footbridge, its twin decks and cast iron balustrades marching for 106 m across
the river on five graceful arches between brickwork piers. The lock was opened
in 1894 as a solution to a longstanding problem: since the old London Bridge was
replaced in 1831 with a new structure that obstructed the flow of water much
less than its predecessor, the tidal differences in upstream water levels
became more extreme than they had been for hundreds of years.<br />
<br />
The problem was
exacerbated by dredging below the Pool of London to ease the passage of big
ships, the construction of a lock and weir upstream at Teddington in 1811, the
dumping of untreated sewage and the increasing extraction of water for the
public supply in the late 19<sup>th</sup> century. The upshot of all this was
that the Thames between Teddington and Richmond turned into a narrow, muddy
channel for several hours each side of low tide, impassable by all but the
smallest boats.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Contained in the three central arches of the footbridge are
three substantial sluice gates weighing 32.6 tonnes each, which can be hauled
out of the water and tucked away in the deck supports. Their ingenious rolling
design was the brainchild of Irish-born engineer and sluice specialist Francis
Goold Morony Stoney, who later applied the same principles at a larger scale on
the Aswan Dam.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
For much of the time, the lowered gates form a substantial
barrage against the water’s flow, boosting the depth of the official navigation
channel upstream to at least 1.72 m. Passing boats then need to use the lock under
the arch on the Richmond side. But for two hours each side of high tide, the
sluices are raised and both the water and the vessels on it can pass unimpeded.
The footbridge helped recoup some of the construction expense, as walkers were at
first charged a penny (0.4p) toll: it’s now free, though the gate is closed at
night. The remains of the turnstiles and tollbooths are still visible on both
decks, though only the downstream deck is usually open today.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The structure, with its elaborate and cheerfully-painted
cast iron work, its substantial engineering features, its lockhouse and odd
scattering of small and curious buildings, makes for a particularly quirky and
pleasing assemblage. It certainly provides a marvellous western river crossing
for the Capital Ring. The Thames Path, meanwhile, continues ahead towards Kew
Gardens and central London, while the Green London Way also opts to stay on the
south bank, on a roundabout route to Brentford via Kew Bridge. Don’t forget to
pause halfway across, not just to admire the view, which is well worth it, but
to mark the trail’s passage from south to north London.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
St Margarets<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2mVznkSIOwQDrBMoEmpnT0ke8LR3n0nRYq32H6zR9lWxcFkT-X57fodtRZBdJW-11cQpt5fDkLrz6MA7EJYuxrBzOOm24DGJChmCDcS-eBCwzrXRVrMt4b1Af7tURhsAeg0g0ypnuxV0/s1600/isleworthait.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2mVznkSIOwQDrBMoEmpnT0ke8LR3n0nRYq32H6zR9lWxcFkT-X57fodtRZBdJW-11cQpt5fDkLrz6MA7EJYuxrBzOOm24DGJChmCDcS-eBCwzrXRVrMt4b1Af7tURhsAeg0g0ypnuxV0/s400/isleworthait.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mouth of river Crane at Railshead Ferry, with Isleworth Ait in the background.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
When the lock was first built, crossing the
footbridge took you from Surrey to Middlesex, a county which was finally
abolished in 1965 when nearly all its remaining territory that hadn’t yet been
claimed by the London County Council was swallowed by the expanded Greater
London. I introduced it in more detail when the London Loop entered it on
<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/london-loop-1112-kingston-hatton-cross.html" target="">Section 9</a>. Today you don’t even change boroughs when crossing here: Richmond
upon Thames is the only London borough which straddles both sides of the river.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The footbridge lands in the neighbourhood known as St
Margarets. Until the late 18<sup>th</sup> century, this was a countryside area in
the parish of Isleworth. There were only two houses, one of which had been
built as a school in the 17<sup>th</sup> century when the estate was known as
Twickenham Park, and later occupied by the dramatist Richard Sheridan. It was
rebuilt in 1830 for Archibald Kennedy, the Marquess of Alisa, who renamed it St
Margarets. In 1856 the land around the house was redeveloped as upmarket homes
by the Conservative Land Society, and the growth of the modern suburb was boosted
by the opening of St Margarets station in 1876 on the existing railway line
from Richmond to Windsor.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Along with the rest
of Isleworth parish, St Margarets was incorporated into the Heston and Isleworth
Urban District in 1894. This later became a Municipal Borough, but when the new
London Boroughs were created along with Greater London in 1965, the boundary
was re-aligned to follow the river Crane and the area was grouped in with
Twickenham as part of Richmond borough. This wasn’t without historical
precedent: there were numerous crossovers with ownership and control of the
parishes and manors in Isleworth, Richmond and Twickenham back in mediaeval
times.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Below Teddington Lock the Thames Path National Trail
offers a choice of paths on both sides of the river, so the Ring now follows
the north bank route, soon leaving the road for another quiet riverside path. There’s
an information board here marking one of the start and finish points for the
River Crane Walk, although the Crane itself is a little downriver.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Sticking to the Thames, you soon pass a 1960s boathouse
with an interesting history. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Originally
used to build racing rowing boats, it was bought in 1976 by Who guitarist and
songwriter Pete Townsend, who refitted it as a recording studio, known like his
existing facility in Soho as Eel Pie Studios. The name is from Eel Pie Island,
a Thames ait a little upstream in Twickenham housing a venue where the Who and
many other key bands of the time regularly played in the 1960s.<br />
<br />
Townsend was
banned from driving so the riverside site enabled him to travel to work by
boat. The studio was later occupied by the Cocteau Twins and the Lightning
Seeds. Townsend also refitted a Dutch barge, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Grand Cru</i>, as a studio and until 2008 this was moored on the river
outside the boathouse. In that year the building was sold and converted to
residential use, but Townsend kept the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Grand
Cru</i>, which still provides recording facilities at its new home in St
Katherines Dock.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The area on the landward side here was once the St
Margarets Estate. The house was rebuilt in 1851 to a design by Thomas Cubitt
for Francis Needham, the Earl of Kilmorey, and renamed Kilmorey House. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Needham was rather an eccentric figure
notorious for eloping with his ward Priscilla Hoste, almost 40 years his junior.
When Priscilla died in 1854, she was interred in an ancient Egyptian-style
mausoleum in Brompton Cemetery. The earl didn’t stay in the house for long
after that, selling it in 1856 to the Royal Naval Female School, a boarding
school for the daughters of naval officers. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was demolished following bomb damage in
World War II and a teacher training college built on the site, but this closed
in the 1970s. In 2005, the site was redeveloped into an upmarket gated estate,
which also included improvements to the riverside walkway.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The other big pre-19<sup>th</sup> century house on the
riverside survives and is soon visible to the left. This is Gordon House, the
central portion of which dates from the late 17<sup>th</sup> century. The earliest
known occupant was Jewish businessman Moses Hart, principal funder of the
rebuilt Grand Synagogue in Aldgate, who lived here between 1718-56. It was
expanded in 1758 by Robert Adam as one of his early commissions, and later
became the home of Francis Needham. When he died here in 1880, he joined his
beloved Priscilla in her mausoleum, moved from Brompton to a site nearby where
it still stands today. Gordon House became the Industrial School for Girls, then
part of the Royal Female School, then a teacher training college, and finally a
part of Brunel University, until it too was sold for conversion to flats in
2004.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The Thames Path is deflected away from the river just
short of the mouth of the river Crane, following Railshead Road. In the 14<sup>th</sup>
century the name Railshead, referring to rails or stakes rising from the river
here, was applied to the locality as a whole. Thistleworth Marina, which blocks
access ahead, is now mainly a mooring for houseboats but from the 1930s until the
1970s a boatyard known as Kris Cruisers operated here, building motor torpedo
boats for the Navy during World War II and later police launches, as well as
cargo and fishing vessels and pleasure cruisers. The yellow brick cottage at
the end of the marina fence is the old ferry house: the Railshead Ferry
operated to the Richmond side here from the time of George III until the
outbreak of World War II. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Although there’s no through-route, you can duck down the
path beside Riverside House, a smart 1990s block of flats, for a closer look at
the mouth of the Crane. The tributary officially begins at Bulls Bridge near
Hayes and flows for 13.5 km to join the Thames here, though it’s essentially a
continuation of another stream, the Yeading Brook, which rises in Pinner Park
near Headstone Lane station, about 12 km above Hayes. Its lower reaches dip
south via Twickenham before turning north to Isleworth, and its profile is
further complicated by various engineering re-channelling works that have
altered its course over the centuries.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The most obvious of these is the Duke of Northumberland’s
River, which we’ll encounter a little further on. Substantial lengths of
<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/london-loop-1112-kingston-hatton-cross.html">sections 9 and 10</a> of the London Loop are shared with the River Crane Walk, and
much of the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/hillingdon-trail-1-cranford-west-ruislip.html">Hillingdon Trail</a> tracks the Yeading valley, so you can read more
about the river in my posts on these trails. The appearance of this lowest,
tidal section is the result of 20<sup>th</sup> century straightening and
culverting, and flood alleviation works in the 1990s.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Isleworth<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh709Cx9XhmCGRFIgrEwKhWR89B5FeS5AJl5CgVwyoR-thCyxF2m52L22GvQ4_Ge2UQqUFLOtH08At81bCoGkq-KQJfvNjOVMsfM7TPDJtE_5DoyuEzdgUfAlU9HDktFZDZGnwdzYMxv54/s1600/isleworthstairs.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh709Cx9XhmCGRFIgrEwKhWR89B5FeS5AJl5CgVwyoR-thCyxF2m52L22GvQ4_Ge2UQqUFLOtH08At81bCoGkq-KQJfvNjOVMsfM7TPDJtE_5DoyuEzdgUfAlU9HDktFZDZGnwdzYMxv54/s640/isleworthstairs.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Isleworth riverside: a disused crane, the Cathja barge, All Saints Church and the Syon Park Pavilion in the distance.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
From late Saxon times, the small riverside town of
Isleworth was the centre not just of a single parish but of a huge manor
covering three parishes, the others being Heston (Hounslow) and Twickenham.
Together these also formed the ancient Middlesex hundred of Isleworth. The
first reference to the town is in a charter dated 695, and though this might be
fake, Isleworth was well-established by the time of the Domesday survey in
1086. The name means ‘Gīslhere’s inclosure’. One reason for the large size of
the manor many have been that most of it, away from the riverside, consisted of
the rough and rugged Hounslow Heath, which was once much larger than it is
today (see <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2016/03/london-loop-1112-kingston-hatton-cross.html">London Loop 9</a>).<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
After the Conquest, Isleworth passed through the hands of
various Norman nobles and in 1337 became part of the extensive holdings of the
Duchy of Cornwall. Just before Henry V died in 1422, he granted it to the
Bridgettine Order of nuns at Syon Abbey. By 1598 most of it belonged to the
Earls of Northumberland, and their descendants are still around today. As elsewhere
along this part of the river, land was inclosed and sold off from the 17<sup>th</sup>
century to build upmarket country houses, though Isleworth was also noted for
orchards and, later, market gardens. Suburban development followed the arrival
of the railway with the opening of the Hounslow Loop Line in 1849.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Once you could cross the Crane at Railshead Ferry and
continue along the riverside into Isleworth village. Then in 1832 William
Cooper, personal doctor to George III, had the road diverted away from his
property at Isleworth House as part of a major rebuilding. Today, the Ring and
Thames Path are still forced away from the Thames, entering the London Borough
of Hounslow across Railshead Bridge, a Grade II-listed structure in stock brick
constructed as part of the diverted road.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The trail now follows the pavement along the landward edge
of this sizeable riverside estate. A private house likely stood here from 1635,
and by the early 19<sup>th</sup> century it was owned by the Anglo-Jewish
Franks family, which Cooper married into. The works he commissioned in 1832
included a complete rebuild of the house under architect Edward Blore.<br />
<br />
Isleworth
was the centre of one of London’s largest Roman Catholic communities and in
1895 it once again became the home of a female religious order when the Poor
Sisters of Nazareth, an offshoot of the French Petites Sœurs des Pauvres, bought
Isleworth House, renaming it Nazareth House. The sisters opened a girl’s school
and orphanage and in 1901 added a chapel designed by renowned Catholic church
architects Pugin and Pugin. The convent closed in 2002 and after several derelict
years the complex was redeveloped in 2017 as a gated residential community.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Partly buried under the surroundings of Nazareth House is
an archaeological site and ancient monument that tells an alternative history
of Isleworth, which wasn’t just a picturesque setting for rich men’s homes. As
a small riverside town, it was a local industrial centre, and brickworks,
wheelwrights, breweries, lime kilns and corn mills have all played their part. Most
notably, Joseph Shore operated a pottery between 1756-87 on a site to the south
of the house, which became one of five important makers of fine porcelain in
London. English porcelain, originally produced to challenge the popularity of
imports from China, later flourished as a key product of the Industrial
Revolution, particularly in the area around Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire,
but the foundations for this success were laid in London, and the site here is
one of the best preserved.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
There’s an intention to restore the riverside path but it
hasn’t happened yet, so you’ll need to look through gaps in the wall to spot
the red brick Pugin chapel with its Gothic-style windows and the tall 1830s
stucco house, known locally as the White House, peeking above it. Also dating from
Cooper’s time are the imposing white gateposts and adjacent gatehouse at the
main entrance, a little before the mini-roundabout in Isleworth village. Glance
to the left here and you’ll see Upper Square, a tiny triangle of village green
with a memorial drinking fountain, installed in 1870 to commemorate a local
vicar, Henry Glossop. The cattle trough behind it was installed in 1904,
replacing an earlier trough attached to the fountain.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The trail turns in the other direction, back to the river
at Lion Wharf, its name another reminder of industrial Isleworth. The wharf handled gunpowder from mills further up the Crane (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2016/03/london-loop-1112-kingston-hatton-cross.html">see London Loop 9</a>) and rubber for the Firestone factory on the Great West Road as
well as chemicals, clay, coal and timber. On my last visit a temporary
diversion was in place as the site was undergoing redevelopment into yet more
upmarket flats, but this will ultimately also provide an improved riverside
path. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The waterway here is just a narrow channel separating the
riverbank from <a href="https://www.wildlondon.org.uk/reserves/isleworth-ait" target="_blank">Isleworth Ait</a>, at 4 ha one of the largest of the numerous small
islands in the Thames traditionally known as ‘aits’ or ‘eyots’. It’s the only
survivor of six that one clustered here. Historically used like many Thames
aits to grow osier willow trees for use in boatbuilding, it’s now owned by
Thames Water, housing an outlet for purified sewage, though most is leased to
the London Wildlife Trust, who manage it as a Local Nature Reserve, apart from
a small boatyard that still maintains Thames barges. It’s particularly noted
for its population of two rare snail species: the delightfully-named German
hairy snail, a tiny creature no bigger than a fingernail, and the two-lipped
door snail. The ait is only safely accessible by boat and opens to the public
for guided tours twice a year.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
You may now find yourself dodging tables full of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">al fresco</i> drinkers as the trail runs
straight through the terrace of the 1980s-built Town Wharf pub, on the site of
a coal wharf. Just past this, a footbridge crosses Isleworth Stairs, an ancient
riverside access point where both Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn recorded hailing
watermen to row them back to London in the 17<sup>th</sup> century.<br />
<br />
Further
along, the twin chimney stacks of Holland House, built in 1774, are visible to
the left. An electric pedestal crane preserved as a skeletal reminder of the
past overlooks the permanent mooring of a 1930s Dutch barge, <a href="https://www.cathja.org/" target="_blank">Cathja</a>, which
since 1996 has been occupied by a charity providing woodworking and sculpture
activities for people with mental health issues. Just past this you’re forced
away from the river again by the mouth of the Duke of Northumberland’s River,
but take the opportunity to enjoy the view upstream towards the prettiest part
of the village.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Despite its name, the Duke’s River is an artificial
watercourse, cut in the 1540s to power mills nearby and originally known as
Isleworth Mill Stream. I’ve said a bit about it on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/london-loop-1112-kingston-hatton-cross.html">London Loop 9</a>, and another
branch of the River Crane Walk follows it from here, so expect to read more in
a future blog. The trail soon reaches Church Street, where across the road the watercourse
opens out into a wide brick basin which once served a flour mill. You can still
see the iron rings in the walls where boats moored up to load and unload, as
well as a gushing weir. The mill stood on the land immediately behind the basin
from the 16<sup>th</sup> century, and in the mid-19<sup>th</sup> century, when
it was known as Kidd’s Mill, it was one of the biggest in the country. It was
demolished after being bought and closed by Rank in 1934 and part of the site
is now covered by woodland.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Church Street crosses the Duke’s River on a bridge built at
the same time as the basin in 1820, then passes several listed 18<sup>th</sup>
and early 19<sup>th</sup> century houses to regain the Thames again by the
Grade II*-listed London Apprentice pub. With its brown brick core dating from
1732, this is one of very few surviving London pub buildings predating the late
Victorian period, although it’s been reworked several times since, most
recently in 1906, when the bay window was added: the window is also of 18<sup>th</sup>
century origin but was transplanted from another building.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The pub supposedly derives its name from its popularity
with apprentices from livery companies in the City, who would row here for a
drink and return in the morning, but it also has possible connections with
smuggling, as the remains of a tunnel from the river survive below it. In 2015
I researched the fate of <a href="https://londonist.com/2015/08/what-has-happened-to-the-best-london-pubs-of-1967-part-one" target="_blank">12 ‘best pubs in London</a>’ named by the food writer
Adrian Bailey in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Len Deighton’s London
Dossier</i>, an offbeat guidebook published in 1967, and found all but two
still open, including this one.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Upstream of the pub are a grassy terrace and a slipway created
when new embankments were built along the riverside as a flood protection
measure in the 1880s. Although there are pub tables on the grass, the area is a
registered common and open to the public.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Overlooking the river from an even more elevated site is
the Kentish ragstone tower of All Saints Church. This is its oldest-known
feature, dating from the late 15<sup>th</sup> century: undoubtedly the church
had a previous history but little is known about it. The rest of the building
was burnt down by an arsonist in 1943, and eventually rebuilt in 1970 by
architect Michael Blee, who chose to forego mediaeval or Victorian pastiche in
favour of a forthright contemporary design within the footprint of its
predecessor. Modernist, geometric red brick walls jut out from 18<sup>th</sup>
century arcades, and a Baroque-style sundial hangs suspended above concrete
slabs. The juxtaposition, according to the Grade II* listing, “creates a complex
of poignant complexity, reflecting evolution, damage and renewal”.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The ongoing need for flood protection here is demonstrated
by five plaques in the church wall that record high water levels on various
dates between 1774 and 1965. An Isleworth Society plaque nearby states the last
serious flooding was in 1976: since then, the Thames Barrier has kept water
levels under control.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1heGn-8CKTv_Bp7P30o2ebTBxDz1lkzKfEndkxqSScFpVVto9Ls6ONNig24zn2gq8ql2dlF9rV-c17kYWfGSLcMA2-PFyO-qBAuU00WA3srSrQadhnR-nrCvw-jp3uCgh5XD38m_qy8Q/s1600/isleworthsyonpavilion.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1heGn-8CKTv_Bp7P30o2ebTBxDz1lkzKfEndkxqSScFpVVto9Ls6ONNig24zn2gq8ql2dlF9rV-c17kYWfGSLcMA2-PFyO-qBAuU00WA3srSrQadhnR-nrCvw-jp3uCgh5XD38m_qy8Q/s640/isleworthsyonpavilion.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Syon Park Pavilion from the foreshore at Isleworth.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Walkers are forced away from the riverside again just
past the church, but you might catch a glimpse of a curious round pink building
just ahead: if the tide’s out, it’s worth descending to the foreshore for a
better view. This is a late 18<sup>th</sup> century pavilion in the grounds of
Syon Park, in elegant and rather playful neo-Classical
style: originally there were boathouses attached but they have disappeared and the structure has been converted to a private home. The
building on the left just round the bend is the rebuilt ferryhouse for the Church
Ferry, a crucial link between Isleworth and Richmond from the early 16<sup>th</sup>
century. Later it served Kew Gardens, continuing to operate until as recently
as 1997.<br />
<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<h3>
Syon Park<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ8UCJ4zNScPndGY4G2AKfO5-B1GOa6ocz9OvmKvltVTOkFE-Qdd0JsBRinlprXM7szr6EFYHqBlQyQDebEShv3MHpfYFZNm6wJ89CD8HR9KjfCwD30tH8Vpa4oKMWgqw7OgurBp8BRCg/s1600/syonhouse.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ8UCJ4zNScPndGY4G2AKfO5-B1GOa6ocz9OvmKvltVTOkFE-Qdd0JsBRinlprXM7szr6EFYHqBlQyQDebEShv3MHpfYFZNm6wJ89CD8HR9KjfCwD30tH8Vpa4oKMWgqw7OgurBp8BRCg/s640/syonhouse.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Syon House, still a private home.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The rich heritage of this section of the Ring
continues as the trail dodges through the gates of <a href="https://www.syonpark.co.uk/" target="_blank">Syon Park</a>, a grand 18<sup>th</sup>
century estate with remnants of its origins as a mediaeval manor. It’s the last
remaining major country estate in the capital still in private aristocratic
ownership, used by the Percy family, Dukes of Northumberland, as its London
residence. The 12<sup>th</sup> Duke, Ralph Percy, is one of the richest men in
England, with a net worth of £365m thanks largely to owning almost 500 km<sup>2</sup> of the
northeast of England, including Alnwick Castle. The family has proved adept at
managing its London assets: Syon Park was one of the earliest stately homes to
exploit the nascent tourist industry when its gardens were first opened to the
paying public in 1837.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
There’s still an admission charge to visit the house and
much of the grounds and gardens, which are open between mid-March and the end
of October (check opening times for the house if you want to visit as it’s not
open daily), and various other commercial enterprises are scattered round the
site. But thankfully the main drive through is a public right of way, with free
views of the house, the wider parkland and some other notable buildings.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
When Henry V rebuilt Sheen Palace in the 1410s, as part of
the King’s Great Work, he surrounded it with religious institutions. It’s
thought one of these, a Celestine monastery, briefly occupied the site that
became Syon Park, but Henry rapidly dissolved this after the its largely French
occupants refused to pray for his victory at Agincourt. A more enduring
foundation was the Monastery of St Saviour and St Bridget of Syon, the only
community in England of an order of Augustinian nuns often referred to as
Bridgettines. The original site where the abbey was established in 1415 is
uncertain but it was likely further upriver towards Twickenham, facing the
palace across the Thames.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The name ‘Syon’, incidentally, is just an alternative
spelling of ‘Zion’, the anglicised form of the Hebrew name <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tsiyyon</i> (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sahyoum</i> in
Arabic) which has been applied over the millennia to several different hills in
Jerusalem and used as a synecdoche for the entire city and for the biblical
land of Israel. Today the word is inextricably linked with Zionism, the modern political movement
for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, which resulted in the foundation of the
State of Israel in 1948. But it has always held various mystical and
metaphorical meanings too, as a spiritual place or state, thus its
appropriation for a 15<sup>th</sup> century nunnery.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Just before his death in 1422, Henry assigned the whole of
the giant manor of Isleworth to the abbey, and in 1431, finding its existing
accommodation too small, the community relocated downstream to the present Syon
Park, with the abbey buildings around the site of the present house and between
it and the Thames. By the time the abbey was suppressed during Henry VIII’s
dissolution in 1539, it maintained over 12 ha of orchards and gardens. The
manor temporarily returned to the Crown and was grouped for a while with
Hampton Court. The king’s body rested overnight here on its final journey from
Westminster to Windsor in 1547, and there’s a grisly and likely apocryphal tale
that the coffin leaked “putrid matter” which was licked up dogs, fulfilling the
prophecy of a Franciscan friar opposed to Henry’s religious policies.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
After the king’s death the site was occupied by Edward
Seymour, the ambitious Duke of Somerset. The new king, Edward VI, was only nine
years old, and Seymour, his uncle, was appointed Lord Protector, essentially ruling
on Edward’s behalf. In 1549, following a series of armed revolts, Seymour was
toppled, and in 1552 beheaded at the Tower of London. Seymour was the occupant
who first rebuilt the monastery into a private house, and his construction of a
triangular terrace intended to provide riverside views was used in evidence
against him as it was assumed to be the first stage of a planned fortification.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The next occupant was the next Protector, John Dudley, the
Duke of Northumberland, who also ended up on the wrong end of Tudor power
politics. The successor by birth to the ailing Edward, Henry’s oldest daughter Mary
Tudor, was a devout Catholic intent on reversing the growing dominance of
Protestantism initiated by her father’s break with Rome. At the behest of
Dudley and his colleagues, the ailing teenage king disinherited her, instead
naming as his successor his first cousin and Dudley’s daughter-in-law, the
17-year-old Lady Jane Grey, an intelligent and well-educated young woman who
was also a committed Protestant.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
On 10 July 1553, a few days after Edward’s death, Jane
left Syon Park where she’d been staying, and boarded a boat at Isleworth Stairs
to the Tower of London where she was proclaimed queen. Mary meanwhile rallied
armed supporters in the Catholic stronghold of East Anglia. With the prospect
of a civil war, support for Jane melted away and the ‘Nine-Day Queen’ was
deposed on 19 July, before she’d been crowned, in favour of Mary. Dudley became
among the first of many opponents executed by so-called ‘Bloody Mary’, and Jane
herself was beheaded on Tower Green in 1554. During Mary’s reign there was an
attempt to rebuild Syon Abbey, but in 1594 it was leased by Henry Percy, the Earl
of Northumberland, himself no stranger to court intrigue as he was implicated
in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and imprisoned in the Tower for 17 years.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The Percys and their relatives have held Syon Park ever
since. In 1751 the then-Earl, Hugh Smithson, commissioned architect Robert Adam
to remodel and refurbish the house, and the ever-busy Lancelot ‘Capability’
Brown to landscape the grounds. It’s essentially their work that you see today.
Apart from an area to the northwest developed for housing in the 1970s, and a
more recent hotel, the estate has remained remarkably intact since pre-Tudor
times. The house is Grade I-listed and the park is a Grade I-registered
Historic Park and Garden, as well as forming part of the buffer zone for the
Kew Gardens World Heritage Site.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The trail enters past the porter’s lodge, one of several
additions in 1817, and follows the permissive path to the right of the drive. Behind
the wall on the right, inaccessible to the public, is an area of tidal tall
grass washland, the only one of its kind in London and designated a Site of
Special Scientific Interest. To the left, though fenced off, is the grazed open
parkland created by Brown: you might catch a glimpse of his one of his
characteristic lakes, now used for private fishing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Eventually you walk along a low wall and ha-ha that reveal the
house itself on the right, an imposing castellated building with symmetrical turrets
at each end: it preserves something of the appearance of Seymour’s time and you
can understand how he was suspected of making military preparations here. The
striking composition is completed by the two lodges alongside your path which
frame the house, added by Henry Percy in 1607. Look to the left and you’ll see an
avenue of lime trees marching towards the lake, connecting with a meandering drive
to what was once the main gate on London Road, known as the Lion Gate as its
grand entrance is topped by a heraldic lion sculpture: this was permanently
closed in the 1990s.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Further along, occupying several of the outbuildings, is the
oldest garden centre in the UK, the remains of a late 1960s initiative to
establish a national garden festival on the site. It’s open daily, including in
the winter, and is worth popping into even if you don’t need to use the toilets
or the creditable café. The main part of the centre is housed in an unusual
1820s iron-framed building once used as a riding school, while in a yard behind
it is the Abbey Barn, the only surviving complete building from Bridgittine
days, part of which can also be viewed from the path. Originally built of
ragstone, it’s been much altered, in the late 17<sup>th</sup> century and again
after a fire in 1905.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhohyEAhrWsgo125BaHtFRzccPtq6ITaATlW_Sfnnyo49CbCQipWmYAwa53IDp3PRdinvWm5NlC1rcwTuJDfzCjGYMkX5JvKHA5Sfp06qPEQFOLXtsplJWpw7jMx0fRUuCj5WArL1tNABg/s1600/syonconservatory.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhohyEAhrWsgo125BaHtFRzccPtq6ITaATlW_Sfnnyo49CbCQipWmYAwa53IDp3PRdinvWm5NlC1rcwTuJDfzCjGYMkX5JvKHA5Sfp06qPEQFOLXtsplJWpw7jMx0fRUuCj5WArL1tNABg/s400/syonconservatory.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Syon Park Conservatory.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This is the best place to glimpse perhaps the most
spectacular building on the site without crossing a paywall. Thrusting above is
the elegant crystalline dome of the Great Conservatory, laced with delicate
ironwork. This innovative building, designed by Charles Fowler, was provided to
delight the public when the gardens were first opened in 1827.<br />
<br />
The grounds east
of the conservatory towards the Thames, in the paid-for zone, are the site of
the two Battles of Brentford: in 1016, when the Anglo-Saxon leader Edmund
Ironside defeated the Danish king Cnut, and during the English Civil War in
1642 when the Royalists under Prince Rupert defeated a small force of
Parliamentarians. The Royalists then proceeded to sack the nearby town.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Various other commercial enterprises line the drive by
which you leave the park. The biggest of them is the 151-room Hilton London
Syon Park hotel, opened in 2011 and originally part of the Waldorf Astoria Group.
If you plan on walking the Ring on a series of consecutive days, this is a
decidedly luxury overnight option. You also pass a paid-for adventure
playground and an upmarket day nursery before emerging at Brentford on the
rather more down-to-earth surroundings of the London Road.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Brentford<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br />
The derivation of the name ‘Brentford’ seems
obvious: the ford where the Bath Road crossed the river Brent just upstream of
its confluence with the Thames. But the Thames itself was also relatively
shallow here, so the ford referred to may be the one across the larger river. Brentford
claims to be the place where the Roman emperor Julius Caesar crossed the Thames
and battled with the local Celtic king, Cassivelaunus, in 54 BCE, but although
the claim is consistent with the sparse facts of Caesar’s own account, no archaeological evidence
has been found to support it. There’s plenty of evidence, however, to
demonstrate Brentford was already an important settlement in Caesar’s time.
Local finds go back to the Mesolithic period and numerous
artefacts from the Bronze Age (around 2500-800 BCE) suggest there may have been
a metalworking factory here. Brentford is therefore one of the London suburbs
which predates the City of London itself.<br />
<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Growing up along the main road on both sides of the river,
Brentford straddled several mediaeval parishes. The part where the trail first
enters, to the west of the Brent, developing after a new bridge opened in 1446,
is known as Brentford End and was historically part of Isleworth. New
Brentford, immediately to the east of the Brent, occupied a thin finger of Hanwell
parish known as Boston Manor, in the Middlesex hundred of Elthorne, which
stretched south to the Thames. Old Brentford, to the east of the street known
as Half Acre, was part of Ealing, in Ossulstone hundred. Old and New Brentford
were formed into a single Brentford District in 1874, later Brentford and
Chiswick Urban District, but Brentford End didn’t become part of the same local
government area until the creation of the London Borough of Hounslow in 1965.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
With its good road and river links, Brentford continued as
a centre of industry and commerce into modern times. A market and annual fair were
both licensed in 1306, with the High Street soon becoming a row of coaching
inns and pubs serving the road. Gravel pits, tile factories and brickfields
were all active by the 16th century, and by the end of the next century the
town housed extensive granaries, flour mills, maltings and breweries. 18<sup>th</sup>
century Brentford was one of the major industrial centres immediately outside
London, and the arrival of the Grand Union Canal in the early 19<sup>th</sup>
century brought further industries including a distillery and soap, gas and
water works. Much of this had moved out by World War II, closing or migrating north
along the new Great West Road, but Brentford today remains a busy residential
and retail centre.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The original Great Bath Road played a key role in all
this. The current High Street and London Road are built along the line of the
main Roman road west from London, which branched at Hounslow to serve
Silchester and Bath. The route has remained in continuous use since and there
are traces of Roman construction underneath the present road. Its importance
increased further in late mediaeval times as it also provided a link to
Bristol, by the mid-14<sup>th</sup> century Britain’s third biggest town and a
major port.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
But the poorly maintained and largely unsurfaced road was
a constant source of complaint. Main roads in England were known for their poor
condition anyway thanks to the informal parish-based system for maintaining
them, which was often abused, and the stretch through busy Brentford was
particularly notorious as the split responsibility between three parishes provided ample opportunities
for buck-passing. The road was narrow and hemmed in with buildings, there was
regular conflict between through traffic and busy locals. In the 17<sup>th</sup>
century the bridges had to be widened following several incidents of vehicles
elbowing pedestrians into the Brent.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
In 1717 the road was turnpiked – improved by private
investment recouped through tolls – between Kensington Olympia and Staines. But
the stretch through Brentford still struggled to cope with the traffic. In 1807
the agricultural writer John Middleton described its condition in winter as:<o:p></o:p></div>
<blockquote>
…Eight inches [20 cm] deep in fluid sludge, the rest of the
road being from one foot [30 cm] to eighteen inches [46 cm] deep in adhesive
mud. Notwithstanding His Majesty travels the road several times every week
there are not many exertions made towards keeping it clean in winter…The street
is much too narrow, does not admit of being easily widened, and it is always
filthy.</blockquote>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Pressure on the road was reduced in the 1830s and 1840s as
freight transferred to the railways, but the arrival of tramways and the
motorcar congested it anew in the early 20<sup>th</sup> century. The opening of
the Great West Road to the north diverted much of the through traffic, but even
in 1939 Cecil Roberts, in his exploration of the Bath Road, described the
approach to Brentford as “like the gate of Hell with the gas works and the coal
yards already there for stoking the punishing fires”. The scene has changed
since then with a widening scheme in 1959 destroying many historic buildings
and more recent works taking an opposite approach by deliberately slowing
traffic and attempting to add interest back into the space.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
As a densely-populated town with a large working-class
population, Brentford also has a vigorous political history. In 1700 the
hustings for electing Middlesex’s allocation of two Members of Parliament were
shifted to New Brentford from Hampstead Heath. This is the basis of Brentford’s
claim to be the county town, though it never had anything like a county hall: Middlesex
was always administrated from central London. In those days, property and
gender qualifications limited the electorate to around 2,000 men, who if they
wished to participate had to attend the hustings personally and vote in public.
The elections also attracted large numbers of disenfranchised people who would
attempt to influence the outcome, not always in the most peaceable way.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Perhaps the most famous MP elected at Brentford was
radical journalist and orator John Wilkes (1725-97), whom we’ve already met at Earlsfield
on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2018/04/capital-ring-45-crystal-palace.html">Ring 5</a>. Wilkes, known as the ugliest man in England, was already notorious
for his attacks on the king and the government in his magazine <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The North Briton</i> when in 1764 he was
declared an outlaw for co-authoring a seditious and obscene poem. He fled to
France but ran out of money and was forced to return four years later.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Elected as an MP at Brentford, he claimed parliamentary
privilege, but still went to prison. In 1769 he was expelled from Parliament as
he had been an outlaw at the time of the election and therefore disqualified
from standing. The Middlesex voters promptly re-elected him, after which he was
expelled, re-elected and expelled again, finally persuading Parliament to
withdraw the expulsion. The firebrand eventually joined the Establishment: he
became Lord Mayor of London in 1774, then Chamberlain of the City of London. In
this latter capacity, he ordered soldiers defending the Bank of England to fire
into the crowd during the Gordon Riots of 1780.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
The Dock, the Bridge and the Canal<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqKOXYJzQi3UVR8FMEV9m1lDShGSvLGMYxykexRj3j3aoFDIHARAFc1wpaeRg1Sd_MLxRkM9VdFl-UaqjLoeOoHwvWNfYWhPR9p20b4D71jVSFlCQiMsgF0BJ2rR6wa0yUiGx65-9dmJE/s1600/brentfordcanalwarehouse.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqKOXYJzQi3UVR8FMEV9m1lDShGSvLGMYxykexRj3j3aoFDIHARAFc1wpaeRg1Sd_MLxRkM9VdFl-UaqjLoeOoHwvWNfYWhPR9p20b4D71jVSFlCQiMsgF0BJ2rR6wa0yUiGx65-9dmJE/s400/brentfordcanalwarehouse.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ghosts of warehouses near Brentford Gauging Lock.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Ring doesn’t dig too deeply into Brentford, not
even crossing the bridge, but if you have time you may wish to explore further.
The main stretch of the High Street is just over the bridge, with plenty of
pubs and shops, the market square and some pretty streets and squares to the
north, including the Butts which Henry VIII set aside for archery practice and
where the hustings were once held. Further along is the <a href="https://www.watermans.org.uk/" target="_blank">Watermans Arts Centre</a>
on the site of a gasworks and brewery and two quirky museums: the <a href="https://www.musicalmuseum.co.uk/" target="_blank">Musical Museum</a> with its unique collection of self-playing instruments and the <a href="https://www.waterandsteam.org.uk/" target="_blank">London Museum of Water and Steam</a>, on the site of a former waterworks.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Just before the bridge, you’ll spot the remains of a rail
viaduct and bridge abutment to the left. This is what’s left of the Brentford
Branch Line, opened in 1859 as part of a major development by the Great Western
Railway known as Brentford Dock. The extensive docks, built by Isambard Kingdom
Brunel on the triangle of land on the west bank of the Brent between the bridge
and the mouth of the river and Grand Union Canal (to your right as you approach from Syon), were intended to transfer
goods between the railway and the Port of London via the Thames. They were
particularly busy in the inter-war years where it’s estimated 10% of Britain’s
trade passed through them. The docks closed in 1964 and the area has been
redeveloped as housing and a marina.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The 6.4 km branch line linked the docks with the GWR main
line at Southall. The line also carried passengers: the building attached to
the viaduct is on the site of the former Brentford station, which was closed in
1942, though the line continued in use for goods until the closure of the dock.
The northern part of it is still used as a goods line, serving a recycling site
built on the former goods yard.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The earliest record of Brentford Bridge is from 1224, when
tolls were charged to cross a wooden bridge. This was replaced by a stone
bridge in 1446, which was rebuilt in 1742. The current bridge dates from 1824, though
it’s been widened several times. By the time it opened, the waterway passing
beneath had been re-engineered as part of the creation of the Grand Junction
Canal, or <a href="https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/canal-and-river-network/grand-union-canal" target="_blank">Grand Union Canal</a> as it’s now known.<br />
<br />
You’ll find more detail about
the canal under <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/london-loop-1112-hayes-hillingdon.html" target="_blank">London Loop 11</a>, which follows a substantial section of it, but
to summarise: it opened in stages between 1798 and 1911, originally linking the
Thames at Brentford and the Oxford Canal at Braunston, Northamptonshire, which provided
a route towards Coventry and Birmingham. A more direct connection to central
London was soon added with the opening of the Paddington Arm from Hayes to
Paddington in 1801, linked to the docks at Limehouse via the Regents Canal by
1820.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The southernmost part of the canal between Brentford and
Hanwell is essentially a canalised stretch of the river Brent, although in
several places an earlier course of the river remains as a separate loop of
waterway. I’ll say a bit more about the Brent in the next section, which tracks
its valley for some distance.<br />
<br />
The bridge is not only an important waterway
landmark but a junction of waterside trails. The Thames Path diverges here, following
the canal downstream to Brentford Dock then rejoining the Thames towards
central London. The Ring now piggybacks on the Grand Union Canal Walk, which
follows the towpath from Brentford Dock all the way to Birmingham. Also signed
from the bridge is the Brent River Park Walk, which I’ll cover in the next
section, and <a href="http://www.shakespearesway.org/" target="_blank">Shakespeare’s Way</a>, a semi-official route linking
Stratford-upon-Avon with the Globe Theatre at Bankside, which uses the towpath
to Brentford and then the Thames Path.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Keeping to the west of the bridge, the Ring crosses London
Road to pick up the towpath past Brentford Gauging Lock, with one of those
loops of the Brent heading off to the right just before it. This was originally
the lowest lock on the canal (though numbered 100 as the sequence starts at the
Braunston end) but the rise and fall of the tide caused problems for boats
passing under the bridge so in the early 19<sup>th</sup> century Thames Lock
was built further down by Brentford Dock. But the gauging lock remained the
place where tolls on the canal were assessed and paid: the lock-keeper gauged
how low in the water a boat was floating, used this to calculate the weight of its cargo and charged accordingly. The Grade II-listed stock
brick toll house, rebuilt in 1911, still stands on the opposite side of the
lock.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghKwGzzHmtLcOL72psSQQPvEApz8vOEGeNmUPz0pBxoDirGGm5pRj8EmSt0TkpN2ifkpY6ItGlzSmkRihB_07s7-DDZDALtIGhBkLSDNYGJ7Zek24v4fazjTXE2Q601qGd6hPY1Qv6gmg/s1600/brentfordathlete.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghKwGzzHmtLcOL72psSQQPvEApz8vOEGeNmUPz0pBxoDirGGm5pRj8EmSt0TkpN2ifkpY6ItGlzSmkRihB_07s7-DDZDALtIGhBkLSDNYGJ7Zek24v4fazjTXE2Q601qGd6hPY1Qv6gmg/s400/brentfordathlete.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The <i>Athlete</i> sculputre at GSK House, Brentford.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The towpath uses a wooden footbridge to cross the mouth of
a small dock, now a mere water feature surrounded by the rather bland flats of
the Brentford Lock West development, the results of a regeneration project led
by the Canal and River Trust which has been opened in stages since 2013. For
years a collection of rather atmospheric derelict warehouses stood beside the
path here, and thankfully both the atmosphere and the heritage haven’t been
entirely effaced. A little further on, you walk through what was once a dock
sheltered by a large and lofty overhead canopy attached to adjacent warehouses.
Most of the rusting corrugated iron has gone, but the developers have retained
the spindly framework of the roof structure, like a skeletal ghost of the days
when this was a hub of economic activity.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: red;">Update October 2018</span></b>. For several months in 2018, the towpath was closed beside the dock and under the warehouses, with no reopening date advised and a less attractive diversion in place. The Canal and River Trust said this was due to the dangerous state of the warehouses. Thankfully the issue was resolved in mid-September and the path as described has now been restored. Thanks to Mike Biggs for the update.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
You pass under two bridges. Bridge 208A carries the Hounslow
Loop Line, opened in 1849 by the London and South Western Railway as a suburban
loop from the Waterloo to Reading line between Barnes and Hounslow. This bridge
isn’t the original one but a 1932 replacement. Bridge 208 carries the Great
West Road, opened in 1925 from what’s now Chiswick Roundabout to Hounslow as a
bypass of the Bath Road and soon afterwards numbered A4. This is where you’ll leave the
towpath if you end your journey at Brentford station, one of the original Loop
Line stations and not to be confused with the now-closed station near Brentford
Dock passed earlier.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The Great West Road was famous for its string of large
factories and other businesses in striking art deco buildings, which earned it the
nickname the ‘Golden Mile’. The massive and visually striking Glaxo Smith Kline
(GSK) building on the opposite bank just past the road bridge occupies the site
of two of them: the Trico windscreen wiper factory, which moved in 1992, and
the Macleans toothpaste and cosmetics factory.<br />
<br />
The latter was taken over by
Beechams, in turn absorbed by pharma group GSK, which cleared the site to make
way for its new global headquarters to open in 2001. There are five buildings,
including a 16-storey tower, linked by a fully-glazed indoor ‘street’ clad in
Belgian glass and Italian stone, and the design, by RHWL Architects, nods to
the art deco heritage of its surroundings and I'm told has windscreen wipers on its main doors. A canalside terrace houses the
brightly coloured 13 m-high sculpture <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Acrobat</i>
by pop artist Allen Jones and the elegant wooden Orbit Footbridge (207A) links
the towpath with Boston Manor Park.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Boston Manor<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu30eL2K4p7DnfYqcElU4QnbC-bGifV1nKs56KBm86gyyWOgGvhQq_xOM60fzxELlnSkIoRqesS4tuHlyoWH4iCox47Uy28Lck4ZhKtb_FIZPg2LIv1SOvz_axF-AGbbIIilpYEAYvhT0/s1600/grandunioncanalbrentford.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu30eL2K4p7DnfYqcElU4QnbC-bGifV1nKs56KBm86gyyWOgGvhQq_xOM60fzxELlnSkIoRqesS4tuHlyoWH4iCox47Uy28Lck4ZhKtb_FIZPg2LIv1SOvz_axF-AGbbIIilpYEAYvhT0/s640/grandunioncanalbrentford.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Now on the Boston Manor side, the Grand Union Canal towpath passes under the M4.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Boston Manor was once a genuine mediaeval manor,
also known as Bordeston, or ‘Borde’s farmstead’, the narrow southern part of
Hanwell parish. For centuries the territory was known interchangeably as New
Brentford or Boston Manor, with one or the other name popular at different
times. Records date back to 1157 when it was owned by the Abbot of Westminster.
Later it belonged to another female religious community, the priory of St
Helen’s, Bishopsgate, until the Dissolution in 1538 when, like Isleworth, it
was grouped in with Hampton Court. It then passed through a variety of private
hands, including Thomas Gresham (1519-79), founder of the Royal Exchange. It
was bought by the Clitherow family in 1670 and was gradually broken up over the
succeeding centuries.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The Ring doesn’t enter Boston Manor quite yet, staying on
the Isleworth side of the Brent, which here follows the same route as the
canal. Visible on the opposite side is Boston Manor Park, the remains of the
manorial estate, sold by the Clitherows to Brentford Urban District Council in
1923 after it failed to reach its reserve price at auction. Preserved as a
rural oasis in a densely built-up and industrialised area, it was described at
the time as including a walled garden, glasshouses growing melons and cucumbers,
a temperate house and a vineyard, surrounded by extensive meadows.<br />
<br />
Part of the
land was used for housing, while the rest became the present park, opened in
1924. The location of the original manor house is unknown, but in 1623 a <a href="https://www.hounslow.gov.uk/info/20174/heritage_and_arts/1855/historic_houses/" target="_blank">new brick house</a> was built: this still stands on the north side of the park, on the
other side of the M4, and is open to the public on summer weekends and bank
holidays.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
A little further on, another loop of the Brent branches
off to the right, and soon you’re at Clitheroe’s Lock (no 99), named after the
Boston Manor landowners. The woodland of Clitheroe’s Island between the Brent
and the canal on the opposite bank is particularly rich in wildlife, though not
quite as peaceful as it once was, as the viaduct carrying the M4, a more recent
successor to the Great Bath Road, negotiates the valley here. This section,
between Junction 1 at Chiswick and Junction 5 at Langley, opened in 1965 and
the motorway was eventually extended to reach Bristol, Cardiff and Swansea. To
the left is a scrap metal recycling yard on the former Brentford Branch goods
depot.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
The Brent rejoins at a weir on the right and the Ring soon
enters Boston Manor proper as the towpath switches sides at Gallows Bridge (no
207). This Grade II-listed iron footbridge was cast in Birmingham in 1820: the
origin of its name is unknown but it may be linked to a local legend of a man
found hanged in the nearby woodlands in the 17<sup>th</sup> century. The deck
is roughly surfaced to provide a better grip for towing horses. <a href="https://lpff.org.uk/Our-Playing-Fields/Boston-Manor-Playing-Field" target="_blank">Boston Manor Playing Fields</a> behind the hedge on the right were also once part of the estate
but were bought separately from the park in 1929 by an independent charity, the
London Playing Fields Society (now Foundation), which owns several other such
sites. They now provide space for local schools and clubs to play football,
rugby, cricket and American football.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
Bridge 206A carries London Underground’s Piccadilly Line, opened
in 1883 by the Metropolitan District Railway (not to be confused with its
arch-rival the Metropolitan Railway, another Underground pioneer) as a branch
linking Acton Town, on its line to Ealing, with Hounslow. In 1902 the District
became a core part of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London Ltd
(UERL), which under abrasive US-born entrepreneur Charles Tyson Yerkes, a
veteran of the Chicago elevated railways, expanded to control nearly all
London’s underground lines.<br />
<br />
The UERL laid the foundation for what in 1933
became the publicly-owned London Underground network under the London Passenger
Transport Board, the ancestor of today’s Transport for London. About the same
time, the Piccadilly Line took over the branch via a connection at Hammersmith,
later extended to Heathrow Airport (see <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/london-loop-1112-kingston-hatton-cross.html">Loop 9</a>).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUK0b3whoz_a47JCeYFztXUxo_hZGw6fmAyumM803o8Q386t46qv4_WgLDiDvxT_-fnjMC-8rI0l7pmHK768-5gR3RJLGasQvGnkCsaEKeM38eAjU67W043PUQT9eszd1rQ6Ap09u5zqY/s1600/bostonmanor.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUK0b3whoz_a47JCeYFztXUxo_hZGw6fmAyumM803o8Q386t46qv4_WgLDiDvxT_-fnjMC-8rI0l7pmHK768-5gR3RJLGasQvGnkCsaEKeM38eAjU67W043PUQT9eszd1rQ6Ap09u5zqY/s400/bostonmanor.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Boston Manor station: a suburban beacon.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Finally, the towpath passes under the tall concrete piers
of the M4 viaduct to reach a path junction where another meander of the Brent
splits from the canal. For some reason the official end of Section 7 of the
Capital Ring is at Osterley Lock, visible ahead some 200 m further along the towpath,
but if you stop there, you’ll need to retrace your steps to the M4 viaduct to
follow the station link, so I’ll defer this to the beginning of the next
section. The link first follows the Brent, almost immediately entering the
London Borough of Ealing, then climbs through the dappled surroundings of
Elthorne Woods. This and the playing fields at the top of the hill became a
public space in 1975 as part of the Brent River Park initiative, which I’ll say
more about in the next section. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
The last stretch is through classic suburbia: though the
railway had been open since the 1880s, development here didn’t really take off
until a tram line was laid along Boston Road in 1906 and many of the houses are
clearly inter-war. The large Royal pub, opposite you as you reach Boston Road
and now a Harvester pub-restaurant, dates from 1929 and is a typical ‘Brewer’s
Tudor’ roadhouse of the period. The Tube station itself, just back inside
Hounslow, was originally known as Boston Road. It was rebuilt in 1934 in the Moderne
or art deco style then popular on the Underground, though its design is by
Stanley Heaps rather than the better-known Charles Holden. Its red brick tower
with illuminated glazing still ensures it can’t be missed among the low-rise
housing, and it’s deservedly Grade II-listed, providing a distinctively
forward-looking flourish to bookend one of the most richly historical sections
of the Capital Ring.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<ul style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<li><a href="https://innerlondonramblers.org.uk/ideasforwalks/capital-ring-guides.html" target="_blank">Ramblers Capital Ring guides</a>. These are currently the most up-to-date detailed walking guides and maps. Check this page too for current diversions and problems.</li><li><a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1dEzj8toHFPhGR8hjigYqpojJJYA&usp=sharing" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Google Map</a></li><li>My original <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/bii9tflao9ecazm/6-7-wimbledonpark-bostonmanor.pdf?dl=0" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Route description</a> (PDF), not recently updated and included here for completeness.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<br />Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-40074317377033233732018-04-17T10:44:00.002+01:002024-01-17T11:25:42.445+00:00Capital Ring 4/5: Crystal Palace - Streatham - Wimbledon Park<br />
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghK0oY-mGkGpXomAslIECquQCbq6QO5omPAI0dWh3kDuu4oo5vQuisjzs44bgjy_6RtEElEEqXJEP0pvQzN_6WzEyWYb1zjRRZK3uaHeXKsX3hUuMMbaBJNEFcLgc9RRaWhejv6lYOGj4/s1600/bigginwood.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghK0oY-mGkGpXomAslIECquQCbq6QO5omPAI0dWh3kDuu4oo5vQuisjzs44bgjy_6RtEElEEqXJEP0pvQzN_6WzEyWYb1zjRRZK3uaHeXKsX3hUuMMbaBJNEFcLgc9RRaWhejv6lYOGj4/s640/bigginwood.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Biggin Wood, Norwood, one of the last surviving remnants of the Great North Wood.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
This section of the Capital Ring begins by crossing
the lofty heights of Norwood, once thickly cloaked in the greenery of the Great
North Wood, patches of which endure. Reaching the splendid prospect of the
Norwood Grove mansion, it threads through the fragmented remains of three
Surrey commons: Streatham, Tooting Bec and Wandsworth. Crossing the river
Wandle near Earlsfield, it ends on the edge of Wimbledon. The trail includes
one of London’s loveliest public gardens, one of Inner London’s last remaining
fields, a Victorian cemetery and prison, a mosque-like water pumping station
and a genuine mosque.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
I’ve again combined two shorter official sections of the
Ring to create a day walk, with short links to a choice of two stations from
the break point near Streatham Common. The first, hillier section has no other
station links though numerous bus stops. The second, which is flatter, passes
three additional stations, and bus stops too. There’s quite a bit of walking
along streets overall, but none of these stretches is individually too long and
the green spaces are frequent and attractive.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<h3>
The Great North Wood<o:p></o:p></h3>
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<br /></div>
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As already mentioned several times in London
underfoot, without human intervention, most of the land the city occupies would
be woodland (see <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/london-countryway-12-welham-green.html">London Countryway 18</a>). Clearances began in the pre-Roman period,
making way for agriculture and settlements. Nevertheless, some large woods survived into more recent times,
including the Great North Wood. Covering the high ground that rose above the
low-lying marshes south of the river Thames, it was the southern equivalent of
the Forest of Middlesex on the north bank. The name sometimes puzzles modern
readers because the wood was south of London and the Thames, but the point of reference was the Great South Wood covering the Weald of Kent and Surrey.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The former boundaries of the wood are uncertain and
shifted over time. In the 13<sup>th</sup> century it likely stretched in a
thick swathe of largely oak woodland from just south of Watling Street at New
Cross and Deptford southwest to the edge of Croydon, encompassing Peckham Rye
and Dulwich in the west and Forest Hill and Penge in the east – as mentioned in
the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/capital-ring-3-grove-park-crystal-palace.html">previous section</a>, Penge derives its name from a Celtic term meaning ‘edge
of the wood’. The old Roman road from London to Portslade, today’s A23, marked the
woodland edge in the Streatham area, and the valleys of the Ravensbourne and
its tributaries performed the same function in the east. The spine of it all
was a hilly ridge of London clay topped with a younger clay and sand layer
known as the Claygate Member, which stretches north-south for 5 km between
Forest Hill and Selhurst<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Several ancient parish and manorial boundaries ran through
the wood. Until the late 17<sup>th</sup> century, a prominent oak tree at the
junction of what’s now Crystal Palace Parade, Anerley Hill, Church Road and
Westow Hill marked the point where four woodland parishes met: Battersea (in
the guise of its ‘detached part’ of Penge), Camberwell, Croydon and Lambeth. The
tree was known as the Vicars’ Oak, as clergymen from the different parishes
often bumped into each other there when beating their bounds.
The boundary with Sydenham ran a little to the north. These boundaries largely
persist in the modern divisions between the London Boroughs of, respectively, Bromley,
Southwark, Croydon, Lambeth and Lewisham: the first four still meet at the site
of the Vicars’ Oak. Historically both Croydon and Lambeth were attached to the
Diocese of Canterbury, and the archbishops kept palaces in both parishes,
linked by the Portslade road.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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For much of its history, the wood was a wild and lonely
place. The rugged terrain deterred agriculture and habitation and escaped being
claimed as a royal hunting reserve like some other London woodlands. Some was allocated
as common land attached to the surrounding settlements, but some was put to
commercial use. The establishment of naval dockyards in Deptford and Woolwich
(see <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/capital-ring-12-woolwich-grove-park.html">Capital Ring 1</a>) early in the 16<sup>th</sup> century increased local
demand for oak timber, while tree bark was used by the Bermondsey leather
tanners. The Croydon side of the woodland was best known for producing charcoal,
an important fuel up until the 18<sup>th</sup> century. Charcoal burners were
known as ‘colliers’, thus place names such as Colliers Wood.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
These activities and the gradual improvement of road
access reduced the tree cover and by the 16<sup>th</sup> century the wood was
already patchy, though still with a substantial area of continuous woodland between
Honor Oak and South Norwood. The wood became a refuge from London epidemics
such as the Great Plague of 1665, and provided a hiding place for smugglers, robbers
and escaped prisoners: the diarist John Evelyn recounted being mugged here in 1652.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Travellers regularly camped around
what’s now Gipsy Hill: Samuel Pepys records his wife, her friend and a maid
visited them in August 1668 to have their fortunes read. The area preserved its
wild and dangerous reputation into the early 19<sup>th</sup> century, when a
local householder still felt it necessary to fire a pistol from his house on a
regular basis, so potential miscreants were forewarned he was armed. One
intriguing local resident in 1802 was a hermit known as Matthews the Hairyman,
who lived in a cave, or possibly a pit, in the woods.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
By then, though, the Great North Wood was well on its way
to being tamed. Edward Thurlow, a well-off lawyer and Tory politician twice
appointed Lord Chancellor, built up a large estate on the Lambeth side which
was sold off largely for housing development after he died in 1806. Most of the
commons and woods on the Croydon side were inclosed by Act of Parliament in
1797 and used for building, initially as grand houses for wealthy residents who
didn’t need to go into London every day. The spa on Beulah Hill, of which more
later, and the Crystal Palace spurred further development.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Today around 20 fragments of the wood remain, largely as small
parks and nature reserves. In 2017, the London Wildlife Trust launched the
four-year <a href="https://www.wildlondon.org.uk/great-north-wood" target="_blank">Great North Wood Project</a> to improve 13 of these sites and increase
awareness of them and of the woodland heritage in general. The aspiration stops
short of attempting to increase the wooded areas, though that could still
follow. Whether future hairymen will make their homes in the wood remains to be
seen.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<h3>
Norwood<o:p></o:p></h3>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3hSanA17HVqmw_CFUblMZN4lWaZlzEOnp6BUugLjpQzUD1yvVicM4cQDrxo4utrg-Zes-GD3cs8veiW-O69NvmvJy3vIdM1ekgXyYMbraIT8jamFtEi_hHyzl7E5lN7Jyr19eaVDwrxA/s1600/belvedereroad.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3hSanA17HVqmw_CFUblMZN4lWaZlzEOnp6BUugLjpQzUD1yvVicM4cQDrxo4utrg-Zes-GD3cs8veiW-O69NvmvJy3vIdM1ekgXyYMbraIT8jamFtEi_hHyzl7E5lN7Jyr19eaVDwrxA/s400/belvedereroad.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beautiful views from Belvedere Road, Norwood.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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The place name ‘Norwood’ derives from the Great
North Wood, though its scope is loosely defined. It’s mainly applied to the
previously wooded areas of north Croydon and south Lambeth, though parts of the
other three boroughs are also sometimes called Norwood. The neighbourhood is
usually subdivided: the Capital Ring passes largely through Upper Norwood and
Norwood Grove, while elsewhere are West Norwood, Norwood New Town and South
Norwood. This section begins in what was historically Penge: it’s now part of
Bromley borough and usually referred to as in Anerley (see the last section)
but no-one would blame you for counting it as part of Norwood. In fact, the
site of Crystal Palace Park itself was once right in the heart of the wood.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Emerging from Crystal Palace station onto Anerley Hill,
you’re a little southeast of the site of the Vicars’ Oak mentioned above, and
not far from the Crystal Palace Museum mentioned previously. The streets
opposite were laid out in the second half of the 19<sup>th</sup> century to
take advantage of the proximity of the Palace, thus names like Palace Road and
Palace Square, though you may notice numerous more recent buildings. In July
1944, two German V1 flying bombs fell here within the space of 24 hours, the
first on Palace Square, the second on Anerley Hill near the station, destroying
several Victorian houses and claiming around 25 lives. Some of the houses
weren’t rebuilt but instead became what’s now a pleasant little hillside park,
Palace Square Open Space, opened as a recreation ground in 1951. The Ring winds
through this, the steep change of level marking the transition between the plots
of houses that faced onto the square and those that faced onto Belvedere Road
above.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Several big Victorian villas still stand on Belvedere
Road, including the ones that give the street its name, topped with lofty
belvederes or lookouts. You can see them stepping down the hill against the backdrop of the North Downs if you detour a
little left from the park, with a Victorian postbox opposite contributing to
the ambience that merits this part of Anerley’s Conservation Area status. Even at
ground level you get a sense of elevation in these streets, with distant views
surprising you around corners. The area may even seem more spacious than in its
woodland days, when foliage would have blocked such sightlines.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The Ring follows the street in the opposite direction west
(right) before turning down Tudor Road: a slight detour a little further ahead
along Belvedere Road towards the T-junction reveals two terraces of cottages
built in the 1850s as almshouses for London dockers, though never used as such.
But instead the Ring continues to Fox Hill, with an appropriately named house
on the corner: Penybryn, or ‘hilltop’ in Welsh. The division between Bromley and
Croydon boroughs still follows its old course along the lane that runs
diagonally from here, Lansdowne Place, before turning southeast along
Fox Hill, so as the Ring turns left at the corner it finally leaves Penge in
Bromley and enters both the old parish and modern London borough of Croydon.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjrNMytic31htFXc8JdPzWuC0Qr03dIkswjrVxNUq5kO5QW04LzajFLHdz4prpB6HMWjM6fCEIjti3jSpor3K3S61-HTqFIis6OVQ8zu7g3pTJUzjn92L84HkOFqWjmbn9ohX4tSGDqE8/s1600/pisarro-norwood.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="606" data-original-width="800" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjrNMytic31htFXc8JdPzWuC0Qr03dIkswjrVxNUq5kO5QW04LzajFLHdz4prpB6HMWjM6fCEIjti3jSpor3K3S61-HTqFIis6OVQ8zu7g3pTJUzjn92L84HkOFqWjmbn9ohX4tSGDqE8/s400/pisarro-norwood.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Camille Pissarro's view of Fox Hill, Upper Norwood, 1870.<br />
<a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings" target="_blank">National Gallery</a>, Creative Commons</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The French Impressionist painter, Camille Pissarro (1830-1903),
who lived in Norwood over the winter and spring of 1870-71 after fleeing the
Prussian attack on Paris, depicted a snowbound scene here in his painting <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fox Hill, Upper Norwood</i>, now in the
National Gallery. Pissarro described Norwood as a “charming suburb”, and spent much
time here painting from life, studying “the effects of fog, snow and
springtime” on numerous local landscapes including the Crystal Palace. From the
angle of the hill and the bend in the road in the painting, the artist likely
set up his easel a little further downhill to the left, in the opposite
direction from the Ring, but the scene is rather different today.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
At the top of Fox Hill is Church Road, a busy modern road
on the course of an ancient track running right along the crest of the ridge.
It was once one of the few direct routes through the woods, linking Dulwich and
Croydon, variously known as Dulwich Road and Vicars Oak Road, since it too
leads to the parish meeting point, northeast of our trail. It got its current
name when All Saints Church, at its southern end, was built to serve the
growing population in 1829. Much of the length of the road, and adjacent
streets and green spaces, are also a designated conservation area and there are
several buildings of interest, including the grand Queens Hotel to the left,
but the Ring doesn’t linger here, instead crossing the road into <a href="https://www.croydon.gov.uk/leisure/parksandopenspaces/parksatoz/westow-park" target="_blank">Westow Park</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB9XLjy55_N-9JHAd0JqZjfYPWnFR2y-MZBIdMm30qLicixkObY9RCtsGcF5MlAUHoe_VdkvT8iDM3WH8ZpyS7cMVYOUfLMt18Zj5a4xdwqVp7KxdyFZgCGA5GdEWkWwIlof4ey0e4Ahs/s1600/westowpark.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB9XLjy55_N-9JHAd0JqZjfYPWnFR2y-MZBIdMm30qLicixkObY9RCtsGcF5MlAUHoe_VdkvT8iDM3WH8ZpyS7cMVYOUfLMt18Zj5a4xdwqVp7KxdyFZgCGA5GdEWkWwIlof4ey0e4Ahs/s640/westowpark.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Westow Park: a sensory experience.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The low wall with fence separating park and road, with its
distinctive entrance arch, now disused, provides a clue that a house once stood
here. This was Walmer House, a large villa which, with its neighbour Windermere
House and several other adjacent properties, was converted in the 1870s into the
Royal Normal College and Academy of Music for the Blind. This was the brainchild
of an English philanthropist, Thomas Rhodes Armitage, and a US-based
anti-slavery campaigner, Francis Joseph Campbell, who was himself blind. The
curriculum was considered progressive and innovative for the time: both men were
keen to increase the independence of blind people, and train them for careers
in music, as music teachers, organists and piano tuners. Queen Victoria was
their first patron.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The college was evacuated at the beginning of World War II
and the buildings used as a hospital. They were demolished in the 1950s
following extensive bomb damage during the Blitz, so the college never returned
to London and is now based in Hereford. In 1970, Croydon council incorporated the
site into the present park. Among the college’s innovative methods was an
emphasis on physical activity and sport, and the grounds were carefully
landscaped so that students could enjoy outdoor activities unaided. Features
like the garden terraces with their accessible walkways are still visible
today. A pond that was used for swimming and skating has been filled in,
although the park still tends to dampness: the springs that periodically break
the surface here drain into the river Effra, of which more later.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
At the first junction in the park, a right turn will take
you up steps beside Sainsbury’s supermarket to the Norwood Heights Shopping
Centre at the southernmost angle of the ‘Crystal Palace Triangle’ shopping area
formed by Church Road, Westow Hill and Westow Street. The street scene here is
dominated by the spire of the Greek Orthodox Church of Saints Constantine and
Helen, which has changed denominations: it was built in 1878 as an Anglican
church dedicated to St Andrew and is now Grade II listed. This, the Portland
stone war memorial, and the 1985 shopping centre, which won an award for its
architecture, are worth a closer look if you detour for toilets and shops, but
the church can also be seen from the trail. The Ring now leads across the
lower, flatter section of the park, which is also its oldest part, created as a
recreation ground in the 1890s. The final stretch beyond the play area is
another 1970s addition, reclaimed from a post-World War II estate of
prefabricated housing. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Just around the corner, <a href="https://www.croydon.gov.uk/leisure/parksandopenspaces/parksatoz/upper-norwood-recreation-ground" target="_blank">Upper Norwood Recreation Ground</a>
was created by the council in 1890 on land bought from the Ecclesiastical
Commissioners following extensive public pressure for such a facility in what
was becoming a densely-populated area. Its formal opening in May of that year
began with a 1,400-strong procession “the like of which had never been seen in
Upper Norwood before”. The Royal Normal College choir sang ‘All Creatures Now
are Merry’ and the ceremony climaxed in a firework display provided by Brocks
of Nunhead. The ground was noted for its views of the Crystal Palace water
towers and for its bandstand, which stood not far to the left as you walk along
Chevening Road beside the ground. This and several other Victorian features
have been lost and large parts of the park are featureless sports fields.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The southeastern end of the recreation ground, along
Harold Road, contains further headsprings of the river Effra, and somewhere
along the path where you first enter, you cross its now-buried course. The
stream heads north under Chevening Road and Orleans Road then northwest through
the grounds of the Virgo Fidelis convent and West Norwood cemetery. Originally
it ran on through the marshes of Lambeth and Southwark to feed Earls Sluice,
another ‘lost’ river that joins the Thames on the boundary of Deptford and
Rotherhithe. It was diverted in the 13<sup>th</sup> century to run via Herne
Hill, Brixton and Kennington Oval to a confluence at Vauxhall under what’s now
the St George Wharf development. The river was progressively covered in the 19<sup>th</sup>
century, in part to prevent local flooding, and incorporated into Joseph Bazalgette’s
sewage system in the 1860s, but sections were still visible on the surface into
the early 20<sup>th</sup> century. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIL6V0P-LsmtNo_Ak_Qj1cUjhyphenhyphen51fdtYsz6853nTJeSUYxTO0kcjcKiSh7SVZTiPW7SUKIsgOdyZqmi1q_Sa7520tW34P0X50h0WRQQJvFfTtN8hA-Ur5HGUixnRg5s2Y_I9l9qmzXyd8/s1600/stoneofcroydon-uppernorwoodrec.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIL6V0P-LsmtNo_Ak_Qj1cUjhyphenhyphen51fdtYsz6853nTJeSUYxTO0kcjcKiSh7SVZTiPW7SUKIsgOdyZqmi1q_Sa7520tW34P0X50h0WRQQJvFfTtN8hA-Ur5HGUixnRg5s2Y_I9l9qmzXyd8/s400/stoneofcroydon-uppernorwoodrec.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the much derided 'Stones of Croydon', Upper Norwood Recreation Ground</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The 1891 drinking fountain still stands beside the trail,
though in a deteriorated condition. Just on the right as you return to the park
from Chevening Road, opposite the school, is a more recent curiosity: one of
the ‘Stones of Croydon’, part of a much-derided 2015 project to commemorate the
50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of Croydon becoming a London borough. The boulder
is one of 20 originally installed in New Addington in 2012 as part of an experimental
scheme to deter pavement parking. Following an exceptionally hostile local
response, they were removed in 2014 and put to renewed use as commemorative
markers, distributed to 20 sites in the 20 council wards as they existed in
1965. I suspect that as time goes on they’ll be regarded with rather more
affection as a quirky local feature.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The trail reaches Beulah Hill, the site of Beulah Spa, one
of the early attractions that spurred local development. The spa is slightly
off the route, left along the hill rather than right, where the Harvester
pub-restaurant stands on the site of the once-grand Beulah Spa Hotel; Tivoli
House, nearby, is the only remaining spa building. This was a chalybeate
spring, with water rich in iron salts, attracting more and more visitors from
the late 18<sup>th</sup> century as ‘taking the waters’ became fashionable. In
1830 it was expanded by Decimus Burton into a leisure complex with pleasure
gardens and numerous entertainments, including appearances by the circus run by
black equestrian performer Pablo Fanque, immortalised in John Lennon’s song
‘Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite’. The opening of the reconstructed Crystal
Palace and its surrounding park nearby overshadowed the spa, which closed in
1859. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
There are views left and right along Convent Hill towards the
City of London and the appropriately named Downsview Road before the trail
reaches the corner of Biggin Hill, just short of Beulah Hill Pond, another
spring-fed water feature once used for refreshing horses and livestock. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A plaque at no 75 commemorates Joan and Alan
Warwick, who helped found the <a href="https://www.norwoodsociety.co.uk/" target="_blank">Norwood Society</a> – I’ve drawn heavily on some of
the articles on the society’s website in writing up this account. The trail
then descends steeply on Biggin Hill, with impressive views opening ahead.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The author Charles Dickens (1812-70) had numerous
connections with Norwood and it’s mentioned several times in his novels. Publisher
William Hall, one of the early supporters of Dickens’ writing, lived here, as
did an uncle, the journalist John Henry Barrow. The names of the side streets
off Biggin Hill are not just idle Dickensian tributes. Dickens Wood Close on
the left is on the site of Springfield, home in the 1840s and 1850s of a Mr
Townsend who regularly invited the author as a guest: it may have been the
inspiration for the house of Mr Spenlow, the title character’s boss in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">David Copperfield</i>. Havisham Place, on
the right, is the site of Woodbury, occupied in the 1870s by
William Emerson-Tennent, son of Dickens’ friend James Emerson-Tennent. White
Lodge further along was another big house, though apparently with no Dickensian
connections.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The Ring’s traverse of Upper Norwood ends with <a href="https://www.croydon.gov.uk/leisure/parksandopenspaces/parksatoz/biggin-woods" target="_blank">Biggin Wood</a>, a genuine remnant of the Great North Wood some 5.5 ha in extent. This
somehow survived the various clearances and enclosures of the late 18<sup>th</sup>
century to become a patch of woodland attached to a farm. By the 1830s it was
included in the grounds of Biggin Wood House on Beulah Hill, home of chocolate
and cocoa entrepreneur James Epps, who refused to stay there in May as the
nightingales in the wood kept him awake. By 1928 the house was derelict and
local campaigners were pressing for the wood to be taken into public ownership.
The house burnt down in 1934 and five years later the council bought the site
from Epps’ granddaughter, installing tennis courts on part of it but keeping
the rest as a nature reserve.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Today the woodland is a pleasant surprise, an oasis tucked
behind an unassuming terrace of houses, as if the layers of development have suddenly
been peeled back to reveal a much older landscape peeping through. It’s also
biologically valuable, with bluebells growing in season between the oaks and
hornbeams, and 40 species of birds recorded, including woodpeckers. Quite
rightly, it’s one of the priority sites for the Great North Wood Project. The
trail joins Covington Way, an old woodland track that now runs as a street both
east and west of the wood but pleasingly remains as a path within it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Biggin Wood is also where the Ring crosses
the postcode boundary between South East (SE) and South West (SW) London.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<h3>
Norwood Grove<o:p></o:p></h3>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGw1NGCo6VGhXancKeoKwrGhcPgLxROIhcwZn7YjYLwBfQV2kPr9zwLjIg6YljEMGLAMlbArHI-epsx3aaMnZ4L_AF41vhqTo9Iy3qqnxGAX_9GRp5UPGZGwo_DKTFHjk2KWKcNFY7v3Q/s1600/norwoodgrove.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGw1NGCo6VGhXancKeoKwrGhcPgLxROIhcwZn7YjYLwBfQV2kPr9zwLjIg6YljEMGLAMlbArHI-epsx3aaMnZ4L_AF41vhqTo9Iy3qqnxGAX_9GRp5UPGZGwo_DKTFHjk2KWKcNFY7v3Q/s640/norwoodgrove.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Norwood Grove mansion: as graceful as a P&O steamer?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
Even with houses all around, there’s a still a sense
of openness and airiness as Covington Way continues across a series of
crossroads with steep slopes and views on both sides. This is surely one of the
most attractive of the Ring’s forays through residential streets, particularly
on a fine day with a light breeze. One of the crossings is Norbury Hill,
leading down on the left towards Norbury, once the northernmost sub-manor, or
‘north borough’, of Croydon. Just past Gibson’s Hill, you dodge into the green
space of <a href="https://www.croydon.gov.uk/leisure/parksandopenspaces/parksatoz/norwood-grove" target="_blank">Norwood Grove</a> to begin one of the most attractive stretches of the whole
trail.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The land here, rising to the prominence of Copgate Hill on
your right, was common land which, although in Croydon, was attached to
Streatham Common. In 1635 some of it was carved out as a private shooting
estate, perhaps as a royal gift. By the 1760s it was a more conventional
country estate with an identity crisis, variously known as Norbury Grove, Streatham Grove and Norwood
Grove. A house stood on top of the hill since at least 1718, and in the early
19<sup>th</sup> century this was either rebuilt into or replaced by the current
handsome mansion. It had a variety of owners, some of whom rented it to various
well-heeled tenants, including William Henry Scott-Cavendish-Bentinck, 4<sup>th</sup>
Duke of Portland, a Tory politician, who held the lease from 1839.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
More indicative of the way wealth was shifting in 19<sup>th</sup>
century London, however, are the backgrounds of the two best-known former
residents, both associated with businesses that still exist today. Arthur
Anderson (1792-1868), who took over the lease in 1847, was born into a poor fishing
family in Lerwick on the Shetland Islands and was pressed into the Royal Navy
during the Napoleonic Wars. He rose from City shipping clerk to founder
and chairman of the Pacific & Orient (P&O) shipping line, one of the
first to specialise in steam rather than sail, providing vital international
links to Britain’s growing empire. He was later MP for Shetland and a keen
philanthropist who endowed several charities supporting working people. In 1878
the property was bought outright by Frederick Nettlefold (1833-1913), another
philanthropist, who transformed his father’s brass fixings company into the
biggest screw makers in the world, Guest Keen & Nettlefold (GKN).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Norwood Grove was put up for sale in 1924 and would
undoubtedly have been covered in housing without the efforts of a local
conservation activist and prominent National Trust member, who lived nearby. Stenton
Covington had already led the campaign which saved the Rookery (of which more
later) for public enjoyment, and now revived his campaign network, involving
various worthies including the Archbishop of Canterbury and raising almost
£20,000 towards the purchase of most of the site by Croydon council. Although a
farm that lay to the west was sold off for housing, the rest was opened in 1927
as a park by Edward, Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII. The royal spade used
to plant a commemorative tree is still kept in Croydon library. Covington,
meanwhile, is commemorated in the name of Covington Way.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The trail climbs the hillside and meanders past cypresses, soon with a view across the lawns towards the mansion on the right:
in between is a pretty fountain decorated by four figures representing the
seasons. Further on are terrace gardens, a bird bath that is another memorial
to Covington, a rose arbour and a walled kitchen garden which once contained
extensive greenhouses. The trail then rounds three sides of the house, passing
the blue plaque to the Nettlefolds, the front terrace and orangery with their southeast-facing
views, and some fenced gardens.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The timeline of the ‘White House’, as it’s
known locally, is unclear: it may have been partly rebuilt from a smaller
mid-18<sup>th</sup> century house, but a drawing from 1804 shows it in
something like its current form. By 1868 it had been expanded significantly,
then shrunk again when part was demolished following bomb damage in World War
II.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Arthur Anderson was largely responsible for the outlines
of the landscaping and gardens visible today: it’s tempting to imagine that
this graceful building in clean white stucco with its distinctive bowed wall on
one side reminded him of a serene ocean liner. The house, now Grade II listed,
was used as offices by Croydon Council for many years but in the late 1990s the
upper floors were converted to luxury flats and sold off. Much of the ground
floor is now a pre-school.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The trail follows the main drive, known as the Copgate
Path, past a lodge, also Grade II listed and privately occupied following the
1990s sell-off. Just past the gateposts, you cross an ancient ditch carrying
the old parish boundary between Croydon and Streatham. The Ring leaves Croydon
here, entering the London Borough of Lambeth and the extensive open space of
Streatham Common. From 1889 to 1965, this was also the boundary of London, as
the London County Council’s jurisdiction began on the Lambeth side. Croydon
wasn’t yet in London, though it was by now a largely autonomous ‘county borough’
within Surrey.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<h3>
Streatham Common<o:p></o:p></h3>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikmMlNIYrluxUJhgWEAKHlgXNQNylP5qUwAKjn2qgc4E9pkZgEnn8GctYqfqS8M74b4drDqOLkZQir2Gv-feqI-0NYQTKr1EgT3Qj2p-AlMx62zhB8V77vUCphLugtCQy_fdfc9RTyBFE/s1600/streathamcommon-gates.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikmMlNIYrluxUJhgWEAKHlgXNQNylP5qUwAKjn2qgc4E9pkZgEnn8GctYqfqS8M74b4drDqOLkZQir2Gv-feqI-0NYQTKr1EgT3Qj2p-AlMx62zhB8V77vUCphLugtCQy_fdfc9RTyBFE/s640/streathamcommon-gates.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the Copgate Path, looking from Norwood Grove, in Croydon, across the Lambeth boundary to Streatham Common.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
The Copgate Path is one of the most surprisingly
delightful stretches of pedestrian infrastructure in London. Here we are in
Transport for London’s Zone 3, in Lambeth, an inner London borough which
stretches all the way to the Southbank Centre, but once again it feels as
though a patch of 21<sup>st</sup> century overlay has been peeled back and we might
briefly imagine ourselves on a country lane through rural Surrey. To the right
is the main area of woodland on the common, likely secondary woodland that grew
up after grazing ceased in the 19<sup>th</sup> century. To the left, meadows
divided by old hedgerows slope down the hill, according to some sources the
closest fields to central London.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Streatham was an ancient parish in the Brixton hundred of
Surrey. By the time of the Domesday survey in 1086, it was subdivided into several
manors, most of which later merged. One that stayed separate was South
Streatham, which in 1362 was given by Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince, to
Christ Church Monastery in Canterbury as a detached part of the manor of
Vauxhall in Lambeth. The manor, which included extensive common lands on the
edge of the Great North Wood known at one point as Limes Common, passed to Canterbury
Cathedral after Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and then to the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The common
provided an essential amenity over a wide and sparsely populated area, with
people living as far away as Penge exercising commoners’ rights, as mentioned
in the last section.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Perhaps because of a combination of institutional
ownership and keen local use, the common was largely unaffected by the inclosures
that changed the face of the rest of the Great North Wood in the late 18<sup>th</sup>
and early 19<sup>th</sup> centuries. By the 1820s, it was mainly used as hay
meadows, with some open grazing. But as development pressures on its
surroundings grew, traditional rural activities declined. In 1866 a local commoners’
committee took on the management, and in 1884 the church was persuaded to sell
most of the open land – about 27 ha – to the Metropolitan Board of Works for
the nominal sum of £5, for preservation as a public space. The MBW was soon
succeeded by the London County Council and the common eventually passed through
the Greater London Council to the current owners, the London Borough of Lambeth,
in 1971.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The common is one of the largest open spaces in Lambeth
and includes the borough’s largest area of woodland. It’s of major significance
both for recreation and wildlife: the last red squirrel in Lambeth was spotted
here in 1946, and in 2013 around 14 ha was designated as Local Nature Reserve. Once
much of the common would have been heath, and gorse still grows in patches
within the trees. Among the specialities of the rougher grassland is the
delightfully named early hair grass (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Aira
praecox</i>), while soft shield-fern (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Polystichum
setiferum</i>), a rarity in London, grows along the ditch.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Further along the trail is a fenced area on the left
around an old barn known as the Rookery Barn. Since 2017 this has been occupied
by the Inkspot Brewery, one of the hundred-plus small businesses that have helped
restore some of London’s historic brewing tradition over the past decade. Brewing
requires a lot of water, and in the past London brewers had to have their own
supplies, usually from artesian wells, as they were banned from using public
water conduits. Today most brewers use mains water but Inkspot plans on being
an exception, as it happens to be located right over a water source that helped
put Streatham on the map.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The Streatham Wells were discovered in 1659, allegedly
when the ground collapsed beneath a farmer’s cart. As in Norwood, this was a chalybeate
spring, with water rich in minerals including magnesium sulphate, calcium carbonate
and iron. By the beginning of the next century, the area around the well had
been inclosed and houses and gardens built to service visitors keen to enjoy the
water’s alleged health-promoting properties. A flyer from 1878 claims Streatham
water was beneficial for “all obstinate Diseases of the Skin and Lymphatic
Glands, especially in that afflicting disease called Scrofula…liver complaints,
indigestion, especially in jaundice and bilious attacks…evacuating irritating
matter from the intestines [and] a most valuable remedy for persons labouring
under Nervous Debility.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
By then the original well had become contaminated and a
new one dug on what’s now Well Close, off the common to the north. The original
site became a private house known as the Rookery. It was the threat to
redevelop this in 1911 that first spurred into action the formidable Stenton
Covington, whom we’ve already encountered at Norwood Grove. Covington organised
a public subscription to buy the site for £3,075, and it was then passed to the
LCC. The house was demolished in 1912 but the grounds were remodelled and
opened as public gardens the following year. The local tradition of community
campaigning around public space is preserved by the <a href="http://streathamcommon.org/" target="_blank">Friends of Streatham Common</a>, which plays an active role in improving the amenities today.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZd4Iyisz91MEEXz6tXtAGrOVFvqyr5gevqEHNVFHaZwdjk9JiNV3ixmgWa-O4By4_pW3tHRKzYrSm1NHTTpbFT7_uckHV_UUPSfnL_zxEutU_whPx_56hLRe-OAgA_rAaYK51_OrlX4E/s1600/streathamcommon-rookery.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZd4Iyisz91MEEXz6tXtAGrOVFvqyr5gevqEHNVFHaZwdjk9JiNV3ixmgWa-O4By4_pW3tHRKzYrSm1NHTTpbFT7_uckHV_UUPSfnL_zxEutU_whPx_56hLRe-OAgA_rAaYK51_OrlX4E/s640/streathamcommon-rookery.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Rookery, Streatham Common, the original site of Streatham Wells.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Officially the Ring goes right past the Rookery fence without
peeking in, but I highly recommend a detour. Like many council-owned amenities,
this one has struggled with funding in recent years, and both the gardens and
the wider common are now managed by a social enterprise, Streatham Common
Cooperative (<a href="https://www.sccoop.org.uk/" target="_blank">SCCoop</a>), with volunteers taking on many of the previous duties of
paid keepers. Nonetheless it remains one of the loveliest public gardens in
London.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Built as a series of terraces on a slope, it includes a
variety of plantings, numerous mature trees, a pergola and an old kitchen
garden with geometric paths and the site of the former well. Then there’s the ‘white
garden’ where only white flowers are permitted, a policy that has persisted
since 1913 when it was unique among the LCC’s gardens. A rockery with a cascade
had become rather neglected, but following a Heritage Lottery Fund grant in
2018, this is to be restored. The site forms a natural amphitheatre and is
sometimes used for music and other performance events: your author once sang here
at a summer festival in the pouring rain to a scattering of brave listeners huddled
under umbrellas.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
A little further along is a decent park café, and nearby one
of the surviving cattle troughs provided by the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain
and Cattle Trough Association, originally set up in 1859 to provide clean free
drinking water via public fountains in response to the discovery by John Snow
that poor water supplies helped spread cholera. In 1867 it added animal welfare
to its aims and began providing cattle and horse troughs too. It’s still around
today as the <a href="http://www.drinkingfountains.org/" target="_blank">Drinking Fountain Association</a>. The gift of a Mr W Ward of Brixton
Hill, this trough was first installed in 1880 on Streatham Hill and was moved here
in 1895.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The trail now begins a slow descent along the perimeter of
the green space. This western section has been managed since public ownership
began largely as mowed grass and sports grounds, and the LNR designation
officially ends at the next crosspaths. The line of trees along the edge was
planted by the MBW in the 1880s. Back in the mid-19<sup>th</sup> century, a
cattle pond would have been visible ahead in the southwest corner of the common.
This was lost partly through the widening of the busy road that now lies ahead
of you, itself a major feature in the story of Streatham and the explanation
for the settlement’s name.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Streatham<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil4tvOQsqEypQqWbkdFleS9iJ8BAkAg8ApITboqELTZREj8n9GhCgcvs4WQgR3qdmld4nMC4YGj1OlGW4YnijV7rjQjsfgXYpV9N9kQV1qGCKaD_yP-5Xxxa9_qwnmwFmo534IOCSTqd8/s1600/streatham-pumpingstation.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil4tvOQsqEypQqWbkdFleS9iJ8BAkAg8ApITboqELTZREj8n9GhCgcvs4WQgR3qdmld4nMC4YGj1OlGW4YnijV7rjQjsfgXYpV9N9kQV1qGCKaD_yP-5Xxxa9_qwnmwFmo534IOCSTqd8/s400/streatham-pumpingstation.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Streatham Common Pumping Station</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Streatham means ‘homestead on the street’, with
‘street’ in its Anglo-Saxon sense of a paved highway, usually a Roman road. The
street in question was the Roman road that branched from Stane Street, the
Chichester road, at Kennington and ran south to the former ferry port of
Portslade on the south coast, sometimes known as the London to Portslade Way. The
stretch through Streatham later became a well-used connection between the
Archbishop of Canterbury’s palaces at Lambeth and Croydon. When Westminster
Bridge was opened in 1750, the routes serving it from the south, including this
one, were improved and turnpiked.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The road’s importance increased still further with the development
of Brighton, a fishing village just east of Portslade, into a fashionable
seaside resort within easy travelling distance from London, boosted hugely by
the patronage of the Prince Regent, later George IV, in the 1780s. When the
Brighton road was first designated a trunk route in the 1920s, it was numbered
A22 from Westminster Bridge to Purley, and A23 on to Brighton, but in 1935 the
numbers were swapped, with the A23 extended into central London and the A22
branching off at Purley.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The A23 has long been notorious as one of the most
congested major roads out of the capital, running along a succession of narrow
and busy high streets. Plans to widen or bypass it have foundered on the
resistance of communities determined to preserve their local streets. 1960s
transport planners envisaged motorways all the way from Battersea via Balham
and Streatham to Brighton, but the M23 as it was built in the mid-1970s only
got as far as Hooley, south of the Greater London boundary, before its northern
extension to Streatham was first delayed then finally cancelled in the 1990s. Streatham
High Road, as this section is now known, still carries traffic for Brighton and the busy intermediate destination of London Gatwick Airport. It
also forms part of the iconic route of the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run,
the longest-running event of its kind, inaugurated in 1896, and various corresponding
charity events for cyclists.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Where the trail bends to parallel the road, staying within
the common, you can see a large Sainsbury’s supermarket ahead on the opposite
side. It’s on the site of a large silk mill built in 1820 in an early attempt
to bring mass production to the industry. The business failed, and by 1840 the
site had been taken over by a Mr P B Cow for an India rubber works, the
birthplace of the adhesive Cow Gum. Much of the mill was later demolished but
the main façade, complete with cupola and clock, is still visible within the
supermarket complex.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Further on the same side is the prominent tower of
Immanuel and St Andrew’s Church, built in 1865 as an extension to a new church
that was then a decade old. In 1988, with congregations shrinking, this large
church had become uneconomic and most of the building was demolished and
replaced with a smaller one, retaining the tower which now looks oddly
isolated.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Joining the pavement, you finally leave the area of the
common at its northwest corner and cross Streatham Common North, with <a href="http://www.londongardensonline.org.uk/gardens-online-record.php?ID=LAM053" target="_blank">Streatham Memorial Gardens</a> in front of you. This is a neat and tidy little space created
by the local war memorials committee in 1922, though it’s since been modified
as part was lost to road widening and compensated for when the housing estate
behind it was built. There are two memorials: the original one with a bronze
sculpture of a soldier by Albert T Toft, and a more recent simple obelisk
commemorating “people of all races, faiths and nationalities living or who have
lived in Streatham and have been affected by violent conflicts or wars”. They’re
surrounded by a raised grass bank with benches.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
This site has a longer history. From around 1309 a large
manor house and its surroundings occupied not just this corner but a portion of
the housing estate. This was the ‘head office’ of the main manor of Streatham, separate
from the common in South Streatham. By the end of the 11<sup>th</sup> century,
the manor was effectively merged with the neighbouring manor of Tooting Bec,
held by the abbey of Le Bec-Hellouin in Normandy. It passed through numerous
owners before falling into the hands of the Howland family in 1599.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The house, which was rebuilt in 1577 and 1787, was later
known as Howland House. In the 1690s it passed through marriage to the Russell
family, Dukes of Bedford, in an exchange of land that also included the patch
of Rotherhithe used for digging London’s first large off-river dock, Howland Great
Wet Dock, now Greenland Dock at Surrey Quays. Howland House was replaced in the
early 19<sup>th</sup> century by another house, Coventry Hall, which was
demolished in 1982 to make way for more social housing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The Ring now crosses the A23, leaving the area of the Great
North Wood. One of the official station links at the end of section 4 heads right
(north) here along the main road to Streatham station, which stands just south
of the junction with Tooting Bec Road. The latter was also a Roman road and
it’s highly likely that a Roman military station stood here. Later the junction
became the nucleus of the scattered Saxon settlement. A fragment of village
green and St Leonard’s church are the main reminders of the mediaeval past: the
church has Saxon foundations and a 14<sup>th</sup> century tower but is now
largely Victorian.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The station was opened in 1868 by the London, Brighton and
South Coast Railway (LB&SCR), on a new line from Peckham Rye towards
Mitcham, Sutton and Epsom Downs, with a branch to Tooting and Wimbledon. The
original entrance was off the High Road along Station Approach: access from the
main road was first provided in 1898 but the current entrance is a 1991
rebuild. The building on Station Approach and the canopy on the southbound
platform survive from the 1860s.<br />
<br />
The station is the newest of three serving the
area: the earliest was Streatham Hill to the north, opened in 1856, followed by
Streatham Common, discussed later. A cable car tram line from Brixton reached
along the High Road to central Streatham by 1895, electrified in 1905 and
extended to Croydon in 1909, though this disappeared along with the rest of the
first generation of London trams in 1951.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Thanks to its growing population and increasing
accessibility, the High Road north and south of the road junction had by the
end of the 19<sup>th</sup> century become one of London’s most vibrant shopping
streets outside the West End. By the 1930s, it was lined with department
stores, other prestigious shops, desirable apartment blocks, cinemas, big pubs
and a fine Tate library. In 1951 the Express Dairies Premier Supermarket, the
UK’s first supermarket, opened here, but from the 1970s the retail sector went
into decline, battered by economic conditions and blighted by the unpleasant
levels of through traffic on the A23. In 2002, the street was named ‘Worst
Street in Britain’ in a BBC poll.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Investment and gentrification have brought considerable
recovery, but the High Road is no longer a competitor to Oxford Street. Many of
the lavish late Victorian and Edwardian buildings still stand, often obscured
at street level by modern shop windows, but look up and you’ll soon see why the
lengthy stretch from Streatham Hill to just south of the station is a
designated Conservation Area.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Meanwhile, the main Ring route continues southwest along
Lewin Road. The long streets round here were developed piecemeal from the 1860s
and 1870s, rather than as large uniform estates, as is evident in the mix of
building styles. The red brick Streatham Baptist Church on the right, known
locally as the Lewin, was built in stages between 1877 and 1902, though the
Baptist presence in the area dates from 1792, when a mobile wooden preaching
hut was stationed in nearby Greyhound Lane at a time nonconformist churches
were restricted in buying building land.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The street ends facing a railway line, opened by the
LB&SCR in 1862 as a short-cut on the main Brighton line, enabling trains to
take a more direct route between Croydon and London Victoria, avoiding Crystal
Palace. Just north of here is the junction between this line and the later line
through Streatham Common, mentioned above: you can view the tangle of tracks
from the footbridge ahead.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
A little to the left is Streatham Common station, the
other official end-point of section 4, one of the original stations on the Brighton
short-cut. On opening it was called Greyhound Lane but was commonly referred to
by its current name soon afterwards and was officially renamed in 1870. The
current buildings in Arts and Crafts style date from a 1903 rebuild which
included an additional entrance onto Streatham Vale; this had fallen derelict
but was restored in 2007 following a lengthy local campaign.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The Ring continues north, soon alongside the Streatham
Common line, before ducking under it through an atmospheric subway and emerging
into the equally atmospheric Potters Lane with its cluster of Victorian light
industrial buildings. Despite the name, there was no pottery here: instead and perhaps
more surprisingly, there were lavender fields nearby, owned by a Mr Potter.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Along Conyer’s Road, the Ring parallels the railway to
Victoria which runs behind houses on the left. Here stands the first of three
remarkable and attractive buildings on the Ring created to handle water and sewage.
Streatham Common Pumping Station was built in 1888 for the Southwark and
Vauxhall Water Company, whose name is still visible above the main door. Refusing
to make a practical building look simply practical, the architect devised a
fanciful Moorish design faintly resembling a mosque, with tall stained glass
windows and a series of domes and half-domes atop a tower and two attached
circular buildings. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This charming Grade
II* building is still used for its original purpose and is off-limits to the
public but can be admired from the road. Some of the houses further along boast
impressive stained glass, and at the junction with Riggindale Road is another
listed building, Streatham Methodist Church, built in 1900 in a neo-Gothic
style with Arts and Crafts touches.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
On the other side of the railway bridge and just before
crossing Tooting Bec Road, look left at the housing estate set behind a green
strip. It’s the site of Streatham Park, sometimes known as Streatham Place, a
1730s mansion built for Ralph Thrale, owner of the Anchor porter brewery at
Bankside. His son and heir, Henry, lived
there in the 1760s and 1780s with his wife Hester (born Hester Lynch Salusbury,
1741-1821), author, diarist, proto-feminist, close friend and possibly lover of
the writer and lexicographer Samuel Johnson (1709-84), who had his own
apartments in the house. Besides Johnson, Henry and Hester entertained numerous cultural
and intellectual figures of the day including David Garrick, Joshua Reynolds,
Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke and Frances Burney, sometimes known as
Streathamites or Streatham Worthies, the title of a series of portraits of them
by Reynolds.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
When Henry died in 1781, Hester sold the brewery with
Johnson’s help. It became Barclay Perkins, at one point the biggest and most
technologically advanced brewery in the world, though it’s since been closed
and demolished. Hester then shocked London society by marrying a social
inferior and foreigner, her children’s Italian-born music teacher Gabriele Piozzi.
Johnson implored her not to go ahead with the marriage and, when she did, broke
off all contact, dying two years later. The Piozzis retired to North Wales, and
Hester died in Clifton, Bristol. The mansion was later home to William Petty,
the 2<sup>nd</sup> Earl of Shelburne, an Irish-born Whig politician who was
briefly prime minister in 1782 and 1783. It was demolished to make way for a
residential development in 1863.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Tooting Bec Common<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2b-6hyphenhyphenSXjOQW382qu3A01xOXdsTDNg26rjzxv008LQRXvYjPEBq1bhyphenhyphenuerGxmLaBSeeGMZ-faEmCh9BY5Ezw97mzgPJHxNrmHGMibQrmwl_ggqE5YFU9TvD-kBzt5D_sbvU-FctXB0RY/s1600/tootingbeccommon.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2b-6hyphenhyphenSXjOQW382qu3A01xOXdsTDNg26rjzxv008LQRXvYjPEBq1bhyphenhyphenuerGxmLaBSeeGMZ-faEmCh9BY5Ezw97mzgPJHxNrmHGMibQrmwl_ggqE5YFU9TvD-kBzt5D_sbvU-FctXB0RY/s640/tootingbeccommon.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tooting Bec Common</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Tooting’s slightly comical name has an Anglo-Saxon
origin, though its meaning is disputed. It could be from a personal name,
meaning ‘Tota’s people’, or it could refer to a lookout tower. Almost
certainly, though, it was settled before Saxon times: Tooting village itself,
off our route, is at a junction on Roman Stane Street. There are two adjacent
Tootings, historically part of two different parishes, each with its own common
lands, fragments of which survive. Tooting Bec was part of Streatham parish
and, as mentioned above, shared its owner with Streatham manor: the ‘Bec’
derives from its mediaeval link to the abbey of Le Bec-Hallouin, and like the
adjacent lands to the east, it ended up mainly in the hands of the Russell
family. Tooting Graveney was a smaller parish and manor historically belonging
to Chertsey Abbey.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
In the 1850s, all of Streatham parish as well as Tooting
Graveney were grouped with Wandsworth for some administrative purposes, but when
the Metropolitan Boroughs were created in 1900, Streatham parish was split,
with Streatham included in the newly created Lambeth borough while both
Tootings remained with Wandsworth. Today, where the Ring turns down the drive
to the lido on the other north side of Tooting Bec Road, it leaves the London
Borough of Lambeth and enters the London Borough of Wandsworth and what remains
of Tooting Bec Common.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Though the common is now managed jointly with the
adjoining Tooting Graveney common to the southwest, and the two are often
referred to together as ‘<a href="http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/directory_record/552357/tooting_common" target="_blank">Tooting Common</a>’ with a shared <a href="http://www.friendsoftootingcommon.org.uk/" target="_blank">Friends Group</a>, both have
distinct histories. As the Graveney section is off our route, I’ll concentrate
on the Bec side here. The common was once much bigger, suffering various
incursions by the lords of the manor over the centuries, particularly as rural
areas this close to London became desirable sites for country houses. Streatham
Park itself was built on one such inclosure: it’s said that the price paid to
the Russells by Thrale included ten year’s supply of beer for their ancestral
seat at Woburn Abbey. By 1746, a tranche to the north had
been inclosed as arable land, though the rest remained largely as pasture. The
common also suffered from gravel extraction, and the construction of the
railways damaged the coherence of the space, slicing it up arbitrarily and
making traditional management more difficult.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
In 1861, William Russell, the 8<sup>th</sup> Duke of
Bedford, became lord of the manor on the death of his father and immediately
put both manor and common up for sale. According to an account in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fraser’s Magazine</i> quoted by Bob Gilbert,
the commoners decided not to oppose a bid for the common from a local
stockbroker, W J Thompson, who was known to be opposed to further inclosures. But
as soon as Thompson took ownership he set about dividing the land up for
building plots. The commoners resisted by pulling down all the fences Thompson
erected, and finally obtained an injunction stopping further inclosure. Thompson
eventually sold the common to the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1875 for £17,771
-- £14,000 more than he’d paid for it 13 years earlier.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Since then the common has been managed as a public open
space, though as late as 1884 a local resident was permitted to graze sheep on
it. There were some wartime exceptions: it housed a troop camp during the Boer
War, and in World War II hosted air raid shelters, allotments, anti-aircraft
defences and prefab housing. Like Streatham Common it passed from the MWB
through the LCC and GLC to the local authority, in this case Wandsworth, though
until the boundaries were tweaked in 1996, a significant area of the common was
in Lambeth.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The line of trees you cross when entering the common was
originally an avenue of elms planted in the late 16<sup>th</sup> century by one
of the Dukes of Bedford. Most were lost to Dutch Elm Disease in the later 20<sup>th</sup>
century and have been replaced by other trees. Tooting Bec Lido, just ahead,
was built by the LCC in 1906, making it one of the oldest open air public
swimming pools in the UK and the largest by surface area (91.5 x 30.2 m). It
was deliberately shielded from the rest of the common by a wooded earth bank.
It’s particularly known for its distinctive row of changing cubicles with
brightly coloured doors alongside the pool, seen in several films.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The trail leads past the tree-ringed Tooting Common Lake, a
former gravel pit converted for leisure and wildlife in the 1890s. Exotic
waterbirds here include Appleyard ducks, black East Indian runners and
shoveller ducks. The lake is now artificially filled but the presence of such
water features is a reminder that the common is the source of another lost
stream, the Falcon Brook: covered in the 1860s, it flows north from here via
Wandsworth Common to join the Thames as Battersea Creek. The path continues
through scattered woodland to cross one of the dividing roads, Bedford Hill,
right by the park café, in a rather pretty Arts and Crafts building from 1906. Here
you briefly join Chestnut Avenue, one of the main walking and cycling routes
across the common, lined with horse chestnut trees planted by the MWB soon
after it took over the space.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Set back from the road just to the left on the other side
of Bedford Hill is the Priory, a Grade II-listed 1820s red brick neo-Gothic
battlemented mansion, never a real priory but with a rather notorious history. In
December 1875, owner Charles Bravo, a prominent barrister, became the second
husband of the wealthy Florence Ricardo. Four months later, he was dead from
antimony poisoning. Various people were suspected of foul play, including
Florence – it emerged that Charles was abusive and bullying towards his wife,
whose testimony at the inquest was considered so scandalous that women and
children were asked to leave the room. The first inquest returned an open
verdict, the second a verdict of wilful murder, though no-one was ever charged,
and the case remains unsolved. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Ring stays
on the cycle track along the northwest edge of the common, with the main area
of woodland, Bedford Woods, over to your right, before ducking out into the
residential streets of Balham.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Balham, gateway to the South<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Like Streatham, Balham has a Saxon name – ‘homestead
with round enclosure’ – but likely a pre-Saxon origin. It’s also centred on a Roman
road, in this case Stane Street. In mediaeval times, Balham was in Streatham
parish, though most of it was a separate manor. At one point, this was the
property of Bermondsey Abbey, and after the Dissolution it passed through the
hands of Henry VIII’s chief minister Thomas Cromwell. The last lords of the manor
were the DuCane family, who began breaking it up for development in the 1840s. Like
Tooting, Balham remained grouped together with Wandsworth when Streatham itself
was moved into Lambeth borough in 1900.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The handsome Victorian streets the Ring follows after
leaving the common were built on the former Charringtons Farm, part of the
Tooting Bec and Streatham estate of the Russells, the Dukes of Bedford: thus
the street name Bedford Hill, which originally ran through their land. The
trail runs along Ritherdon Road, which very roughly follows the former main
drive to Bedfordhill House, a mansion built in about 1815 on land sold by the
Russells. This was once home to William Cubitt, the engineering contractor and
Conservative MP, who with his brother Thomas Cubitt was responsible for
numerous developments in London including Cubitt Town on the Isle of Dogs.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The house, which was demolished in 1897, stood to the left
of what’s now Ritherdon Road, on the site of nos 12-18 Veronica Road, the next road
south, though its outline has been completely obliterated by the housing estate
that now stands here. Known as the Bedfordhill or Heaver Estate, this was built
between 1888 and the early 20<sup>th</sup> century, loosely in a Queen Anne
style, by Alfred Heaver, a local property developer. Heaver met a violent end
in 1901, before the estate was completed, as the result of a family quarrel:
his brother-in-law shot him dead while he was walking to church with his wife
near his home in Westcott, near Dorking.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Always intended as a prestige development, Heaver’s estate
is now regarded as one of the most handsome of its kind and is a designated
Conservation Area. The red brick houses have various intriguing features:
projecting oriel windows with finials on their roofs, graceful shallow arches
above windows and doors, tiled porches, attic dormer windows, gable ends with
chequered cornices and occasional terracotta details. Cloudesdale Road follows
the line of the York Ditch, a tributary of the Falcon Brook, which once ran
through farmland here. It now runs on under Balham Leisure Centre, built in the
1950s with an unusual partly glazed vaulted roof high above the swimming pool.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The Ring emerges on Balham High Road, the Roman road
between London and Chichester, or Noviomagus Reginorum as it was known in
Latin. Constructed some time before the year 70, the road lived up to its Roman
reputation in following an almost dead-straight course between London Bridge
and Ewell, and then only deflecting by minimal amounts to achieve the most comfortable
crossings of the North and South Downs. The road is usually referred to by its
Saxon name of Stane Street, which simply means ‘stone highway’. Modern roads
still follow much of it: the A3 uses it from London Bridge to Clapham, the
section on through Balham and Ewell to Beare Green in Surrey is numbered A24, and
then it becomes the A29.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Right opposite, the last manorial lords are commemorated in
the name of the art deco Du Cane Court, built in 1937 and still the biggest
privately-owned block of flats in Europe, with 676 separate addresses. Once a
fashionable residence for entertainers, it’s clearly visible from the air, and there’s
an enduring legend that German bomber pilots were instructed to avoid damaging
it during World War II as the Nazi high command had it earmarked as a billet
for senior officers following a successful invasion. St Mary’s Church, a little
further to the left, began as a ‘proprietary chapel’ in 1808 and became a
parish church in 1855 in response to continuing population growth. It was
originally a much more modest building but was gradually expanded, taking on
its current appearance in 1903 when the west tower and belfry were added.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
A short, signed Ring link runs right from here along Stane
Street, under the railway bridge to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">de
facto</i> centre of modern Balham. The historic hamlet was a little further
towards London, near the junction of today’s Balham Grange, but the presence of
two stations overlooking the junction with Chestnut Grove has decisively
shifted the centre of gravity south.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The railway across the bridge was opened in 1856 as the
West End of London and Crystal Palace Railway, originally a branch from Crystal
Palace via Streatham Hill to Wandsworth Common. The original station here,
known as Balham Hill, was on the left (west) side of the High Road, with access
from under the bridge. The line was soon extended via Battersea to Victoria, becoming
the West End branch of the Brighton main line, and in 1863, as part of widening
and improvement works, the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway
(LB&SCR) built the current National Rail station with its entrance on
Station Road.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJZApKgik3q1sKMjHlfQhDXjz29XIhdjoInm8ClnNcOekk2nTArEly2Q82tsadb-OOitcWcJes57LMVxFUDQIUb3UipJrZkMQ-pGwXAEqscqnCQ0NIi9_O7RQ4blJOE286Jjq6odfliHU/s1600/balhambomb.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1161" data-original-width="1600" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJZApKgik3q1sKMjHlfQhDXjz29XIhdjoInm8ClnNcOekk2nTArEly2Q82tsadb-OOitcWcJes57LMVxFUDQIUb3UipJrZkMQ-pGwXAEqscqnCQ0NIi9_O7RQ4blJOE286Jjq6odfliHU/s400/balhambomb.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bomb damage in Balham, 1940.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Today this station is overshadowed by the two impressive
Modernist entrances of Balham Underground station, one each side of the High
Road. Fronted with Portland stone and with glazed first floor windows carrying
giant roundels, this is the first genuine Tube station on the Ring. The work of
Underground architect Frank Holden, it’s one of the original stations on the Morden
extension of the Northern Line, which opened from Clapham Common in 1926.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
In October 1940, a 1,400 kg fragmentation bomb fell on the
road above the Tube lines, breaking water mains which subsequently flooded the
tunnels. An 88 bus, operating in blackout conditions, then drove straight into
the bomb crater, increasing the damage: a photo of this became an emblematic
image of the Blitz. Different sources give different casualty figures, but
perhaps 66 people died, many of them already sheltering from the air raid in the
station. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A memorial plaque in the ticket
hall commemorates the incident.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Back on the main trail, on the other side of Stane Street,
you pass more big Victorian houses and cross Boundaries Road by a more recent
large apartment block, Kenmore House. As its name suggests, part of Boundaries
Road ran along the boundary between Streatham and Battersea parishes, but not
this part. The Ring follows the old boundary when it turns off Balham Park Road
along the footpath, and very soon crosses it when it emerges on Wandsworth
Common.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
I can’t leave Balham without mentioning perhaps its
greatest moment in popular culture, at least if you’re a fan of vintage British
comedy. ‘Balham, Gateway to the South’, written by Frank Muir and Denis Norden
for the brilliant but troubled comic actor Peter Sellers, was first heard as a radio
show sketch in 1949, and re-recorded by Sellers for a novelty record in 1958, produced
by George Martin, best-known for his later association with the Beatles. It’s a
parody of a cheesy travelogue, delivered by Sellers in a declamatory American
accent which pronounces the place name as ‘BAL-ham’ rather than ‘Ballem’. Back
then, Balham was a dowdy middle-class suburb, so there was considerable comic
bathos in describing it in the same terms as an exotic jet-set destination.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Standing by either of the station entrances, at least one
of Muir and Norden’s observations still rings true: “The town is spread below
us in a fairyland of glittering lights, changing all the time: green…amber…red…red
and amber…and back to green.” And as you leave Balham, you may want to recall
the sketch’s closing couplet:<o:p></o:p></div>
<blockquote>
Broad-bosomed, bold, becalmed, benign<br />
Lies Balham, four-square on the Northern Line.</blockquote>
<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
Wandsworth Common<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoUbtPj7oV3wTtOsHc69XxSnD8_Dj6Fbmy1UxWdpuo-B4jSdME0NnK9pJYeCXZ0Oo6fhYg-fRR5gxSsz9EKkUeG8xnZiP6Lu-9UHvMELAH06AhC3kOAxzbQU2QAbS6UA45U40bgPbWFeE/s1600/wandsworthcommon-lakes.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoUbtPj7oV3wTtOsHc69XxSnD8_Dj6Fbmy1UxWdpuo-B4jSdME0NnK9pJYeCXZ0Oo6fhYg-fRR5gxSsz9EKkUeG8xnZiP6Lu-9UHvMELAH06AhC3kOAxzbQU2QAbS6UA45U40bgPbWFeE/s640/wandsworthcommon-lakes.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wandsworth Common lakes.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The parishes of Battersea and Wandsworth are closely
linked. Both were centred on adjacent Thames-side settlements of some economic
importance, with extensive rural hinterlands stretching south from the river,
and some of the local manors spilled into both parishes. Following the Norman
conquest, Battersea was largely owned by Westminster Abbey, and Wandsworth was
essentially a subsidiary manor, “then so integral a part of Battersea that the
Domesday survey contains no reference to Wandsworth…beyond the mention of its toll
among the revenues of the abbey”, as the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Victoria
County History</i> puts it. Ownership was fragmented after the Dissolution, but
by the early 19<sup>th</sup> century had been consolidated in the hands of aristocratic
family the Spencers, with the Earls of Spencer as lords of the manor. This was
the family that later produced Winston Churchill and Diana Spencer, Princess of
Wales.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
<a href="http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/directory_record/552359/wandsworth_common" target="_blank">Wandsworth Common</a> was once a much larger area of gorse-covered
heath straddling both parishes between the main Portsmouth Road in the north
and at least as far south as Burntwood Road. The current name only applied to
the Wandsworth side, with the eastern side, where the Ring enters, known as
Battersea West Heath. But as the whole common was under the same management,
it’s not surprising that the distinction was being ignored as early as John
Rocque’s 1741 map. The common had the usual history of encroachments from the end
of the 18<sup>th</sup> century when the local land became desirable for
upmarket homes. There were 53 inclosures between 1794 and 1866, but in 1820 it
still covered 162 ha, more than twice its extent today.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Two other activities significantly damaged the integrity
of the common. One was the extraction of gravel to supply the growth of London,
which turned parts of the heath into a bleak, treeless and dangerous landscape,
readily becoming a sea of mud after even light rain. Another was the
construction first of roads, then of railways, carving the space into the
scattered fragments which remain today. When members of the Parliamentary
Select Committee on Open Spaces in the Metropolis inspected the common in the
mid-1860s, its poor condition helped prompt the passing of the Metropolitan
Commons Act 1866 which gave additional protection to such areas.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
By then, the locals had mobilised to defend the common
from further encroachment, and in 1867 a protest against a proposed housing
development on the east side attracted 5,000 people. After failing to persuade
the Metropolitan Board of Works to buy the land, the community exercised its
right under the new law to appoint a board of conservators to manage most of
what remained, with Earl Spencer paid an annuity of £250 raised from a levy on
the local rates. But not everyone was happy with the additional rates, nor with
the performance of the conservators, particularly when they failed to reclaim an
inclosure which had become disused. In 1887, the MBW finally agreed to take on
the space, which almost immediately passed to the London County Council and later
to the Greater London Council and the London Borough of Wandsworth.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The Ring enters the common by following the former West
End of London and Crystal Palace Railway along a pleasantly tree-lined
triangle. When the line was opened in 1856, the station, then known simply as
Wandsworth, was a little to the north of the present site. Today’s Wandsworth
Common station dates from the widening and improvements of 1869, and rather
unusually the trail passes straight under its <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">porte-cochère</i>. Further on, you cross two of the early 19<sup>th</sup>
century roads that carved up the common to enable development: St James’s Road,
opened in 1825, and Bellevue Road, opened two years later. The triangle between
them, known as McKellar’s Triangle, was rapidly filled in with housing, though
the imposing Hope pub at its apex and the elegant Bellevue Parade date from
rather later in the 19<sup>th</sup> century.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
St James’s Road once continued straight ahead across the
common but the railway interrupted its course, and you’re now deflected to parallel
the tracks again. Soon on the left the trail runs alongside the two lakes, a
legacy of gravel workings that now provide one of the prettiest parts of the
site (the other, the Scope, a nature area that in the 1850s housed a giant
telescope, is off the trail to the southwest). A network of boardwalks provides
close-up views of some of the wildlife.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The Cat’s Back Bridge, installed when the railway line was
built though rebuilt several times since, is the only footbridge linking parts
of the common severed by the line. The Ring doesn’t cross it but bends away
from the railway to a crosspaths with the park café off to the right, and it’s
at this point you cross the old boundary between the Battersea and Wandsworth
sides. The streets on the left, known as the ‘toast rack’ for reasons that will
be obvious from a glance at a map, were developed in the 1890s on land that had
been claimed from the common by the small manor of Allfarthing in 1642 and
later belonged to Magdalen College, Oxford.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyfm_vMv7EVXdzNc_dboxIuMWvT8iMvsE_lYeCcxBkwc_9PDDZwkgdp_ANQtT2urzygHjPmVD6NMckRvy0H39P_Bm6IkgVrop_sci9_4E_RYl492U94ciXen2uNUvhKmID-Y7R3FWhFLQ/s1600/rvpb-wandsworth.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="379" data-original-width="640" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyfm_vMv7EVXdzNc_dboxIuMWvT8iMvsE_lYeCcxBkwc_9PDDZwkgdp_ANQtT2urzygHjPmVD6NMckRvy0H39P_Bm6IkgVrop_sci9_4E_RYl492U94ciXen2uNUvhKmID-Y7R3FWhFLQ/s400/rvpb-wandsworth.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Royal Victoria Patriotic Building with its horror film skyline.<br />
Pic: Herry Lawford, Wikimedia Creative Commons</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Looming across the grass to the right here is one of
London’s most unusual and, frankly, most visually disturbing buildings: the
Grade II*-listed Royal Victoria Patriotic Building, built in 1859 to house and
educate girls orphaned by the Crimean War. It was designed by Major Rohde
Hawkins (‘Major’ was his first name, not a rank) in a curious fusion of styles,
loosely inspired by French châteaux but with Scottish baronial and neo-Jacobean
features, with five towers presenting a Gothic horror skyline of turrets and
spiky finials.<br />
<br />
Unsurprisingly there are numerous colourful tales associated
with the place: it’s allegedly haunted by the ghost of a girl who died in a
fire while locked in solitary confinement. During World War I it was a military
hospital, the Third London General Hospital, and in World War II the security
services used it as an interrogation centre, with Rudolf Hess among its
prisoners. In the 1980s it was converted to flats and small business
accommodation and is used as a venue for weddings and events like a Hallowe’en
beer festival.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The grass area and cricket ground between the Royal
Victoria building and the path was one of the bones of contention in the 1880s
disputes with the conservators. It had been included in the original inclosure as
a farm attached to the orphanage. When the governors decided it was no longer
required, there would have been a good case for returning it to the common, but
instead it was leased as a commercial farm to George Neal, who also owned a
nursery opposite. In 1913 it was put up for sale and finally reintegrated with
the common after being bought by the LCC. Neal’s nursery survives as Neal’s
Garden Centre, visible just to the right along the main road, Trinity Road.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The path junction where you first reach the corner of the
cricket ground is, incidentally, the closest point on the southern section of the Capital Ring to
Charing Cross, just under 7 km to the northeast. Trinity Road follows the
course of an old track across the common linking Wandsworth with Tooting,
though it’s been much extended. On the other side, the tiny strip of green to
the right of Alma Terrace is one of the smallest remaining fragments of this
once-great open space. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Wandsworth Prison and Cemetery<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD30aRp4ppYWcPLh-1Ata_I9Q1G-ts5KQU5CbGcuGAoLrpRj9i1m9ikz8A0P35qkjibSYeYYE4Q30ahJLwXBZf_YQ9yICINXff-_fX8ft8Y5wzb6wKIHhZ5ql6ESuts4LQ5Jr8lIz0KS4/s1600/wandsworth-prison.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD30aRp4ppYWcPLh-1Ata_I9Q1G-ts5KQU5CbGcuGAoLrpRj9i1m9ikz8A0P35qkjibSYeYYE4Q30ahJLwXBZf_YQ9yICINXff-_fX8ft8Y5wzb6wKIHhZ5ql6ESuts4LQ5Jr8lIz0KS4/s400/wandsworth-prison.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The forbidding gates of Wandsworth Prison.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Royal Victoria Patriotic Building might look
unintentionally forbidding, but the structure that looms ahead at the end of
Alma Terrace has surely been designed to evoke a chill <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pour encourager les autres</i>. HM Prison Wandsworth was another major
incursion on the common, opened in 1851 as the Surrey House of Correction to
supplement Brixton prison. It was originally intended to accommodate 1,000
prisoners, both male and female, serving short sentences under what was then
regarded as a humane ‘separate system’ where each inmate was kept in solitary
confinement in one of several cell blocks radiating from a central hub. It’s now
a Category B men’s prison for “those who do not require maximum security, but
for whom escape still needs to be made very difficult.” Most of the original
buildings remain in use with later additions: with an official 1,628 capacity,
it’s now the largest prison in the UK and one of the largest in Europe.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
One person who overcame the difficulties of escape was Great
Train Robber Ronnie Biggs, who in 1965 climbed over the wall with a rope ladder
and dropped into a waiting laundry van. Other inmates have included James Earl
Ray, the assassin of Martin Luther King, remanded in 1968; notorious East End
gangster Ronnie Kray, who spent some of his sentence here in the 1970s before
being moved to Broadmoor; and Julian Assange, remanded during his extradition
case in 2010.<br />
<br />
More grimly, Wandsworth was for a long time the main place of
execution for south London and southern England. 135 people were hanged here
between 1878 and 1961, including the so-called ‘acid bath murderer’ John George
Haigh (1949), the spy and Nazi propogandist William Joyce aka Lord Haw-Haw (1946),
and Derek Bentley, a 19-year old with learning difficulties who was convicted
in 1953 for the murder of a policeman during a failed burglary, despite not firing
the fatal shot.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The prosecution alleged that Bentley shouted “Let him have
it” to his armed 16-year-old accomplice Christopher Craig, demonstrating common
purpose, and unfortunately for the defendant the jury agreed, though entered a
plea for mercy. Craig was also found guilty of murder but was too young to be
hanged. In an atmosphere of intense public interest, and under pressure from
the police, the home secretary of the day refused a reprieve. Subsequently the
case came to be regarded as a miscarriage of justice: Bentley has been
posthumously pardoned and his sentence quashed. The case contributed to the
argument for the suspension of capital punishment in the UK in 1964, though the
death penalty remained legal for certain crimes such as treason until 1998, and
Wandsworth retained a working gallows until 1994.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
To the north (right) of Alma Terrace and opposite the
prison gates is Dobbins Field, a patch of ground that’s officially part of the
prison, though it’s managed by a local charity, the <a href="http://paradisecooperative.org/" target="_blank">Paradise Cooperative</a>, as a
community smallholding growing food and maintaining a pond and other nature
areas. It’s occasionally open for special events. Just past the prison visitor
centre, off Heathfield Road, Wilde Place on the right commemorates another
celebrated inmate whose case is now regarded in a very different light, the Anglo-Irish
writer Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), incarcerated here for five months in 1895
before being transferred to Reading prison.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Against the advice of his friends, Wilde himself set the
legal process in motion in 1895 by suing John Douglas, the Marquess of Queensbury,
father to Wilde’s partner Alfred Douglas, who had written a famously misspelt
note calling the writer a “posing somdomite”. Wilde’s libel case collapsed
when the Marquess’s lawyers identified several rent boys prepared to testify
they’d had sex with the plaintiff, and soon afterwards Wilde himself was
arrested on charges of sodomy and gross indecency. The Establishment, whose
hypocrisy Wilde had made a career out of lampooning, took the
opportunity to turn on him: he was convicted and sentenced to two years’ hard
labour.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
In Wandsworth, wrote Wilde, he “longed to die” but was
moved and encouraged when a fellow prisoner whispered “in the hoarse
prison-voice men get from long and compulsory silence” during exercise in the
prison yard: “I am sorry for you: it is harder for the likes of you than it is
for the likes of us.” “No, my friend,” replied Wilde. “We all suffer alike.” As
the writer was unused to speaking discreetly enough not to be noticed, both men
were reported to the governor, and Wilde shielded his fellow prisoner by
claiming he had begun the conversation. He was punished by solitary confinement
in a dark cell on bread and water for three days. Prison life broke Wilde, who
died of meningitis while in exile in Paris in 1900. Wilde delighted in irony,
but I’m not sure if he’d manage a hollow laugh at being commemorated so close
to such a place of misery, nor at his 2017 pardon alongside that of 50,000
other men convicted for sexual activities that are thankfully no longer offences.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Magdalen Road earns its name from Magdalen College which,
as mentioned above, formerly owned the land: the streets on the south (left)
side were developed before 1914 as part of a never-completed garden suburb
planned by the brother of the college president. Soon on the other side is
another sombre site, <a href="http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/directory_record/1571/wandsworth_cemetery" target="_blank">Wandsworth Cemetery</a>, opened in 1878 by the local Burial
Board. The official Ring sticks to the road alongside it, but Bob Gilbert,
whose alternative Green London Way also passes by here, suggests a diversion
through the cemetery itself which I’d also recommend. First, though, check the
displayed opening times to ensure there’s no risk of getting locked in, as the site
closes early, particularly in the winter. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Past the Grade II-listed main gates and before the chapel,
find your way through the grid pattern of the main part of the cemetery to
locate some of the Commonwealth War Graves. Most of the casualties buried here
died while being treated at the military hospital in the Royal Victoria
building. The headstones indicate the far-flung corners of the world from which
young men came to fight and die on the fields of France and Flanders. Several
of them, recognisable by depictions of caribou, are for members of the
Newfoundland Regiment, from a British dominion then not yet officially part of
Canada. Despite its low population, Newfoundland mustered a full regiment of 1,000 to
send to Europe, but 80% of it was wiped out within 30 minutes on 1 July 1916,
the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Adjacent are the graves of South
African, Australian and New Zealand soldiers, and not far away a large monument
records the names of those buried in unmarked graves elsewhere in the cemetery.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The Green London Way continues on an embankment on the
northwest boundary of the cemetery, alongside the railway line. It looks like
the graves here were dug in a disused railway siding, but this isn’t the case:
the earth was banked up by the cemetery authorities as part of an 1898
extension. The feature has the pleasant effect of breaking up the regimented
grid of plots, helped by poplars and areas of grass that have been allowed to
grow wild. Near the end of this path is a monument to the Wandsworth civilians
who died during World War II: only four names are recorded, as the remains of
24 others buried in the cemetery are unidentified.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Garrat and the river Wandle<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSceUP59VNPK47HjQWBi9SXHNQLHRXB5_q4EvWcWiw3KCyd-Ab_0jOiso-tUYjljhb2Zbbi8Lcf99hXCc50SCcrp8K79x0XL3L_5bDiHc-cunGw72N8VmY4fFrsSzU4JwbTIldZMFxwmQ/s1600/earlsfield-riverwandle.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSceUP59VNPK47HjQWBi9SXHNQLHRXB5_q4EvWcWiw3KCyd-Ab_0jOiso-tUYjljhb2Zbbi8Lcf99hXCc50SCcrp8K79x0XL3L_5bDiHc-cunGw72N8VmY4fFrsSzU4JwbTIldZMFxwmQ/s400/earlsfield-riverwandle.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The river Wandle from Penwith Road Bridge, Earlsfield -- or Garrat if you prefer.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Garratt Lane, on which the trail now emerges, is
another ancient route, connecting Wandsworth and Merton Abbey along the valley
of the river Wandle. Today, most locals will say they live in Earlsfield, after
the station just to your right, but historically this was a small manor within
Wandsworth parish known as Dunsford or Durnsford, with a hamlet called Garrat, also spelt
Garratt, Garret or Garrett depending on the text you read. The centre of the
hamlet was about 500 m south (left) along the lane, where the Leather Bottle
pub still stands.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
In the 18<sup>th</sup> century, Garrat enjoyed a fame
disproportionate to its size and economic importance thanks to a bizarre
folk-cultural practice that took place here known as the Garrat Election. This
event, which at its peak attracted perhaps 100,000 people, satirised in
practice the political processes of an England in which only a handful of
people were enfranchised, most of them already rich and powerful men. The
tradition began as an election for the governance of a small local common,
Garrat Green, outside the Leather Bottle. It evolved into the mock-election of
‘Mayor of the Borough of Garrat’, though neither office nor authority had any
official recognition, and candidates enjoyed a greater chance of success the
more they exhibited qualities normally thought the least desirable in holders
of public office, at least officially.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The 1811 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dictionary
of the Vulgar Tongue</i>, edited by Francis Grose, describes the event as:<o:p></o:p></div>
<blockquote>
A ludicrous ceremony, practised every new parliament: it
consists of a mock election of two members to represent the borough of Garret (a
few straggling cottages near Wandsworth in Surrey); the qualification of a
voter is, having enjoyed a woman in the open air within that district: the
candidates are commonly fellows of low humour, who dress themselves up in a
ridiculous manner. As this brings a prodigious concourse of people to
Wandsworth, the publicans of that place jointly contribute to the expense,
which is sometimes considerable.</blockquote>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
According to a 2006 pamphlet by radical historians <a href="http://past-tense.org.uk/" target="_blank">Past Tense</a>, “the candidates were always poor tradesmen, usually with a drink problem
and sometimes with a physical deformity. The main qualification was a quick
wit. They assumed such titles as Lord Twankum (a cobbler and gravedigger),
Squire Blowmedown (a Wandsworth waterman) and Sir Trincalo Boreas (a
fishmonger).” Having formally processed from Southwark through Wandsworth, they
reached the hustings at Garrat Green where “each candidate had to swear an oath
(their right hand resting on the sign of the mob - a brickbat!), ‘handed down
to us by the grand Volgee, by order of the great Chin Kaw Chipo, first Emperor
of the Moon’. This oath was too rude to be repeated by Victorian folk
historians.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The event’s fame spread further when it was used as a
setting for a popular farce by Samuel Foote, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Mayor of Garret</i> (1763), attracting the involvement of more
serious political campaigners, such as the radical MP and orator John Wilkes (1725-97)
who with his supporters wrote some of the candidates’ speeches. Wilkes was a
close friend of one of the best-known Mayors, Jeffrey Dunstan, who “was brought
up in the workhouse, had knock-knees and a disproportionately large head, and
only grew to a height of 4 feet” (1.2 m). But as the event became more
self-consciously seditious and fear of the mob grew, particularly after the
French Revolution of 1789, sentiments turned against it. The last annual Garrat elections were held in 1804, and an attempt to
revive the tradition in 1826 failed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
By then, the railway had arrived in Garrat, albeit in a
primitive form. I’ve already mentioned the Surrey Iron Railway, London’s first,
in connection with the Croydon Canal at Penge in the previous section. Opened
between 1802 and 1803, it was a plateway mainly intended for goods and operated
by horse-drawn vehicles, running for 14.5 km from wharves off the Thames at
Wandsworth along the Wandle Valley to Reeves Corner in Croydon, with a branch
from Mitcham to Carshalton. For part of the way it ran along the east side of
Garratt Lane, roughly on the current pavement, so in crossing the lane you’ll
be crossing its course. The railway proved too lightweight for the new steam
locomotives of the 1820s and quickly became obsolete, though didn’t close
formally until 1846. Part of it became the trackbed of a later railway which is
now part of the London Trams routes at Waddon and Mitcham. A section of an extension
to Merstham, opened in 1805, can still be followed and is mentioned under
<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/london-countryway-21-oxted-merstham.html">London Countryway 5</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The ‘proper’ railway arrived in 1838 with the opening of
the first phase of the London and Southampton Railway from Nine Elms to Woking:
you will have followed it for a little way already in the cemetery. Renamed the
London & South Western Railway (L&SWR), the line extended to
Southampton in 1840 and to its new London terminal at Waterloo in 1848, creating
the core of today’s South Western Main Line. Originally there was no station at
Garrat, just two adjacent bridges over the lane and the ailing Iron Railway.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
In 1884, in response to suburbanisation creeping
relentlessly across Wandsworth Common, the L&SWR opened a station here, at
the same time widening the lines and rebuilding the bridges as the current
single span. But rather than Garrat, it was named Earlsfield, after an 1860s
mansion, now demolished, some distance north at the junction of Allfarthing
Lane. According to some sources, this was a requirement of the family who owned
both the mansion and the extra land required for the station, but perhaps the
more historic place name still had too many disreputable associations. The
station stimulated further development, and the name Garrat was gradually
forgotten as the lane became the bustling high street of a suburb most now know
as Earlsfield.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
With the riverside strip already industrialised, unlike
its grander neighbours Earlsfield became a working-class neighbourhood, with streets
of modest terraced houses. By the second half of the 20<sup>th</sup> century it
was a neglected and obscure southern appendage to Wandsworth. More recently,
it’s become one of the patches of southwest London most thoroughly colonised by
gentrifying young professional families attracted by the transport links and
relatively affordable good-quality houses, with specialist independent shops
and cafés flourishing along Garratt Lane. Fans of smashed avocado on sourdough
toast brunches will have plenty of choice round here.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
On the other side of Garratt Lane, the Ring follows
Penwith Road across the Wandle, one of the Thames’ major London tributaries. The
river rises from a variety of springs and streams south of Croydon, some of
which run underground as bournes. These have since been managed and culverted,
and today most people regard the river as having two sources: one in Carshalton
Park and the other in Waddon Park, Croydon. The Wandle flows for around 14 km northwest
and north via Hackbridge, Morden Hall Park, Colliers Wood and Earlsfield, joining
the Thames as a tidal creek at Wandsworth. Most likely the river was named
after the town rather than the other way around, with a derivation from an
Anglo-Saxon personal name, ‘Wendle’s Settlement’.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The river’s power has been put to industrial use since at
least Roman times. By the early 19<sup>th</sup> century this was one of the
most polluted watercourses in the country, thanks to a succession of mills, many
of them part of the textile and tobacco industries, which between them operated
68 water wheels. To the north (right) of the bridge here was a calico printing
mill, to the south the Garrat Mill, which was variously used for gunpowder,
lead, oil and paper. In the second half of the 20<sup>th</sup> century much of
this industry had gone, opening up much of the riverside as green space, and
subsequent clean-up campaigns have seen the return of fish such as brown trout,
chub, roach and perch. In 2012, a partnership of local authorities and other
agencies declared the whole strip from Wandsworth to Croydon as the <a href="https://wandlevalleypark.co.uk/" target="_blank">Wandle Valley Regional Park</a>, London’s third such area after the Lea and Colne Valley
Parks, setting up a charity to coordinate its conservation and improvement.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The Regional Park followed on from local efforts to create
the <a href="https://www.sustrans.org.uk/ncn/map/route/wandle-trail" target="_blank">Wandle Trail</a> as a walking route along the valley in the late 1980s, a campaign
that’s since evolved into the <a href="http://www.wandlevalleyforum.org.uk/" target="_blank">Wandle Valley Forum</a>. In the 1990s the riverside
trail became a multi-user route, part of Sustrans’ National Cycle Network (NCN)
route 20, which officially continues south from Carshalton via Coulsdon to
connect with NCN21 near Merstham, linking to the south coast. Much of it is
off-road and I’ll be covering it in a later post. Unusually, though, the Ring
encounters it at a point where there’s currently no riverside access.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Passing the end of Ravensbury Road along Ravensbury
Terrace, the Ring crosses the old parish boundary between Wandsworth and
Wimbledon and enters the London Borough of Merton. As the latter only became an
official part of the metropolis on the creation of the GLC, this is another
point where, prior to 1965, you’d be leaving London.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
To Wimbledon Park<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXMao-kksdUrjm-fGkbxh6q2QI5BgBpOw2vICj_50_RHt8x9h9YAWI_YxQCGR0Ld03oJngTka4tHa_r2oE27VnmaYijcJf_JqEzwnfFVgLTeDzbhXwSA-t2GYtxo22ZwdiaLr1bEzpm34/s1600/wimbledon-mosque.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXMao-kksdUrjm-fGkbxh6q2QI5BgBpOw2vICj_50_RHt8x9h9YAWI_YxQCGR0Ld03oJngTka4tHa_r2oE27VnmaYijcJf_JqEzwnfFVgLTeDzbhXwSA-t2GYtxo22ZwdiaLr1bEzpm34/s400/wimbledon-mosque.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wimbledon Mosque with its disfiguring ventilation.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
As Wimbledon Park forms a major feature of the next
section, I’ll hold off on saying much about the history of the surrounding
suburb and Wimbledon generally. There are a few features of interest along the
last kilometre or so of this section. <a href="https://www2.merton.gov.uk/environment/openspaces/parks/parks_in_the_wimbledon_area/durnsford_recreation_ground.htm" target="_blank">Durnsford Road Recreation Ground</a> was
created on former farmland by the Borough of Wimbledon when the surrounding
streets were built up in the early 20<sup>th</sup> century. It’s now a modest
green patch that provides welcome facilities to locals and to the children of
the adjoining Wimbledon Park Primary School, with a scattering of mature willows
and some newer shrubs.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Durnsford Road itself is another old north-south route: it
linked Wandsworth with Dunsford manor, Wimbledon Park and Merton. By the 18<sup>th</sup>
century the land on the far (west) side of the road was part of the extensive estate
of Wimbledon Park, one of the seats of the Earls Spencer. This estate was split
into building plots after 1846 when the Spencers sold it to a property
developer, but initially many of these went unsold. An 1875 Ordnance Survey map
still shows plenty of farmland, with the buildings of Wimbledonpark Farm opposite
and a little to the right (north) of where the Ring reaches Durnsford Road.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Today, one of the most prominent landmarks is Wimbledon
Mosque, with its rather incongruous domes and minarets, built in 1977 on the
site of a car garage as the first purpose-built mosque in south London. Despite
following a classic Islamic style inspired by the late Mughal period in India,
it was designed by a local architect, Jack Godfrey-Gilbert.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Architecture historian Shahed Saleem, writing in the <i><a href="https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/a-history-of-mosques-in-britain/8629263.article" target="_blank">Architects' Journal</a></i>, says this was “the
first time such ornate and literal translations of Islamic ornament had been
seen in Britain since the Woking mosque of 1889.” But unlike Woking mosque
(mentioned in passing in my post on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/london-countryway-3-west-byfleet.html">London Countryway 9</a>), designed in an
atmosphere of Victorian Orientalism, this one is “a forerunner of a pastiche
style, the indiscriminate lifting and applying of traditional Islamic motifs
that would become the conventional approach of almost all mosques built in
Britain for the next 40 years.” Today its elegant cream tiling is rather
spoiled by the ugly air conditioning units sprouting at first floor level along the
street.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIWfQr2AirVaVnG9JopHBYlWrC_7L7WeAMu4ew1hBj-SgShpvf8-X-8PSczCx8S-ZkMv5hqjRPALkFs8c3I7BHlA3FWw4wiEfia-jIRvZPjViNM7nRCPhMUBEQXmNTVrOMZojL2zrjn-Q/s1600/wimbledonpark-station.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIWfQr2AirVaVnG9JopHBYlWrC_7L7WeAMu4ew1hBj-SgShpvf8-X-8PSczCx8S-ZkMv5hqjRPALkFs8c3I7BHlA3FWw4wiEfia-jIRvZPjViNM7nRCPhMUBEQXmNTVrOMZojL2zrjn-Q/s400/wimbledonpark-station.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wimbledon Park Station.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The development of the area didn’t really get going until the
opening in 1889 of the L&SWR’s Wimbledon and Fulham Railway linking the
District Railway’s line at Putney Bridge with the L&SWR’s own line at
Wimbledon. Arthur Road, laid out to connect the station with Durnsford Road and
the rest of the growing estate, became a genteel residential and shopping street,
and retains some of this character today. Wimbledon Park Hall on the left
(south) is a new building, dating from 2014, though its whitewash and curves
recall the Moderne style of the 1920s and 1930s: it’s managed by an active
<a href="http://www.wimbledonpark.com/" target="_blank">residents’ association</a>. Closer to the station on the opposite side is a parade
of nine shops with art nouveau detailing from 1904, one of which, the former
butcher’s shop at no 157, is Grade II listed for its original tiling.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
This section ends at Wimbledon Park station, today a Tube
station but built in cottagey, semi-Tudor style, with odd baroque flourishes, by the L&SWR on its 1889
extension. As part of the deal, the Metropolitan District Railway, despite its
name a different company and bitter competitor of the Metropolitan Railway, was
given running rights along the line from its station at Putney Bridge. Regular main
line trains were withdrawn in 1941, but even though they were now only served
by District Line trains, the stations remained branded as British Rail until
1994 when the branch was formally transferred to the London Underground. Get
here at the right time and you’ll still see South Western Railway and
other National Rail trains passing through: the line is used for empty stock
movements, and by non-stopping early morning services from Wimbledon to
Waterloo via a junction at East Putney.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<ul style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<li><a href="https://innerlondonramblers.org.uk/ideasforwalks/capital-ring-guides.html" target="_blank">Ramblers Capital Ring guides</a>. These are currently the most up-to-date detailed walking guides and maps. Check this page too for current diversions and problems.</li><li><a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1dEzj8toHFPhGR8hjigYqpojJJYA&usp=sharing" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Google Map</a></li><li>My original <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/47m3uhps7h5c6vn/4-5-crystalpalace-wimbledonpark.pdf?dl=0" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Route description</a> (PDF), not recently updated and included her for completeness.</li>
</ul>
Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-53353056701272144402018-03-07T11:43:00.002+00:002018-03-07T13:47:08.066+00:00London Countryway 1 original route: Gravesend - Wrotham Road - Sole Street<br />
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg_pkomqfNmCzwreVpwH8BGGA_GiJo6qqOsgi-XQUqAnIc2mtW7914IqTwsU3Fs25UrTsXWryVUvUw3b358wTM7L1yejciM55im7cKwo2WwtHn66X8mHUv4eMGAWhTt37Gae8nHsf8-G4/s1600/tollgate-a2bridge.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg_pkomqfNmCzwreVpwH8BGGA_GiJo6qqOsgi-XQUqAnIc2mtW7914IqTwsU3Fs25UrTsXWryVUvUw3b358wTM7L1yejciM55im7cKwo2WwtHn66X8mHUv4eMGAWhTt37Gae8nHsf8-G4/s640/tollgate-a2bridge.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Footbridge across the A2 road and High Speed 1 rail line near Ifield Court, Gravesend. Not recommended for real bunnies.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
My recommended way of starting out on the London
Countryway from Gravesend is to walk to Sole Street via Jeskyns and Cobham as
described in <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/london-countryway-alternative-gravesend.html">another post</a>. But for walkers who want to stay as faithful as
possible to Keith Chesterton’s original guidebook, the route featured there is
still walkable. This is also the route
of the first section of signed trail the <a href="https://explorekent.org/activities/wealdway/" target="_blank">Wealdway</a>, created in the 1970s by
Ramblers volunteers to link the Thames and the south coast via the North and
South Downs and the Weald. Almost a third of it is alongside busy Wrotham Road,
with a few features of interest along the way, while the rest mainly uses well-defined
field paths through largely flat, modestly pleasant countryside.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The only additional public transport options along the way
are in the urban section: buses run along Wrotham Road stopping at several
places and if you really don’t like urban walking you could use the bus to skip
it.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
I've made some minor amendments to the original route to take account of numerous changes since the last edition of the trail guide was published in 1981. The most notable of these are the return of ferry services to Gravesend Town Pier; a new public space, Community Square, in Gravesend town centre; and the remodelling of the area around the Tollgate junction to accomodate the High Speed 1 railway line and the widened A2 road.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Note that I’m no longer recommending the route I
originally described for this section in <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/london-countryway-17b-gravesend-sole.html">my very first fully-fledged London underfoot post</a> in March 2009. This attempted to find a parallel route through Gravesend
via quieter streets and parks. But it was unsatisfactorily complicated, not especially more attractive and
included a path where access was unclear. I’ve left that post online for
historic reasons, with a suitable disclaimer. I’m currently in the process of
rewalking the Countryway so I can update and correct these early posts and
expand them to the same standards as later ones.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
Wrotham Road<o:p></o:p></h3>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilPDeWFjwjBhdDOxtM4mWsy-2nRF8kwKq9J6iy8H-seFWWKi6QwIrY7FYwMWvgUCdobixGn8NWwjlLJO1YRQDn55zh0mrq2MOeiDNP3yjMq5RQkFU80gIWVPbp19XuPN3F3l3NkwFYcEs/s1600/gravesend-civichall.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilPDeWFjwjBhdDOxtM4mWsy-2nRF8kwKq9J6iy8H-seFWWKi6QwIrY7FYwMWvgUCdobixGn8NWwjlLJO1YRQDn55zh0mrq2MOeiDNP3yjMq5RQkFU80gIWVPbp19XuPN3F3l3NkwFYcEs/s640/gravesend-civichall.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gravesend Civic Hall and Community Square: 1960s brutalism on an appropriately rainy day.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
I’ve introduced Gravesend in <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/london-countryway-alternative-gravesend.html">my post on the recommended route</a>, and as this alternative finds the same way across the town
centre, I won’t repeat myself here. The two diverge in Community Square,
overlooked by the 1968 Civic Centre building, where today’s route forks right
to join Wrotham Road. Now the A227, this has long been the main route from the
riverside and the town centre not only to Wrotham but to the Roman highway of
Watling Street, running to the south. Essentially it was a continuation of the
High Street, and before Gravesend received a town charter in the 13<sup>th</sup>
century it marked the boundary between Gravesend parish, to the west (right)
and Milton parish to the east. It was turnpiked in 1825, and the largely
Victorian housing that lines it traces the ‘ribbon development’ of the town’s 19<sup>th</sup>
century expansion. So there’s some sense of history in walking it, and the
traffic isn’t too heavy or too fast.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj52D5Kp1_l15EAj2CP4alv_dkSECnzgQ5HEQmxcTcL65cxCF5RsGMiw_WO3DQww2rnkFLynX23EpuJsdjBluq5q7AeERZzGgSQojid0tgyLPWTqEUogfp271WYsIT6VTVZ-mW04UKc1r8/s1600/gravesend-stthomas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj52D5Kp1_l15EAj2CP4alv_dkSECnzgQ5HEQmxcTcL65cxCF5RsGMiw_WO3DQww2rnkFLynX23EpuJsdjBluq5q7AeERZzGgSQojid0tgyLPWTqEUogfp271WYsIT6VTVZ-mW04UKc1r8/s400/gravesend-stthomas.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St Thomas's Almshouses, Gravesend.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
There’s a particularly fine row of early 19<sup>th</sup>
century houses starting at no 62 Wrotham Road, on the left: the first two are
Grade II-listed. Further on, straight ahead as you cross the major junction
with Old Road, stands the red brick complex of St Thomas’s Almshouses. This
owes its existence to a bequest of land in 1624 by Henry Pinnock, a former
Portreve of Gravesend, “for the better relief and maintenance of such poor
decayed people as should from time to time dwell in the ancient Parishes of
Gravesend and Milton”.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The original almshouses stood closer to the town centre,
at the junction of Windmill and King Streets, and there was another plot over
the river at Grays, but in 1897 these were replaced by the oldest of the
present buildings. The site was radically redeveloped in the 1990s, though
remains in social housing use, and some late Victorian remnants remain,
including the distinctive lodge, as well as plaques from earlier buildings. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The streets beyond the almshouses, on the same side, were
developed in the 1930s on the site of a former brickworks. In the late 19<sup>th</sup>
century, much of the land on the opposite side was part of an estate belonging
to George Wood, the owner of a brewery in East Street, one of three
now-vanished Victorian breweries in the town. Wood’s house, Woodlands, became a
hotel in 1939, now part of the Premier Inn and Beefeater restaurant, and its
grounds plus adjoining farmland were bought by the council for use as a public
space to serve the new homes.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<a href="https://www.gravesham.gov.uk/home/community-and-leisure/parks-and-play-areas/woodlands-park" target="_blank">Woodlands Park</a>, opened in 1937, is now a valuable 6 ha green space with a rolling open character, a bowling green and flowerbeds and
specimen trees around the edges. It’s not as well looked-after as it ought to
be, though, and a local <a href="http://woodlandsparkgravesend.weebly.com/" target="_blank">Friends Group</a> is pushing to improve it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv2l-z8H2fPV6US0SPmmtOem681ylZde2nHjYDVqzmocjsDduwH8JlDAlnzgCWfZTJc7ymld031KEKQrMtNj-nCAocCgzRmth-0AwOogrXao-b-y02LYVJ22tFBG_VoT7WZ_jJVuUx7gs/s1600/gravesendbunker.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv2l-z8H2fPV6US0SPmmtOem681ylZde2nHjYDVqzmocjsDduwH8JlDAlnzgCWfZTJc7ymld031KEKQrMtNj-nCAocCgzRmth-0AwOogrXao-b-y02LYVJ22tFBG_VoT7WZ_jJVuUx7gs/s400/gravesendbunker.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gravesend Civil Defence Bunker, where bureaucrats and<br />
busybodies hoped to sit out World War III.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
It’s worth popping across the road to look at the park and
to note its most curious feature, just to the right of the main Wrotham Road
gate. You can’t see much except a fenced flight of steps leading down to a
mysterious steel-reinforced door, but this is the entrance to <a href="http://www.discovergravesham.co.uk/gravesend/civil-defence-bunker.html" target="_blank">Gravesend Civil Defence Sub-Divisional Control Centre</a>, built at the height of the Cold War in
1954 to coordinate local civil defence and emergency services in the event of a
nuclear, chemical or biological attack. Beneath the ground here are 14 rooms
which, so it was planned, would be occupied by 35 council staff and Civil
Defence Corps volunteers under the command of the town clerk. It included a
power supply, water filtration plant, sleeping and kitchen facilities.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The idea of council bureaucrats and local busybodies
surviving nuclear apocalypse beneath a Gravesend park is slightly comical, and fanciful
too. The facility was protected by several metres of turf and 46 cm of
reinforced concrete, but it lacked gas filters and an airlock to guard against
nuclear contamination, so it’s hard not to draw the conclusion that this and
similar facilities were built more for propaganda purposes than practical use. Subsequently
a council file store, in 1997 it was restored to its 1950s appearance and is
occasionally open for guided tours, with a genuine – though obviously disarmed
– WE177 air-dropped nuclear bomb among the exhibits. It’s now Grade II-listed
as one of the few intact survivors of its kind.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Further on, the rather gloomy red brick St Mary’s Church
on the right was built in 1938, like the park intended to serve the new estates
opposite. Beyond this you’re in more open surroundings: the West Kent Golf
Course, opened in 1909, on the left and fields on the right. This open aspect
may not last, as at the time of writing the golf club, unable to pay for the upkeep
of its current clubhouse, is contemplating selling the course for housing
development and moving elsewhere.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
Tollgate junction<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSj80GfXU845W8uI0v4bKEM3lSQjMSUg9RIKrAH2PtqlqvXPnTNn5yeYWKzOlOispEfQw8Csb8pWQ4FFIk5RQ_ty8lFoj2ZLIOGlH38i0sy6ypnCYeqpGgjwIg9XZBOV3d2ggOomdGLrY/s1600/tollgatemotel-2009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSj80GfXU845W8uI0v4bKEM3lSQjMSUg9RIKrAH2PtqlqvXPnTNn5yeYWKzOlOispEfQw8Csb8pWQ4FFIk5RQ_ty8lFoj2ZLIOGlH38i0sy6ypnCYeqpGgjwIg9XZBOV3d2ggOomdGLrY/s640/tollgatemotel-2009.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Tollgate Motel, Gravesend, in 2009 when it was being used by a construction contractor working on the A2 widening.<br />
The building is currently derelict, but the heap of earth in the foreground is now pleasantly verdant.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
After the golf course, the housing restarts, a
cluster of development connected to the conversion of Watling Street into the
A2 motor trunk road in the 1920s. I’ve covered the evolution of Watling Street
and the A2 from Celtic trackway and major Roman road to fast modern highway in
my post on the recommended route. The remnants of various iterations are
visible here as they are on that option at Singlewell. Following an older
section of Wrotham Road beside the houses, you reach a left-hand bend where the
street becomes Old Watling Street: the Roman alignment likely ran left-right in
front of you here, more-or-less through the gate to Cyclopark on the right.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
In 2009, the 1920s trunk road, already much-widened, was
replaced by a wider, parallel route immediately to the south. <a href="https://www.cyclopark.com/" target="_blank">Cyclopark</a>, a
state-of-the-art cycle sport centre with a BMX track, 6 km of off-road cycling
trails and a tarmac cycle racing circuit plus associated facilities, was opened
in 2012 on some of the land vacated by the road. The rest, pleasingly, has been
turned into a walking and cycling trail within a landscaped green strip, part of <a href="https://www.sustrans.org.uk/ncn/map/route/route-177" target="_blank">National Cycle Network (NCN) route 177</a>, which the
trail now follows.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Tolls on Wrotham Road were collected at a gate on the
northeast corner of its junction with Watling Street and the A2/A227 junction
is still known as Tollgate: the adjacent pub, the Tollgate Inn, is known to
have existed since the turnpike was in operation but of course there could have
been an earlier pub in the site. Opposite, on the southeast corner, was a small
hamlet called Northumberland Bottom which has since been obliterated by the
various pieces of transport infrastructure.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The pub was demolished and rebuilt in Brewer’s Tudor style
by Russell’s, then the biggest Gravesend brewery, in 1922 as part of the
creation of the A2, and gradually expanded into a motel with 114 rooms. Compulsorily
purchased by the Highways Agency, it closed in 2006 and was used for a while as
temporary offices and accommodation by the contractor building the new road.
Since then it has failed to find a buyer, and a plan to demolish it in favour
of a petrol station and ‘drive-thru’ McDonalds was rejected following a local
campaign, so for the time being it remains boarded up beside the cycle track.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
It’s now rather hard to imagine this forlorn building
standing beside a busy highway, and cars and lorries racing past where you now
walk. When I wandered through here in 2009, road markings were still visible:
though these have been tidied up, a stretch of crash barrier incongruously
lines the cycle track. And then there’s the drone from the replacement road, dulled
just a little by the embankment which hides it from view.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5151wOw2vlxu5GOlgLvfOxFGwwLeqedqRTbcz-sWQ8_xpFDtw7iej2HeWlnhOK86UAonsdxtyQOSeonN915HNvd2Wr7_yeZRdhUp5G1xG4pt2e1J3Emm6Fl_HHMX3uOPcKufntz8sabw/s1600/tollgate-olda2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5151wOw2vlxu5GOlgLvfOxFGwwLeqedqRTbcz-sWQ8_xpFDtw7iej2HeWlnhOK86UAonsdxtyQOSeonN915HNvd2Wr7_yeZRdhUp5G1xG4pt2e1J3Emm6Fl_HHMX3uOPcKufntz8sabw/s640/tollgate-olda2.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Crash barriers on a cycling and walking route? The old A2, now NCN177, near the Tollgate junction. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
From here there’s the option to continue along the old A2 and NCN177 for a while and pick up the recommended route via Jeskyns, but if you’re
sticking to the original Countryway you’ll soon dodge over a footbridge to the
right. Cheerfully decorated with outlines of wildlife, this spans not only the
current A2 but the parallel High Speed 1 (HS1) railway line from St Pancras to
the Channel Tunnel, opened in 2003 and covered in my previous post. On the
other side of this, you’re finally in the countryside, following the same old
field paths described by Keith Chesterton in 1979.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<h3>
Ifield Court and Nash Street<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFZy8MnfXbKY9H8g6dKEcUdZp1j16ppL71huhAYBb9Z3EK2s3KL5Hzid3enMe0rLqvNmdVs5pajj75N7uwpVRlBvnLZVTLBMs-319X8BKqwGQAmB81k0G5L5QNmYC2nStLRmVeXS3LWDE/s1600/ifieldcourt.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFZy8MnfXbKY9H8g6dKEcUdZp1j16ppL71huhAYBb9Z3EK2s3KL5Hzid3enMe0rLqvNmdVs5pajj75N7uwpVRlBvnLZVTLBMs-319X8BKqwGQAmB81k0G5L5QNmYC2nStLRmVeXS3LWDE/s640/ifieldcourt.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ifield Court near Gravesend.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
The fields you now cross were part of Ifield, a
small parish in the Kentish hundred of Toltingtrough and lathe of Aylesford,
named after the de Yfeld family who owned the manor in the 14<sup>th</sup>
century. It was later the property of the de Hever family whose seat was at
Hever Court in the village of Singlewell, partly in Ifield parish a little to
the north and on the recommended route of the Countryway. There were various
lords of the manor before John Tilden bought the estate in 1766, rebuilding the
15<sup>th</sup> century manor house into the handsome three storey brown brick
Georgian mansion that soon rises ahead of you.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Still privately owned and now Grade II* listed, the house
includes the remains of a flint and ragstone wall and windows from the earlier
building. It looks particularly striking set among these flat fields and hedgerows,
and the surrounding buildings make for an attractive group, including the
distinctive cowls of oast houses built to dry hops, once an important local
crop. From here, clear if muddy paths track the lines of hedgerows, some of
them since grubbed up to leave broad strips between fields.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The trail passes a small woodland, the Grove: to the
southwest here, beneath the trees of Cozendon Wood, is the remains of the old manorial
settlement of Cossington. Originally part of Ifield manor, it was sold to the
Cossington family in the late 13<sup>th</sup> or early 14<sup>th</sup> century,
and by the end of the 14<sup>th</sup> century was a flourishing community. It
was abandoned for unknown reasons, possibly the loss of population to disease,
in the 16<sup>th</sup> century and is now a Scheduled Ancient Monument.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM75_Mkoe42uYNB7uEy4eK9AqotKulWb9fXi6DNRmBb7r-HfO2l6TNtZJVjZrsNea6VhHkRnuBq-nZlnkAl0XroU9gzBgJpVUvDeYwYWri5EU6Rq4be9m6F5yijrNMmBYqyCsiAACYCEk/s1600/sortiedecamions.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM75_Mkoe42uYNB7uEy4eK9AqotKulWb9fXi6DNRmBb7r-HfO2l6TNtZJVjZrsNea6VhHkRnuBq-nZlnkAl0XroU9gzBgJpVUvDeYwYWri5EU6Rq4be9m6F5yijrNMmBYqyCsiAACYCEk/s320/sortiedecamions.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ou est les camions? Nash Street.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
You emerge in the hamlet of Nash street, where a short
detour ahead will reveal two listed buildings facing each other across the
lane. Tudor Cottage, on the right, is timber-framed but more likely 18<sup>th</sup>
century than genuine Tudor. Nash Street Farmhouse is younger, from the early 19<sup>th</sup>
century. Back on the trail are more pretty cottages: a half-timbered one is
simply called The Cottage. A sign on a gateway reads “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sortie des camions,</i>” though the biggest vehicles in sight are 4x4s.
Is this a deliberate Anglo-French gesture within whistling distance of HS1?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
Nurstead<o:p></o:p></h3>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3_cVIdI3JnSgXabq7ZxJvbS-dM9UBPvdbIvh35Fj24XRM_IhL4BpwZ-O6qiVz3_oayvBtWs-hRN3OcAdF2-Sm5RthjRP7QbGYS6dXaRChvK2o1gfV6gwffzdK2bMDKtuHe9aJaGZkNzo/s1600/meophamparishboundary.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3_cVIdI3JnSgXabq7ZxJvbS-dM9UBPvdbIvh35Fj24XRM_IhL4BpwZ-O6qiVz3_oayvBtWs-hRN3OcAdF2-Sm5RthjRP7QbGYS6dXaRChvK2o1gfV6gwffzdK2bMDKtuHe9aJaGZkNzo/s320/meophamparishboundary.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Parish boundary market, White Post Lane,<br />
Sole Street</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
The trail encounters a woodland strip, and turns first
alongside it, then just within the trees on a slightly sunken green lane. An
old parish boundary runs here, first following our path on the south side of
the woodland, Priestfield Shaw, then heading off northeast where our trail
bends southeast. You’re now in Nurstead, also known as Nursted or Nutsted and
listed in the Domesday survey in 1086 as Notestede.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
At that point it was part
of the vast lands assigned to William of Normandy’s half-brother Odo, the
Bishop of Bayeux, whom we’ve encountered many times on London underfoot. In the
early 13<sup>th</sup> century its income was used to maintain the defences of
Dover Castle, and it later belonged to the Lords of the Manor of Gravesend. By
the end of the 19<sup>th</sup> century there were only five houses in Nurstead,
and today it’s included in Meopham civil parish.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The fields to the right here were part of the park
attached to the manor house, Nurstead Court, which can be glimpsed behind you
to your right. Though much altered in 1825 when it was partially demolished to
make way for a red brick villa which was subsequently ‘Tudorised’, it includes
two bays of a 13<sup>th</sup> century timber hall with walls dressed with Caen
stone, and is actually one of the most historic buildings close to today’s
walk. It’s currently used as a wedding and events venue. A little further over
is the small parish church, St Mildred’s, partly dating from the 14<sup>th</sup>
century.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The trail climbs noticeably up the side of a hill known as
Mill Hill, with the strip of woodland to the right known as Millhill Shaw.
Looking at the map, it’s clear all these strips and patches of trees were once
part of a bigger area of woods, and the strips were retained to frame the
parkland. You may spot white nuggets among the flints on the path surface, a
sign that we’re close to the chalk that underlies the geography here. You cross
a narrow lane, Copt Hall Road, named for one of the five late 18<sup>th</sup>
century houses, which stood a little further left along it. Then it’s alongside
another field and across a paddock to reach White Post Lane on the edge of Sole
Street.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Sole Street<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw4DF2Uu5ycR7l814pLhiTNRordxkch_A0X__7RYvXVym3IZQv-BmgUhbYhOk5PXx9qApVFngKJvVrNHMMIj_pB4tguk_DO9cDDMPM19URw96_Bvz__DggqJbdibX4HixGmbSrmcsz0Lk/s1600/sallowsshaw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw4DF2Uu5ycR7l814pLhiTNRordxkch_A0X__7RYvXVym3IZQv-BmgUhbYhOk5PXx9qApVFngKJvVrNHMMIj_pB4tguk_DO9cDDMPM19URw96_Bvz__DggqJbdibX4HixGmbSrmcsz0Lk/s400/sallowsshaw.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Snowdrops in Sallows Shaw, Sole Street.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
A marker on White Post Lane, installed in 2000, indicates
you’ve reached the current boundary of Meopham parish. In fact you’re entering Cobham
parish, which was extended in the 20<sup>th</sup> century to include all the urban
development of Sole Street. The path you follow tracks the old boundary between
Nurstead and Cobham, to the east (left). It runs through a pleasant patch of
woodland, Sallows Shaw, and some of the occupants of the houses on the left have
claimed patches of it for barbecue furniture. A sallow is a small willow tree
or the twig that it produces, but more evident here in season are thick
clusters of snowdrops, followed by other bulbs then rhododendrons. The houses are
part of a 1970s estate, also called Sallows Shaw, but your way is now along
bungalow-lined Manor Road.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
I’ve said a bit more about Sole Street, formerly a small
hamlet of Cobham prompted to grow by the railway, in my post on the recommended
route. You’ll see a little bit more of it this way. Where Manor Road meets the
main street, also called Sole Street, is a curious corrugated iron hut that provides
one of the village’s few public buildings, St Mary’s Church Rooms.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
It looks
like something from a World War II exhibition, but in fact it’s rather older,
dating from 1889 and only intended to last for 25 years. It’s a prefabricated
building of a type fondly known as a ‘tin tabernacle’, mass-produced in the
late 19<sup>th</sup> century to cater for rapidly growing communities lacking
places of worship. Only around 80 of these buildings still stand in the British
Isles, operated by a variety of denominations. This one is badly in need of
restoration, but it would be a shame if it disappears completely.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNkOq0Spc_bx3ip99uVLIqGmPyWc8HFFUhmpC6Zt1CheTeZcRP3aIEHVXyTEp6zuxwiUt8x1OZGQ280iQj6GPF-iryo1hEfgA4fSnY0C7thQ44ALJsWl9u68SItWtiv4TmDcXPut2NPAg/s1600/solestreet-tintabernacle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNkOq0Spc_bx3ip99uVLIqGmPyWc8HFFUhmpC6Zt1CheTeZcRP3aIEHVXyTEp6zuxwiUt8x1OZGQ280iQj6GPF-iryo1hEfgA4fSnY0C7thQ44ALJsWl9u68SItWtiv4TmDcXPut2NPAg/s400/solestreet-tintabernacle.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tin tabernacle: St Mary's Church Rooms, Sole Street.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
On the opposite corner of Manor Road is Grade II-listed
Bower Cottage, encompassing parts of a 15<sup>th</sup> century Wealden hall
house and a 16<sup>th</sup> century chimney. Though it’s wooden-framed with
heavy joists, externally it’s rendered in brick.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
There are more buildings of
interest, and a village pond, left along Sole Street: it’s worth a slight
detour to admire another 15<sup>th</sup> century hall house, Yeomans House,
just past the Manor Road junction on the left, which is owned by the National
Trust though occupied by a private tenant and not open to the public. Further
on is a late 18<sup>th</sup> century mansion, Sole Street House.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
But your way is right, soon reaching the station on the
Chatham Main Line and the end of this section. On reflection I still think the
recommended route via Jeskyns and Cobham is more interesting and satisfying,
but as ever in London underfoot, whichever way you walk, there’s much to occupy
you if you look hard enough.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/466wm9v0d6625wi/1a-gravesend-wrothamroad-solestreet.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank">Detailed route description</a> (PDF)</li>
<li><a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NQbHT71QxMgsJ6X1Gj5hDVYd2NE&usp=sharing" target="_blank">Google map</a></li>
</ul>
<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-29592086964363245062018-02-17T08:56:00.003+00:002024-01-17T14:51:04.801+00:00Capital Ring 3: Grove Park - Crystal Palace<br />
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqyJ0IlBaYtWqMG7IX2RuOKPmFrQGpmVBHfBCUaf4kf9VY1t6UUDYY-1Cn5ex07oYC7X5d0Z9arDNoRHlZdSrIaHftc37tv8HudLDk9mbQs5K7pXj2FBHkqCXW36BeVkawRakZQ1DG0fg/s1600/crystalpalace-megalosaurus.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqyJ0IlBaYtWqMG7IX2RuOKPmFrQGpmVBHfBCUaf4kf9VY1t6UUDYY-1Cn5ex07oYC7X5d0Z9arDNoRHlZdSrIaHftc37tv8HudLDk9mbQs5K7pXj2FBHkqCXW36BeVkawRakZQ1DG0fg/s640/crystalpalace-megalosaurus.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Megalosaurus, one of the stars of the Crystal Palace Dinosaur Park -- though it's now thought the animal walked upright<br />
on its hind legs and didn't have a hump.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
The river Ravensbourne and its tributaries have
shaped the geography of this section of the Capital Ring. After crossing the
Quaggy right at the start, the trail follows a hidden woodland strip threading
through a huge 1920s social housing estate then explores one of southeast
London’s most splendid parks, Beckenham Place Park, with its mansion crowning
the high ground between the Ravensbourne and the Pool valleys. There’s quite a
bit of street-bound walking after this, with a scattering of smaller green
spaces, then Crystal Palace Park at the end: one of the trail’s highlights with
its dinosaur sculptures, handsome Victorian station and the empty terraces
where the Crystal Palace itself once stood.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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This is the longest single section of the Capital Ring so
unlike the others I haven’t combined it with another section. It’s much easier
going than the previous section, with the most rugged paths in Beckenham Place
Park. But with no less than 10 stations on or near the route, and numerous bus
stops, it’s also one of the easiest to split into smaller chunks if needed.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoBodyText"><br /></div><div class="MsoBodyText"><i style="font-weight: bold;">Note</i>. This section of the Capital Ring almost entirely duplicates the Green Chain Walk. The corresponding GCW sections are 8 from Grove Park to New Beckenham and 10 to Crystal Palace Park.</div>
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<h3>
From Grove Park<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS9SImYEanJuXM1ExFH3j4-THIAxLCgqQC7ZQgp1D4iybq1nAotUwI394I-0-qaLEqg_RdHSQ1tjvNXHM1Lj5ewzRqO9OjLs60j0YU23Htj682_ETMopDnq2I3YNNBT2ISYd3k7MfVGa0/s1600/groveparknaturereserve.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS9SImYEanJuXM1ExFH3j4-THIAxLCgqQC7ZQgp1D4iybq1nAotUwI394I-0-qaLEqg_RdHSQ1tjvNXHM1Lj5ewzRqO9OjLs60j0YU23Htj682_ETMopDnq2I3YNNBT2ISYd3k7MfVGa0/s640/groveparknaturereserve.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grove Park Nature Reserve, once part of Edith Nesbit's garden.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
Section 2 of the Capital Ring ends, and section 3
begins, on the east bank of the river Quaggy where it crosses Marvels Lane in
Grove Park: I’ve said more about all three in the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/capital-ring-12-woolwich-grove-park.html">previous section</a>. If you’re
starting from Grove Park station, following the official link back to the trail
creates a bit of a dogleg, and as the first stretch of section 3 is along
streets, you may decide to cut some of this out by simply heading north up
Baring Road to meet the Ring a little further along at the junction of Coopers
Lane. But there are a few features of interest along the official route that
you’ll miss by doing this.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Just over the river and easy to miss between two house
terraces is a track known as Alice Thompson Close which gives access to
<a href="https://www.lewisham.gov.uk/inmyarea/openspaces/nature-reserves/Pages/sydenham-cottages.aspx" target="_blank">Sydenham Cottages Nature Reserve</a>. As you’ll have noticed on the previous
section, the Quaggy runs through this area in a concrete culvert, but this is relatively
recent, dating from a late 1960s flood alleviation scheme. The river once formed an ox-bow curve through a former hay meadow just northeast of the road here,
which was cut off when the new course was dug, subsequently silting up and
almost completely disappearing.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The area now forms a small but pleasant green
space, with patches of woodland and grassland, and a fragment of ancient
hedgerow lining the ditch that marks the river’s former course. This is the
only site in Lewisham where the relatively rare plant Hairy St John’s Wort has
been spotted. The mid-19<sup>th</sup> century cottages after which the reserve
is named stand on the close.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Further along is the former site of Grove Park Hospital, built
as a workhouse on a field known as Spicers Meadow by the Greenwich Poor Law
Union in 1896 as an overspill facility for its main workhouse on Vanburgh Hill
in Greenwich. Back then, part of the land was within Mottingham Parish which,
as mentioned in the previous section, was originally attached to Woolwich and
fell into the Greenwich Union’s territory (while most of Mottingham itself has
since been transferred to the London Borough of Bromley, the hospital site has
been allocated to Lewisham).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Unfortunately for the Union’s trustees, the new workhouse was
completed just when a change in the law reduced the need for such institutions,
with policy shifting towards supporting the very poor to live in their own
homes. The site stood empty for several years, resulting in much scoffing in
the press, then as now keen to pontificate about the supposedly cushy treatment
available to those they regarded as society's least deserving members. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Illustrated London News</i> described it as a luxurious facility, with
“mosaic flooring, beautiful panelling, a dining hall fit for royalty, and a
church which any rector would envy.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The workhouse eventually began admitting inmates in 1904,
but at the outbreak of World War I ten years later, it was taken over by the
Army as a training barracks for new recruits. In 1919 the site was sold to the
Metropolitan Asylums Board for use as an isolation hospital for tuberculosis
patients, but these plans stalled as the location proved too remote to recruit
sufficient staff. It finally opened as a TB hospital in 1926, and after World
War II evolved into a specialist chest hospital within the NHS, with almost 400
beds at its peak.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
In 1977 it became a home for people with mental disability
but with the shift towards ‘care in the community’ the number of inmates
declined again, and the site was closed in 1994. It’s since been redeveloped for
residential use, with many of the historic buildings demolished, though the
layout of this walled site and the buildings that remain continue to lend it a
distinctive and rather forbidding look that recalls its origins. The main
gateway with its hexagonal gatehouses and the administration block beyond are
from workhouse days, while the lodge-like single storey buildings either side
of the gatehouses were added in the interwar hospital era.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The squat single-storey library on the corner of Marvels
Lane and Burnt Ash Hill has a temporary look, but it’s stood for decades. It’s
now one of numerous Lewisham public libraries closed for cost-cutting reasons
and reopened as community libraries, run by a charity called Eco Communities using
volunteers and inevitably open limited hours, but at least it still functions
as a library. Further on, at the junction of Coopers Lane and Baring Road, is a
rather battered Victorian pillar box.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The challenge of attracting medical staff to Grove Park in
the 1920s, mentioned above, and the fact that it was considered a suitable site
for an isolation hospital, are further evidence of how recently this part of London
was intensively developed. In the 1890s, when author and poet Edith Nesbit
(1858-1924) lived in Baring Road, it was still semi-rural, although already
nothing like the country retreat depicted in her most famous children’s novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Railway Children</i> (1906).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Halstead, Kent, where Nesbit lived as a teenager, is
widely thought to be the inspiration for the station in the novel, which was
written after the author had left Grove Park in 1899 and settled at Well Hall
in Eltham, passed in the last section. But the busy South Eastern Main Line ran
past the bottom of her Baring Road garden, and it’s said that Albert Perks, the
station porter who befriends the displaced children, was modelled on a member
of staff at Grove Park station, so the area can claim some links to the book. Nesbit’s
house, Three Gables, was one of the big Victorian houses typical of what was
then a middle class outer suburb. It’s since been demolished, but you pass the
site of it as you turn north along Baring Road: it was on the left just past
the Ringway Community Centre.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The superficially well-ordered Edwardian childhood world
of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Railway Children</i> (especially
as presented in the familiar 1970 film adaptation directed by Lionel Jeffries)
might give a rather stuffy impression of its author. But then there’s the
novel’s gently feminist subtext and its hints that there are deeper issues
hidden from the youthful main characters. In fact, despite her relatively
privileged background, Nesbit was a socialist and political activist, a follower
of William Morris and a co-founder of the Fabian Society.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Her tempestuous first
marriage, to bank clerk Hubert Bland, turned out to be a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ménage à trois</i> with their housekeeper Alice Hoatson, Bland’s lover
with whom he fathered two children. In 1917, three years after Hubert’s death,
Edith was remarried to the captain of the Woolwich Ferry. A long-time chain
smoker, she died of lung cancer in New Romney, Kent, and is buried at St Mary
in the Marsh nearby.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The trail turns off along a path named Railway Children
Walk, passing <a href="https://www.lewisham.gov.uk/inmyarea/openspaces/nature-reserves/Pages/grove-park-nature-reserve.aspx" target="_blank">Grove Park Nature Reserve</a>. Part of this pleasant oasis was once
included in the large garden of Three Gables, while the rest was owned by the
South Eastern Railway and later British Rail, reserved for potential railway
use. For much of the 20<sup>th</sup> century it was used as allotments. Leased
by Lewisham council in 1984 as a nature reserve, it was initially closed off,
but the fences were repeatedly broken by local people who valued it for
recreational use, and when the council bought the land outright in 1987 it was officially
opened to the public. Today it’s a popular site for local schools, with a mix
of woodland and slightly chalky grassland rare in the area. The bank on the extreme
western edge of the reserve was left when the railway cutting was dug in the 1860s
and has remained undisturbed ever since.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<h3>
Downham and the Woodland Walk<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpc6x_bIJ2sAgloFlwGzbtriGtNj-MlAzyt8ETWMyU83t4Xpon15zS0QH3hQB1aGP1Q-DANXId36XhtTzNSctNxXKIHwO3sh7rkNOSSjar5-IXCCQSXKx3vLmtMz8KUcYl5rXXwkWs9Ac/s1600/downhamwoodlandwalk.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpc6x_bIJ2sAgloFlwGzbtriGtNj-MlAzyt8ETWMyU83t4Xpon15zS0QH3hQB1aGP1Q-DANXId36XhtTzNSctNxXKIHwO3sh7rkNOSSjar5-IXCCQSXKx3vLmtMz8KUcYl5rXXwkWs9Ac/s640/downhamwoodlandwalk.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Downham Woodland Walk: a hidden thread through a 1920s social housing estate.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
Across the railway line (covered in more detail at
the end of section 2) you pass Hither Green Cemetery on the right. The oldest
part, to the north, was opened as Lee Cemetery in 1873, but the section
adjacent to the trail is a much larger 1950s expansion. In Nesbit’s time there
were fields here attached to Shroffold’s Farm, but by the 1930s they’d been
converted to allotments. Just after you join Reigate Road are brand new flats
on the right: completed late in 2017, these replaced Downham Fire Station,
closed amid some controversy a couple of years previously. The doors of the new
buildings are painted bright red in a rather begrudging homage to the site’s
former use. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
All this infrastructure – fire stations, cemeteries,
allotments, community centres – was prompted in the early 20<sup>th</sup>
century by an initiative that transformed the area from a green and genteel
Victorian suburb to a densely populated outgrowth of the inner city. You’re now
standing amid the Downham Estate, which at almost 2.5 km2 is still the largest
single housing development ever in southeast London.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Between 1924 and 1930, 7,000
new homes were built here on the former fields of Shroffold’s Farm and Holloway
Farm as social housing by the London County Council, with materials delivered
via a specially-built spur from the main line railway. This was the third-biggest
of several LCC ‘cottage’ estates around what was then the edge of the
metropolis, their construction facilitated by the government, which made
subsidies available to local authorities for such purposes following World War
I.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The usual tagline for this housebuilding movement is
‘Homes fit for Heroes’ but that’s something of a patriotic and poppy-tinted spin
on an initiative that was prompted at least partly by fear of the mob. The
immediate post-war years were a time of great social unrest among the urban
poor, intensified by bitterness over the hardships and sacrifice of the war and
inspired by the example of the Russian Revolution in 1917, culminating in the
General Strike of 1926.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The appalling conditions of privately-owned slums in
big cities like London had long been a deserved target of social reformers, but
now there was a genuine fear among the government that they could be a fertile breeding
ground for the violent revolt of a generation newly trained in modern combat
and firearms skills. Dispersing the urban working classes to peripheral and
less densely-concentrated new estates where improved living conditions would
help mitigate resentment was one strategy for dealing with this.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The Docklands boroughs of Bermondsey and Deptford, where the
problem of poor housing was particularly acute, first identified the land
between Southend on the Bromley road and the South Eastern Main Line as a
potential site for an estate. But as it was outside their territory, they
couldn’t build there, so instead the LCC led the project. By the time
construction commenced, anxiety about revolution had dimmed a little and the
more generous subsidies had been withdrawn, so the new estate was built to a
lower standard than those begun a few years earlier, such as the Becontree
Estate in Barking & Dagenham, the biggest of the LCC estates. Even so, the
conditions and facilities were an unimaginable improvement on the slums.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The name ‘Downham’ was chosen not because of any local
significance but after Lord Downham, chair of the LCC between 1919-20. One
advantage of the location was its proximity to Grove Park station, where annual
ticket sales increased from just over 71,000 in 1924 to approaching a million
ten years later. But the station was on the eastern edge of the site, over 2 km
away from some of the housing, so the tramline to Catford was also
progressively extended along the Bromley Road on the western side and through
the estate itself.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
It’s not clear to what extent the objective of rehousing
the slum dwellers of Bermondsey and Deptford was achieved. Certainly, some
early residents were from those boroughs, but others were from all over London.
In any case, the rents were unaffordable to the poorest members of the
population, ironically the very underclass the Establishment most feared, so
tenants tended to be skilled or office workers. Significant numbers drifted back
to the inner city, for financial reasons – “the ‘moonlight flit’ was not
uncommon,” <a href="http://www.ideal-homes.org.uk/case-studies/downham-estate" target="_blank">historian Alastair Black drily observes</a> – or to avoid long commutes
or because the less close-knit community with its more dispersed pubs and shops
turned out to be less attractive than the denser environments in which residents
grew up. Black quotes a scathing critique from 1949:<o:p></o:p></div>
<blockquote>
Twenty years after its construction this much heralded scheme
looks as outmoded as the dodo. Strung together in rows, little street leading
into little street, dun-coloured, mouselike, humble, the estate is the most
colourless collection of box dwellings that one could find. Each house is in
itself a very long way from the slums of Bermondsey, but in view of the
opportunity offered by such a scheme, the place is a crushing disappointment.</blockquote>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The snobbish residents of the new private estate to the
south, over the boundary with Bromley borough, were no fans of the scheme
either. They commissioned the construction in 1926 of a two-metre high ‘class
wall’ topped with broken glass across Valeswood Road at its junction with
Alexandra Crescent, to shield them from the council tenants and, more
specifically, to stop the latter using the local streets as a walking route to
Bromley town centre. Although the wall had not been granted planning permission
and obstructed what was arguably a public right of way, Bromley council
resisted calls to demolish it, and it remained until 1950 when it was dismantled
primarily for fire safety reasons.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The character of Downham has evolved greatly in the
decades since, and its social distinction from surrounding streets eroded by the
creep of privatisation and outsourcing. Following the 1980s Thatcher
government’s right-to-buy provisions, many of the houses are now
owner-occupied, the rented properties are managed by a housing association and
a massive new ‘lifestyle centre’ incorporating swimming pool, gym, library and
GP surgeries was built in 2007 under a Private Finance Initiative. But the
place still has an overwhelming uniformity which isn’t entirely attractive,
lacking the interesting touches of some other cottage estates and genuine
garden cities.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
One thing it suffers from is an overall lack of green
space, with a scattering of honourable exceptions, including one particularly
remarkable example which the Ring uses to full advantage. An imaginative architect
saw fit to leave some of woodland on the site untouched as a green strip
folding through the housing, presumably because it was more economical to
retain a single strip of greenery than build round numerous individual patches.
Today, it’s known as the <a href="https://www.lewisham.gov.uk/inmyarea/openspaces/nature-reserves/downham-woodland-walk/Pages/default.aspx" target="_blank">Downham Woodland Walk</a>, and most of it has been a
designated Local Nature Reserve since 2005. This 1.7 km-long strip has
something of the hidden geography of a canal or disused railway.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLJyjACzlJ1tFXjzxNO6gxIASiXBD7m-GnamyqfNwae32Y1OUG91QH__SZ1RYFsmk5zl1qQpWO3tRXArX6hKOueft5zRxscnTN0p3GX63mp4v780drgOApXviFXKHuigNdlPNurEoY2Ic/s1600/downhamteacups.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLJyjACzlJ1tFXjzxNO6gxIASiXBD7m-GnamyqfNwae32Y1OUG91QH__SZ1RYFsmk5zl1qQpWO3tRXArX6hKOueft5zRxscnTN0p3GX63mp4v780drgOApXviFXKHuigNdlPNurEoY2Ic/s400/downhamteacups.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The tea in Downham tasted rather woody.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Woodland Walk begins as a broad unfenced ‘median strip’
down the centre of Woodbank Road and between Shaw and Undershaw Roads. The
grass here is mown short so there’s no woodland understory, but there are
numerous mature penduculate oaks, and along Undershaw Road some hawthorns that
may be the remains of an old hedge. Irritatingly there’s no path here so you’ll
need either to walk on the pavement or dodge dog poo on the slightly uneven
grass. Much more could be made of this bit with some imaginative management.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
West of Moorside Road, the Walk becomes a well-defined
linear park, up to 40 m wide, running between housing on the left and the open
grass of Whitefoot Recreation Ground on the right. This is the most
biologically diverse and attractive stretch, a hidden treasure with a genuine
woodland feel. It’s almost certainly ancient woodland, with bluebells, wood
anemone, two wild service trees and a dense shrub layer with a population of
nationally rare gem beetles. Dotted all along the walk are sculptures of
wildlife carved from dead wood and even a ring of fairy teacups, all of which
add interest.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The section on the other side of Downderry Road is a
remnant of a more recent woodland, probably a plantation from the first half of
the 19<sup>th</sup> century: it’s narrower and less diverse but retains the
appeal of a hidden pathway. From nature trail post 8 it roughly follows the
Greenwich Meridian Line, crossing and recrossing it. Once you’ve crossed
Oakshade Road, rounded the right-hand bend and passed the buildings of Bonus
Pastor Catholic College Secondary School to your right, you’re decisively in
the Western hemisphere: there’s a plaque in the school playground though it’s
not accessible to the public. The Woodland Walk ends at a patch of grass set
just back from the Bromley Road, where a model stream train made from logs
recalls the role of the railway in the creation of the suburb.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The busy road is part of the A21, the modern incarnation
of a route from London and Bermondsey via Lewisham to Hastings dating back at
least to mediaeval times which was turnpiked in the mid-18<sup>th</sup> century.
Until the early 20<sup>th</sup> century the nearest significant settlement was
the hamlet of Southend, about 500 m back up the road towards Catford and
Lewisham at the junction with Beckenham Hill, but this appears only
intermittently on modern maps and even people who live there might not
recognise the name. Originally the road bent more sharply at the point where
the Ring encounters it, until in the 1930s the stretch to your left was laid
out along an old field path which smoothed out the curve, and lined with a parade
of shops to serve the growing community. On the other side, the trail follows
the former alignment, informatively named Old Bromley Road.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
I commented on the discrepancies between the various
systems for subdividing London when walking through Sewardstone on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/london-loop-1819-enfield-lock-chingford.html">London Loop 18</a>,
the only place outside Greater London but within the London Postal District. Downham
is a comparable anomaly: it’s one of the few places within Inner London – the
former LCC area – but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">outside</i> the
postal district. Much of it has a Bromley postcode, BR1, despite being in the
London Borough of Lewisham.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Beckenham Place Park<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8KgyiTLgW-T9WWfBuDZ7GiOfbHwhurV-5pg_SVRYathSyDWebSbuEJ-MqP_5FO7rpGE01w1jTbtX13dRWdUs0c1OFYkoS8fefYjSffX6Vq2jPmLbiYZnHmuIjZJVdLXAJ9snGCIJl6v8/s1600/beckenhamplace-signpost.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8KgyiTLgW-T9WWfBuDZ7GiOfbHwhurV-5pg_SVRYathSyDWebSbuEJ-MqP_5FO7rpGE01w1jTbtX13dRWdUs0c1OFYkoS8fefYjSffX6Vq2jPmLbiYZnHmuIjZJVdLXAJ9snGCIJl6v8/s400/beckenhamplace-signpost.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Capital Ring and Green Chain Walk signing in Beckenham<br />
Place Park's ancient woodland.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="https://www.lewisham.gov.uk/inmyarea/openspaces/parks/beckenham-place-park/Pages/default.aspx" target="_blank">Beckenham Place Park</a> is the largest green space in the London Borough of Lewisham, with
96 ha including extensive ancient woodland and stretches of interesting
grassland, most of which has been designated a Local Nature Reserve since 2005.
It’s probably not at the top of most people’s lists of big London parks, but as
a rare example within Inner London of a well-preserved country estate complete
with big house, it deserves to be better known. For decades it was dominated by
a municipal golf course occupying some of its prettiest prospects. This is now
gone, creating an opportunity to restore the former greens to more diverse and
appealing use.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The park is an 18<sup>th</sup> century creation stitched
together from land in two mediaeval parishes. Despite its name, not all of it
is historically in Beckenham, which was in Kent’s Bromley Hundred and Sutton
lathe. Most of the northern part of the park was attached to Southend, part of
the parish of Lewisham, in Blackheath Hundred. Today, the whole park falls
within Lewisham borough.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The historic village of Beckenham lies to the south, at
the junction of the Southend road and the east-west route from Bromley to
Penge. The 12<sup>th</sup> century church and the village green can still be
seen here, though the original manor house is gone. The manor and parish first
appear in the written record in 862. Following the Norman invasion, the manor was
yet another of Bishop Odo’s holdings but by the Domesday survey it had been
leased to someone called Eskil. To the northeast of the village but still within the parish was a separate manor, essentially a large farm, named Foxgrove after a family that once owned it.<br />
<br />
The name was long assumed to derive from ‘beck’
meaning ‘stream’, but more likely the name of the local stream known as the
Beck, which the Ring crosses later in Cator Park, was taken from the village
name by ‘back formation’ and not vice versa. The etymology is now thought to be from a
personal name: ‘Beohha’s homestead’.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Both manors changed hands many times over the centuries until
they fell into the hands of the Cator family, who are largely responsible for
changing the face of the district. John Cator (1728-1806), the first of the
family to hold the manor, wasn’t an old school aristocrat but an entrepreneur, the
son of a Quaker timber merchant from Herefordshire who had branched out into London.
His yard, at Mould Wharf, Bankside, on the site of the power station that’s now
the Tate Modern, did well by supplying materials for the expansion of London
and Cator went into property himself. He became one of the first
millionaires, which in those days meant he was fabulously rich.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Cator’s first purchase in the area was in 1757: a patch of
land on Stumps Hill on the Lewisham side. Two years later he gained part of the
adjacent Foxgrove manor, on the Beckenham side, through a land exchange deal, and
between 1760-62 built the Beckenham Place mansion at the top of the hill, just
within Foxgrove. A keen botanist, he not only landscaped the grounds but introduced
numerous exotic flora – today there are more than 60 tree species in the park. In
1773, while MP for Wallingford in Oxfordshire, Cator bought the manor of
Beckenham from Lord Bolingbroke. In the years that followed, he continued to
acquire land in the area, including the rest of Foxgrove, consolidating it into
one large estate, parts of which were used to build upmarket houses. He was
also responsible for beginning the development of Blackheath, building the celebrated
Paragon Crescent.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Cator’s successors continued to see Beckenham through
property developers’ eyes, as a potential country retreat for the wealthy with
good road links to London. In the 1820s they began building an Indian
colonial-style town with big villas on extensive plots clustered around the village
centre. The arrival of the railway in 1857 spurred a more suburban approach
with smaller middle-class housing, and by the end of the 19<sup>th</sup>
century much of the Cator estate was densely built-up. Beckenham became an Urban
District of Kent in 1894, then a municipal borough in 1935 following continuing
population growth. Ultimately this was merged into the London Borough of Bromley
in 1965.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The mansion and grounds were preserved but from 1829
rented out to tenants. In 1902, the house became a college, then from 1905 a
sanatorium, with much of the grounds remodelled as a private golf club. In 1927,
with a growing need for local green space to serve the new housing estate at
Downham, the London County Council (LCC) bought Beckenham Place to protect it
from development, and in 1929 the golf course became the first such
municipally-managed facility in England. The rest has been a public park ever
since, except for a stint during World War II as an Italian Prisoner of War
camp.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The LCC was succeeded as owner by the Greater London
Council (GLC), and after this was dissolved in 1986, David Lloyd Leisure attempted
to buy the whole park and turn it into a private facility. Thankfully this
proposal was rejected by a public inquiry in 1992 and ownership passed to
Lewisham. Over the years the mansion, partly used as a golf course clubhouse, was
badly neglected and the nearby stable block was destroyed by fire in 2011. Then
in 2016 the council decided to close the golf course as no longer financially
viable. Following a successful bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2017, things
are looking up and the park is undergoing a long-term regeneration programme, supported
by a keen <a href="http://www.beckenhamplaceparkfriends.org.uk/" target="_blank">Friends Group</a>.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrmO1Obg6_gQfnKR40p2UU2x10_Uj-fkNvoXdhHGb_jhcl-0nUSoMmyY-W45Hs_sTIBxx5L_K9iq_7K-fj2uimuG0f5SFPuJgmM6i_nKkkFbEtmJqIGyuW0Pyuz_I6sWxcPlc5IK2Ho2E/s1600/beckenhamplace-ravensbourne.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrmO1Obg6_gQfnKR40p2UU2x10_Uj-fkNvoXdhHGb_jhcl-0nUSoMmyY-W45Hs_sTIBxx5L_K9iq_7K-fj2uimuG0f5SFPuJgmM6i_nKkkFbEtmJqIGyuW0Pyuz_I6sWxcPlc5IK2Ho2E/s640/beckenhamplace-ravensbourne.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">River Ravensbourne in Beckenham Place Park.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Soon after entering the park, the Ring crosses the river
Ravensbourne. If you’ve walked<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/london-loop-3-petts-wood-hayes.html"> London Loop section 3</a>, you’ve passed the source
of this at Keston Ponds: it runs roughly south-north for 17 km via Catford and
Lewisham to join the Thames as Deptford Creek. Alongside it here is a cycling
and walking trail called the Ravensbourne Green Way which isn’t continuous
along the length of the river but provides a useful link to Bromley. The grassy
area beyond is known as the Common, though most of it is a restored landfill
site.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Where the main trail cuts off across the Common, a signed
link keeps ahead to Beckenham Hill station. This is on the Catford Loop
Line, opened by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LC&DR) as the
Shortlands and Nunhead Railway in 1892. It was intended not only to provide commuter
services to a growing area but also as a relief line for the company’s main
Chatham Main Line from Victoria to Chatham and Dover, completing an alternative
route between Brixton and Shortlands. The line crosses the park in a deep
cutting, chopping the green space in half, and the Ring uses the only bridge
connecting the two sides within the park boundary, with its sturdy red brick
late Victorian parapet.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The patch of largely ancient woodland on the other side of
the railway long predates the creation of the park. It was once known as Langstead
Wood, but the northern part is now named the Ash Plantation following a
deliberate planting policy in John Cator’s time. Cator’s remodelling also
included an artificial lake, much of which has since been drained, though the
current regeneration plans include its restoration. The path crosses an old dam
across the lake and follows what would have been the southeastern lakeside,
then ventures deeper into the wood, here known as Summerhouse Hill Wood, though
the summerhouse itself is long gone.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
A fingerpost inside the wood marks another junction with
one of the many Green Chain Walk branches, this one from Chislehurst with a
link to Chinbrook Meadows close to the start of this Ring section. There’s also
a link from here to Ravensbourne station on the Catford Loop. The Ring then follows
an old track that connected Foxgrove Farm to Stumps Hill, linking two key parts
of the site. To the left is the former golf course, still recognisable with its
greens, tees and bunkers. This is valuable acid grassland over well-drained
gravelly Blackheath beds rather than sticky London clay, and should be
transformed dramatically now it’s being managed for wildlife value rather than
golf.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
At the top of the slope, the path curves left with the
mansion now clearly visible ahead. On the right here is an area known as the Homestead
which is worth a closer look. The squirrel sculpture is one of the park’s most
popular family-friendly features but not much is recorded about it: it was the
work of an anonymous postgraduate art student at Goldsmith’s College in the
early 2000s and was originally plain white but has recently been repainted in a
colour scheme chosen in an online poll. Behind it are terrace gardens,
including a community gardening project, and behind them the fire-damaged
stable block, due to be rebuilt as a café, and visitor and education centre overlooking
a new ‘pleasure ground’.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDtJWtiu4NPQIjFLKZhPU7nruebrVLcG6vCAdcNPhbrU7J0vDhue60nmokjkajANSw9UNCdTImVfNLuwm4hm91P0EAEK0exPuS_b9VutI2JXsQHnVo-HRC0I2o5c-UTNV0Cto-RDnP_6A/s1600/beckenhamplace-mansion.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDtJWtiu4NPQIjFLKZhPU7nruebrVLcG6vCAdcNPhbrU7J0vDhue60nmokjkajANSw9UNCdTImVfNLuwm4hm91P0EAEK0exPuS_b9VutI2JXsQHnVo-HRC0I2o5c-UTNV0Cto-RDnP_6A/s640/beckenhamplace-mansion.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beckenham Place Park mansion: still at risk.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The trail twists to pass the main mansion entrance. The
architect isn’t recorded but the similarity to Danson Park in Welling points to
the latter’s designer Robert Taylor. The imposing neo-classical building has a
compact, squarish footprint which emphasises its height and hilltop presence. The
massive portico at the front, with its flanking statues and the arms and motto
of the Cators (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nihil sine labore</i>,
‘nothing without effort’, a pointed sentiment given the family’s wealth was
originally self-made) was originally at another family home, Wricklemarsh House
in Blackheath, but was moved here in 1787. Unfortunately, the Heritage Lottery
funding hasn’t resolved the status of the house, which is still on Historic
England’s At-risk register. It’s currently leased to a property company as a
<a href="https://www.beckenhamplace.org/" target="_blank">wedding and meeting venue</a>, but you can usually get a glimpse inside the domed
entrance hall, and there’s a public café at the back overlooking the park.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The house was always just in Beckenham: the boundary ran alongside
the northeast wall, so as you look at the portico, Lewisham was on the left,
Beckenham on the right. Between 1889 and 1965 this was also the boundary of
London and Kent. Although Lewisham council owned the entire park from 1972, the
southern part of the site was officially in Bromley until 1992 when the
boundary was shifted to reflect the management arrangements.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The Southend road once ran right in front of the house but
Cator was rich and powerful enough not to have to put up with the public
passing his doorstep. In 1785 he had the road diverted along a new route,
originally known as Great Stumpshill Road, now Beckenham Hill Road and Southend
Road (A2015). A glance at the map confirms that the drives within the park
provide the more direct route, while the public highway bows out to the west. The
Ring now crosses the area included in that arc to leave the park, in the
process leaving Lewisham and re-entering Bromley.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
New Beckenham<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSo5mH4EpTfL7oJlRagYuFvvQMs9abuirbHC8s3wUvLciif6pnnTDQIaR1F4dZPTNCIaWjFdtL2_VPsaqhOV6ot84dolWjQjRHu4-dKQQHDQmkQy-ldF4bli7U7i4AlYp3ttQx3kZ8Zt0/s1600/beckenham-kcc.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSo5mH4EpTfL7oJlRagYuFvvQMs9abuirbHC8s3wUvLciif6pnnTDQIaR1F4dZPTNCIaWjFdtL2_VPsaqhOV6ot84dolWjQjRHu4-dKQQHDQmkQy-ldF4bli7U7i4AlYp3ttQx3kZ8Zt0/s400/beckenham-kcc.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">For some people, Beckenham is forever Kent...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
On the other side of Southend Road is the area known
as New Beckenham, developed following the opening of the station of the same name
in 1866. When John Cator acquired this land in 1783, it was a 101 ha farm known
as Copers Cope’s, its name possibly a corruption of ‘Cooper’s Copse’. The 17<sup>th</sup>
century farmhouse still stands on the corner of Copers Cope Road and Southend
Road in Beckenham: it’s off the main route, though you’ll pass it if you follow
the link to Beckenham Junction.<br />
<br />
Cator’s successors initially planned New
Beckenham as an area of big houses surrounded by plentiful space, but much of it
was redeveloped with smaller houses and flats in the second half of the 20<sup>th</sup>
century. As the only remaining large areas of open space became private sports
grounds, this section is a bit of a suburban trudge, but there are some
features of interest.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYGYqI6QNKQhtB1_NDTxoInwBPFFpliBPw5bvfvFO55E8HAKkd204pT_kONIkp_GrzET5Qk5bNxTcChCTB5us1hMZfhQwy9lA9byyihbnRFxqTw_ZuG84QbIw4Avg6jWoKtRzfa9yl3sI/s1600/beckenham-eviiirpillarbox.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYGYqI6QNKQhtB1_NDTxoInwBPFFpliBPw5bvfvFO55E8HAKkd204pT_kONIkp_GrzET5Qk5bNxTcChCTB5us1hMZfhQwy9lA9byyihbnRFxqTw_ZuG84QbIw4Avg6jWoKtRzfa9yl3sI/s400/beckenham-eviiirpillarbox.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rare Edward VIII pillar box in New Beckenham.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Ring follows Stumps Hill Lane, an ‘unadopted’ road not
maintained by the council, but anyone who is at least a little geeky may well
want to continue a little further along Southend Road to where it meets Brackley
Road. The pillar box on the corner looks unremarkable at first glance, but the cypher
reads “EVIIIR”, referring to Edward VIII who reigned for less than 11 months in
1936 before abdicating in favour of his brother, George VI. This was so he
could marry his US-born fiancée Wallis Simpson, who had been twice divorced:
the Church of England disapproved of divorce, and the Conservative government under
Stanley Baldwin threatened to resign if the marriage went ahead while Edward
was still king. Only around 130 pillar boxes survive from his reign: this is
one of 27 in London.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
From the post box you can retrace your steps, cut back to
the trail along Brackley Road or drop out by continuing towards Beckenham’s
historic centre and Beckenham Junction station. The station was plain Beckenham
when opened in 1857 as the initial terminus of the Mid-Kent Railway, linking
Lewisham, on the South Eastern Railway, with Croydon. The original station
building is still in use. It acquired its junction status a year later when the
West End of London and Crystal Palace Railway was extended from Crystal Palace
via Birkbeck and Beckenham to the East Kent Railway at Bromley South, becoming
part of the London Chatham and Dover Railway (LC&DR).<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
By 1860, trains from Beckenham were continuing to the new
London Victoria terminus. As this required the LC&DR using the tracks of
one of its rivals, the London Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR), in
1863 it opened another line from here to Herne Hill, now part of the Chatham
Main Line from London to Dover via Chatham. Since 2000, the station has also
been a terminus for London Trams Line 2, with trams from Croydon using one side
of the line from Birkbeck.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Back on the official trail (and missed if you skip from
the Edward VIII pillar box back to the Ring), you cross the line of the Roman road
to Lewes about two-fifths of the way along Stumps Hill Lane, by the junction
with Stevenson Close, though there’s nothing to see on the ground. I’ve said a
bit more about this road at West Wickham on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/london-loop-4-hayes-west-wickham-common.html">Loop 4</a>. Further on is a reminder
that Beckenham is still regarded as Kent for most sporting purposes. Along Worsley
Bridge Road is the Kent County Cricket Ground, identified by decorative fencing
that includes cricket motifs and the white horse Invicta. Previously the Lloyds
Bank staff sports ground, it’s been a permanent ‘outground’ for the Canterbury-based
club since 2002. Following a 2014 rebuild it now hosts other sports too.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The Ring follows Brackley Road, named after a field on the
former farm, passing St Paul’s Church, built by the Cators to serve the new
estate between 1863-73. Then follows a stretch of Copers Cope Road where several
of the original big villas have survived, largely semi-detached on the west
(right) of the street, detached on the east. The yellow brick houses were built
in 1866, the red brick examples added later, in the 1890s. This little cluster
gives an idea of how the whole neighbourhood might once have looked and is now
a Conservation Area.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The trail runs though a subway under another of the tangle
of railways in the area, the legacy of the irrational and wastefully
competitive development of the network by private companies in the 19<sup>th</sup>
century. This is the 1857 Mid-Kent Railway from Lewisham to Beckenham mentioned
above. Originally trains didn’t stop here: New Beckenham station was added in 1864
to serve the growing estate and a new branch from here towards Addiscombe, with
the intention of reaching Croydon. From Elmers End, this line has been taken
over by London Trams. The first station was a little further south: the current
station replaced it in 1866. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1882, by
which time the line had become part of the South Eastern Railway, a new branch
was opened between Elmers End and Hayes and the station is now on what’s known as
the Hayes Line.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Numerous proposals over the years to create a more easily
navigable network in this part of London have been stymied by well-heeled
commuters who jealously guard their direct trains to the City terminals. The
Hayes Line was among those slated for transferring to Transport for London’s
London Overground network in 2016 but instead the government opted to keep it
within the National Rail system, franchised to a private operator. Another
longstanding proposal to incorporate it into a further extension of the London
Underground Bakerloo Line, currently expected to continue to Lewisham by the
late 2020s, has also made little progress, although it’s among the aspirations
of the current Mayor.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Cator Park and Kent House<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiV2KttbMhK8S26hY0sgEIcTRHcEYBXrMm7wHwiSUn5C-s0kfdKvLw-sMXkFMjlgu6D9IiTUOIodMI3RLz45WdALnjZKbu96lCVfN9nOsvg5onKD05pOffwKOva0tRpaOQsF3YeNW-Xm0/s1600/catorpark.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiV2KttbMhK8S26hY0sgEIcTRHcEYBXrMm7wHwiSUn5C-s0kfdKvLw-sMXkFMjlgu6D9IiTUOIodMI3RLz45WdALnjZKbu96lCVfN9nOsvg5onKD05pOffwKOva0tRpaOQsF3YeNW-Xm0/s640/catorpark.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cator Park: subscription no longer needed.</td></tr>
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<br />
On the other side of the Hayes Line, the Capital
Ring finds its way into <a href="https://www.bromley.gov.uk/directory_record/1212676/cator_park" target="_blank">Cator Park</a>, passing sports pitches and overgrown areas.
In quick succession the trail crosses two streams. First the river Beck mentioned
above, which flows 6 km from Spring Park near West Wickham to the southeast
where it rises just below the London Loop. Then, the Chaffinch Brook which runs
from the southwest, about 3 km from South Norwood Country Park, with another
branch from Monks Orchard. These combine within the park, just off the Ring, to
form the river Pool, which flows roughly north for just over 5 km before joining
the Ravensbourne at Catford. A third, lesser-known waterway joins the Pool
within the park, just north of the Beck/Chaffinch confluence: the river
Willmore rises not far from the Chaffinch Brook in South Norwood Country Park
but now flows entirely in underground culverts.<br />
<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You can just spot the river Beck, which didn't give its name to Beckenham, through the undergrowth.</td></tr>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Over the Chaffinch Brook the trail enters the more formal
area of the park. In mediaeval times this was a damp flood meadow known as
Aldersmead, part of the open land linked to Penge Common although in Beckenham,
but was drained farmland when it became part of the Cator estate. There’s some
irony in the most significant public space in the area being named today after
the family who developed the surrounding estates. This area was kept as a green
space but, in line with their ruthlessly commercial approach, it was never
intended as a public park. Instead it was a private space, Kent House Pleasure
Gardens, which locals had to pay an annual subscription to access. In 1931, it
was bought by Beckenham Borough Council and opened to the public the following
year.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Today much of the park is mowed grass and sports pitches
but there are pleasant areas with shrubs and specimen trees, and the rivers,
though culverted, add extra interest. Here the Ring meets the <a href="https://www.lewisham.gov.uk/inmyarea/sport/get-active/walking/Pages/Waterlink-Way.aspx" target="_blank">Waterlink Way</a>, a
signed walking and cycling route from Greenwich that first follows the
Ravensbourne, then the Pool, part of <a href="https://www.sustrans.org.uk/ncn/map/route/route-21" target="_blank">National Cycle Network Route 21</a>. South of
Cator Park the Waterlink signing peters out but there’s a pleasant onward walk
to South Norwood Country Park and NCN21 continues south all the way to the
south coast and Eastbourne. Two stations are within easy reach of the south of
the park. Clock House on the Hayes Line opened in 1890 when the southern part
of the Cator estate was being developed. Closer by is Kent House on the Chatham
Main Line, opened in 1884.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The Ring has to wiggle about to link the scattered green
spaces, and now loops north again along the edge of the park, crossing the
unseen river Willmore just before the Waterlink Way turns right. Leaving the park,
the trail passes the Harris Girls’ Academy, founded in 1919 and previously the
Cator Park School for Girls: note another white horse of Kent displayed on the building.<br />
<br />
The 1960s houses on the right of Kent House Road, between the bus stop and Beckett
Walk, occupy the former site of Kent House itself, demolished in 1957. With
records showing a house on the site as far back as 1240, this is one of the
oldest known continuously occupied sites in Kent. Originally a farmhouse, it
became a landmark local mansion. In the 1780s it was owned by prominent
Russian-born businessman and Lloyds underwriter John Julius Angerstein
(1732-1823), an art connoisseur whose personal collection formed the core of
what became the National Gallery, though he’s better known for his connections
to Greenwich and Blackheath.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Numerous sources state the house got its name from being
the first house in Kent on the way from London – but as London was only
extended to Sydenham, the next parish north, in 1885 and the name has been
around for centuries longer, this is clearly untrue. Rather, it was the first
house in Kent on the way from Penge, which was historically in Surrey, as
discussed below. So close was the house to the boundary that its residents
exercised commoners’ rights on Penge Common.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The false assumption is understandable as the boundary
between Bromley and Lewisham, which between 1885 and 1965 was indeed the
boundary between Kent and London, is also not far away, to the north. Passing several
‘stink poles’ venting sewers beneath the pavements, following an old field path
that’s now a fenced footpath between school playing fields, the trail
approaches Lewisham again past some modestly pretty Victorian houses. The drive
to Alexandra Playing Fields is just on the Lewisham side, but the trail then
leaves that borough for the last time when it enters the park. Though the line
has been adjusted in various places for administrative convenience, it essentially
follows the historic boundary between Beckenham and the old manor of Sydenham,
part of Lewisham parish and held before the Dissolution by St Andrew’s Priory
in Rochester.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
<a href="https://www.bromley.gov.uk/directory_record/1212663/alexandra_recreation_ground" target="_blank">Alexandra Recreation Ground</a>, where the trail loops south
again, was pasture until the 1880s when it was acquired by the Urban District
Council for public use, opening in 1891. It was named after Alexandra, wife of
the then-Prince of Wales, later Edward VII. It’s been noted in particularly as
a cricket venue and for its bowling green, which is still used. Currently it’s
something of a bland grassy space although there are mature trees and work is
ongoing to improve it, thanks in part to an active <a href="http://www.friendsofcatorandalexandra.com/" target="_blank">Friends Group</a> that looks
after both this and Cator Park. The section alongside Maitland Road was added
to the park in the first decade of the 20<sup>th</sup> century.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Past this, you’re back on Lennard Road again. Alexandra
also gave her name to what’s now a small but distinctive Conservation Area opposite
and to the left along Hardings Lane: the Alexandra Cottages, built after 1866
on the former Porcupine Field by the Metropolitan Association for Improving the
Dwellings of the Industrious Classes. Our way, though, is right towards Penge
East station. Due to the station’s closeness, most people round here think of
themselves in Penge, though the boundaries of that location are problematic, as
we shall see.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Penge<o:p></o:p></h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The crossing and the wall on the right mark the site of Penge Bridge, where the Croydon Canal crossed this road between<br />
what are now two railway bridges by Penge West station.</td></tr>
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Penge is unusual in several ways. Rarely for London,
its inexplicably amusing name is Celtic in origin (the name ‘London’ itself is
another such exception). The original form was probably something like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Penceat</i>, cognate with Modern Welsh <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pencoed</i>, ‘the end of the wood’. The wood
in question was the Great North Wood, the remnants of which will feature
heavily in the next section. For most of its existence, Penge was a remote and
rural location on the eastern edge of this wood, with a cluster of cottages
around a triangular green where St Johns Road joins the High Street, and a
large area of rough pasture, Penge Common, occupying the southeastern slopes of
Sydenham Hill, the highest point in the Claygate or Norwood Ridge of hills
which run across this part of south London.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
In 957, the king of Saxon England, Eadwig or Edwy the
All-Fair, granted Battersea manor to one of his ministers, including an area of
swine pasture at Penge. The latter thus became a ‘detached part’ of Battersea
parish, some 8 km away, which placed it in Surrey rather than Kent. The now-buried
river Willmore mentioned above formed part of the boundary, which explains its
alternative names the Boundary Stream and the Shire Ditch.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
A series of 19<sup>th</sup> century developments prompted the
urbanisation of Penge. The first was the opening of the Croydon canal in 1809, which
brought day trippers from London. Encroachments had already begun by 1827 when
local landowners were successful in extinguishing commoners’ rights and
inclosing the whole common, with some of it parcelled off for building land. The
first house was built by a Scottish silk manufacturer, William Sanderson, who
reputedly named it ‘Annerley’ as it was the ‘annerley’ (only) house on the
common.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
When the canal was converted to a railway in 1839, Sanderson
allowed some of his land to be used by the rail company on the condition a
station was built nearby. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
surrounding area was subsequently developed as housing and today the south of
Penge is generally known as Anerley. The conversion of much of the rest of the
common into a new home for the Crystal Palace in 1853 spurred further growth,
much of it in the form of smaller, denser and more modest homes than in
neighbouring Beckenham. As a result, the population of Penge increased from 270
in 1841 to around 22,500 at the beginning of the 20<sup>th</sup> century.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
By then, Penge had been a part of Surrey, London and Kent.
It was included in the area covered by the Metropolitan Board of Works, a
predecessor of the London County Council (LCC) with limited powers, in 1855,
but remained formally a part of Battersea until becoming a parish in its own
right in 1866. Then when the LCC was created in 1885 it became part of London.<br />
<br />
But
on the creation of the Metropolitan Boroughs in 1900, it was decided for some
reason not to attach it to Camberwell or Lewisham, but to take it out of London
entirely. By then, Croydon, to the south, was a self-governing borough only ceremonially
within Surrey, so putting Penge back into its original county would have meant it
was physically detached from other areas administered by the county council. So
instead it was turned into an urban district and placed into Kent. This
explains why it became part of the London Borough of Bromley when Greater
London was created in 1965.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
There are further anomalies. Penge East station, which the
Ring now passes, was originally known simply as Penge station when it was
opened in 1863 on the Chatham Main Line, though it wasn’t technically in Penge
but in Beckenham, a tongue of which stretched west. The modern houses on the left at 52 and 54 Kingwood Road are squeezed into what was once a gap in the
Victorian terraces which accommodated the boundary, so passing them marks the
Ring’s entry into historic Surrey. I’ve said a little more about the history of
the county on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/london-loop-4-hayes-west-wickham-common.html">London Loop 4</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Reaching Penge High Street, most of the historic buildings
of interest are to the left, including the 1847 Church of St John the
Evangelist, which is mentioned by Nikolaus Pevsner, and the 1839 Royal
Waterman’s and Lighterman’s almshouses. But the Ring turns right towards yet
another station, Penge West. The name of the Bridge House Tavern doesn’t refer
to the railway bridges ahead but to Penge Bridge, the former road bridge over
the Croydon Canal.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Dug in 1809, the canal linked the Grand Surrey Canal at
New Cross, with its connection to the Surrey Commercial Docks and the Thames, to
West Croydon via Forest Hill and Penge, a distance of around 15 km. The canal
was part of a chain of transport infrastructure including the Surrey Iron
Railway, a horse-drawn plateway which linked Croydon with stone quarries at
Merstham: you can read a little more about it on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/london-countryway-21-oxted-merstham.html">London Countryway 21</a>. The Iron
Railway’s London terminus was at Wandsworth, where the Thames was narrower and
less accessible to larger vessels, so the idea was to create a more convenient
connection for goods with the Docklands in the east.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
In the event, the canal wasn’t a commercial success, and
was used more for transporting timber from the docks rather than stone from
Merstham. A planned extension to Epsom was put on permanent hold and in 1836
the canal company sold out to the London & Croydon Railway (L&CDR). Most
of the waterway was filled in and in 1839 one of London’s earliest urban
railways opened along the same route, linking in the north with the London
& Greenwich Railway into London Bridge.<br />
<br />
With various later extensions, this
eventually became part of the London Brighton and South Coast Railway
(LB&SCR) and the Brighton Main Line, though it’s still used for local
trains too, including, since 2010, the London Overground. Like Penge East,
Penge West was opened simply as Penge, and the two weren’t distinguished until
1923. Some of the original 1836 station building still stands though it was
badly damaged in an arson attack in 2005 and has been reconstructed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Some people assume the railway simply follows the old
canal bed but in truth it weaves around the original alignment. Penge Bridge
itself was in between the current rail bridges, a little to the west of the successor
railway. To the north (right) was Penge Wharf with a canal basin. Almost all
trace of the canal has been obliterated: one exception is a little to the south
in Betts Park, Anerley, formerly the site of a popular canalside tea gardens,
where the waterway survives as a concrete-lined ditch. The second bridge
carries the LB&SCR branch line from Sydenham to Crystal Palace which I’ll
say more about at the end of the section when the Ring reaches Crystal Palace
station.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Crystal Palace Park<o:p></o:p></h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfUfu_xSCX7ik8GEv9CNBjnJqepf2to3rUub3Fi0NJ6gB6N2kKi0apCpCckn8FvDMnz1EDCb674MLaCGZrNUpX-xCa0IlVuoINb9rqUXXdiWJFxmDc0l1C2Ns8aK9KY4Tjel6KFRCwNws/s1600/crystal_palace_general_view_from_water_temple-1854-philiphenrydelamotte-w750.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="421" data-original-width="750" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfUfu_xSCX7ik8GEv9CNBjnJqepf2to3rUub3Fi0NJ6gB6N2kKi0apCpCckn8FvDMnz1EDCb674MLaCGZrNUpX-xCa0IlVuoINb9rqUXXdiWJFxmDc0l1C2Ns8aK9KY4Tjel6KFRCwNws/s640/crystal_palace_general_view_from_water_temple-1854-philiphenrydelamotte-w750.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Crystal Palace at its new Sydenham home in the 1850s, viewed from the Italian terrace in a photo by Philip Henry<br />
Delamotte. The south water tower where John Logie Baird later installed an experimental transmitter is visible left. The<br />
arched terraces and flights of steps are still visible on the site. Public domain.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert of
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, is usually credited as the man behind the Great
Exhibition, but it was more likely the idea of Henry Cole, a senior civil
servant and member of the Royal Society for the Arts (RSA) with a keen interest
in improving industrial design. Cole was inspired by the Exposition des
produits de l'industrie française, held in Paris in 1844, and imagined a
similar exhibition showcasing not only British products but international ones
too. The prince was RSA president at the time, though, and was actively
involved in piecing the event together. Taking place between May and October
1851 in Hyde Park, the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations
was an overwhelming success, with over 6 million visitors and a profit of £186,000,
used for founding the South Kensington museums.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The event was judiciously timed. The disruption and
immiseration unleashed by the rapacious advance of industrial capitalism over
the previous decades had inevitably prompted resistance. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Communist Manifesto</i> was published in 1848, just as a succession
of revolutions began in mainland Europe. Though the UK avoided a full-scale revolution,
mass demonstrations and strikes throughout the 1840s, many of them mobilised
around the Chartist movement, seriously unsettled the authorities, who often
responded with violent repression. But as the 1850s began, rebellion was in
retreat: as Albert observed in a letter to his cousin Friedrich Wilhelm IV,
King of Prussia: “We have no fear here either of an uprising or an
assassination.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The window was therefore open for initiatives that
attempted to head off future rebellion by suggesting that ordinary people had a
stake in the system too and that the Victorian blend of capitalism and
imperialism could deliver scientific and technological progress and prosperity
for all. And while, unlike its Parisian inspiration, the Exhibition boasted substantial
contributions from overseas among its more than 14,000 exhibits, no opportunity
was missed to push home the message that British was best.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Such a spectacular event demanded a spectacular venue which
itself embodied cutting edge technology. After a competition failed to produce
a suitable design, Cole brought in greenhouse architect Henry Paxton, who proposed a
prefabricated building which could be constructed quickly. The result was the
Crystal Palace, built in a mere nine months from cast iron pillars and girders
supporting 300,000 of the largest glass panels yet made, a staggering total of
almost 10 million m2 of glass held in place by 40 km of guttering. The building
was 564 m long, with a central arch soaring 39 m overhead, and enough room in
its transepts to enclose a row of mature elm trees already growing on the site.
The total exhibition space was 92,000 m2, just under half the entire total of
today’s National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The Great Exhibition committee weren’t the first organisers
of a large-scale event to face the issue of what to do with the infrastructure
after the crowds have gone. Paxton favoured retaining the building in Hyde Park,
but the government was reluctant. His friend Leo Schuster, a board member of
the LB&SCR, suggested a site he had bought known as Penge Place, part of
the old common. Schuster helped form a new Crystal Palace Company to buy
further land and relocate the building to a lofty site at the pinnacle of Sydenham
Hill, overlooking a newly landscaped park and pleasure grounds packed with
additional attractions.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
More money was spent landscaping the park than rebuilding
the palace, including the construction of a remarkable system of lakes,
cascades and fountains, the tallest of which shot a jet 76 m high. The first
water tanks collapsed from the sheer weight of water needed to feed it all, and
Isambard Kingdom Brunel was brought in to design two massive water towers
flanking the palace. The building itself wasn’t simply reconstructed but
redesigned, and enlarged still further, its impressiveness heightened by a
series of terraces decked with statuary and neo-classical architectural
features. Elsewhere were Italian and English gardens, a Great Maze and several
sports grounds, including a stadium which was the venue for the FA Cup Final
between 1895 and 1914 and the birthplace of Crystal Palace Football Club, now
in the Premier League, in 1905.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Although the Palace itself was in Penge, the park
encompassed land in both that parish and the tongue of Beckenham that stretched
west across the hill, though the boundary was later redrawn to place the whole park in the London Borough of
Bromley. Not only the county boundaries but also several historic parish
boundaries converged in this part of London, and today you can visit Bromley,
Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark boroughs on a short walk from the old
palace site.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The new, improved Crystal Palace opened in 1857, but
though it rapidly became a famous attraction was never successful in recouping
the initial investment. It didn’t help that until 1860 Sunday opening was
blocked by religious objectors, when Sunday was the only day off most potential
visitors had. The owners struggled to cover the high maintenance costs and by
the 1890s parts of the site had visibly deteriorated, further undermining its
appeal. The company went bankrupt in 1911, and the complex was brought into
public ownership under the Ministry of Education with funds raised by public
subscription. Following World War I when the Royal Navy operated a shore
station here, management was passed to a charitable trust which began restoration
work, launched an imaginative events programme and, in 1928, added a speedway
track, all of which helped bring in a modest profit.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Then, one evening in November 1936, when the Palace was
closed to the public, a small fire in an office area grew into a massive
conflagration which, despite the efforts of 438 firemen with 88 fire engines,
destroyed the building overnight, except for the water towers. The powerful draughts created by the fire rushed through the pipes of the palace's giant pipe organ, creating a discordant noise as if the building was moaning in its death throes. The glow could
be seen all over London: my mother, who grew up in Eltham, has an early
childhood memory of it. Winston Churchill was among the spectators and
commented that “this was the end of an age.” The cause of the fire has never
been determined: given the building’s mixed fortunes, there were rumours of
arson, though these have never been substantiated, and an accidental
explanation is more likely.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The military reoccupied the site during World War II,
demolishing the water towers to prevent their use as navigation aids by German
bomber pilots. The Trust took over again after the war, then in 1951 the site
was passed to the London County Council. It was inherited through the Greater
London Council by the London Borough of Bromley, which manages it today as the
<a href="http://www.bromley.gov.uk/crystalpalacepark" target="_blank">largest park in the borough</a>. It’s still a remarkable space, and splendid in
parts, but its fortunes have continued to be somewhat mixed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
In the late 1950s, the park became the home of the
<a href="https://www.better.org.uk/leisure-centre/london/crystal-palace/crystal-palace-national-sports-centre" target="_blank">National Sports Centre</a>, covering and extending beyond the footprint of the
football stadium. As well as unsympathetically disrupting the line of the
former Grand Central Walk from the palace terraces down the hill to the Penge
entrance, its design hasn’t worn well, and parts of it also now look neglected.
It had something of a makeover for the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games
when it was a training venue for the Brazilian team. It’s now owned by the
London Development Agency with a view to redevelopment but there are no firm
plans: a proposal by Crystal Palace FC to turn it into their home stadium seems
to have been abandoned.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Palace and park played a key role in the history of
television. In 1933, Scottish-born pioneer John Logie Baird, who lived nearby,
took advantage of the elevation by using the south water tower for test
transmissions. Following the 1936 fire, he relocated to Alexandra
Palace in north London, from where the first public service began the same
year. Baird was back in the tower in the early part of World War II, before it
was demolished, working on secret military technology.<br />
<br />
The television
connection was revived in 1956 with the commissioning of the BBC’s Crystal
Palace transmission tower, now privatised and mainly used for radio under the
name Arqiva Crystal Palace, on the site of the old aquarium not far from the
opposite, northern water tower. At 219 m, this was the tallest structure in
London until the building of the first Canary Wharf tower at One Canada Square,
and is now the fifth tallest, dominating the view of much of this section of
the Ring.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Through the Penge gate, the trail starts along the broad
avenue of the Grand Central Walk, which once ran 811 m from here to the palace.
There’s a visitor centre nearby, and various alternative routes around the park,
including a signed Green Chain Walk link that passes close to the Royal Naval
Volunteer Reserve memorial, one of the surviving lakes, the maze and the
concert bowl before connecting with the Green Chain branch to Nunhead via
Dulwich. The Green London Way meanwhile rejoins us from the right, having used
parts of that Green Chain branch and other paths from Thames Barrier Gardens in
the last section.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
But the Ring dodges
off left, passing the park café which at the time of writing was closed for
rebuilding. It passes the LCC-commissioned 1961 sculpture <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gorilla</i> in polished black Belgian marble by David Wynne
(1926-2014), modelled on western lowland gorilla Guy, a famous resident of
London Zoo. Wynne said he wanted to convey his awe and terror of the animal,
while creating something appropriate for children to climb on.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Many more zoological representations, though of a
different kind, lie ahead in the Dinosaur Park, the best-known and most
extensive remnant of the 1850s pleasure gardens. Distributed on a scattering of
islands in an irregularly shaped lake that was once the main reservoir for the water features are 33 individual life-sized sculptures of
‘prehistoric monsters’, comprising a virtual Victorian version of Jurassic Park.
They were created in 1854 by natural history artist Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins
(1807-94) with the help of palaeontologist Richard Owen (1804-92), the man who
coined the word ‘dinosaur’.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Based on fossils kept at the British Museum, they reflect
the best scientific knowledge of the time: some of them are now thought to be
inaccurate but they’re still impressive and hugely popular, providing one of
the highlights of the Ring. As <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Scientific
American</i> columnist Darren Naish says, they are “an outstanding example –
perhaps the ultimate example – of an exciting, world-changing, public outreach
campaign involving innovation, novelty, pluck and clever design on a scale not
seen before, or indeed since.” Nearly all the original sculptures have been preserved
and were recently carefully restored, though some other features of the area
including the waterline were changed in a less sympathetic 1960s renovation.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Dinomania is nothing new and the big reptiles have long
drawn the greatest visitor interest, but the park is laid out to provide a more
rounded and educational view of prehistoric wildlife: the plants chosen are as
far as possible appropriate to the time periods. The first beasts you’ll see
are extinct mammals: giant Irish elk on the Quaternary Island. Next along is
Bird Island, which was originally intended to house a statue of a Moa, but this
was cancelled as funds ran low and the island is still empty. Tertiary Island
also has mammals including a rather terrifying giant ground sloth climbing a
tree, and opposite the lakes is a ‘geological illustration’ showing layers of
rock and coal deposits.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The reptiles are next, and you’ll need to divert a little
from the trail and closer to the lakesides to see them all. The Secondary
Island has iguanadon, megalosaurus, hylaeosaurus and a scattering of
pterodactyls, and then there’s a lazy-looking marine scene with Jurassic
animals like plesiosaurus, ichthyosaurus and teleosaurus: originally all of
them were beached but some now lie half-in the water. Finally, Primary Island
at the far end has dicynodon and labyrinthodon. I’m particularly fond of the
ichthyosaurus with its curiously plated eyes, although it’s now regarded as one
of the least accurate reconstructions: the animal was likely much more
fish-like, aquatic rather than amphibious and with a dorsal fin. There’s much
more information on the <a href="http://cpdinosaurs.org/" target="_blank">Friends of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs</a> website, and the
main park also has a <a href="http://focpp.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Friends Group</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
There are live animals rather than sculptures at the
<a href="https://www.capel.ac.uk/crystal-palace-park-farm.html" target="_blank">Children’s Farm</a>, which the trail passes just after it leaves the dinosaur park,
including sheep, goats, alpacas, exotic lizards and guinea pigs. Since 2008,
this has been run by Capel Manor College, a specialist horticultural and
agricultural further education college based in Enfield, as both a training facility
and a visitor attraction, open most afternoons with free admission. It’s worth a
look, and some of the animal pens are visible from the trail itself.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
A cheerful mural of cartoon dinosaurs in a train indicates
you’re nearly at Crystal Palace station. As mentioned above, board members of
the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) were instrumental
in setting up the Crystal Palace project, so it’s no surprise that this, the
first of two stations to serve the site, was operated by the LB&SCR when it
opened in 1854.<br />
<br />
At first, it was the terminus of a branch from Sydenham,
crossed by the Ring when it passes under the second bridge after Penge West.
Today, a branch of the London Overground East London Line uses the terminal
platforms. In 1856 it became a through station with trains continuing
to Norwood and Streatham, and later to Victoria, via a 690 m tunnel through the
hill which passed right under the south water tower. Two years later it was linked
to Beckenham via the Crystal Palace and West End of London extension mentioned
above. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Built to resemble a French château, with a grand and
gloomy partly vaulted interior described by numerous commentators over the
centuries as cathedral-like, the station is now just a little out-of-scale with
current levels of its use. Large parts of it were shut off in the 1980s when a
glazed ticket hall designed in imitation of the palace was bolted on to the
south side. This went in 2012 when the original booking hall was reopened as
part of the Overground improvement work, and the venerable Grade II-listed
edifice is at last getting something like the care it deserves. I used to think
of it in the same way as Windsor and Eton Central, visited on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/london-countryway-5-windsor-marlow.html">London Countryway 5</a>, another elaborate Victorian station built to accommodate a much more
intensive service than it currently offers. But though Crystal Palace is no
longer welcoming the huge crowds it was intended for, thanks largely to the Overground its cavernous spaces are more populated than they’ve been in decades.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
There are other route options at the station. The Green
Chain Walk Southwark branch ends there, and the Green London Way parts company
from the Ring again, taking an alternative route to Norwood Grove where we’ll
meet it again in the next section. Following either from here will take you
close to the terraces and the site of the palace itself, and the Way runs close
to the small and independently-run <a href="http://www.crystalpalacemuseum.org.uk/" target="_blank">Crystal Palace Museum</a>, open on Sundays in an
1880 building that was formerly part of the on-site School of Practical
Engineering.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
If you’ve never been to the terraces, they’re well worth a
visit. In 1953, the US poet and experimental film-maker James Broughton shot a
short film, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Pleasure Garden</i>,
here. An allegory of desire and repression unexpectedly starring comic actors
Hattie Jacques and her husband John Le Mesurier, it unfolds in a much more lush
and overgrown setting than you’ll find today, something of a magic garden
dotted with Victorian statuary. Most of this has gone, but two sphinxes still
flank a stairway, a couple of badly-damaged statues rise from plinths, and a
long line of narrow arches provides shoulders to support the upper terraces.
Further down the hill, an 1889 bust of Paxton by William F Woodington glowers
over the concrete mess of the sports centre.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The palace site itself is partly an open grass space,
partly recolonised by woodland. Behind it, beside a driveway that leads to
Crystal Palace Parade, is a lone fragment of white-painted cast iron from the
original building. A further treasure lies beneath your feet here: an arched
subway under the Parade, supported by graceful pillars clad in decorative
tiling.<br />
<br />
This once connected the palace with a second station, Crystal Palace
High Level, opened in 1865 at the end of a new branch line from the London,
Chatham and Dover Railway at Nunhead to compete with the LB&SCR. The line
closed in 1954: some of it is now a footpath used by the Green Chain Walk
Southwark branch. The station was demolished in 1961 though the subway survived
and has been used intermittently since as both as an official and unofficial
events venue. It’s currently closed for safety reasons but has an active
<a href="http://www.cpsubway.org.uk/" target="_blank">Friends Group</a> who hope to open it regularly.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The years since World War II have witnessed a succession
of proposals for the crest of the hill, none of which have so far been realised.
A plan for a new exhibition hall was abandoned in 1968, then a mid-1990s scheme
for an entertainment complex with events venues, cinemas, restaurants and bars
collapsed in 2001 after vociferous local protests, particularly over the loss
of green space and woodland.<br />
<br />
A revised London Development Agency plan was
approved following a public inquiry in 2010 but cancelled after funding was
withdrawn. Most recently, a Chinese developer submitted a proposal to build an
accurate reconstruction of the palace, which sounded too good to be true and
was duly withdrawn in 2015. So, the former home of this Victorian wonder
remains a ghost site which, surrounded by the remaining paraphernalia of the
terraces, looks like the long-abandoned stage of some giant theatre.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge3bMNeU43nnT5xwiPk19g_AWEL5eNWE-xlIue9kJSLVrBst0q_kVqOmQWDoV9Yo9RHj4d4kaKsvTFuT4rV1086wo7oeU8Z7wekvEQuQqqNvY9Zc2vctVltHMYz1LMOHtDv9E9yloLkG4/s1600/crystalpalacestation-mural.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge3bMNeU43nnT5xwiPk19g_AWEL5eNWE-xlIue9kJSLVrBst0q_kVqOmQWDoV9Yo9RHj4d4kaKsvTFuT4rV1086wo7oeU8Z7wekvEQuQqqNvY9Zc2vctVltHMYz1LMOHtDv9E9yloLkG4/s640/crystalpalacestation-mural.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dinosaurs on a train: someone should have snapped up the film rights. Crystal Palace station.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<ul style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<li><a href="https://innerlondonramblers.org.uk/ideasforwalks/capital-ring-guides.html" target="_blank">Ramblers Capital Ring guides</a>. These are currently the most up-to-date detailed walking guides and maps. Check this page too for current diversions and problems.</li><li><a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1dEzj8toHFPhGR8hjigYqpojJJYA&usp=sharing" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Google Map</a></li><li>My original <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/omd7czea5txjf89/3-grovepark-crystalpalace.pdf?dl=0" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Route description</a> (PDF), not recently updated and included here for completeness.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<br />Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-13490132729733702022017-12-19T17:01:00.003+00:002024-01-17T14:48:44.297+00:00Capital Ring 1/2: Woolwich - Grove Park<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiAjbbOvbJKIOIUDpFYI3pwL-XgXwd_1pZ4uKofM37NBG20psDBrNOh8-0G5I1xel3llc4F68cHeOotyW9bA0SGyfOGTRBCgK7sqcf-WREShr8-y-uITCWIh_UTF7AuI4QcaytjqBCWYc/s1600/elthampalacemoat.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiAjbbOvbJKIOIUDpFYI3pwL-XgXwd_1pZ4uKofM37NBG20psDBrNOh8-0G5I1xel3llc4F68cHeOotyW9bA0SGyfOGTRBCgK7sqcf-WREShr8-y-uITCWIh_UTF7AuI4QcaytjqBCWYc/s640/elthampalacemoat.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gothic bridge across the moat at Eltham Palace, where a mediaeval drawbridge once stood.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
The Capital Ring gets off to a splendid start,
climbing from the wide vistas of the Thames Path at Woolwich through a chain of
parks in Charlton, across Shooters Hill and through Oxleas Woods, one of the
most extensive and beautiful areas of ancient woodland in inner London. The
trail then passes historic Eltham Palace, takes an ancient lane through a
surprisingly rural landscape to Mottingham and follows the river Quaggy to
Grove Park. For most of the way, from near the Thames Barrier onwards, it
shares its paths with the Green Chain Walk.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
In this post, as in most others, I’ve tackled two official
sections at once. The official break point is at Falconwood, though there are
numerous other stations and bus stops. This is one of the most rugged sections
of the route, particularly through Oxleas Woods, reaching the highest point on
the trail at 128 m.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoBodyText"><br /></div><div class="MsoBodyText"><i style="font-weight: bold;">Note</i>. This section of the Capital Ring almost entirely duplicates the Green Chain Walk. The corresponding GCW sections are 5 from the Royal Greenwich Trust School on Woolwich Road via Maryon Wilson Park to Oxleas Woods Café; a short section of 7 to the junction in Oxleas Woods; 6 to Mottingham Lane; and 8 to Grove Park.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
Woolwich<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4zv5SeUYQdbbfHJGKB5ye73Ukzkje4uP_eMYdFkXPw5vIaL4L-dW8VaArhXe7lPtaHh1iu094826XLHWFgiwifu4y_8KhPRmoGjK_KBwWnLy3B4RQnrb8p5if3uH1Zmj9qa36LM8cfH4/s1600/woolwichferry.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4zv5SeUYQdbbfHJGKB5ye73Ukzkje4uP_eMYdFkXPw5vIaL4L-dW8VaArhXe7lPtaHh1iu094826XLHWFgiwifu4y_8KhPRmoGjK_KBwWnLy3B4RQnrb8p5if3uH1Zmj9qa36LM8cfH4/s640/woolwichferry.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Woolwich Ferry, one of London's best free rides.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
The south bank of the river Thames from Deptford
downstream was historically part of the county of Kent, the successor to an
Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Kent was once divided into ‘lathes’ and then into
‘hundreds’, and this northwest corner of the county was part of the Lathe of
Sutton-at-Hone and the Hundred of Blackheath. For some notes on Kent in
general, see my post on the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/london-loop-alternative-dartford.html">London Loop alternative</a> from Dartford to Crayford.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
On
the water’s edge, the surroundings are naturally flat and marshy, historically
used for rough pasture and later for the sorts of industries that required
plenty of space. But travelling south from the riverside, the land rises
rapidly into a ridge of low hills, thrown up about 40 million years ago by the
same geological incident that created the Alps, when the tectonic plates
carrying Africa and Europe collided. As elsewhere in London, chalk underlies
the surface, but it’s covered by a layer of gravels, sands, silts and clays
deposited around 55 million years ago and known as Woolwich Beds.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Historically, settlements here tended to stick to the
heights, or squeeze onto outcrops of firmer ground nearer the river. A Celtic <i>oppidum</i> or fortified town stood on the
riverside at Woolwich from the Iron Age, the only one of its kind known in the
London area, re-occupied in the later part of the Roman era as a fort
protecting the approaches to London. In Anglo-Saxon times the place was most
likely a quiet fishing village, perhaps with a sideline in river-borne trade.
The name means ‘trading place for wool,’ though no other evidence of an ancient
wool market has been found. Woolwich was first granted a market charter in 1618
but a market of some sort almost certainly operated before this: its early
history is also unknown.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
From the early 9<sup>th</sup> century, most of Woolwich, except
for some riverside quays, was held by a Flemish Benedictine abbey,
Sint-Pietersabdij in Gent. Between the 12<sup>th</sup> and 14<sup>th</sup>
centuries, the lands became part of the neighbouring manors of Dartford to the
east and Eltham to the south, although Woolwich was usually considered a
distinct sub-manor within Eltham. The area was particularly susceptible to
flooding, but was considered important enough for the monarch to charge various
people and bodies with the upkeep of river walls and dykes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
To the south, roughly paralleling the Thames but avoiding
its marshes, runs one of Britain’s most important historic highways, Watling
Street. Between them, the road and the river, and the easy transport links they
provided, encouraged a finger of ribbon development to creep along the
riverside from the capital. There are traces of industry such as pottery and
shipbuilding in Woolwich dating back to at least the 15<sup>th</sup> century.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
But the overwhelming influence on the shape of the modern
town is its long association with the military and the navy. This dates from
the reign of Henry VIII, who first grasped the idea that naval power was the
key to dominance as the emerging European states rivalled with each other to
establish spheres of influence across the world. Henry chose Woolwich as the
location in 1512 for the first of three naval dockyards along this stretch of
the river – the dockyard at Deptford followed in 1513, with another, smaller
yard in Erith (on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/london-loop-1-erith-bexley.html">London Loop 1</a>) operational by 1515.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
All were within easy reach by river of each other and the
royal palace at Greenwich, and the facility at Woolwich enjoyed a location
where, in the words of late 18<sup>th</sup> century historian Edward Hasted, “the
channel lies direct east and west for about three miles [4.8 km], the tide runs
very strong, and the river is entirely free from shoals and sands, and has
seven or eight fathoms [12.8 – 14.6 m] water; so that the largest ships may
ride with safety, even at low water.” Henry’s flagship <i>Henry grace à Dieu</i> or <i>Great
Harry</i> was built at Woolwich and fitted out at Erith for its launch in 1515.
50 m long, weighing more than 1,000 tonnes and with a crew of up to 1,000, it
was the biggest ship yet built, but turned out to be unstable and top heavy and
saw little active service. Its fate is unknown: it may have been destroyed by
fire and abandoned close to its birthplace at Woolwich in 1553.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
East of the dockyard was an area of riverside land
historically used as a rabbit warren: this passed into private hands after
Henry seized the abbey lands during the Dissolution in the late 1530s. Part
became a ropeyard which served the dockyard (there were 400 ropemakers in the
town by 1744), the rest an estate attached to a mansion known as Tower House.
By the 1650s a wharf next to the ropeyard was used by the Board of Ordnance to
store guns, which were tested on the warren with the owners’ permission. A gun
battery was installed to protect the river in 1667, and in 1671 the Board
swapped its ownership of the gun wharf for the rest of the Tower House estate.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Originally it was primarily used as a storage depot, but
with the establishment of the Royal Laboratory in 1695, it began producing
explosives, fuses and shot. The Royal Artillery Regiment was founded on the
site in 1716 and the Royal Military Academy in 1741. Early in the 19<sup>th</sup>
century these two institutions moved south to occupy an extensive chunk of
Woolwich Common, leaving the Warren to grow into what became known from 1805 as
the Royal Arsenal, ultimately the biggest arms factory in the UK. The presence
of dockyard and arsenal draped large parts of Woolwich in the veil of official
secrecy: for many years both sites appeared as blank spaces on maps.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The parish of Woolwich became an official part of London
in 1885 when it was placed under the jurisdiction of the new London County
Council, and in 1900 it was combined with the neighbouring parishes of Eltham
and Plumstead to create the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich. When London was
expanded into Greater London in 1965, the boroughs were reorganised, and
Woolwich was merged with Greenwich as the London Borough of Greenwich. All but
the very end of this section of the Ring is in the borough, which since 2012
has been known as the Royal Borough of Greenwich – a fact you won’t fail to
notice from public signs thanks to an enthusiastic rebranding campaign.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmeFl1O1CqKdC7p5yYxR8NfO2UlpTTxejAnPqW280wR-O60mwu1HNp140rdKGwjgwqbooH3R7f8rycOKGL95Gn2N2ct5urEfzN-Dfd-G7OZ0-dan0AyX0v8ufSvTCuvyrMYqS_v8ObucY/s1600/woolwicharsenalstation.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmeFl1O1CqKdC7p5yYxR8NfO2UlpTTxejAnPqW280wR-O60mwu1HNp140rdKGwjgwqbooH3R7f8rycOKGL95Gn2N2ct5urEfzN-Dfd-G7OZ0-dan0AyX0v8ufSvTCuvyrMYqS_v8ObucY/s640/woolwicharsenalstation.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1990s Moderne: Woolwich Arsenal station.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Our walk starts at Woolwich Arsenal station, opened in
1847 as Royal Arsenal station on the South Eastern Railway’s (SER) North Kent
Line from Strood to Deptford, where it connected with the London and Greenwich
Railway into London Bridge. The Arsenal, incidentally, had its own railway
system predating the public railway. Much of it was narrow gauge, but there
were also standard gauge lines which connected into the SER near Plumstead. Thanks
to the various military installations, Woolwich was already a busy place before
the railway opened, but the new station only encouraged further expansion, prompting
further growth around the station and helping shift the nucleus of the town
from the riverside.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The station has been rebuilt several times. The
distinctive ticket hall with its curved glazed walls and lantern nods at the
Moderne style of the 1920s but is in fact the work of British Rail architect
Nick Derbyshire, dating from 1993. In 2009 the station became an interchange
with the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) with the opening of a branch from
Canning Town via London City Airport and under the Thames to a terminus here.
Connections will improve further at the end of 2018 when a new station on the
Elizabeth Line (formerly known as Crossrail 1) opens just a short walk away on
the Royal Arsenal site. But one transport option no longer available is the
tram: the very last service on London’s original street tram network left
nearby Beresford Square for New Cross Gate in July 1952, taking more than three
hours to navigate the crowds of cheering Londoners lining the route.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
General Gordon Square, facing you, lies directly over the
railway tracks. This was originally an open cutting, known as the Smoke Hole by
local market traders who had to contend with the discharge from steam
locomotives soiling their goods. It was finally covered over in 1928 after many
years of public protest, creating a public space named after military hero
Major-General Charles George Gordon (1833-85). He’s best known as Gordon of
Khartoum as he was in command during the year-long siege of the Sudanese city by
opponents of British and Egyptian rule under local religious leader Muhammed
Ahmad, the ‘Mahdi’, and was killed in action two days before a relief force
arrived. Gordon was born in Woolwich and attended the Royal Military Academy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The square owes its present appearance to a makeover for
the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and is the first of numerous
Olympic legacies we’ll encounter on the Ring. Greenwich’s honorary ‘royal’
renaming was partly in commemoration of its role as one of the six ‘Olympic
Boroughs’ (the others were Barking and Dagenham, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets
and Waltham Forest), with three games venues including the Royal Artillery
Barracks just up the road, appropriately used for the shooting events, as well
as Greenwich Park and the O2. General Gordon Square was a designated ‘Live
Site’ where coverage of the Games was relayed to the big screen that still
stands today.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Overlooking the square on the right is the imposing
Woolwich Equitable Building, built in 1935 for the building society of the same
name. Designed to inspire the confidence
of members and investors, it adopted a hybrid of art deco and Baroque revival
styles, with an impressive three-storey frontage in Portland stone topped by a
tiled mansard roof.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The society itself was founded in 1842 on a temporary basis,
and became one of Britain’s first permanent building societies five years
later. Today it’s probably more strongly linked with the town in the popular
imagination than the Royal Arsenal, thanks to a popular advertising campaign in
the 1980s under the slogan “I’m with the Woolwich”. But like the Arsenal, it no
longer exists – it moved from Woolwich to Bexleyheath in 1989, turned itself
into a bank and was absorbed by Barclays in 2006. In 2011 its former home, now
Grade II listed, was converted into shops, a pub and various small offices.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The route passes the DLR station entrance and grazes the
edge of Beresford Square, the main location of the street market which now
operates six days a week. The original market site, as chartered in 1618, was
to the west nearer the river: the Beresford Square market was originally an
unofficial alternative favoured by traders keen to avoid tolls and enjoy
increased footfall in what was rapidly becoming the <i>de facto</i> centre of town. The market survived various attempts by
the authorities to suppress it and was finally legitimised in 1879.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Now apparently marooned in the square is a brick
gatehouse, the Beresford Gate which once formed the main gate to the Arsenal
complex. The ground floor of this was built in yellow brick in 1829 and named
after William Beresford, then Master-General of the Ordnance and governor of
the Royal Military Academy. The red brick upper storey was added in 1891. It’s
now owned by the council though rarely open.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The official Capital Ring link from Woolwich Arsenal
station follows a roundabout route via the Royal Arsenal complex and then along
the Thames, but I’ve opted for a more direct alternative via the streets of the
town centre. The Arsenal is well worth a detour, though there will be more of an
opportunity to discover it on future walks along the Thames Path, and I’ll say
a bit more about it then. At its peak during World War I, the site covered 530
ha and employed 80,000 people. Among the institutions to emerge from it are
Arsenal Football Club (1886), now in North London; the Royal Arsenal
Cooperative Society (1868), an important part of the Cooperative movement; and
the Peace Arsenal campaign, which successfully implemented the ‘swords into
ploughshares’ principle here for a few years after World War I.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Military activities declined in stages from the later part
of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, with dire consequences for local employment.
The Royal Ordnance Factory closed in 1967 and the eastern section of the site,
including much open land used for testing, was sold off to the Greater London
Council to build the new town of Thamesmead. In 1986, the land closest to
Beresford Square was used for road widening – thus the current marooned
location of the gatehouse, which was, amazingly, at first threatened with demolition
under the same scheme. The rest of the site remained in Ministry of Defence use
until 1994. It has subsequently been redeveloped, though with many of the
historic buildings conserved, with the former blank space finally opened to
public access in 2008. Building is still ongoing and eventually there will be
5,000 new homes here.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Woolwich is certainly no stranger to redevelopment: nearly
all the old town centre between Beresford Street and the river has long since
vanished under successive attempts to sweep away what was once regarded as one
of the worst slums in London. An 1847 source quoted by Nikolaus Pevsner and
regularly requoted since contrasted the Arsenal, with its military order and
imposing buildings, with its surroundings, “the dirtiest, filthiest and most
thoroughly mismanaged town of its size in the Kingdom”. Beresford Square itself
was not a planned space, owing its current shape to 1960s slum clearance. The
A206 road built in 1986 roughly follows the line of the old High Street from the
west and then turns south to trace the line of long sheds where rope was once
made, disrupting the former street pattern as well as cutting off the gatehouse
from the Arsenal.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The quickest way to the riverfront is along the busy and
part-pedestrianised shopping streets north of Beresford Square, which began to
develop in the late 18<sup>th</sup> century when Woolwich New Road was built to
link the Arsenal and the military establishments on the common, but now have a
decidedly 20<sup>th</sup> century appearance. Among Woolwich’s more trivial
distinctions, the McDonalds on Powis Street is the very first branch of the US
fast food chain in the UK, opened in 1974.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Finally, you cross the A206, here named High Street –
though it’s hard to imagine this busy dual carriageway as the commercial centre
of an ancient town. The parish church, dedicated to St Mary Magdalene, is over
to the left, on the other side of the busy roundabout where the A206 crosses
the South Circular Road and the ferry approach. Its history dates back at least
to Saxon times, although the current building dates from 1739 and is located a
little to the south of the original site. Just a few steps away on this side of
the roundabout is a more recent religious institution, the Cathedral of Christ
Faith Tabernacle, occupying a former showcase art deco Granada cinema built in
1937 with a lavish Gothic-style interior, now Grade II*-listed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The 1970s Waterfront Leisure Centre in front of you as you
cross the road covers a site that was once dense with narrow streets lined with
poor housing, the so-called Dust Hole where in the mid-19<sup>th</sup> century
up to five families lived in a single room. Between the centre and the
adjoining slipway, you follow an alley to the riverside which preserves its old
name, Bell Water Gate.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The slipway to your right shadows the river access to
the original dockyard where <i>Henry grace à
Dieu</i> was constructed, now buried under the adjacent car park. The same site
housed the gun wharf where the Arsenal began, then from 1893 a power station
which was demolished in 1919. To the south of this, on the corner of the alley
and the High Street, was Market Hill, the official market site from 1670 and
once home to the parish cage and stocks. On the other side of the car park,
downstream towards the Arsenal site, is the location of the Celtic settlement,
now a public park, Maribor Park. The leisure centre itself is due for
demolition to make way for another new residential quarter with five towers,
replaced by a facility in the town centre where swimmers will no longer enjoy a
view of the Thames.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Reaching the riverside, you turn upstream along the
official Capital Ring link. This is also the Thames Path, or rather the Thames
Path Extension, not officially designated as a National Trail but a
continuation of the riverside walkway created by Greenwich and Bexley councils
as part of National Cycle Network Route 1. It will eventually also form part of
the English Coast Path as far as the southern portal of the Woolwich Foot
Tunnel, which you soon encounter tucked away in a yard behind the leisure
centre. This is where you’ll emerge when you complete the last section of the
Ring, and it’s on the route of another trail, the Jubilee Greenway, indicated
by the pavement plaques.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6H8_1y6_HNMmNqeVSmgR7pVOuWX7P7lE_41CkCFkaEX2LQZ8aE4IDxhLc9RNb7T_2WT0TTGlUCx7USz-ylIJjigSML8MvbMzBp63_epewUr4qc7BfSDvZG2lmo1K78BdUd7fnvnXjr9E/s1600/woolwichfoottunnel.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6H8_1y6_HNMmNqeVSmgR7pVOuWX7P7lE_41CkCFkaEX2LQZ8aE4IDxhLc9RNb7T_2WT0TTGlUCx7USz-ylIJjigSML8MvbMzBp63_epewUr4qc7BfSDvZG2lmo1K78BdUd7fnvnXjr9E/s400/woolwichfoottunnel.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Woolwich Foot Tunnel southern portal: conveyor of many trails.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Amazingly, this curious little red brick rotunda is now
the oldest building in the riverfront area of Old Woolwich: the tunnel opened
in 1912, thanks largely to the efforts of ex-docker and local Labour MP Will
Crooks, who commissioned it as chair of the London County Council’s Bridges
Committee. Back then, the area around the tunnel portal on the opposite side,
North Woolwich, was also officially within Woolwich: incorporated into the
mediaeval manor, it was for centuries the only part of Kent on the north bank
of the Thames, an anomaly only resolved in 1965.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The alley leading from the tunnel to the ferry approach
preserves another name from the old days, Glass Yard, running past the control
building for the Woolwich Free Ferry. There’s been a ferry here since Saxon
times, and it’s referenced in the Domesday survey. The link gained in
importance with the growing naval and military presence in Woolwich and in 1810
the Army established its own ferry. A commercial service provided by the
Eastern Counties and Thames Junction Railway from 1846 soon proved inadequate, and
in 1889 the London County Council launched a free steamer link, commissioned by
its predecessor the Metropolitan Board of Works. The ferry incidentally helped
level some of the slums of Old Woolwich, demolished to make way for a new ferry
approach and pier.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
In the 1920s the Woolwich Free Ferry became part of an
orbital road route around London, linking the ends of the North Circular and
South Circular roads in the east. But by the end of that decade it was already
struggling to cope, and conversion to the current RORO (Roll On Roll Off)
system in 1966 only temporarily eased the burden. Now operated by Briggs Marine
for <a href="https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/river/woolwich-ferry" target="_blank">Transport for London</a>, the ferry remains a bottleneck for road traffic,
particularly when the one-boat service is in operation weekends and evenings
and the vehicle queues back up along the South Circular.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
But it's a
delight for walkers and cyclists, providing a free ride and wide views along
this straight stretch of the Thames. There have been numerous proposals for
replacing it with fixed links and/or a ferry crossing further downstream, none
of which have so far borne fruit, and the service, which is specified under an
1885 Act of Parliament, is likely to continue for the foreseeable future: new
boats are currently on order and should be in service from 2019.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
Woolwich Dockyard<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2MExVvQEqIcoYCujZd24sD-PhjCFtD1nqpHNhweTMrzfPAfhdaZJvzQM-CM0MLIL9CmPe7MTpSeCjuvipoA5Qsq0EZDuSm99C9JULUa2ioIsuh0BbzlesLn5Xe_S0CmDOZaURpetLIf4/s1600/woolwichgravingdocks.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2MExVvQEqIcoYCujZd24sD-PhjCFtD1nqpHNhweTMrzfPAfhdaZJvzQM-CM0MLIL9CmPe7MTpSeCjuvipoA5Qsq0EZDuSm99C9JULUa2ioIsuh0BbzlesLn5Xe_S0CmDOZaURpetLIf4/s640/woolwichgravingdocks.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Once dry, forever wet: one of the former graving docks at the Royal Naval Dockyard, Woolwich.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
In the 1540s, the Royal Dockyard moved a little
upriver to what became known as the King’s Yard, a less restricted site
upstream of what’s now the ferry approach. In the 17<sup>th</sup> century it
had become a relatively minor installation in comparison to Deptford and newer
naval dockyards at Plymouth and Chatham, but its fortunes improved in the 18<sup>th</sup>
century when for a time it was the most productive shipyard in England,
expanding further upriver in the 1780s to double in size, most of it
constructed by convict labour.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
It was particularly busy during the Napoleonic
wars of the early 19<sup>th</sup> century, but soon afterwards output began to
decline in the face of two challenges: river silting reducing depth, and the
restricted space of the site as ships continued to increase in size. But the
dockyard still managed to build several important vessels, including, in 1830,
HMS Beagle, the ship that took Charles Darwin to South America and Australasia.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The development of new technology brought new life to the
dockyard. From 1831 it acquired a specialist role as the main naval steam
factory, both manufacturing and repairing steam engines. Once again, though, it
was eventually outgrown by yards elsewhere, at Portsmouth and Devonport. The
last wooden battleship built for the Royal Navy, HMS Repulse, emerged from the
yard in 1868 and it finally closed the following year.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
But as naval activities declined in the town, ordnance
activities increased, and the site was converted into additional storage for
the Arsenal, complete with a private railway: the tunnel under the main road
which connected this to the SER is now a pedestrian subway, though a little off
our route. In the early 20<sup>th</sup> century part of the site was used by
the Army for administrative purposes: during World War I it housed the largest army
pay office. In 1926, the newer western section was sold off to the Royal
Arsenal Cooperative Society. The eastern part remained in Ministry of Defence
hands for a few more decades as an adjunct to the Arsenal, but was finally
demilitarised in 1966, following the closure of the Royal Ordnance Factory. In
the early 1970s much of it was redeveloped into a social housing estate by
Greenwich council, preserving some of the late 18<sup>th</sup> century
buildings.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Little obvious remains today of the easternmost part of
the Yard: first there’s a derelict patch surrounded by a hoarding, destined for
yet more residential development, and then the cluster of upmarket flats from
the early 2000s at Mast Quay. But the two slipways you cross along the
riverside promenade, though reinforced with modern gabions, correspond to the
positions of two similar facilities on John Roque’s 1746 London map. The larger
one was once a dry dock used for repairs.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
You could easily miss these thanks to the distraction of
the view, upriver through the cowls of the Thames Flood Barrier to the O2
(formerly the Millennium Dome), the towers of Canary Wharf and peeking above
all these the Shard at London Bridge. This view has changed beyond recognition
since I first walked this way in the mid-1990s. It confirms not only how
determinedly London has finally caught up with the skyscraper age but how its
centre of gravity has slowly migrated downriver, occupying the vacuum left by
declining maritime industries, the reason for its trading pre-eminence in the
first place.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Further on, you reach the 1970s housing estate and some
more substantial reminders of the past: two docks behind railings on the left.
Back in the 1540s these were the heart of the complex: the original pair of ‘graving’
docks in which keels were laid and ships assembled, originally kept dry in
normal use. They’ve been rebuilt several times and are now permanently flooded,
having been repurposed as placid ponds popular with local anglers, though looking
increasingly littered and neglected recently. Although the docks themselves are
reduced in size, their footprint gives an idea of quite how limited the
facilities here became as ships grew, even after the western dock (the second
you pass) was enlarged in the early 17<sup>th</sup> century to accommodate two
vessels end-to-end.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Between the docks is a rather neglected pavement mosaic
depicting zodiac signs which has nothing to do with the surrounding heritage
but commemorates Elfrida Rathbone (1871-1940), a pioneer of education for
children with learning difficulties. Her special school in Kings Cross led to
the formation of two charities, one of which, Rathbone, which provides
work-based training for young people and adults with special needs, installed the
mosaic in 1986. Further on is Gun Drill Battery, once the main landing place
for the dockyard. In 1847 a battery was built here as an exercise facility for
the Royal Marines stationed on the site. It’s been heavily restored and the
guns aren’t the original ones – their carriages are 2005 reproductions – but
you can still appreciate its ‘spectacle’ structure, with two linked stepped
platforms behind low fort-style walls facing the river.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
A path from the battery provides a link to Woolwich
Dockyard station, also on the North Kent Line. It takes you past some of the
surviving historic buildings, including the Clock House, completed in 1884 and
now a community centre, and the preserved main gates. But the Ring stays on the
riverside path, over a white stepped cantilever footbridge known as the
Linkbridge, installed in 2000 (there’s an alternative but more roundabout route
avoiding the steps). You may be surprised to find this crosses nothing more
substantial than a wall, but since this is part of the flood defences, they
couldn’t just knock a hole in it instead.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
On the other side of the wall is the western part of the
dockyard, sold to the Royal Arsenal Coop in the 1920s. The land nearest the
river was redeveloped in the 1990s as the King Henry’s Wharf housing estate, including
a new stretch of riverside promenade, but unfortunately the Ring can’t make use
of the whole length of this as it reaches a dead end where access is still
blocked. Before you turn away from the river, pause for a good look at the
Thames Flood Barrier, completed in 1984, as this is the closest you’ll get to
it on the official Ring route. The cowls conceal the lifting machinery for ten
gates that normally rest on the river bed, but can be rotated to close off the
river completely against tidal surges. As other trails like the Green Chain
Walk and Thames Path visit the barrier itself, I’ll say more about it in a
later post.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The steam factory mentioned above was located in this
section of the dockyard, and some of its buildings remain, most obviously the
55 m octagonal brick chimney built in the late 1830s, which looms ahead on the
corner of Ruston Road. The boiler shop to which it was once attached has been
demolished. Some of the original steam factory buildings, including the smithy
and brass foundry, renamed the Commonwealth Buildings by the Coop, remain on
the south (left) side of Ruston Road, but otherwise the scene is much changed
since the dockyard’s heyday.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Where the flats now stand on the north of the
road, there were once two large water-filled ‘steam basins’, big enough for
ships to moor up while their engines were fitted or repaired. The national
Cooperative Wholesale Society, which eventually took over the Royal Arsenal
Coop, still operates businesses in some of the buildings further away from the
river.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The next site upriver was once home to another major
industrial undertaking, though of a commercial nature. In 1863, the
Berlin-based telegraphy company Siemens built a cable factory here, which
became one of several competing cable-making sites along the stretch of the
river from Greenwich to Woolwich. The factory subsequently expanded into making
telephone, signalling, wireless, measurement and lighting equipment, and at its
peak in the 1940s employed 9,500 staff.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
During both world wars, the plant was
seized by the government as enemy property. After various mergers and takeovers
in the 1960s it finally closed in 1968, a major upheaval to the local economy.
Much of the site was then split into smaller units as the Warpsite Road industrial
estate: this is also now due for redevelopment which, when complete, will
provide an uninterrupted riverside walkway to the Barrier and beyond.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Meanwhile you’re forced along the busy A206 Woolwich Road,
with the former Siemens site to your right. The road is an old-established
inland route connecting the riverside towns of Greenwich, Charlton, Woolwich,
Plumstead and Erith across the lower ground between the river and Watling
Street, but it’s certainly no country track today. Marooned among the industry
is a late Victorian primary school, Windrush School, built in 1896 as Maryon
Park School, and next to it, the strikingly contemporary Royal Greenwich Trust
School, designed by architects Walters & Cohen, which occupies part of the
Siemens site and reuses some of its buildings.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
This was opened in 2013 with the
support of the University of Greenwich as part of the government’s short-lived
attempt to create a network of University Technical Colleges (UTCs), teaching
technology, construction and engineering to older secondary students. But
admissions were much lower than expected, and in 2016 it was converted to a
conventional secondary school.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOOz_kpITW8n5pV-Z4n106n_gyxvG5I360n8iwJDcV_s1xhA71E2Ii7Y5MsGFLSQyn01beQmg3KuyiSX1VL7QYfzsMuUl4G8SqJB97fa7Cd5YRRCV45eCnUzaUgsTatWNNs9o9thU3dCY/s1600/thamesbarriergardens-signs.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOOz_kpITW8n5pV-Z4n106n_gyxvG5I360n8iwJDcV_s1xhA71E2Ii7Y5MsGFLSQyn01beQmg3KuyiSX1VL7QYfzsMuUl4G8SqJB97fa7Cd5YRRCV45eCnUzaUgsTatWNNs9o9thU3dCY/s400/thamesbarriergardens-signs.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lost in the forest of signs at Thames Barrier Gardens.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
At the Warpsite Road roundabout, the trail crossed a
former parish boundary into Charlton, which until 1965 was also the division
between Woolwich and Greenwich boroughs. Just past the schools, a strip of
parkland, Thames Barrier Gardens, leads down to the barrier itself, through
more land once occupied by Siemens. The Thames Path, Jubilee Greenway and
National Cycle Network 1 all head this way to regain the riverside. This is the
point where the Ring joins the Green Chain Walk, a branch of which starts at
the barrier: we’ll be sharing paths with the Green Chain for the rest of this
section and all of the next. You could make a detour to the barrier here –
there’s a useful visitor centre and café as well as the view. But for now I’ll
stick with the main Ring route, which turns south, climbing onto higher ground
through Charlton’s remarkable chain of parks and green spaces.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
Charlton and its parks<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
The next parish and manor upriver from Woolwich,
Charlton undoubtedly existed for many centuries before being recorded in the
1086 Domesday survey, but there’s also evidence of even earlier settlement
nearby. The name is from the Old English <i>ceorltūn</i>,
a <i>ceorl</i> being a freeman (later spelt
‘churl’ and the root of the names Charles and Carl) and <i>tūn</i> the regular suffix for a farmstead, the root of the modern
‘town’. There are numerous other Charltons, and this one has occasionally been
distinguished under the name Charlton-next-Woolwich. After the Norman conquest
it was briefly one of the many manors assigned to Archbishop Odo of Bayeux (see
my commentary on Crofton on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/london-loop-3-petts-wood-hayes.html">London Loop 3</a>), and was given in 1093 to Bermondsey
Abbey, which held it until the Dissolution.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
There were numerous lords of the manor after this, but
perhaps the most significant is Adam Newton, who rebuilt the manor house in
grand style as Charlton House, of which much more later, and began to landscape
the surrounding estate. Between the Woolwich Road and the immediate surrounds
of the house was a thick woodland known as Hanging Wood, a reference to the
steepness of the Thames terraces here as they ascended from the river to the
plateau occupied by Charlton village, as the trees seemed to hang on the slopes.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Intermittent sand quarrying over the centuries made this terrain even more
precipitous, and in the 17<sup>th</sup> century the wood was regarded as a
dangerous place, a refuge of highwaymen who operated on nearby Shooters Hill
(though there’s little truth in the popular assumption that the wood got its
name because miscreants were hanged here when caught).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
In the 18<sup>th</sup> century, the manor descended to the
Maryon-Wilson family, and by the 19<sup>th</sup> century the wood had been
tamed as a desirable feature of the park, which according to John Marius
Wilson’s <i>Imperial Gazetteer of England
and Wales</i> in 1872 afforded “a charming walk; and some sand pits in the
vicinity present great attractions to geologists.” The family gave the section
of woodland closest to the Woolwich Road, including several of the pits, to the
London County Council in 1891 for use as a badly-needed public park in what was
now a heavily populated area. One of the pits, Gilbert’s Pit, is now a separate
area where the geological layers revealed by the quarrying have been conserved,
designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). An alternative Green
Chain loop runs through this, so I’ll deal with it another post.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The official Ring route is through <a href="https://www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/directory_record/3777/maryon_park" target="_blank">Maryon Park</a> proper,
crossing the North Kent Line in its deep cutting and emerging into a formal
urban park with grassy lawns, tennis courts and surrounding shrubbery. You
wouldn’t guess it was a former sandpit, except for its location at the bottom
of a steep, shrubby slope, which gives it a secluded, almost melancholy
atmosphere. It was doubtless this which prompted innovative and influential
Italian arthouse film director Michelangelo Antonioni (1912-2007) to choose it
as one of the key locations for his first English language film <i>Blowup</i> (1966).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The film stars David Hemmings as that stalwart Swinging
60s type, a successful but disconnected fashion photographer, who believes he
may unwittingly have photographed a murder taking place just inside the
woodland that fringes the park. Vanessa Redgrave is a woman who tries to
retrieve the incriminating film. The
tennis courts feature prominently in the enigmatic closing scene where a group
of mime artists use them to mime a tennis game. There’s a story that the lawns
weren’t vivid enough for the director, who had them covered with green paint.
Despite a gap of over 50 years, those familiar with the film will instantly
recognise the location, which has changed little, doubtless partly because of
its links to a work that has become a cultural icon of its time.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Steep steps climb the cliff face to the summit of Cox’s
Mount. Just to the west (right) here, overlapping the site of Gilbert’s Pit,
was a Celtic hill fort, later occupied by the Romans and excavated in the early
20<sup>th</sup> century. The strategic location of this high point overlooking
the river is obvious, and the promontory was once a familiar navigation aid for
Thames shipping.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Across Thorntree Road (formally Hanging Wood Road) is
another portion of Hanging Wood that’s now a public park. This is <a href="https://www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/directory_record/3778/maryon_wilson_park" target="_blank">Maryon-WilsonPark</a>, given to the LCC by the family a little later, in 1924. The gift included
a small fallow deer herd – the origin of the animal park which is now probably
the park’s best-known feature. The deer are descended from the stock donated in
the 1920s, and have since been joined by goats, pigs, ducks, geese and
chickens. In 2010, Greenwich council decided to get rid of all of them as a
cost-cutting measure, but a vociferous local campaign led by the parks’ active
<a href="http://www.friendsofmaryonparks.org/" target="_blank">Friends group</a> persuaded it to reconsider. Instead the animal park was divested
to an independent charity, but this turned out not to be viable, so in 2015
this modest but much-loved local attraction passed back into council hands.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Further on, there’s a particularly pretty section through dense
vegetation dotted with mature trees, where the trail runs alongside a small
brook – the closest the Ring gets to invoking the atmosphere of the old Hanging
Wood. Since 2004, incidentally, both parks and pit have comprised a designated
Local Nature Reserve.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8I1lHUu7Ko6tc0Og3xy-jmGpNN9ToS54C0U986uuVSl6v571MGR3HJXmen4B574MhYCIT51hhoGyax1cS7IkUZvc4PH1L3m6T0IzNDEzloDVSy4FjtHwmXDBt9zzhHaaNMPPu5TR0r8s/s1600/charltonhouse.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8I1lHUu7Ko6tc0Og3xy-jmGpNN9ToS54C0U986uuVSl6v571MGR3HJXmen4B574MhYCIT51hhoGyax1cS7IkUZvc4PH1L3m6T0IzNDEzloDVSy4FjtHwmXDBt9zzhHaaNMPPu5TR0r8s/s400/charltonhouse.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Charlton House glimpsed from the Ring: a possibly sinister past.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Across another road is another park, <a href="https://www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/directory_record/3763/charlton_park" target="_blank">Charlton Park</a>. Today
this is mainly a disappointingly featureless expanse of sports pitches, though
with several attractive avenues of mature trees, some small but delightful
garden areas and no less than three useful refreshment options. And it’s of
great historical interest as it’s been created from the gardens and inner park
attached to <a href="https://www.greenwichheritage.org/visit/charlton-house" target="_blank">Charlton House</a>, the biggest and best-preserved Jacobean mansion in
London and one of two especially fine domestic buildings on this section of the
Ring. If you follow the official route, rather than the obvious short cut
straight across the pitches, you’ll get a good view of the house, which is well
worth a detour for a closer look.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Alternatively, there’s an easy walk from Charlton station,
also on the North Kent Line, which goes right past the house. This isn’t an
official link – the signed Ring route to the station sticks to lower ground,
branching off on the northern edge of Maryon Park and passing the Valley, the
stadium of Charlton Athletic Football Club, which currently plays in League
One, actually the third tier of English soccer. The club was founded in 1905
and has been based here, with a few gaps, since 1919, in another of the sand
pits carved from Hanging Wood. But the alternative link is particularly
recommended as it includes Charlton’s historic village centre as well as the
house. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The village stands at the crossroads of two old roads:
Charlton Hill, which climbs from the Thames towards Watling Street, and
Charlton Park Road, linking Blackheath and Plumstead over the high ground above
the river: these briefly merge to pass the house. Charlton retains a
surprisingly village-like appearance so far within inner London, with pubs,
shops, church, war memorial, red K2 phone box and manor house clustered round a
small green at the road junction.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
One of the pubs, the Bugle Horn, was knocked
together from three late 17<sup>th</sup> century cottages, while the White Swan
dates from 1889. St Luke’s Church is Grade II*, completed in the 1630s as the
latest of a series of churches dating back to at least 1077 on this site
fractionally down the hill. It combines the architecture of its day with
traditional Gothic styling, and contains numerous features including its
original font and pulpit and several monuments to occupants of the house.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The aforementioned Adam Newton (1560?-1630) was
responsible for the church as well as the house, though it was completed posthumously
by his executors using a bequest in his will. Born in Scotland, Newton is best-known
as the personal tutor to Henry Frederick Stuart (1594-1612), Prince of Wales
and eldest son of the first king of both England and Scotland, James I and VI.
He later became Dean of Durham, and undertook various scholarly works and
translations.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The house is often misattributed to architect Inigo Jones
but it’s more likely the work of another architect, John Thorpe, with several
more recent alterations. It’s an elegant three storey red brick mansion with
contrasting stone dressing, built on an H-shaped plan and surmounted by a
charming clock tower. The main entrance, framed by carved and moulded stone, is
particularly impressive, and the interior includes a grand Jacobean staircase.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
It’s
particularly striking in the context of its surroundings, “like finding an
epigram in the middle of an official report,” as architecture critic Ian Nairn
put it. Used as a hospital in World War I, it was finally sold by the
Maryon-Wilsons to Greenwich council in 1925, though since 2015 has been managed
by an arms-length charity, the Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust. Parts of it are
open as a café and library, with rooms rented to community groups. But much of
it remains closed to visitors, except by special arrangement.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
On the village side of the house is a separate garden-house
or orangery of the same period, which suffered the indignity of being converted
into a public lavatory, now closed. Next to this is a venerable mulberry tree,
planted in 1608 and perhaps the oldest of its species in the UK. It’s a remnant
of one of James I and VI’s pet projects, to establish silk industries in both
England and Virginia. Unfortunately, he imported and planted the wrong kind of
tree, <i>Morus nigra</i> or black mulberry
from the Middle East, rather than the East Asian white mulberry (<i>M alba</i>) preferred by silkworms. The prettiest
gardens, including the remains of a walled garden, are to the south of the
house.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
There are numerous strange stories connected with the building.
Newton had a rather undocumented past, leading a local writer, Ron Pepper, to
speculate in a ‘hidden history’ privately published in 1985, that he was a
member of secret society the Priory of Sion. His student Prince Henry, the heir
apparent, died aged 18 – according to Pepper, he was disposed of because he
failed to comply with the Priory’s plans to control the throne.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Bad luck is
said to have plagued subsequent owners and residents: Newton’s son, also named
Henry and a good friend of diarist John Evelyn, who regularly visited from his
home in Deptford nearby, picked the wrong side in the Civil War and was forced
to sell the estate. East India merchant William Langhorn died childless in 1714
and is said to haunt the place still. Spencer Perceval (1762-1812) was (so far)
the only British prime minister assassinated in office, shot in the House of
Commons lobby, not by a revolutionary but an obsessive who believed the
government had not done enough to help his wife when she was imprisoned in
Russia. Then, workers repairing World War II damage found the remains of a boy
in a chimney breast, either a baby or an adolescent depending on which account
you hear.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Speculation about the house has been fuelled by some of
the more bizarre details of its decoration, both inside and out: “the most
exuberant and undisciplined ornament in all England,” according to Pevsner. You
don’t have to look far to spot gargoyles, grimacing faces, human-animal
chimerae and horned demons. The faces on the staircase get uglier as you climb.
Current manager Edward Schofield explains this by pointing out they were intended
to <i>deter</i> rather than invoke evil
spirits, who were thought to prefer the upper floors, which therefore required
enhanced deterrence. Nairn finds the result melodramatic in a decidedly
Germanic way, “like a stray from some Baltic waterfront…[which] suddenly erupts
into sinister poetry.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
An inspiration for the demonic faces might
be found in the even more notorious Charlton Horn Fair. In 1238, Henry III
granted Bermondsey Abbey the right to hold both a weekly market and an annual three-day
fair at Charlton, around Trinity Sunday eight weeks after Easter. The market
ceased in the mid-17<sup>th</sup> century, but the fair, which by now had been
moved to start on St Luke’s Day, 18 October, persisted for more than two
centuries, taking place on a now-vanished green between the house and the
church.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Annual fairs contributed to the business of agriculture and industry by
providing networking and trading opportunities, but they also had a social and
recreational function for a population which otherwise largely did manual work
from dawn to dusk on every day except Sundays. They became both carriers of
folk traditions and an important pressure valve for people living hard and
short lives.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The Horn Fair evolved into one of the most popular of such
events in the southeast, and by the mid-18<sup>th</sup> century was attracting
more than 15,000 people, many of them arriving in flotillas along the river.
Its name derives from the tradition of participants wearing horns on their
heads, drinking from them and blowing them as instruments. The horned ox is one
of the traditional symbols of St Luke, but horns are also associated with the
pagan tradition of Herne the Hunter and of course the Judaeo-Christian Devil.
And they have a sexual connotation too: cuckolds, the husbands of adulterous
wives, are traditionally said to wear horns.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Until 1768, the celebrations began
with a lengthy procession, starting at Cuckold’s Point beside the Thames on the
tip of the Rotherhithe peninsula. There’s a legend that this got its name when
King John bribed a miller who lived there to let him have sex with his wife,
but more likely the name derives from the procession.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Indeed, the fair became particularly notorious for its
licentiousness, drinking and sexual activity, as well as perpetuating the folk
tradition of the ‘world turned upside down’, with commoners assuming the roles
of monarchs, politicians and priests. Edward Walford in <i>Old and New London</i> (1878) coyly terms it “a carnival of the most
unrestrained kind”, and quotes a mid-17<sup>th</sup> century source who
describes revellers “disguised as kings, queens, millers, &c., with horns
on their heads; and men dressed as females.” Others described it as “the rudest
fair in England.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
While such events were an acceptable part of mediaeval
life, as society became more complex and polarised, the ruling class looked on
them with increasing concern. At best, they were unrespectable, an excuse for
immoral and sinful behaviour. At worst, they were enablers of sedition and
rebellion. Charlton, sniffed novelist Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), was:</div>
<blockquote>
…a village famous, or rather infamous for the yearly collected
rabble of mad-people, at Horn-Fair; the rudeness of which I cannot but think,
is such as ought to be suppressed, and indeed in a civiliz'd well govern'd
nation, it may well be said to be unsufferable. The mob indeed at that time
take all kinds of liberties, and the women are especially impudent for that
day; as if it was a day that justify'd the giving themselves a loose to all
manner of indecency and immodesty, without any reproach, or without suffering
the censure which such behaviour would deserve at another time.</blockquote>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Objectors were particularly concerned that such behaviour took
place right next door to a church, and in 1819 the event was moved to an area
known as Fairfields on the other side of the village. Concerns about the
potential consequences of “the mob” became sharper still as the fair took on an
ever more proletarian character, following both local industrialisation and,
from the 1850s, the railway, which made it accessible from all over London. It
was finally suppressed by Parliament in 1874. In 1973 it was revived as a
rather more sedate and family-friendly community event in the park – it’s
tempting to say “a pale shadow of its former self.” Since 2009 the parade from
Cuckold’s Point has been revived too. The new Horn Fair at first took place in
June, but since 2015 it’s returned to its traditional slot around St Luke’s
Day.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The next park along the Ring, reached by following the
slightly inaptly-named Inigo Jones Road and crossing Prince Henry Road, is
known as Hornfair Park, but only in commemoration of the event, not, as is
sometimes assumed, because it ever took place here. Opened in 1936, the park
was another part of the estate bought by the council, conserved as an open
space when the surrounding streets were built up. Today it’s essentially a
straightforward patch of grass: the unruliest it gets is the confected urban
ruggedness of the BMX track, opened in 2013 as another Olympic legacy.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Woolwich Common<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh08-X8-ND1ZCcxfzQzIPyZOivuur7v3IU7YbzSdpeEPbnaYwQn1wjSjJkor0IJn9TlVR_JsCIwKxqT5GUY2vxsgLcoH4eT5OriNfEJD-ta-Y0j6WBC2aqAZ7CVBCXZRO3RdauaO5LoVG8/s1600/woolwichcommon.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh08-X8-ND1ZCcxfzQzIPyZOivuur7v3IU7YbzSdpeEPbnaYwQn1wjSjJkor0IJn9TlVR_JsCIwKxqT5GUY2vxsgLcoH4eT5OriNfEJD-ta-Y0j6WBC2aqAZ7CVBCXZRO3RdauaO5LoVG8/s640/woolwichcommon.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The wild heath of Woolwich Common, still owned by the Ministry of Defence.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The Ring emerges beside the evocatively-named
council tower blocks of Greenwich Heights and crosses back into Woolwich by
entering Woolwich Common. This is the first of several examples on the trail of
a preserved London common – originally an area of rough ground thought
unsuitable for crops, nominally belonging to the lord of the manor, but which
local people – the commoners – had a right to use for specific purposes.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
During
the inclosures of the 18<sup>th</sup> and 19<sup>th</sup> centuries, hereditary
owners often attempted to fence off commons, extinguish commoners’ rights and
dispose of the land to their own advantage. The fragments that survive in
London are usually there because such attempts were resisted through popular
protest and the courts, though the latter were often unsympathetic. Woolwich is
something of a special case, as the threat came not from a greedy aristocrat
but from the Army and the state.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
In mediaeval times, a wide and desolate heath stretched
across the high, sandy ground between Woolwich and Watling Street, very much
like Blackheath further west. Officially, it was part of the Eltham Palace
estate, of which more later, and therefore belonged to the Crown. But local
people exercised their traditional rights to graze animals during certain
seasons, to cut turf and to gather firewood. The parish poor were additionally
entitled to gather gorse, used as fuel and fodder for cattle and horses.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
I’ve already recounted how Woolwich had developed by end
of the 18<sup>th</sup> century into a major naval and military centre. Both the
Royal Artillery Regiment and the Royal Military Academy had been based
alongside the Royal Arsenal on the Warren since they were founded in 1716 and
1741 respectively. But all three institutions were expanding and space there
was getting tight. In 1776, the Army began building a new Royal Artillery
Barracks on a site overlooking the northern side of the common. Completed in
1802, this still boasts the longest building façade in the UK, though as it’s
off our route and closer to another section of the Green Chain Walk, I’ll say
more about it in a later post. Then between 1796 and 1805 a new home for the
Royal Military Academy was constructed on the Common’s eastern edge.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Given the military’s desire for space not only for
building but for drilling and exercises, the temptation of all those open acres
already under state ownership right in front of their spanking new buildings
must have proved too much for the top brass. In 1802, the Army bought both
Woolwich and the adjoining Charlton Commons and extinguished commoners’ rights
under a series of Acts of Parliament, though at first only the northern part of
Woolwich Common, adjoining the Artillery Barracks, was fenced off. But the
barracks was already overcrowded and soldiers soon began building their own
shanty towns elsewhere on the Common. These became rife with diseases like
cholera but the Army did nothing, and it was left to Lady Maryon-Wilson to
replace them with new and better huts.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Just beyond the point where you cross over onto the common
is the extensive complex of Queen Elizabeth Hospital, opened in 2001 as a
replacement for several closed local hospitals and now operated by the
Greenwich and Lewisham NHS Trust. It’s been in the news a few times as it’s one
of the hospitals created under the ill-fated Private Finance Initiative (PFI)
system promoted by Tony Blair’s New Labour government. In 2012 it became the
first hospital to be put into ‘special measures’ largely thanks to the huge
deficit racked up by repaying £1million a week to the private sector under its
PFI contract without being able to claim redress for problems resulting from
poor design and cost-cutting during construction.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
But in the 18<sup>th</sup> century this site was also open
heathland, geologically an extension of Woolwich common but known as Charlton
Common as it was on the other side of the parish boundary and attached to
Charlton manor. By the time the Army claimed it, some of it had already been
inclosed by the Maryon-Wilsons and annexed to their park, and part of this
later became Charlton Cemetery.<br />
<br />
By the 1850s there was a straggling camp of
army huts on the remaining open ground, the work of both the Artillery and the
Cavalry. Once again there were health issues, including a diptheria outbreak, so
the camp was replaced by permanent buildings known as Shrapnel Barracks in the
1870s. The barracks grew until it had eradicated all that remained of Charlton
Common, and was itself replaced by the Queen Elizabeth Military Hospital,
opened in 1977 and closed due to defence cuts less than 20 years later in 1995.
The current NHS hospital is the result of an extensive rebuild though some
elements of the 1970s buildings remain.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Further encroachments followed throughout the 19<sup>th</sup>
century, prompting local disquiet which finally coalesced in 1928 with the formation
of the Woolwich Common Joint Committee, prompted by a proposal to build a
nurses home attached to one of the military hospitals. The Committee pushed to
regain public access to some of the encroachments and to institute joint
management which protected public use.<br />
<br />
The military resisted the Committee’s
demands, but eventually a delicate compromise was reached which has held ever
since. The Commons are still technically under Ministry of Defence (MoD)
ownership, but significant areas of Woolwich Common are now managed as public
space, with permissive access to some other parts. Since 1975, Woolwich Common
and its surrounds have formed a designated Conservation Area, and it’s also a
Site of Borough Importance for Nature Conservation.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Today, the Common remains the last part of Woolwich with a
significant military presence, although it’s being progressively demilitarised.
The Royal Military Academy closed in 1939, though the site was used as a
garrison until decommissioning in 2002. A redevelopment as private flats has
just been completed. The Royal Artillery vacated its barracks in 2007: it was
subsequently used by other regiments and as a venue for the shooting events of
the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games but is now due for closure by 2028.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Crossing the Common, a fine vista opens on the left,
looking northwards towards the Thames and across its valley to Essex. This is a
good place to appreciate the differences in soil and vegetation between the
sparser and more heath-like northern side, on the left, which is on sands and
Woolwich beds, and the southern side on London clay, which is lusher and more
meadow-like. The path then turns south just inside the common perimeter, but a
short detour ahead affords a look at the newly redeveloped Royal Military Academy.
Just before you leave the Common, on your right, is the site of a covered
reservoir dug by convict labour in 1848 but never used. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The Ring reaches the busy junction where Academy Road, the
South Circular Road south from Woolwich Ferry, crosses the east-west line of
Shooters Hill Road. The latter is part of Watling Street, historically one of
the most important highways in Britain. Built just before the year 50 by the
Romans, partly along the line of a Celtic and possibly pre-Celtic trackway, it
linked Wroxeter, St Albans and London with the Channel ports and then onward
via ferry to Rome. Much of it has remained in use as a highway since.<br />
<br />
This section
was turnpiked in 1718 by the New Cross Turnpike Trust as far as Dartford,
providing an important part of the overland route from London to Rochester,
Canterbury and Dover. In the 1920s it was designated as the A2, though its
function as a trunk road was superseded with the construction of a new dual
carriageway to the south, which we’ll cross later, and it’s now the A207. For a
bit more about the road’s history, see my post on the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/london-countryway-alternative-gravesend.html">London Countryway 17b</a>,
which crosses it south of Gravesend.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The road stays well away from the Thames marshes, taking
instead to the high ground south of the river. Here, it behaves as a
stereotypical Roman road, charging in a near-straight line over the summit of
Shooters Hill, to your left and now surmounted by a water tower. At 129 m, this
is the 10<sup>th</sup> highest point in Greater London (and was once the 2<sup>nd</sup>
highest point in the old London County Council area), though the Ring passes
just below it. The hill was once known for its mineral springs and in the 18<sup>th</sup>
century there were proposals to build a spa town, later abandoned. During World
War II, an important anti-aircraft battery was based here.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
There’s a legend that the hill’s name derives from the
road’s unwelcome popularity with highwaymen, though more likely it commemorates
a mediaeval archery practice area. Nonetheless, armed robbery was once a
recognised nuisance here. This was a particularly isolated stretch of what by pre-20th
century standards was a very busy road, with a steep incline that slowed horses
down and plenty of hiding places for the ill-intentioned in the woods and
common on both sides. Dick Turpin is said to have operated on the Hill although
if he had been active in all the places that claim him, he’d have spent most of
his waking hours riding rather than robbing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
But there are numerous other accounts, and in 1810 a
tunnel under the hill was proposed to sidestep the problem. Some of the stories
contributed to the romantic image of highwayman as charming rogues. In 1719,
newspapers reported several robberies on the road within a few weeks, conducted
“all in a polite manner”. In 1752, a young victim asked his assailants to let
him keep a shilling for the coach hire: “they refused,” says the report, “but
otherwise behaved very complaisantly, shook hands with him and wished him
goodnight”.<br />
<br />
As I said in my writeup of another historic crime hotspot, Hounslow Heath on
<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/london-loop-1112-kingston-hatton-cross.html">London Loop 9</a>, most highwaymen were more likely desperate and violent
characters rather than folk heroes, with only an early death to look forward
to. The corpses of those caught and hanged were displayed near
the scene of their crimes <i>pour encourager
les autres</i>. Samuel Pepys records one such gibbet on Shooters Hill in April
1661, and “such a filthy sight it was to see how his flesh is shrunk to the
bones”.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
You’ll cross towards the southeast corner of the junction,
where a gallows once stood. In 1852 this was replaced by a yellow brick police
station, making Eltham the only part of the Metropolitan Police District with
two such facilities, the one here thought necessary to deter crime on the road.
In 1915, a new and much bigger red brick police station was added next door,
right on the corner. Both are now in residential use, though the solid and
subtly fortified appearance of the more recent building reflects its original
function. On the opposite, southwest, corner is another military remnant, the
Herbert Hospital, built for veterans of the Crimean War in 1865, closed in 1977
but derelict until the 1990s when it was converted to flats.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Oxleas Woods<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghOwZv-hIyb5ilNNJ5i5J7gL3yWAfysLS4mi6QrHDK6WngmEdV33y8LkP3ix55H0WjCt7OKekpTSibE96x9W6-upTm-f0BXuyKeZpT9vywk3Vy5RC-YaElKJiqjIomr3WyBcKlPKEZets/s1600/oxleaswoods-castlewoodgardens.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghOwZv-hIyb5ilNNJ5i5J7gL3yWAfysLS4mi6QrHDK6WngmEdV33y8LkP3ix55H0WjCt7OKekpTSibE96x9W6-upTm-f0BXuyKeZpT9vywk3Vy5RC-YaElKJiqjIomr3WyBcKlPKEZets/s640/oxleaswoods-castlewoodgardens.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking south across the terraces of the former Castlewood House in Oxleas Woods.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If you’ve enjoyed the Capital Ring so far, it’s
about to get even better. The next 5 km is almost entirely off-road, through a
chain of outstanding green spaces, including one of the most extensive and
lushest tranches of ancient woodland in London and one of the capital’s
quirkiest buildings. There are several distinct areas of woodland – Castle
Wood, Jack Wood, Oxleas Wood, Shepherdleas Wood and Falconwood – and the more
open areas of Eltham Common and Eltham Park. But the woods are generally
grouped under the name of Oxleas Woods, or sometimes Shooters Hill Woodlands.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
As with most royal palaces, the old estate attached to Eltham
Palace was vast. I’ve already mentioned it included Woolwich Common – between
this and Eltham itself was a swathe of woodland and common clothing the gentler
south-facing slope of the ridge of hills above the Thames. Sessile and
penduculate oak, hazel and birch covered soils too poor and steep for farming,
above the Woolwich Beds, with chalk close to the surface in places. From the
Middle Ages the wood was largely managed by coppicing, producing sticks for
tools, fencing and furniture. In 1679 the Crown leased it to John Shaw and his
descendants as a commercial enterprise. They began a programme of felling
mature oaks for structural timber, much of it used in the construction of ships
at the naval dockyards in both Woolwich and Deptford.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
In the 19<sup>th</sup> century, parts of the wood were
parcelled off and sold as plots for upmarket private homes, particularly on the
woodland edge along Shooters Hill which provided easy access to central London.
Another chunk, including Oxleas and Shepherdleas woods, was annexed in the
mid-19<sup>th</sup> century to the <i>nouveau
riche </i>estate of Avery Hill, carved out of the east of Eltham manor by James
Boyd, a sugar refiner, but was not developed.<br />
<br />
Though the woodlands were
technically privately controlled, in practice the public could roam freely
through most of them, and they became a popular recreational area for
Londoners, a development not entirely welcomed by some of the inhabitants of
the posh houses. By the early 20<sup>th</sup>
century, economic uses had declined and further development threatened, but the
recreational value of the woods was increasingly recognised as London became
ever more dense, and the area was hailed as “the Hampstead Heath of South
London”.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The London County Council (LCC) bought Castle Wood and
Jack Wood with the help of several local borough councils in 1924. In 1929 the
council bought the area that’s now Eltham Park North and in 1934 it added
Oxleas, Shepherdleas and Falconwood Field. Eltham Common, which had belonged to
the War Department since 1812 but never inclosed, was added to the LCC estate
in 1938. The gardens of several of the big houses were also incorporated as
these fell vacant. Together the open spaces cover a generous 133.5 ha. 77 ha of
this is a designated SSSI, while the wider site is a Local Nature Reserve. Like
most LCC sites, Oxleas was inherited by the Greater London Council (GLC) in
1965 and passed to the local borough, in this case Greenwich, when the GLC was
abolished in 1986.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Much of <a href="https://www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/directory_record/3779/oxleas_woods_castle_wood_and_jack_wood" target="_blank">Oxleas Woods</a> is classified as ancient semi-natural
woodland, and some patches at least have undoubtedly been continuously wooded
since the end of the last glacial period some 8,000 years ago. This is the
richest site in London for the rare species of wild service tree, <i>Sorbus torminalis</i>, a reliable indicator
of ancient woodland which only grows on land that has never been cultivated. But
the mixed history has resulted in an attractive and varied patchwork that isn’t
all dense woodland: the site includes open meadows, formal and overgrown
gardens and several interesting structures. It’s home to numerous breeding
birds including tree creepers, nuthatches, woodpeckers, chiffchaffs, long
tailed tits and the increasingly ubiquitous ring- necked parakeets. In 1987, a
specimen of a rare red hunting spider, <i>Micrommata
virescens</i>, was spotted here for the first time in London in 250 years.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
A swathe of the woodland was almost lost at the peak of
Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s road building craze in the
1980s. The proposal developed from the various postwar schemes to provide ringways around
London, and the longstanding ambition to ease the bottleneck of the Woolwich
Ferry. A bridge was planned from Beckton to the derelict
marshes formally used as Royal Arsenal lands between Woolwich and Thamesmead
from where a motorway would run through Plumstead and the woodlands to the A2.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Two public inquiries approved the scheme on the basis that
much of the route through the woods would be in tunnel. The Department of
Transport (DoT, now the Department <i>for</i>
Transport) decided to press ahead with a cheaper cutting as the tunnel was too
expensive, began compulsorily purchasing homes in Plumstead and even built a
part of the road at Gallions Reach, currently a disused stump of a ‘road to
nowhere’. But local outrage coalesced in an energetic campaign led by People
Against the River Crossing and Friends of the Earth.<br />
<br />
The plans were finally
cancelled in 1993, which marked something of a turning point in government
transport policy away from big road schemes. The lack of river crossings in
east London remains an issue, however, particularly as both the population and
the economy in this part of town continues to grow. There have been several
more proposals for crossings, though they are now rather more environmentally
sensitive.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The trail first cuts off Shooters Hill across the grassed
area of Eltham Common and climbs a set of rough steps through the first wooded
area. This is secondary woodland, which has developed since the 19<sup>th</sup>
century when grazing on the common gradually ceased. At the top of steps a
drive leads a little further up to the Ring’s highest summit, at 128 m.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-MHQelQl4ZWGD1SxWEyrJQvKo_B4Y8p8wPrXpl8sxOjpF8JuiEZeADqGHEFLNWpEObI-TYKJl4VOc2k8eL-3EohCXexLkPBGSby9wgpXZFm18Gnz9bisXYY6DFNqjMAE_cZlAiUHivzA/s1600/severndroogcastle.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-MHQelQl4ZWGD1SxWEyrJQvKo_B4Y8p8wPrXpl8sxOjpF8JuiEZeADqGHEFLNWpEObI-TYKJl4VOc2k8eL-3EohCXexLkPBGSby9wgpXZFm18Gnz9bisXYY6DFNqjMAE_cZlAiUHivzA/s400/severndroogcastle.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The curious Severndroog Castle, Oxleas Woods.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Now a curious triangular castle-like structure in Gothic
style lies ahead, with hexagonal turrets at each corner. This is <a href="http://www.severndroogcastle.org.uk/" target="_blank">SeverndroogCastle</a>, a folly designed by architect Richard Jupp in 1784. It was built to
commemorate Commodore Sir William James who, in April 1755, captured the island
fortress of Suvarnadurg, from the Indian Maratha Confederacy as part of the
East India Company’s efforts to impose its control on India during the First
Anglo-Maratha War. The island, then rendered in English as Severndroog, is on
the western coast of India, in the modern state of Maharashtra, between Mumbai
and Goa, and its name means ‘golden fort’, although the present building is in
ordinary brick. James died in 1783 and his widow, Lady James of Eltham, built
the castle as a memorial in what was then Eltham Park. It’s now a Grade II*
listed building.<br />
<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The building was included in the woodland bought by the
LCC in the 1920s and for many years was a popular visitor attraction and
refreshment facility, but in 1988 Greenwich decided it was too expensive to
maintain and it was closed and boarded up, an intriguing but rather forlorn
site in its clearing in the woods. In 2002 it was leased to a community group
largely supported by volunteers, the Severndroog Castle Building Trust, who
secured a Big Lottery grant to restore it. Since 2014, it’s been open once
again as both a café and museum and is now one of the most delightful stopping
points on the Ring. It’s well worth paying the modest admission charge to climb
the 19 m high tower and admire the astonishing view south towards the North and
South Downs and east towards London. On a good day, you can see seven counties
if you count the now-abolished Middlesex.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The woods around the castle are ancient woodland, known
as Castle Wood. Wide views open to the south
as you descend through a terrace garden, once a rose garden attached to
Castlewood House along Shooters Hill, and enter Jackwood. The trail crosses the
top of a disused reservoir and an old track known as Stone Alley, then stumbles
on another unexpected structure: the former garden of Jackwood House, another of
the 19<sup>th</sup> century century villas along the hill, with its red brick
walls, rose gardens and a water feature dated 1873. Some of the trees round
here are exotic, planted as part of the garden. There’s a modern apiary nearby.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
A particularly pretty woodland path finally emerges on
into a large area of grassland, occupying a wide slope, bright with wildflowers
and buzzing with insects in summer. Another big Victorian house, Wood Lodge,
once commanded the top of this slope. It was included in the LCC’s purchase of
Oxleas Wood but was considered too expensive to repair and maintain, so was
demolished and replaced with a café and toilet block. Today this is another
excellent and very popular pitstop on the Ring. Under the flatter southern part
of the meadow is a giant reservoir, built in the 1980s, which receives treated
water from the non-tidal reaches of the Thames and distributes it to local
homes.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The ring now runs through Oxleas Wood itself, skirting the
edge of the meadow to emerge on Rochester Way. This was one of the earliest 20<sup>th</sup>
century improvements to the old Watling Street route of the A2 from London to
Dover, opened in 1927 to provide a more level alternative to Shooters Hill.
It’s only a brief interruption in the woodland walk as <a href="https://www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/directory_record/3768/eltham_park_north_and_shepherdleas_woods" target="_blank">Shepherdleas Wood</a> is
immediately on the other side. The character of the woodland here is subtly
changed: there’s more clay in the soil and the undergrowth is denser.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
In the middle of the wood is a Green Chain and Capital
Ring fingerpost that points out a more direct way to Falconwood station, but
the official Ring route bows westwards into the more open area of Eltham Park
North. This and the woodland were once part of the parkland of Avery Hill, of
which a little more later. The trail passes the Long Pond, an ornamental pond
dug in the mid-19<sup>th</sup> century as part of the landscaping and still a
pleasant spot surrounded by reeds and willows.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXMNszpxZEOyu6D7JLO6c2uBconWGw3DP-6EWPe1na2Ry0MZ8McCDOJajAGjb3rk1l0hlpFYeJ-tQTtuTcpaUZw4AFeqoEGn1aYYlBn0aKB3m1Wvg7TAlUMNKDDqxp40Q4yfnoBro2AvI/s1600/a2oxleas.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXMNszpxZEOyu6D7JLO6c2uBconWGw3DP-6EWPe1na2Ry0MZ8McCDOJajAGjb3rk1l0hlpFYeJ-tQTtuTcpaUZw4AFeqoEGn1aYYlBn0aKB3m1Wvg7TAlUMNKDDqxp40Q4yfnoBro2AvI/s640/a2oxleas.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The A2 Rochester Way Relief Road near Falconwood, alongside Shepherdleas Wood. The Bexleyheath Line is to the right.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Looping back into the woods, the trail runs alongside a
straight cutting occupied by two parallel transport links. Closest to you is the Bexleyheath railway line, constructed by the Bexley Heath Railway Company (BHR)
under engineer Alfred Bean and opened in 1895. Local people had originally petitioned the South Eastern
Railway (SER) to build a branch through the area but when this was refused, the
railway was built as an independent initiative, branching from the SER at
Lewisham and continuing via Bexleyheath to Dartford. The company soon went into
bankruptcy and the SER was forced to take it over anyway. Running parallel to
the railway on the other side is a busy dual carriageway, the Rochester Way
Relief Road, the third iteration of the A2 Dover road through the area, opened
in 1988.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The trail crosses these on the Falconwood footbridge, the
official end of Capital Ring section 1. The main residential development of
Falconwood is further east on the other side of the woodlands, across the
boundary in the London Borough of Bexley, having originally been attached to
the manor of East Wickham rather than Eltham. Falconwood station, only a short
walk away, is just over the Bexley boundary but Falconwood Field, part of the
woodland complex immediately north of the station, is in Greenwich.<br />
<br />
This was a
rural area until the 1930s when New Ideal Homesteads Ltd, the country’s largest
private housebuilder of the day and responsible for much of southeast London’s
suburbia, built an estate on what was known as Westwood Farm. But the
developers thought the name of the woodland on the other side more attractive,
so the new housing was named Falconwood Park. Originally the Bexleyheath line
ran straight through: Falconwood station was opened in 1936 to serve the estate
and the area soon became known simply as Falconwood.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Eltham and its palace<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUmhsOO9s_zpyq6hY3lAHeY7B1TsA1G0NB4JFmKeXEWI2T7YndIwr7gVjWyhRyFU3t3lcJokluaak93Y8cUIqTS-zz29uZEzSzEP0N8_PakHQsvgCqMff_V4qnWSkeP1JkRqwsmNfg_8E/s1600/elthamconduithead.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUmhsOO9s_zpyq6hY3lAHeY7B1TsA1G0NB4JFmKeXEWI2T7YndIwr7gVjWyhRyFU3t3lcJokluaak93Y8cUIqTS-zz29uZEzSzEP0N8_PakHQsvgCqMff_V4qnWSkeP1JkRqwsmNfg_8E/s640/elthamconduithead.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Conduit Head, Eltham, the first sign on the Ring of Eltham Palace.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Eltham was an established Celtic settlement and then
an important manor on the road southeast from London towards Maidstone as far
back as the 6<sup>th</sup> century. The name is most likely derived from an
Anglo-Saxon personal name, Elta, with the suffix <i>ham</i>, ‘settlement’. The manor was Crown property at the time of
Edward the Confessor in the mid-11<sup>th</sup> century. William of Normandy
gave it to Archbishop Odo, who is recorded as the manorial lord in the Domesday
survey, but when he was disgraced, it reverted to the Crown. It passed through
various hands over the next 200 years, until 1305 when Anthony Bek, the Bishop
of Durham, gave it to Edward Plantagenet, the Welsh-born fourth son of Edward I
and Eleanor of Castile – both he and his father had frequently been the
bishop’s guests there.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Two years later, Edward was crowned as Edward II and turned the manor house into a
royal palace, later giving it to his wife Isabella, ‘the she-wolf of France’, sister
of Philippe IV. Edward was a controversial monarch who clashed several times
with alliances of powerful and rebellious barons. The more sensational aspects
of his reign are well-known. He had a close and likely sexual relationship with
his advisor Piers Gaveston, who was widely resented at court for his influence
and later executed as a traitor. Eventually Isabella and her ally Roger
Mortimer staged a coup, forcing Edward to abdicate in favour of his son Edward
III. The ex-king died while imprisoned at Berkeley Castle in 1327, probably
executed on the secret orders of Isabella, allegedly by the insertion of a
red-hot poker in his anus, although this last grisly detail is very likely
untrue.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Notwithstanding Edward’s unpleasant fate, generations of
his successors made use of Eltham. They included Henry VIII, who as walkers completing
the London Loop will know, collected more palaces than wives, though in his
later life he preferred his other homes and leased out the rest of Eltham manor
to others. During the Commonwealth period in 1651, Parliament claimed and
privatised both palace and manor, and although both were reclaimed by the Crown
following the restoration, there were no more royal incumbents. The manor was
leased out again and over the following centuries the estate was gradually
broken up.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
In Tudor times, Eltham also contained a smaller manor,
known as Well Hall, which between 1521 and her death in 1544 was home to
scholar and author Margaret More, daughter of Henry’s councillor Thomas More
(whom the king sacked and executed for opposing his divorce from his first
wife), and her husband William Roper. In the early 20<sup>th</sup> century,
Edith Nesbit, of <i>Railway Children</i>
fame, lived at the manor – more of her in the next section. By then, the
eastern part had been separated out into another country estate known as Eltham
Park.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Eltham remained rural until the early 20<sup>th</sup>
century, when Eltham Park was bought and built up by Scottish-born property
developer Archibald Cameron Corbett, a teetotaller who insisted there would be
no pubs on the estate. All the properties were sold with a covenant to enforce
this, but a change in the law in 2005 extinguished the requirement and in 2014
the first ever pub in Eltham Park opened, a micropub appropriately named after
the Long Pond.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
New railway lines,
tram lines and the original 1920s Rochester Way prompted further development,
including several early social housing estates. In 1915, Woolwich Borough
Council built a ‘model’ social housing estate on part of the old Well Hall
lands, to accommodate the increasing demand for workers at the Royal Arsenal
prompted by the war. This became known as the Progress Estate when it was expanded
in partnership with the Royal Arsenal Cooperative Society in the 1920s, and is
now a conservation area. In the following decades further council estates
sprung up on the former royal hunting park.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Thankfully, the planners realised the growing population
would benefit from local green space, and Eltham has a bit more of it than many
similar suburbs of the same period. Immediately across the Falconwood
footbridge is <a href="https://www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/directory_record/3769/eltham_park_south" target="_blank">Eltham Park South</a>, one of the earliest public parks in the area,
opened in 1902 after the LCC bought the remaining Eltham Park lands. It shows
its age by looking much more like a formal public park than the green spaces
north of the railway and A2, mainly consisting of open grass and sports
pitches, though there are avenues of mature trees. There was once a classic 1920s lido in its
northwest corner, closed in 1988. On the left is Eltham Warren Golf Club, one
of England’s oldest nine hole courses, opened in 1890 on former gravel pits
attached to Eltham Park.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvETvjwVf-62RdOTHyVJJQNFF8iWSttC-qTShqXWNRAnm0i0jr-OXwiP5JbhfMbLDGbWYdc-CKV_zaI077ROHRvd2Xyk8UbKUJpqaQUQl1Hkc6f17FA9zDYLw3cBERd9bvmuA2vVszSrw/s1600/elthamparkstinkpole.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvETvjwVf-62RdOTHyVJJQNFF8iWSttC-qTShqXWNRAnm0i0jr-OXwiP5JbhfMbLDGbWYdc-CKV_zaI077ROHRvd2Xyk8UbKUJpqaQUQl1Hkc6f17FA9zDYLw3cBERd9bvmuA2vVszSrw/s320/elthamparkstinkpole.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Protecting Eltham Park from foul smells:<br />
stink pole along Glenesk Road.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The green walking is briefly interrupted by a link along
one of the streets of the Eltham Park estate, Glenesk Way. Developer Campbell
insisted the local street names honour places in his homeland: Glen Esk is the
longest of the Angus Glens. Along the road is a structure like a fat lamp standard
that’s lost its head: it’s actually a stink pole, designed to vent gases from a
sewer running beneath the pavement.<br />
<br />
Then a stretch of former farm track,
delightfully named Butterfly Lane, leads past the open space of Pippinhall Farm
on the left. This is a rare surviving fragment of farmland in inner London,
with hedges dating back to at least the 14<sup>th</sup> century and a remnant
of mediaeval ridge and furrow in its southeast corner. It’s currently rented
from Greenwich council as rough pasture for horses, though may at some point
become a part of the public <a href="https://www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/directory_record/3756/avery_hill_park" target="_blank">Avery Hill Park</a>.<br />
<br />
This was part of an estate created
from some of the Eltham manor lands in the early 19<sup>th</sup> century, and
is now a meeting point for several branches of the Green Chain Walk, so I’ll be
exploring it in more detail on a future walk.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The path out of Avery Hill Park leads past a curious
vaulted red brick structure, Conduit Head. Dating from the 16<sup>th</sup>
century, it once housed a tank and sluice that controlled the supply of water
from a nearby spring through underground conduits to Eltham Palace, both for
filling the moat and as drinking and washing water. It’s been a scheduled
ancient monument since 1956.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Regaining the street, you pass Holy Trinity Church, opened
in 1869 as the population began to expand. It’s best known for the Gallipoli
Chapel on the south side, originally the St Agnes Chapel, funded by a local
woman as a monument to family members in 1909. The vicar here during World War
I, Henry Hall, was temporarily an army chaplain who was wounded during the
disastrous Gallipoli landings on the Turkish coast in 1915, a campaign in which
well over 100,000 people died. Upon his return, he converted the chapel into a
permanent memorial to the 29<sup>th</sup> Army Division with which he’d served,
nearly all of whose members died in Turkey.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The trail crosses Footscray Road, part of the old coaching
route from London to Maidstone via Eltham. This was briefly numbered as the A20
in the early 1920s before the traffic was transferred to the Sidcup Arterial
Road, which we’ll encounter further south. Then there’s North Park, the sort of
street estate agents call “highly regarded”, laid out in the very late 19<sup>th</sup>
century along the edge of former palace parkland. Most of the houses are 1920s
Tudorbethan affairs but there are some late Victorian villas as well as more
modern buildings. Passey Place on the right leads north to the town centre,
which still retains its mediaeval high street, though much of the historic
fabric has been replaced by bland 20<sup>th</sup> century retail units. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
A more historic atmosphere descends as you follow Tilt
Yard Approach and Court Yard to the gates of <a href="http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/eltham-palace-and-gardens/" target="_blank">Eltham Palace</a>. The building is now
managed by English Heritage and there’s a substantial admission charge, but a
lot to see, including elements from every period of its long and chequered
history. The most obvious of these is the moat, which you can glimpse from the
street without paying. Though the palace’s foundation date is unknown, a
substantial moated manor very likely stood here before the Norman conquest, and
by 1295 was accessed by a drawbridge, roughly where the bridge leading from the
main gate is today.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Edward II rebuilt the manor into a palace in the early 14<sup>th</sup>
century, and Henry IV entertained the Emperor of Byzantium here over Christmas
1400. Edward IV added the Great Hall in the 1470s. But from Henry VIII’s time
onwards, royal visits declined. Charles I was the last monarch to stay here, in
the 1640s, and during the Commonwealth period Nathaniel Rich, who bought the
estate from Parliament, dismantled many of the buildings to recycle their
materials, including the lead on the Great Hall roof. In 1656, John Evelyn
found “the palace and chapel in miserable ruins, the noble wood and park
destroyed.” For the next 200 years it was uninhabited and used as farm
buildings.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
In 1828 the Great Hall had decayed so badly that it was
threatened with demolition, sparking one of the earliest modern heritage
conservation campaigns: the hall was restored but still suffered the ignominy
of being used as a barn. As Eltham’s residential appeal grew later in the 19th
century, the palace was inhabited again as a gentleman’s residence, but it was
to undergo a further dramatic transformation.<br />
<br />
In 1933, millionaire Stephen
Courtauld, from a wealthy family of textile manufacturers, bought the place
with his wife Virginia. They commissioned architects Seely & Paget to
rebuild it as an ultramodern private house with a gallery for displaying their
extensive art collection, though encompassing heritage features like the Great
Hall. As keen horticulturalists, they also had the gardens reworked in
spectacular style, including ornamental plantations, shrubberies and specimen
trees.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2UIn4jD1GRYdCKJGm4gLiUDBgUBb3ZcYzCIc3mRIIozNE2eow5r9hLnjxeu1LROwfnz5vXOYsdCUAbFCq0z-Lm_8gLBuqXET6E8i846V4Nq471bcivkTiDlbKvCM5VCniMXMg99TRuxw/s1600/elthampalace-courtyard.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2UIn4jD1GRYdCKJGm4gLiUDBgUBb3ZcYzCIc3mRIIozNE2eow5r9hLnjxeu1LROwfnz5vXOYsdCUAbFCq0z-Lm_8gLBuqXET6E8i846V4Nq471bcivkTiDlbKvCM5VCniMXMg99TRuxw/s400/elthampalace-courtyard.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">16th century cottage on Court Yard, Eltham Palace.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Courtaulds left Eltham in 1944 and the site was
occupied by Army educational units until 1992 when it passed to English
Heritage. Much of what’s on view today is their work, in the striking and
lavish Modernist style of the 1930s. But the Great Hall with its oak roof is a
substantial reminder of the building’s even grander past. Some of the walls and
the gatehouse on the left of Court Yard are from the 17<sup>th</sup> century,
the last time the palace was in its pomp. Opposite the Palace gates and clearly
visible from the trail, are the more modest but also historic cottages at 34-38
Court Yard. The street was once the outer courtyard of the palace and these
timber-framed red brick cottages with their projecting dormer windows were
built in the 16<sup>th</sup> century as lodgings for the Lord Chancellor and
other senior officials: Thomas More and Thomas Wolsey stayed here.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Walking with King John<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br />
For the next 1.5 km or so, the Capital Ring follows
an ancient lane known as King John’s Walk, which once connected the palace with
hunting grounds further south. This is a delightful stretch, astonishingly
rural given how deep in London we are, between old hedgerows with open space on
both sides. Yes, most of this is now horse paddocks and playing fields, but
it’s not that difficult to picture the scene in mediaeval times when these
fields would have made a vital contribution to the palace’s food supply. But
look right and the illusion is interrupted as the modern towers of central
London loom surprisingly close. Further along, yet another branch of the Green
Chain heads off down an even more rural path, but the Ring stays on the main
track.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
The origin of the name is uncertain: it’s unlikely to be
the King John of Magna Carta fame (reigned 1199-1216) as he had no connection
to Eltham. More likely it was the Valois king Jean II of France (reigned 1350-64),
also known as John the Good. He surrendered to the English leader Edward the
Black Prince at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356 by handing him his glove.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The king was held prisoner at various locations in England
while a peace treaty was negotiated, including Eltham, and in accordance with
his status he was allowed considerable freedom, buying clothes and pets and
maintaining a royal band. So he may well have walked or, more likely, ridden
this way to Mottingham while pondering the terms of what became the Treaty of
Brétigny. Jean eventually returned to France, leaving his son Louis as a
replacement hostage in Calais, then held by England. But Louis absconded, and Jean
shocked his subjects by voluntarily offering himself as a prisoner again for
the sake of the family honour. Never a well man, he died soon after returning
to London, at the Savoy palace on the Strand.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
On the other side of the fields is the built-up area of
Middle Park, a social housing estate began in the 1930s on the former ‘middle
park’, a hunting park attached to the palace. But the Walk still maintains a
clear line across a patch of grass, over the Dartford Loop Line railway and the
A20 Sidcup Arterial Road.<br />
<br />
The railway was opened in 1866 by the South Eastern
Railway (SER) as an alternative route to the North Kent line between Lewisham
and Dartford. Mottingham station is to the east, although historically speaking
it’s still in Eltham, and was indeed called Eltham until 1892, despite its
distance from the recognised centre of the latter. It was renamed Eltham &
Mottingham and then became plain Mottingham in 1927, to avoid confusion with
Eltham station closer to the town centre on the Bexleyheath Line. The road opened
in 1923 as a single carriageway, providing a bypass of Eltham for through
traffic on the A20 Maidstone Road. It’s since been widened and dualled, and is
now the main route out of London for Folkestone and the Channel Tunnel.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Mottingham<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyGV6RXOxHTlceEYlV5hK-x_NW7szHe_FINhkRHkxa1hd3lrqnId7HBs-cl6uf72w5cnXKCuwTmtUb4UrW8zqXGSXh6fip7TlNAUITpepxbTIYzWC49dpQzjAZDPp2u4ajEDGFcKNtCnc/s1600/riverquaggy-collegefield.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyGV6RXOxHTlceEYlV5hK-x_NW7szHe_FINhkRHkxa1hd3lrqnId7HBs-cl6uf72w5cnXKCuwTmtUb4UrW8zqXGSXh6fip7TlNAUITpepxbTIYzWC49dpQzjAZDPp2u4ajEDGFcKNtCnc/s640/riverquaggy-collegefield.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Along the river Quaggy between Mottingham and Grove Park.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
On the other side of the road, the first field
boundary on the right marks the Ring’s farewell to the Royal Borough of
Greenwich as it enters Mottingham, in the London Borough of Bromley. The
earliest record of the place name is from 862 as <i>Modingahema</i>, ‘the land of Moda's people’. It was once a hamlet attached
to Eltham but became a separate parish in 1866, the same year the railway
opened, in anticipation of the growth in population that would surely follow.
When the County of London was created in 1889, Mottingham was excluded,
remaining in Kent as a peninsula of that county poking into the capital. At
first it was administrated as a ‘detached part’ of Bromley Rural District, then
in 1934 transferred to Chislehurst and Sidcup Urban District.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Until 1965 you would have left London here, but with the
creation of the new London Borough of Bromley in 1965, Mottingham was finally
absorbed by the capital, as were other even more rural tranches of Kent which
had once been in Bromley Rural District. Following minor tweaking in the 1990s,
small bits of Mottingham were reunited with Eltham by being reassigned to
Greenwich, and a few went to Lewisham borough too. I’ve introduced Bromley and
its rather anomalous boundaries in more detail along <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/london-loop-3-petts-wood-hayes.html">London Loop 3</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
King John’s Walk retains its near-straight line parallel
to a residential street and finally ends at Mottingham Lane. The trail now
follows the lane, with another branch of the Green Chain Walk heading off in
the other direction towards Elmstead Wood. Up until the mid-19<sup>th</sup>
century, the lane was the closest thing to a main drag in a rural hamlet, lined
by a scattering of houses.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Following the opening of the railway, private and, from
the 1930s, council developments took place elsewhere in Mottingham but the lane
still contains most of the bigger and older houses. The nucleus of the old
estate, Mottingham House, has vanished, replaced by the flats of Colview Court
on the left. The Old Chapel and St Vincent further along were once among its
satellite buildings. Just past the turnoff for the Ring is the site of Mottingham
Hall, another Victorian estate, now an equestrian and garden centre. Opposite
and now Grade II-listed is the Fairmount Ladies Rest Home, a name that couldn’t
be more evocative of late Victorian and Edwardian gentility, but mainly noted
as the home of celebrated cricketer William Gilbert Grace (1848-1915), who
spent his retirement here, as commemorated on a blue plaque. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
At the footpath junction where the trail leaves the lane
is our first sighting of an official Public Footpath sign on the Capital Ring. Following
decades of lobbying by walkers’ and countryside groups, new legislation in 1949
strengthened protection of off-road Public Rights of Way by requiring local
councils, among other things, to keep official ‘definitive maps’ of them and to
sign them where they met roads and streets.<br />
<br />
Originally the requirements didn’t
apply to metropolitan areas, like the old Woolwich borough, but did apply to
counties such as Kent. Amendments to the law in 1968 extended the requirements
to metropolitan councils – but still exempted the Inner London boroughs
covering the former LCC area. This is why you’ll see footpaths signed in outer
boroughs like Bromley, but not inner ones like Greenwich, and why the green
dotted lines on Ordnance Survey Explorer maps stop at the threshold of Inner
London. This doesn’t mean, however, that Public Rights of Way don’t exist in
Inner London. I’ve explored the topic in a bit more detail under <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/london-countryway-2-horsley-west-byfleet.html">LondonCountryway 2</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The fields of Mottingham Hall, to the left of the path,
and Mottingham Farm, to the right, are still open space, but private: horse
paddocks and sports fields respectively. The latter largely belong to the City
of London School, an independent boys’ day school in the City. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
After a while the Ring becomes a riverside walk for the
first time since leaving the Thames. The river is the delightfully named
Quaggy, which runs entirely inside London, rising at Locksbottom in Bromley,
though in its upper reaches it’s known as the Kyd Brook. It flows for 17 km,
including a stretch beside London Loop 2 near Petts Wood, through Sundridge
Park, Grove Park, Lee and Hither Green to join the Ravensbourne at Lewisham,
itself a tributary of the Thames. This stretch has been diverted in a culvert
to avoid the former Grove Park hospital, which I’ll say more about in the next
section. The origin of the name is unknown but it may be related to an obsolete
word <i>quaggy</i> meaning ‘boggy’ or
‘muddy’, as in ‘quagmire’.<br />
<br />
The river is a sign the Ring has descended from the
high ground into the wider Ravensbourne Valley: it will shortly cross the river
and its two main tributaries before ascending again towards Sydenham Hill and
Crystal Palace.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The trail runs alongside the car park, past the pavilion
and along the drive belonging to the Old Elthamians, which currently plays in
National League 1, the third tier of English rugby union. Originating in 1911
at another independent school, Eltham College, in Mottingham itself, the club
has been based at various grounds but in 2016 moved to the College’s own
property, College Meadow, on the other side of the pavilion.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Reaching the area of the car park, you would once have
stood at the point where the southern edge of Mottingham and Eltham met the
parish of Bromley. A boundary still runs through here, but it’s been moved a
little to the south and the areas it separates are much transformed. Passing
the fence line of the back gardens of the houses to the right as you approach
the street, you now leave the modern London Borough of Bromley for the time
being. While the rugby club is in Bromley, the southern tip of its access drive
is in the Capital Ring’s third London borough, Lewisham, in the district known
as Grove Park.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Grove Park<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-indent: 0cm;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3AyfB-C7vSHWWQiVbcaCsCfNkCJDxwcVbdR4-3UThWkS1n2bfgqX0XukklQqg1_0Db843-hZiuzCP11DYbihXdeis6NuK58fZbKDefdod1raNy81jCoNa4-jmKv5TMVZkIZ9Fp0ew2cQ/s1600/groveparkstation.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3AyfB-C7vSHWWQiVbcaCsCfNkCJDxwcVbdR4-3UThWkS1n2bfgqX0XukklQqg1_0Db843-hZiuzCP11DYbihXdeis6NuK58fZbKDefdod1raNy81jCoNa4-jmKv5TMVZkIZ9Fp0ew2cQ/s640/groveparkstation.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grove Park station, on one of London's oddest branch lines.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="text-indent: 0cm;">Until the 18th century, the area
south of Lee and Mottingham, between the Quaggy and the main stream of the
Ravensbourne, was thickly wooded. Much of the woodland was cleared in that
century, and very little remains today, though references remain in place
names. ‘Grove’ is of course a word for a small wood. And the road that links Lee
with Plaistow and Bromley is variously known as Burnt Ash Lane and Burnt Ash
Road, commemorating the fate of many of the trees, which were burned to make
charcoal.</span><br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
A late 18<sup>th</sup> century map shows the area as part
of Bromley parish, in the Kentish hundred of Bromley and Beckenham, with most
of the trees already cleared to create farmland. Marvels Lane, the road on which
the Capital Ring emerges, appears as a rural lane crossing the remaining band
of Stratfield Wood to the south. To the southwest of the road was a farm called
Grove Farm, which eventually gave its name to the station and then the suburb.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
In the mid-19<sup>th</sup> century much of the land was
dug up for earth to make bricks, and large luxury houses started to appear. But
even after the railway opened in 1871, attracting wealthy commuters, activities
such as dairy farming and plant nurseries continued. As development spread, Grove Park became more
linked to Lee and Lewisham than Bromley. It was included in the London County
Council area in 1889 and in 1905 became part of the Metropolitan Borough of
Lewisham. The current and much enlarged London Borough of Lewisham was created
in 1965 by merging the Metropolitan Boroughs of Lewisham and Deptford.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The densely populated character of the area was confirmed
when the LCC built one of its earliest large housing estates, the Downham
estate, to the west of Burnt Ash Lane in from the 1920s: much more about this
in the next section. Lewisham council built its own estate, the Grove Park
Estate, slightly southeast of the Ring route, between 1926 and 1929. The last
farmland fell to housing in 1960, but patches of green are preserved in the
form of parks and playing fields.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Section 2 of the Capital Ring officially ends where the
rugby club drive meets Marvels Lane, right by the bridge over the Quaggy.
Section 3 strikes off northwest across the river, but the link to the station
continues upriver, now hemmed in by houses, and not signed as a public footpath
as we’re back in Inner London, to reach Chinbrook Road by another bridge. The
river now runs on through a pleasant park with a good café, Chinbrook Meadows,
but that’s for later on the Green Chain Walk. For now, our way is west across
the Quaggy and along Chinbrook Road, to reach the Lee-Bromley road, here known
as Baring Road, with the station just around the corner.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The railway is part of the South Eastern Main Line from
London Charing Cross and London Bridge to Ashford, Folkestone and Dover, once one
of the main rail routes from London to Paris and beyond via the Channel
ferries. Originally the SER used a roundabout route via the London and Brighton
Railway’s tracks to Reigate, but in 1868 it finally obtained its own route out
of London with the opening of this stretch of railway via Lewisham and
Orpington. Grove Park station itself was opened a few years later, in 1871.<br />
<br />
As
well as the main line it also boasts one of London’s more obscure branch lines,
opened from here to Bromley North station in 1878 as an SER-sponsored project
to compete with its arch-rival the London, Chatham and Dover Railway, which had
a station at Bromley South. As there’s no longer the capacity to operate direct
services from Bromley into London Bridge, the line is operated for now as a
shuttle service with just two stops. There have been numerous proposals to make
better use of it, perhaps by incorporating it into an extension of the London
Trams network via central Bromley.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://innerlondonramblers.org.uk/ideasforwalks/capital-ring-guides.html" target="_blank">Ramblers Capital Ring guides</a>. These are currently the most up-to-date detailed walking guides and maps. Check this page too for current diversions and problems.</li><li><a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1dEzj8toHFPhGR8hjigYqpojJJYA&usp=sharing" target="_blank">Google Map</a></li><li>My original <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/u4mtc7ekf1g9j0n/1-2-woolwich-grovepark.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank">Route description</a>, not recently updated and included here for completeness.</li>
</ul>
</div>
Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-50652467086068588262017-11-21T15:45:00.000+00:002017-11-21T17:33:44.660+00:00London Loop 16 alternative via Woodcock Hill<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3RuLQMowQrdlSlzMXXICPxTo4NR2xRpQz1L0ZCIlzWUdrRt0k3bAjg5o9QUylUYe08uPo6ZCqe6JdAzqUl17copU7Njngp8Rtc6kBXMMja5prULhrPENfDRbmRX0GGpFbyyUe6cuRoqk/s1600/woodcockhill-view.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3RuLQMowQrdlSlzMXXICPxTo4NR2xRpQz1L0ZCIlzWUdrRt0k3bAjg5o9QUylUYe08uPo6ZCqe6JdAzqUl17copU7Njngp8Rtc6kBXMMja5prULhrPENfDRbmRX0GGpFbyyUe6cuRoqk/s640/woodcockhill-view.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The view from Woodcock Hill, Borehamwood, as enjoyed by military communications officers since 1588.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
Woodcock Hill Village Green, an attractive informal
open space with fabulous views which was saved by the local community, now
provides a much greener and slightly more convenient way of kicking off <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/london-loop-16-borehamwood-cockfosters.html">LondonLoop section 16</a> between Elstree & Borehamwood station and Scratchwood. It’s
particularly welcome as a little further along this section is perhaps the worst
stretch of the entire trail, the long detour up and down the A1 to use a safe crossing,
and while the alternative doesn’t address this directly, it does help redress
the balance of the overall section.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
When the Loop was first devised, access along the east
side of the railway from the station wasn’t straightforward, and what’s now the
Village Green was private land where public access was only on an informal
basis. This is why the official route still grinds uphill along Deacons Hill
Road, a rather long and dull residential street, and then along Barnet Lane, a
busy local through-route. The alternative route makes use of newly-built and much
quieter streets to connect with the Green, and from there stays entirely off-road
as far as the A1, apart from a crossing of Barnet Lane. Because the official
route involves retracing your steps from the station while the alternative runs
straight past it, if you break at Borehamwood, the latter will save you about
500 m, though the two options are about equal in distance if you’re just
passing through. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
At some point it’s likely that the official route will be
diverted this way, but this will require funding for new signing which isn’t
currently available. So, for the moment the Loop arrows still point along the
road, though the “informal” alternative is included in the latest edition of
the official Loop guidebook, as updated by Colin Saunders. The only significant
feature you’ll miss compared to the official route is a glimpse of some rail
tunnel ventilation shafts. And of course, the road-based route is all along
surfaced pavements while the alternative involves unsurfaced paths that might
get muddy. But all things considered, I recommend the alternative above the
official route, even for first time Loop walkers, and have updated the route description PDF to include both.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
Leaving Borehamwood<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWMGDP5QblCjRPr6mvRNVTeCHEfsIju3KukBiJSLhLKp_Ls4YVelQcteWm7M64EHA6htAVRK0xESFEwp1IKmYkM_H4xLrHzx-wQXfk3F53ECUOaXZlE5kKrFAfGz4tRE7OqqZEl8ydfMI/s1600/wordsworthgardens.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWMGDP5QblCjRPr6mvRNVTeCHEfsIju3KukBiJSLhLKp_Ls4YVelQcteWm7M64EHA6htAVRK0xESFEwp1IKmYkM_H4xLrHzx-wQXfk3F53ECUOaXZlE5kKrFAfGz4tRE7OqqZEl8ydfMI/s640/wordsworthgardens.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Poetry in suburbia: Wordsworth Gardens, Borehamwood, out of daffodil season.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
There’s lots more about Elstree, Borehamwood, the
railway and the most famous local industry, film-making, in my writeup of
<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/london-loop-15-hatch-end-borehamwood.html">London Loop section 15</a>. Given its good rail connections and its proximity to
London, the area is currently under enormous pressure for housing. At the time
of writing the start of work was imminent on a new housing estate on what’s
currently derelict land on your left along Station Road. The Elstree &
Borehamwood Gasworks was built here in 1872, and gasholders still stood until
dismantled in 2016: aerial photographs clearly show their footprints. A
fragment of evidence remains on the ground too: a couple of older houses known
as Gasworks Cottages.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The housing a little further on was built in the 2000s on
the site of the Fire Research Station (FRS), one of the more obscure
specialisms of the area. It was founded by a consortium of insurance companies as
the Fire Offices’ Committee Testing Station in 1935. The main FRS moved to
Watford in 1994 but assessment of fire and security products continued here until
2000, when the site was closed and demolished to make way for the current
estate. The streets are named slightly incongruously after poets – Auden Drive,
Coleridge Way, Wordsworth Gardens. The latter includes a square of green saved
from the wide grounds of the FRS: you’ll need to visit in daffodil season to
judge whether it lives up to its name.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
Woodcock Hill Village Green<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiu9kU1pDVBcMV6SsOOO8GbIXv57atgdhLBzTGMPdBrEACcBNAIYwgwp-ehCCC5vFnOmq8FH69Ny0jjX4-qN9EGIDf71C5AZWZRz4d0W5WTyk8BTavh5NqvHyPGtRpDmprMxQIeyc1VpM/s1600/woodcockhill-beacon.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiu9kU1pDVBcMV6SsOOO8GbIXv57atgdhLBzTGMPdBrEACcBNAIYwgwp-ehCCC5vFnOmq8FH69Ny0jjX4-qN9EGIDf71C5AZWZRz4d0W5WTyk8BTavh5NqvHyPGtRpDmprMxQIeyc1VpM/s400/woodcockhill-beacon.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Armada Beacon on Woodcock Hill.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
Reaching Woodcock Hill Village Green itself, you’re
in an older area of housing developed by the building group John Laing &
Son, which bought up much of the remaining farmland around the town from the
Earl of Strafford in the 1950s. All the Laing estates incorporated green space,
and it’s likely the area that’s now the village green was deliberately left for
this purpose – there’s a local legend that then-owner John William Laing
intended to donate it to residents, and from 1959 a community group acted as
guardian to the site.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Its status remained unresolved, though, until 1996 when it
was earmarked for further housing. A campaign group, Woodcock Hill Open Space
Forever! (WHOSE!), stepped in to defend it, beginning the long process of
official registration as a Village Green. At the public inquiry in 2007, the key
question was whether the land had been unfenced for 20 years, settled in part
by a newspaper article about a man who was prosecuted for mistreating donkeys
he kept tethered there. The inspector eventually found in favour of the
application, and the space has been a Village Green since 2008. WHOSE! converted
itself into the <a href="http://www.woodcockhill.org.uk/" target="_blank">Woodcock Hill Village Green Trust</a>, and a team of its keen
volunteers now looks after the site.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Had Woodcock Hill been adopted as a formal recreation
ground in the 1950s, I doubt it would have as much character today. There’s a
pleasing wildness and slightly scruffy informality, with long grass and
seemingly random clumps of bushes: much more textured and ecologically rich
than a mown glass recreation ground. One of the highlights is the view north
over Hertfordshire: on a clear day, you should be able to spot St Albans
Cathedral, 13 km away and on the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/london-countryway-10-kings-langley-st.html">London Countryway sections 10</a> and 11 (and in my suggested <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/london-countryway-alternative-st-albans.html">alternative section 11</a>).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The trail passes an armada beacon, dating from George V’s
silver jubilee in 1935 but on or close to the site of one of the chain of
beacons lit in 1588 to communicate the sighting of the Spanish Armada off the
Cornish coast. It was restored and lit again in 1988 to mark the 400<sup>th</sup>
anniversary of the Armada and again for Elizabeth II’s diamond jubilee in 2012.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The lofty prospect supported another line-of-sight communication system from
1807 when the hill housed one of a chain of stations in the naval telegraph
system developed to help coordinate the response to a possible invasion from
Napoleonic France. The next station south was at Hampstead, the next one north
at St Albans. This particular system was dismantled following the defeat of
Napoléon in 1812, though a telegraph chain remained in use between London and
Plymouth until 1847: <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/london-countryway-2-horsley-west-byfleet.html">London Countryway section 2</a> passes a tower that formed
part of this at Chatley Heath in Surrey.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
From the beacon, the path essentially parallels Barnet
Lane, passing a series of small, often dry, ponds within scrubby woodland. It soon
emerges onto the road itself to rejoin the official trail more-or-less opposite
the path into Scratchwood. All the walk so far has been outside London, in
Hertfordshire’s Hertsmere District (and in Watling Chase Community Forest), but
a short stroll along this path will take you into the London Borough of Barnet.
Cross the road carefully, while congratulating yourself for avoiding a 1 km
walk along it.</div>
<ul style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<li><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/aqjonmcq78vj65o/16-borehamwood-cockfosters.pdf?dl=0" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Download full route description</a> (PDF)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=ze8MGLx4VZ8Q.kz_iSyKD3QHI&usp=sharing" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">View Google map</a></li>
<li><a href="https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/walking/elstree-to-cockfosters" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Official Transport for London page</a></li>
</ul>
Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-71682615905037541282017-11-14T13:15:00.001+00:002017-11-14T13:28:17.305+00:00London Loop 15 alternative via Harrow Weald Common<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Z8-BDiLsdKzMq7vhyphenhyphencX0S15w3_9j-_JGxfBWS9m7qP72KfPDu1efHMjRxBRHAAY2n7TLhgXhb4PhY3FmZh_PVPwIynaWdwhIDUGsOivFFXre2QwFdbkmKpbRu4vXsoyzaO3MY0pqi1Y/s1600/grimsdykehouse.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Z8-BDiLsdKzMq7vhyphenhyphencX0S15w3_9j-_JGxfBWS9m7qP72KfPDu1efHMjRxBRHAAY2n7TLhgXhb4PhY3FmZh_PVPwIynaWdwhIDUGsOivFFXre2QwFdbkmKpbRu4vXsoyzaO3MY0pqi1Y/s640/grimsdykehouse.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grim's Dyke House: gentility and a grim history.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
This short alternative route for London Loop section
15 via Harrow Weald Common avoids a slight dogleg and some road crossings,
though it does miss out on one of the best viewpoints on the trail. I’ve also
taken the opportunity to say more about the pretty but rather wiggly official
Loop link from Stanmore Little Common to Stanmore station via Stanmore Country
Park.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Crossing the high ground in the north of Harrow borough,
the Loop encounters a continuous chain of open spaces on former common land:
Grimsdyke Open Space, Harrow Weald Common and the City Open Space. Yet the
route ducks out of the green to cross the relatively busy Old Redding road
twice. I suspect this is partly a legacy issue: Grim’s Dyke House and its
surroundings form an enclave within the public space and there may have been an
issue with access across the drive. But a more positive reason for the dogleg
is to visit Old Redding Viewpoint with its breath-taking prospect of central
London, and the adjoining historic pub, The Case Is Altered.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
For the view alone, my recommendation is that you stick to
the official route. But if the view and/or the pub hold no interest, or you’ve
already been there and done that, or you particularly want to avoid crossing
busy roads if you can, there is an alternative described by Colin Saunders in
the most recent edition of the official guidebook. This uses parts of the more
recently-waymarked Harrow Weald Common Nature Trail to stay within the woodland
to the north of the road. Two more plus points for this option are that it’s
350 m shorter and takes you closer to the house, which is well worth a look.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
From Carpenders Park<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
Although it’s not an official Loop link, there’s an
obvious and convenient way of joining the trail eastbound from Carpenders Park
station. This is the next London Overground station north from Hatch End along
the West Coast Main Line, just outside London but still in the Transport for
London (TfL) fares system, in zone 7. Like Moor Park at the end of <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/london-loop-1314-harefield-moor-park.html">section 13</a>,
it began as a golf halt, originally opening around 200 m north of its current
site in 1914.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
The current station was built in 1952 at around the time the area
was undergoing large-scale development into a new suburb. I’ve said a bit more
about this in my original post on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/london-loop-15-hatch-end-borehamwood.html">section 15</a>, but didn’t realise then that this
largely private estate just across the railway from the Greater London Council
estate at South Oxhey was the model for Plummers Park in Leslie Thomas’s novel <i>Tropic of Ruislip </i>(1974). More about
this in the discussion of the real Ruislip under <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/hillingdon-trail-2-west-ruislip.html">Hillingdon Trail section 2</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The developers of Carpenders Park left a green ribbon
along the course of the Hartsbourne stream, which rises on the slopes of one of
the golf courses between here and Bushey to the east, and flows for about 5 km
roughly northwest to join the river Colne near Oxhey Hall. A Woodland Walk now
follows the stream east of the railway: a street name, The Mead, is a reminder
that flood meadows once lined the waterside where houses now stand.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The woodland strip is a panhandle extension of Carpenders
Park lawn cemetery, soon visible through the trees: at this point your route
bends right to stay under the branches, entering the designated area of Watling
Chase Community Forest. As mentioned under Loop 15, the cemetery is something
of an anomaly as it’s run jointly by the London Boroughs of Brent and Harrow,
although it lies outside both their boundaries. Only at the very end do you
need to leave the woodland path, joining a short stretch of the cemetery drive which
delivers you to Oxhey Lane just north of the point where the official London
Loop route passes Mutton Wood.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Further along, as acknowledged by Colin Saunders in the
latest edition of the London Loop guide, the farmland northeast of Grim’s Dyke
Golf Course is the site of the Wild Green Project, which aims to create a
multi-layered forestry farm producing a range of foods and other products but
with a beneficial environmental impact. I bumped into environmentalist and
sculptor Lee Lannon, the man behind this, when I was last passing through. He
told me that progress has been delayed by issues with landowners, which is why
the sign has been taken down – but hopefully things will be back on track by
spring 2018.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
Harrow Weald Common<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
You can read more under Loop 15 about Harrow Weald
Common and the tragic story of the death of dramatist and librettist W S
Gilbert, of Gilbert and Sullivan fame, at Grim’s Dyke House. Following the
nature trail diversion, you’ll see a bit more of the common, with its scrubby
woodlands, old earthworks and clumps of rhododendrons spilling from the former
Victorian gardens. Crossing the house drive, it’s worth a short detour to view the
house itself, completed in 1872 by Richard Norman Shaw for the painter Frederick
Goodall, and Gilbert’s home from 1890 until his death in 1911. With its tall
chimneys and half-timbering, it’s a splendid early example of the ‘Tudorbethan’
style that later flourished in the early 20<sup>th</sup> century, though there
are various distinctive details like rounded archways that almost anticipate <i>art nouveau</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Following the death of Gilbert’s widow Lucy, the house and
estate were bought jointly by Middlesex County Council and London County
Council in 1937, and the house was used for rehabilitating tuberculosis
patients. It’s still under public ownership, currently with Harrow council, but
has been leased as a hotel since 1970. Surrounded by well-kept lawns and
gardens, it looks impeccably picturesque and genteel in a late-Victorian way,
and it’s understandably popular as a film location. If you were walking the
Loop using overnight stays, this would be a delightful, if rather pricey, place
to break your journey.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The numbered posts of the 3.75 km nature trail installed by
the Harrow Weald Common Conservators in 2008 help you navigate through the
space: one of them is placed at precisely the point where the alternative route
leaves the official Loop. The nature trail is split into two loops (lower case ‘l’!)
identified by colours: a shorter orange loop around Grim’s Dyke in the west and
a longer purple loop around the common in the east. In case you were wondering,
here’s an outline of what the numbers indicate: for more information, you can
download a leaflet from the <a href="http://www.harrowncf.org/site_literature.html" target="_blank">Harrow Nature Conservation Forum website</a>. I’ve included the posts on the official Loop route too, as
a supplement to Loop 15.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<b>4.</b> This post, on the orange loop, stands by the side of
the lake where Gilbert died. Now it’s filled with marsh plants like yellow iris
and willow scrub.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<b>7.</b> This section, also on the orange loop, runs along the
boundary between the overgrown garden on the right, with exotic planted trees, and
the common on the left, populated with native trees like downy birch, beech
and oak.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<b>8.</b> This is where the purple and orange loops meet, and
where the alternative Loop route diverges from the official one. From here you
follow the purple loop back into old gardens, and then on the other side of the
drive back onto the common again, with more downy birch, and some fallen logs
providing habitats for birds, insects and fungi. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<b>17.</b> Don’t worry, you haven’t missed anything – walkers on
the purple loop encounter this post towards the end of their walk where it
directs them back to the Old Redding viewpoint.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<b>9.</b> This is where the two routes rejoin, and is
incidentally the highest point on the Loop north of the Thames, at 158 m. The 7
km Bentley Priory Circular Walk also shadows the trail from here. The notes
about this post draw attention to the old ditch and bank topped with a hawthorn
hedge a little further along on the left, past the cottages, and the rare
species like wood sorrel that can be found there.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<b>10.</b> Passing this post, look out for the oak trees planted
to mark the boundary of the common in the 1860s, and a pollarded oak on the
right. You cross over Len’s Avenue.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<b>11.</b> A strip of grassland marks an area of lime-deficient
soil. In the 1980s this was the last vestige of heathland on the common and
there are plans to try to restore it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<b>12.</b> Oak trees dominate this area, with some beech and
rowan. Most of the trees here are only 50-100 years old: as with many
now-wooded commons, grazing once would have maintained a more open landscape,
and the trees have grown up since this practice declined.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Shortly after this post you leave the Common and continue
into the Bentley Priory site, described in more detail under Loop 15.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
The Stanmore link<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghjZ9Cg0fQJuUFh17vATIrN0B9xQo68Ez3Tk0pLl6thHpiZwdcCfqooKICHsuoRgf9psrDCPj7mbx1xSnVkfOSDuuIgkbhkKWF6EKY9c43cTAeoz-2L3zCT3XP5yjiDZijsqFl-GFlq0I/s1600/littlestanmorecommon-springpond.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghjZ9Cg0fQJuUFh17vATIrN0B9xQo68Ez3Tk0pLl6thHpiZwdcCfqooKICHsuoRgf9psrDCPj7mbx1xSnVkfOSDuuIgkbhkKWF6EKY9c43cTAeoz-2L3zCT3XP5yjiDZijsqFl-GFlq0I/s640/littlestanmorecommon-springpond.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spring Pond, Stanmore Little Common.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
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<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
The London Loop link to Stanmore station isn’t the
usual functional stroll through the streets, but an enjoyable walk in its own
right, making good use of Stanmore Country Park, a major green space that you
otherwise won’t encounter on the trail. The break point is easy to miss, in a
clearing among the various ponds of Stanmore Little Common, and the first
reward of breaking your walk at this point is a fuller view of Spring Pond and
its surroundings. The pretty complex of red brick buildings on one side was built
in the 1860s as staff accommodation and stables for Stanmore Hall. The banks of
the pond were once more wooded, but many of the trees had to be cut back to
deal with an algae infestation. From the pond you cross towards a wall, behind
which is the hall itself, a neo-Gothic mansion built in 1843. I’ve said a bit
more about Stanmore in general under <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/london-loop-15-hatch-end-borehamwood.html">Loop 15</a>.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
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A short stroll down traffic-calmed Dennis Lane soon brings
you to the country park (here's a link to the <a href="http://www.harrow.gov.uk/info/200165/harrow_parks/63/stanmore_country_park" target="_blank">official website</a>, though you'll find much more information on the <a href="http://www.harrowncf.org/SCP_home.html" target="_blank">Harrow Nature Conservation Forum website</a>). This occupies former farmland attached to Warren House,
at the top of the hill you’ve just descended: you pass it on the main trail and
I’ve said a bit more about it there. The estate had numerous owners prior to
1890 when it was bought by the banker and philanthropist Henry Bischoffsheim.
In 1922, his widow left it to her grandson John Fitzgerald, a member of the
Anglo-Irish aristocracy, the 21<sup>st</sup> Knight of Kerry and 3<sup>rd</sup>
Baronet of Valencia – not the Spanish city and province but an island off the Kerry
coast, today more commonly spelt Valentia.</div>
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<div class="MsoBodyText">
Fitzgerald, an agricultural
enthusiast and livestock judge, showed his national loyalties by replacing the
herd of Jersey cows on the estate with Kerry cattle, though some of the park area was used as a golf course. In 1937, as we’ll shortly
see, Fitzgerald began to develop parts of the estate for housing, and sold off a large portion including the former golf course to Middlesex County Council and Harrow council as green belt land,
though farming continued into the 1950s.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQOXo9slCktiOLCWhyphenhyphenA6qC5UzfNH2Kjch6QptQyVLLFRW1BGsCaUVKroRAR77cIRicLMzs9CS3h11orBwI-a-ay-3hlaLB3knVrJ3woM1Tb09usqZrxn6Vf22YTIOnmITIPZGFSogGCQs/s1600/stanmorecountrypark.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQOXo9slCktiOLCWhyphenhyphenA6qC5UzfNH2Kjch6QptQyVLLFRW1BGsCaUVKroRAR77cIRicLMzs9CS3h11orBwI-a-ay-3hlaLB3knVrJ3woM1Tb09usqZrxn6Vf22YTIOnmITIPZGFSogGCQs/s640/stanmorecountrypark.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Woodlands in Stanmore Country Park.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
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<div class="MsoBodyText">
The site became a Country Park in 1976 when it was partly
managed by the Greater London Council, but is now wholly owned by the London
Borough of Harrow following the GLC’s abolition. Designated a Local Nature
Reserve (LNR) in 1995, it’s a mix of meadows and fields, including some acidic
grassland dotted with the raised nests of yellow ants, and woodland – some of
it recent secondary growth but with some ancient semi-natural woodland with
wild service trees and mature hornbeams. Much of the Loop link stays within the
trees, interleaving with another nature trail and its numbered posts. At post
13 there’s a spiky midland hawthorn, and at post 14 you cross an ancient hedge
line by a 250-year-old oak.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The link leaves the park, and the Community Forest area, past a bluebell wood and enters
the <a href="http://www.whera.org/" target="_blank">Warren House housing estate</a> along Kerry Avenue. This is the area developed
for Fitzgerald in the 1930s to take advantage of the opening of the railway. He
was determined to create something a cut above the average suburban style, as
evidenced by the generous lawns, the wooded strips that divide some of the
roads and the stylish art deco, or rather ‘moderne’, houses that line them.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Some
were designed by Gerald Lacoste (1908-83): an artist as well as an architect,
he was also responsible for various World War II propaganda posters. There are
some particularly large and fine examples of his work clustered around the junction
of Kerry Avenue, Valencia Road and Glanleam Road (the origins of the street
names are obvious if you know something of the family history: Glanleam is an
estate on Valentia island). Other architects were Douglas Wood and Owen
Williams, one of the creators of the old Wembley Stadium.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The last few hundred metres of the link continue along Kerry
Court, across a grass patch and through a hedge that strategically shields the
estate from busy London Road. Immediately opposite is Stanmore station, designed
in cottagey suburban style by the Metropolitan Railway architect Charles W
Clarke. Curiously, the station has been on three different Underground lines since
opening in 1932. In 1939 the branch was detached from the Met and became a
branch of the Bakerloo Line, and in 1979 it was reallocated again, as the
northerly section of the newly-built Jubilee Line. Despite discussions in the
1930s about a northwards extension, Stanmore remains a terminus.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
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<div class="MsoBodyText">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-cn-YioroQLS4jxqureUGmKLkA8-Q7nYaV7tcD6NbZ7fQj2yVEy7wTSYn71GK5YiD7j5S4Imt5DG8rtHuDf4xoCxNBqqGI4Lf7PKCDNk0E_-JZkXIRg91zCjkWgMIVdB3YGIEPM8-SU8/s1600/stanmorestation.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-cn-YioroQLS4jxqureUGmKLkA8-Q7nYaV7tcD6NbZ7fQj2yVEy7wTSYn71GK5YiD7j5S4Imt5DG8rtHuDf4xoCxNBqqGI4Lf7PKCDNk0E_-JZkXIRg91zCjkWgMIVdB3YGIEPM8-SU8/s640/stanmorestation.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stanmore station, now on its third Underground line.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<ul style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<li><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/uqu7kj4wom7wp9v/15-hatchend-elstree.pdf?dl=0" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Download full route description</a> (PDF)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=ze8MGLx4VZ8Q.kz_iSyKD3QHI&usp=sharing" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">View Google map</a></li>
<li><a href="https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/walking/hatch-end-to-elstree" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Official Transport for London page</a></li>
</ul>
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Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-5412897553482172062017-11-03T11:10:00.000+00:002017-11-03T11:10:42.495+00:00London Loop 11 alternative via Weston Walk<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnRzKGuNKRjf-1O7txZXZLfLX0vZGZmlyGm1g4gdNqJbEy-fjwohy8Bhm93bONTujFOLNJIxBWRwkAOsozjZeIXaRxQ_FOQBRIYh4AJ6-olVfLi1itZN9Nu02uNxUXfJjE-zSAHqh7710/s1600/westonwalk-mound.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnRzKGuNKRjf-1O7txZXZLfLX0vZGZmlyGm1g4gdNqJbEy-fjwohy8Bhm93bONTujFOLNJIxBWRwkAOsozjZeIXaRxQ_FOQBRIYh4AJ6-olVfLi1itZN9Nu02uNxUXfJjE-zSAHqh7710/s640/westonwalk-mound.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grand Union Canal and Great Western Railway viewed from the end of newly opened Weston Walk, Horton.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
A new path opened early in 2017 has further reduced
the amount of road walking on the London Loop through Hillingdon borough.
Following a green strip beside a new development site, Weston Walk links the point where the trail leaves Stockley Park directly with the Grand Union Canal towpath just east of where the Loop originally rejoined the canal at Horton Bridge.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The original route along roads through a largely
industrial area does have some minor points of interest, though most walkers
will undoubtedly prefer the new greener alternative, even though it’s very
slightly longer (by 150 m or so). At the time of writing, signing on the ground
was still directing walkers along the old route. I’ve amended my route
description to include both options.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
As explained in my commentary on <a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/london-loop-1112-hayes-hillingdon.html">London Loop 11</a>, in the 19<sup>th</sup>
century much of the land to the north of the canal here was covered by
brickfields. The site immediately to the south of Horton Road, once known as
Coopers Dock, had several subsequent uses, including as a printing works and a
concrete works. It had been derelict for a decade before developers Prologis
took it on a few years back for redevelopment into a business park under the
name Prologis Park. A big distribution depot now stands on the eastern portion,
while at the time of writing the rest was already flattened ready for building.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Improvements to public access have been provided under a ‘section
106 agreement’ (s106), where a developer undertakes to provide public benefit
as a condition of planning permission. This includes resurfacing the towpath
along the south of the site – you’ll only benefit for a few metres of this if
you’re walking the Loop – as well as the current path, the line of a former
private drive converted into a landscaped green strip. It appears to be named Weston
Walk after one of the company’s executives, Paul Weston. Information boards narrate
the story of the local brick industry, and at the end is a small grassy mound
which provides good views of the canal and the Great Western Railway, running
parallel at this point. I’ve said more about the former under London Loop 11,
and the latter under <a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/london-loop-1112-kingston-hatton-cross.html">London Loop 10</a>.</div>
<ul style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<li><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/mdwvvh18k61mmms/11-12-hayes-harefield.pdf?dl=0" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Download full route description</a> (PDF)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=ze8MGLx4VZ8Q.kz_iSyKD3QHI&usp=sharing" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">View Google map</a></li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLGHZRaGZoOrfQU_V5FzhbtMN9RIipl0FgW9KIvS-i1OhQYTCu6asr11rM3f6_kFsT-e9EIsFjDHiyhjkhA3y3Me9cywTl6gKe6KkuJC-b9eFBXTbFUu3srwgomNvma-QucBAfV2Q8Dc8/s1600/westonwalk-gates.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLGHZRaGZoOrfQU_V5FzhbtMN9RIipl0FgW9KIvS-i1OhQYTCu6asr11rM3f6_kFsT-e9EIsFjDHiyhjkhA3y3Me9cywTl6gKe6KkuJC-b9eFBXTbFUu3srwgomNvma-QucBAfV2Q8Dc8/s640/westonwalk-gates.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Entrance to Weston Walk, Horton, a stroll across former brickfields beside a new distribution depot.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-79554694063470721582017-10-31T07:52:00.004+00:002017-10-31T13:46:22.197+00:00London Loop 9 Alternative via Feltham Marshalling Yards<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii-2F-f4yPnYcMD9tNjGSvRBU505Z8zR1TGUsX9aOnxHkdQxYI50aZPncLKzL5PLksAxB47SeuubRqfwVI9xMidzKU3J8ULEakItdoXmLLMNBB0cjQLK1SguGR86TOk6YQ-D5XbrfO_ko/s1600/felthammarshallingyards-sleepers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii-2F-f4yPnYcMD9tNjGSvRBU505Z8zR1TGUsX9aOnxHkdQxYI50aZPncLKzL5PLksAxB47SeuubRqfwVI9xMidzKU3J8ULEakItdoXmLLMNBB0cjQLK1SguGR86TOk6YQ-D5XbrfO_ko/s640/felthammarshallingyards-sleepers.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Piles of abandoned sleepers are one of the few reminders of what was once the UK's biggest rail siding:<br />
Feltham Marshalling Yards</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
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<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
Here’s an alternative routing of London Loop section
9 that provides a greener and more direct way between Richmond and Hounslow
boroughs. The official trail currently follows a longstanding provisional route, leaving the obvious line of the river Crane for a rather awkward detour
via Hounslow Heath, including a longish road walk. The detour persists because
the status of the old Feltham Marshalling Yards site which straddles the river
is still not entirely resolved. But for some time now, an informal path closer
to the river has usually been kept open, and although it’s not widely
publicised, it’s well-known locally.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The official route has its virtues, particularly as it
includes Hounslow Heath, an attractive and interesting reminder of what
suburban west London looked like before it was covered with concrete. But getting
there involves a dull slog along Hounslow Road, and the walk back to the Crane
follows an irritating zigzag around a golf course. The alternative is not only
entirely off-road, more logical and 1.3 km shorter, but includes a large
overgrown area of considerable nature and industrial history interest and a
brief taste of the fascinating Cavalry Tunnel. Do remember that it’s still strictly
informal: access depends on three gates in substantial fences being left
unlocked; the site can feel rather desolate and isolated; and the Cavalry
Tunnel section, though very short, is unlit and unmaintained.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
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<div class="MsoBodyText">
I’ve revised the existing London Loop route description
for sections 9 and 10, Kingston upon Thames – Hatton Cross – Hayes (Hillingdon),
to include details of both options, and you can read more about the places on
the Feltham Marshalling Yards alternative below.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
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<h3>
Pevensey Road Nature Reserve<o:p></o:p></h3>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRUtP0gbiDcGlPig4jc6FRBrnPxpyfwhWZSNrFf_izCKBG2BEAi91kSw-ufyb89LttOPkPw-hQ0gl3E88xJQU3JMsgQPiczxCwXIXEnuGrr18NHb8M6y6Nz-k1DkG0vUR0UC4Rn_F8WIc/s1600/pevenseyroadlnr.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRUtP0gbiDcGlPig4jc6FRBrnPxpyfwhWZSNrFf_izCKBG2BEAi91kSw-ufyb89LttOPkPw-hQ0gl3E88xJQU3JMsgQPiczxCwXIXEnuGrr18NHb8M6y6Nz-k1DkG0vUR0UC4Rn_F8WIc/s640/pevenseyroadlnr.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The woodchip path through Pevensey Road Local Nature Reserve.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
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<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
I’ve said more about the river Crane, one of the
most substantial Thames tributaries in Greater London, in my commentary on
<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/london-loop-1112-kingston-hatton-cross.html">London Loop section 9</a>. Like many urban rivers it forms a green corridor, which
the Loop first joins at Hospital Bridge, between Fulwell and Whitton. The trail
follows the river through Crane Park, on the site of the old Hounslow Gunpowder
Works, and past the famous Shot Tower to reach the main Hounslow Road at
Hanworth. Here, the official Loop sets off northeast along the road to Hounslow
Heath, but the observant walker will spot tempting damp woodlands across the
road. On the east bank is an extension of Crane Park known as Little Park, but our route crosses the river to enter the space on the west bank.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
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<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The land adjacent to the river here was acquired by the old
Middlesex County Council before World War II. Part of it was then allocated as the
South West Middlesex Crematorium, controlled by its own statutory board made up
of a partnership of local authorities. This opened in 1954 as part of the
post-war proliferation of such municipal facilities – it was the 74<sup>th</sup>
local authority crematorium to open in the UK since the war.</div>
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<div class="MsoBodyText">
A margin of woodland,
wetland and scrubby meadow surrounded the site on three sides: inherited by
Hounslow council, this was included in the area designated the <a href="http://www.hounslow.info/parks-open-spaces/find-your-park/pevensey-road/" target="_blank">Pevensey Road Local Nature Reserve</a> (LNR) in 1994, and is now partly maintained by The
Conservation Volunteers. This southern section of the site is also known as
Peter Cribb Park, dedicated to the late former superintendent of the
crematorium, a keen naturalist who made a major contribution to the
conservation of local green spaces.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The watercourses here are a legacy of the former gunpowder
mills to the south: the river itself follows a managed course, while a parallel
millstream, also labelled as the Crane on most contemporary maps, runs to the
east. The trail crosses the river then tracks its western bank through the
reserve on a recently improved woodchip path, although the water isn’t always
easily visible through the trees. After a while you climb a sharp slope into a
more open scrubby area, the site of the former Feltham Urban District Council
sewage works, built in the 1920s but disused by the 1950s and now part of the
LNR. Following the woodchip path left here will take you to the Feltham
Circles, the remains of the sewage works tanks, now covered in graffiti. But these
are off our route, which runs alongside and then through the fence surrounding
the Marshalling Yards site.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
Feltham Marshalling Yards <o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjfAIoG5s_XEnjL8FIcm-rE1T0b5OwrD3IWJRG7yMl4bvnB7BneJzXwKkr92eR4KudCnBJfQ8OqNM3QuPUaX7QUSlRX3YhB4BjizhMMojvFDL4xfq1gTTEuNGnDjwI4RfAYDD-dXmiD2Q/s1600/cavalrytunnelentrance.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjfAIoG5s_XEnjL8FIcm-rE1T0b5OwrD3IWJRG7yMl4bvnB7BneJzXwKkr92eR4KudCnBJfQ8OqNM3QuPUaX7QUSlRX3YhB4BjizhMMojvFDL4xfq1gTTEuNGnDjwI4RfAYDD-dXmiD2Q/s400/cavalrytunnelentrance.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Into the depths: entrance to the Cavalry Tunnel.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
For such a huge facility, the Marshalling Yards had
a relatively short life of a little over fifty years. Construction started in
1916, largely carried out by prisoners of war on fields immediately to the
south of the London and South Western Railway (L&SWR) main line east of
Feltham station. Its purpose was to replace the company’s freight facilities at
Nine Elms which were becoming overwhelmed by demand, and the location was
chosen partly because of the space, partly for the convenience not only for the
L&SWR’s own line, opened in 1838 from Nine Elms to Woking as the London and Southampton Railway, but for links to other railways. </div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
Like much of this area,
the land had originally formed part of Hounslow Heath before the latter was
gradually inclosed and developed in the 19<sup>th</sup> century, as explained
under Loop 9. First operational in 1918 and completed in 1921, Feltham was once
the busiest railway siding in the country, handling almost 3,500 wagons a day,
over 51 km of track. During World War II it was used for moving war supplies,
including materials destined for the 1944 Normandy Landings, and was duly
targeted for bombing.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Traffic declined after the war as more freight moved onto
the roads, and the facility didn’t survive the phasing out of steam traction on
British Rail during the 1960s. It finally closed in 1969, after which nearly
all the infrastructure was removed. Since then much of this huge site – about 30
ha – has been left derelict and quietly returned to nature. Huge clumps of
buddleia and stands of silver birch now sprout where wagons once gently rattled
by, and the habitat has proved particularly welcoming to reptiles. All in all,
it’s a valuable and rare example of what happens to a large brownfield site abandoned
for the best part of half a century.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The yard is still under railway ownership, now that of
British Rail’s successor Network Rail, and most of it has since been designated
as Green Belt and a Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation.
But proposals for its future management have so far failed to bear fruit.
Meanwhile, it’s enjoyed informally by local people who are aware of the access
points – and unfortunately occasionally for less benign use such as illegal
off-road motorcycling and anti-social behaviour.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
There’s a longstanding aspiration on behalf of local
councils and the Friends of the River Crane Environment campaign group (FORCE)
to incorporate the Marshalling Yards more fully into the Crane Valley corridor,
with a recognised walking and cycling route running through it as part of the
wider riverside route.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
This looked like it might finally happen in the late
1990s when planning permission was granted for a contentious proposal by
Railtrack, the company that briefly and disastrously took over custody of
infrastructure following the privatisation of British Rail, and the Royal Mail
to build a giant sorting office on the northeast portion of the site. The
permission was subject to a ‘section 106’ (s106) agreement to provide and
maintain formal access to the rest of the yards. A dispute between the London
Borough of Hounslow and Network Rail about ongoing responsibility for
maintenance followed and as a result, though money was set aside and some work
was done, the promised new network of paths was never completed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The latest document to address the future of the site is
the council’s masterplan for the redevelopment of Feltham, published in 2017.
This envisages building around 600 homes on parts of the site – though the rest
would be taken into public ownership and conserved and managed as public space.
<a href="https://www.force.org.uk/history/feltham-marshalling-yards/" target="_blank">FORCE</a> and other local groups are understandably concerned about the building
proposals, but a more strategic approach to conserving the rest of Yards as a
community and natural resource could well be the way forward. Meanwhile the
gates that interrupt the through-route are left tacitly open – not least
because if locked they’re rapidly vandalised by motorcycle scramblers.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Walking into the site, you soon cross the trackbed of one
of the sidings, and follow it right through a very tall gate into another
scrubby area. The earthworks round here are relics of the two humps that once
played an integral part in the yard’s operations: wagons would be hauled to the
top then allowed to run into the correct sidings under gravity. Once through
the tall gate you turn left and walk along a gulley: the path here runs parallel
to one of the site’s best-known surviving features, the Cavalry Tunnel, and you’ll
shortly descend to see more of it, between two concrete blocks installed as
crude motorcycle barriers.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The tunnel was the solution to dealing with the river
Crane. The L&SWR line bounding the site to the north already crossed
the river, which passed beneath in a tunnel, so the engineers redirected the flow into
a new culvert and extended the tunnel over it, leaving an uninterrupted surface
above. A second, narrower, tunnel was provided alongside the main one,
primarily to cope with overflows in times of flood. An urban myth quickly grew
up that the real purpose of this 686 m passageway was to allow cavalry troops
stationed at the barracks on Hounslow Heath access under the tracks. But
although the overflow tunnel undoubtedly provided an informal pedestrian route
for those courageous enough to brave the darkness, this seems unlikely. The structure
is also sometimes known as the 40-Acre Tunnel, presumably after a field that
once stood here.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Among the work carried out under the sorting office s106
agreement before it was paralysed by dispute was the cutting of a new
pedestrian and cycle subway into the northern end of the tunnel, which you now
use to cross the still-operational railway and leave the site. It’s a strange
place: in a dusty and neglected space at the bottom of a gritty slope, there’s
a sudden eruption of formal civil engineering, with hard surfaces, tactile
paving and signing, looking like a discovery from some post-apocalyptic science
fiction drama. On the right, you can peer through iron bars along the rest of
the dark and gloomy tunnel as it heads south: certainly not a comfortable
environment even for a cavalry regiment.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Your way is left, along a few slightly spooky metres before
you emerge through another gate and back out onto the riverside path: look
right again to see the Crane emerging from the main tunnel. Not much further on, the official Loop route
rejoins across a bridge on the right and continues ahead through Brazil Mill
Woods to Baber Bridge, as previously described.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<ul style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<li><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/6u0hvxi7r5bqbcp/9-10-kingston-hayes.pdf?dl=0" style="color: #660000;" target="_blank">Download full route description</a> (PDF)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=ze8MGLx4VZ8Q.kz_iSyKD3QHI&usp=sharing" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">View Google map</a></li>
</ul>
Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-81546787475030346372017-10-17T16:42:00.001+01:002017-10-20T12:29:16.106+01:00Ingrebourne Way: Noak Hill - Upminster Bridge<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYsYsVkqT1f5aw4LmmSTcU8v42NtqRmxFL34YdDyK-VooxS6nx87k-uAy_uxFxN3LXQp1TARfvHgo9BuRRV_O7WJeOHDxaoCxiKC3iS7ND_W942Ba4gvr73joWNLC8eqM5Dwadio2r6N4/s1600/dagnamparkgateposts.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYsYsVkqT1f5aw4LmmSTcU8v42NtqRmxFL34YdDyK-VooxS6nx87k-uAy_uxFxN3LXQp1TARfvHgo9BuRRV_O7WJeOHDxaoCxiKC3iS7ND_W942Ba4gvr73joWNLC8eqM5Dwadio2r6N4/s640/dagnamparkgateposts.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Right-of-way-deterring gateposts at Dagnam Park.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
The Ingrebourne Way is a walking and cycling trail
that very roughly follows the Ingrebourne valley north-south through the London
Borough of Havering. Starting at the pretty hamlet of Noak Hill in the north,
right on the edge of the countryside, it runs through Harold Wood and Upminster
to Rainham, linking several green spaces in Thames Chase Community Forest and
connecting at Rainham with further trails across the marshes to Purfleet. Throughout
its length it either duplicates or parallels the London Loop, providing
alternative routes and circular walks.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
You can cover all the sections of the Ingrebourne Way that
are significantly different from the Loop on the 13 km route described here,
starting by bus stops at Noak Hill Road on the northern edge of the Harold Hill
estate and finishing at Upminster Bridge station. Some of the walk duplicates
the Loop but there are interesting excursions through Dagnam Park and the new
woodland at Harold Court, as well as a different way through Pages Wood that
includes an impressive view. South of here the Way mainly follows roads through
Upminster but passes several historic buildings.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The next station back down the Loop before the Ingrebourne
Way diverges is a long way away at Chigwell, so the best advice to start the
walk is to catch the bus from Romford or Harold Hill stations to Wincanton
Road, Noak Hill. There are various other bus stops along the way, and the trail
passes busy Upminster station before ending at Upminster Bridge station, the
same point as London Loop section 22.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
More about the Ingrebourne Way<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjucLSGCGFcIBCRL8hNZyVygBvN4SanL9WdHgNLuar2Si0_Bx23EGvHa23D4Zz7vfDQZrFWR47gEFlhpbqttL3Fqbo4mo_z1xnzCNnVuMz2Tu7xzRLD4yoLXrMXcUov8jYmu290v4UhrEI/s1600/noakhill-ingrebournewaystart.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjucLSGCGFcIBCRL8hNZyVygBvN4SanL9WdHgNLuar2Si0_Bx23EGvHa23D4Zz7vfDQZrFWR47gEFlhpbqttL3Fqbo4mo_z1xnzCNnVuMz2Tu7xzRLD4yoLXrMXcUov8jYmu290v4UhrEI/s640/noakhill-ingrebournewaystart.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Start of the Ingrebourne Way at Noak Hill.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
As mentioned along <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/london-loop-2021-chigwell-havering-atte.html">London Loop 21</a>, the river
Ingrebourne rises in Essex, just south of Brentwood, and is the furthest
downstream of all the tributaries flowing through Greater London that join the
Thames on its north bank. ‘Bourne’ means a stream, but the origin of the prefix
is obscure: it may be a proper name. The river is joined just after it’s passed
under the M25 by a longer tributary, the Weald Brook, which rises in what’s now
Weald Country Park near South Weald. A second major tributary, the Paynes
Brook, joins near Harold Wood station: the London Loop and the Ingrebourne Way
both follow parts of this. From Harold Wood, the river flows in a slight bow,
first southeast then southwest, via Upminster Bridge, Hornchurch Country Park
and Rainham, joining the Thames on Rainham Marshes, a total distance of 43.3
km.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
As seen many times in London Underfoot, fear of flooding
has largely kept developers away from the water’s edge, and the idea of a green
trail following the river has been around for a long time. Hornchurch Urban
District Council, one of the predecessors of today’s London Borough of Havering,
acted on the idea as far back as the early 1960s by creating three successive
‘parkways’ along the river south of Upminster, quite likely the earliest
dedicated off-road walking and cycling infrastructure in what’s now London and
today part of both the London Loop and Ingrebourne Way (see <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/london-loop-2324-upminster-bridge.html">Loop 23</a> for details).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Access extended as more stretches of riverside became
public parks, and proposals for a continuous route were being considered in the
1980s, though there were still numerous obstacles. As the London Loop developed
in the 1990s, its promoters the London Walking Forum understandably focused on
the Ingrebourne corridor as a way to return the trail to the Thames in the
east. But there were still diversions into surrounding streets at several
points when the Loop officially launched. The designation of much of the area
surrounding the river as part of Thames Chase Community Forest in 1990 helped,
and some of the diversions have been smoothed out, but the path still isn’t
entirely continuous.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Today’s Ingrebourne Way finally emerged as a fruit of
increased cycle funding in the early 21<sup>st</sup> century, although in a
rather different form than what might originally have been envisaged. Launched
by Havering council and the sustainable transport charity Sustrans in 2013,
it’s primarily a cycle route, designated National Cycle Network (NCN) Route
136, although also of course open to walkers and pleasant to walk too, as much
of it is off-road and not too busy with bikes. But the need to accommodate
cyclists and manage their impact has resulted in both roundabout diversions and
road-based sections longer than many walkers will find comfortable. Quite a bit
of it doesn’t actually follow the river, and the riverside stretches are
largely shared with the Loop.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Here’s a brief overview of the various walking options.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b>1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Noak
Hill Wincanton Road bus stops – Chequers Road</b>. At its north end, the
Ingrebourne Way isn’t currently connected with any other recognised walking and
cycling trails. It starts on Chequers Road, Noak Hill, at the gate at the top
of Lower Noke Close, the old drive through Dagnam Park. This is off the London
Loop, but I’ve described an 800 m link from the point where <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/london-loop-2021-chigwell-havering-atte.html">Loop section 21</a>
enters the Harold Hill estate, also conveniently close to the Wincanton Road
bus stops with a good service from Romford and Harold Hill stations. This is
one of those rare stretches of the Loop that wanders far from railways: the
first station back is at Chigwell, almost 15 km away. The official start of
section 21 is also at a bus stop, at Havering-atte-Bower 4.4 km back, and with
one of the least frequent services in London. Even the official Loop guide
suggests you might want to use Wincanton Road as a break point instead. The
link from here to the Ingrebourne Way is simply along the road, but Noak Hill
is well-supplied with cute rustic cottages, several of them listed, so there’s
plenty to look at along the way.<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b>2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Noak
Hill Chequers Road – Harold Hill Central Park</b>. The Way runs straight
through Dagnam Park past manor house ruins and a fishing lake surrounded by
woodlands, well worth a diversion from the Loop, which it rejoins by the
Portrait Bench in the middle of Central Park after 2.4 km. Total distance from
Wincanton Road to Central Park is 3.2 km via the Way, 1.7 km via the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/london-loop-2021-chigwell-havering-atte.html">Loop section 21</a>, which takes a more direct course alongside the Paines Brook.<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b>3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Central
Park – Paines Bridge</b>. The Way and the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/london-loop-2021-chigwell-havering-atte.html">Loop section 21</a> share the same path
for just over 1 km through the green margin alongside Paines Brook as far as
the A12.<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Paines
Bridge – Pages Wood</b>. At first the Way follows streets but then starts to
climb up Shepherds Hill through the new woodland at Harold Court Woods.
Entering another new woodland, Pages Wood, there are spectacular views from the
top of the slope before the trail plunges down to rejoin the Loop at the bottom
of the valley and turn with it alongside the Ingrebourne. Some may prefer this
3.2 km stretch for the view alone; the Loop alternative, comprising the end of
<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/london-loop-2021-chigwell-havering-atte.html">section 21</a> and beginning of <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/london-loop-22-harold-wood-upminster.html">section 22</a>, is slightly shorter, at 2.9 km, with
about as much along streets, though it does include the break at Harold Wood
station, Harold Wood Park and rather more of the Ingrebourne.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->5.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Pages
Wood – Upminster Hall Severn Drive</b>. The Way and <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/london-loop-22-harold-wood-upminster.html">Loop 22</a> share the same
route for 2.5 km, and once you’re out of Pages Wood it’s all along roads and
streets.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->6.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Upminster
Hall Severn Drive – Hornchurch Stadium</b>. The Way simply follows Hall Lane
here into Upminster, passing the station, though there’s an opportunity to
swerve off along the grass of Upminster Hall Recreation Ground at one point,
and several historic buildings including the fascinating Tithe Barn with its
museum. South of the station, a short hop through back streets is followed by a
pleasant stroll through Upminster Park, then more back streets bring you back
to the Loop, now on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/london-loop-2324-upminster-bridge.html">section 23</a>, at the gates of Hornchurch Stadium. Total
distance is 3 km, shorter than the Loop’s 3.7 km, but as the latter returns to
the Ingrebourne again on an off-road walkers-only path through woods and
fields, it’s likely to be the preferred choice for walkers so long as
accessibility isn’t an issue. To end the walk here you simply follow the Loop
‘backwards’ to Upminster Bridge station, 650 m away. Noak Hill to Upminster
Bridge via the various Ingrebourne Way alternatives is 14 km; sticking to the
Loop, it’s 11 km.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b>7.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Hornchurch
Stadium – Rainham</b>. Although the Way meets the Loop at the stadium gates,
officially it doesn’t rejoin the walking trail straight away. To facilitate
cycling, it continues a little further along the street to reach the riverside along
South View Drive. There’s little point to this detour for those on foot who
want to continue to Hornchurch Country Park or Rainham. The Way now mainly follows
the same paths as the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/london-loop-2324-upminster-bridge.html">Loop</a>, though occasionally in the Ingrebourne Valley Local
Nature Reserve and Hornchurch Country Park it takes a wider parallel path a
short distance away. As these differences aren’t significant I haven’t bothered
to provide an alternative description of the rest of the Way but if you really
wanted to follow it religiously, it’s very well signed. Total distance to
Rainham is 7 km<b>.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-left: 32.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b>8.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></b><!--[endif]--><b>On to
Purfleet</b>. The Ingrebourne Way
officially ends at Rainham station, though by now it’s met National Cycle
Network Route 13 which continues through Rainham Marshes to Purfleet. The
London Loop takes a similar though not identical route to Purfleet and I’ve
described this as well as briefly mentioning the cycleway alternatives under
<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/london-loop-2324-upminster-bridge.html">Loop section 24</a>.<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
As a trail designed to accommodate cyclists, the
Ingrebourne Way is highly accessible, along broad paths with good surfaces –
sometimes hard tarmac, sometimes softer bonded gravel—and no stiles. But there
are a few more climbs and descents than on the Loop, which slightly ironically
spends rather more time on the low, flat ground close to the river.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Another advantage of its being a cycle route is that the
Way is particularly well-signed to NCN standards. Look out for the number 136
in white on a red rectangle alongside walker and cycle symbols on fingerposts,
waymarks and other signs. On roads the signs usually have a blue background,
while in the green spaces they may be on a green background. They’re often
supplemented by signing painted on road and path surfaces. Unlike most walking
routes, you should be able to follow the route using the signing alone, with no
need for a written description, but just in case I’ve provided one anyway.
You’ll see the Loop signing too where the two routes coincide.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
There’s no official text guide to the trail, although a
useful free ‘local travel map’, <i>Havering
/ Ingrebourne Way</i>, was published by the council and Sustrans in 2013 which
is still <a href="https://www.sustrans.org.uk/sites/default/files/file_content_type/havering_web.pdf" target="_blank">downloadable as a PDF</a>. This shows the
Way, connecting cycling routes and even the London Loop. The trail also appears on <a href="https://www.sustrans.org.uk/ncn/map/route/route-136" target="_blank">Sustrans online mapping</a>. The Way is shown on
Ordnance Survey Explorer maps in the standard manner for a cycle route, with a
line of orange dots for off-road ‘cycle tracks’ but only intermittent use of
the number 136 in white on a red rectangle where it follows roads and streets.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
Noak Hill and Dagnam Park<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo4QAEs6VsLpICIf6dqLMUqS1g0G1e9ZKR3z3V8Oj_4c7Bc25GUdxkz6BZikxM-m38ejsm4FOe4RiYGJCCxic-S4Yy5-N_5xA_MdaeuNnQmPPBY2k3-ww2cKDQXKGAO_QTf7TNSP1rP1Q/s1600/noakhill-thatchedcottage.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo4QAEs6VsLpICIf6dqLMUqS1g0G1e9ZKR3z3V8Oj_4c7Bc25GUdxkz6BZikxM-m38ejsm4FOe4RiYGJCCxic-S4Yy5-N_5xA_MdaeuNnQmPPBY2k3-ww2cKDQXKGAO_QTf7TNSP1rP1Q/s400/noakhill-thatchedcottage.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The imaginatively named Thatched Cottage, Noak Hill.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
I’ve already introduced the Royal Liberty of Havering
in my commentary on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/london-loop-2021-chigwell-havering-atte.html">London Loop sections 20 and 21</a>. There I explained that two
separate estates occupied the Harold Hill area in the 14<sup>th</sup> century: Gooshayes,
‘goose enclosure’, to the west and Dagenhams or Dagnams to the east. The latter
had itself originally been two estates, Dagenhams and Cockerels, named after
former owners. The De Dakenham family (possibly from the town of Dagenham, not
too far away) were granted land in the area by Henry III in the early 13<sup>th</sup>
century.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
After World War II, these greenfield sites were compulsorily purchased
by the London County Council to build one of several large housing estates in
locations surrounding London but – until the capital itself was expanded in
1965 – outside its official boundaries. 7,631 homes were built in Harold Hill between
1948 and 1961. Thankfully, swathes of former countryside and parkland were
incorporated into the design and it’s these that we’ll explore in the early
stages of the walk.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Noak Hill was the village attached to the Dagnams estate,
sitting atop the hill to the north. The settlement could easily have been swallowed
by the new development, but fortunately it was left alone and still retains its
own distinct rural character today as a genuine London village, with several
heritage buildings.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
One of them is the Bear pub, a little to the left along
Noak Hill Road from the bus stop and passed by the Loop. The current building
has a Victorian core that was substantially extended in the 1950s, but there’s
been a pub on the site since the late 17<sup>th</sup> century, when it was called
the Goat. It was once well-known locally as the home of a real bear, kept as an
attraction in a cage in the pub garden among less exotic fauna such as
peacocks, and known for its consumption of beer and crisps. In fact, there were
two successive bears: Rhani, a Himalayan
black bear who died sometime in the mid-1960s, and her successor Honey, a brown
bear who went to Linton Zoo in Cambridgeshire when her owners retired in 1974.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
To reach the Ingrebourne Way proper you’ll need to follow
Noak Hill Road northeast, crossing Carters Brook and passing a succession of
picturesque cottages that are now listed buildings. The aptly named Thatched
Cottage and its neighbour, Old Keepers Cottage, are both early 19<sup>th</sup> century
buildings; the latter isn’t thatched but is prettily weatherboarded. Opposite,
set back from the road is late 18<sup>th</sup> century Holly Tree Cottage; on
the same side and also set back are a pretty early 19<sup>th</sup> century pair
known as Meadow Cottages. Opposite, on the roadside, of similar date and particularly
pretty, is the long, low range of Rose Cottages with their weatherboarded
western extension. A little off the route in Church Road is the 1842 St Thomas
Church, which Nikolaus Pevsner described as “modest and attractive”. A Radha
Krishna temple has stood on the same street since 2008.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The church contains various monuments to the Neaves, the
family who fashioned the estate into its final form. Before this there were
several successive manor houses in the park, including an Elizabethan moated
manor, which Samuel Pepys visited several times in 1665. Richard Neave, a
well-off merchant with the West India company, bought Dagnams in 1772: he later
became a baronet and a governor of the Bank of England. In 1812, he had the old
house demolished and replaced by a grand Georgian mansion, surrounded by
gardens and grounds designed by Humphrey Repton. Neave’s son Thomas continued
to expand the family’s holdings, amalgamating the estate with neighbouring
Goosehayes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Their successors began selling off the estate piecemeal
after World War I and finally quit the manor house itself in 1940 when it was
requisitioned for military use. Towards the end of the war, the house suffered
a direct hit from a V2 rocket which cracked the walls. The LCC initially
undertook to preserve and restore the house when it acquired the remains of the
estate after the war. But the caretakers illegally stripped lead from the roof
and this, together with the bomb damage, resulted in so much deterioration that
the building had to be demolished in 1950.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The <a href="https://www.havering.gov.uk/directory_record/46/dagnam_park" target="_blank">surrounding parkland</a> was kept for recreation, though
suffered from neglect over many decades, and almost none of the former gardens
and other fine features created by Repton survive. By the early 2000s, ‘The Manor’,
as the site is known locally, had a bad reputation as a wasteland plagued by
illegal motorcycling and other anti-social behaviour. Concerned local people
formed the <a href="http://www.friendsofdagnampark.org.uk/" target="_blank">Friends of Dagnam Park</a> which successfully campaigned for designation
as a Local Nature Reserve (LNR) in 2005. The group has continued to support the
park and contributed to its becoming a much better looked-after space, with
some help from a Veolia Trust grant. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The Ingrebourne Way begins by following the old main drive.
At first there are hedgerows and fields, but soon, amid a cluster of woods, are
some obvious structures: a cobbled terrace on the left and, a little further,
some low walls on the right, the only remains of the manor house and its
associated buildings. The terrace is the former stable yard, once surrounded by
stable buildings surmounted by a bell tower, with a walled garden immediately beyond
to the east. These structures survived a little longer than the house: they
were demolished in 1959, though the foundations of the garden walls persist
below ground.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-pUoOEHNAF68q6YWDFSOY4vLFwC7Z0WHxj7-y15GMh51RMA-G3AEXX63EOL0_DMugrttCCY-60h0vBYGbD2-3a_XRnl2_ULkOjZUkDb0h3cUVeg6q9C2nV0eLPORhi4yupGRVXFyMDPg/s1600/dagnamparkmanor.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-pUoOEHNAF68q6YWDFSOY4vLFwC7Z0WHxj7-y15GMh51RMA-G3AEXX63EOL0_DMugrttCCY-60h0vBYGbD2-3a_XRnl2_ULkOjZUkDb0h3cUVeg6q9C2nV0eLPORhi4yupGRVXFyMDPg/s640/dagnamparkmanor.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some of the very few visible remains of the manor house in Dagnam Park.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The low walls are from the side of the main three-storey house,
which faced northwest, in the direction we’ve just walked. The only other
surviving fragments of the house are three stained glass roundels originally in
a semi-circular fan above the front door, now in a church in Nowton, Suffolk.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Just off the route, originally at the back of the house
and now surrounded by woodland, is a remaining landscape feature, the Round
Pond, originally a bathing pool. Perhaps the best-known surviving relics,
though, are the twin white cast iron gateposts either side of the drive. The
gate that once hung between these was usually left open so that the public
could pass through, but once a year it was shut to pre-empt claims that a public
right of way existed. Even today, the Ordnance Survey map only shows the
northern part of the drive as a public footpath, which appears to reach a dead
end at the edge of the manor house site.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Beyond this, the drive runs through a pleasing expanse of
open parkland and grassland, with the modern red brick buildings of Drapers
Academy secondary school, completed in 2012, rising ahead. Its design, by FelldenCleggBradley
architects, nods to its setting by mimicking the layout of 18<sup>th</sup> century
English country houses. But before reaching it, the Way deflects right past a
small car park: the drive itself originally continued all the way through what’s
now the built-up area of Harold Hill, along the route of Settle Road and Dagnam
Park Drive to the old Roman road to Colchester, now the A12.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The Way, meanwhile, passes another pond, now known as The
Manor Fishing Lake and well-used for that purpose, but originally known as
Green Pond, a cattle pond that predated the Neave era. Repton prettified this,
and may also have added some of the plantation woodland around its banks. To
the south of the pond, off the trail, are the still water-filled remains of a
square-shaped moat, likely dating from the 13<sup>th</sup> or 14<sup>th</sup> centuries,
which once surrounded the Cockrells manor house. It’s now a Scheduled Ancient
Monument. The woodland further along, Hatters Wood, is ancient semi-natural,
once one of the estate’s working woodlands, with a reputation for the quality
of its timber. It’s through these lush surrounds that the Way descends and
finally leaves the site.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
Harold Hill Central Park<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
The Ingrebourne Way deftly avoids all but a short
dip into the streets of Harold Hill here, soon entering Central Park and
rounding the ancient woodland of Long Wood to join the London Loop by the
Portrait Bench, with its silhouette figures of people with local connections,
most recognisably Henry VIII. The park was created from farmland attached to
the Gooshayes estate and you can read more about it under <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/london-loop-2021-chigwell-havering-atte.html">Loop 21</a>. There’s more
in that post too about the route from the park along the Paines Brook to the
A12 Colchester Road, where the trails divide again.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The Way simply follows the A12 but to save too much
exposure to traffic fumes and noise I’ve suggested that instead you take the parallel
Retford Road, one of the streets laid out in the 1950s as part of the Harold
Hill development. The streets south of the A12, in the neighbourhood known as
Harold Park, are older: development started here in the 1920s when Iles &
Co built a bungalow estate known as Sunnytown on the northeast of Harold Court
Road. This is the road you now follow as it becomes a surfaced track across a
bridge where the Ingrebourne Way finally meets the Ingrebourne itself for the
first time. But there’s no riverside route here, so instead continue under the
Great Eastern railway line (also introduced under Loop 21) and into Harold
Court Woods in the old parish of Upminster.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
Harold Court Woods<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpXcvwz8-IRd-SZXpcFVAnR0uRTWVPyuI1lrc6lCMepsMGXzoSin4WaUbBD1rEsSku24qieJcyFIEIRwjuFdVt09JNF7sRfNFyGkg13elE6Cl1X65Ic6pAxmcDyyNcJ9x5XmdJAC3f7_c/s1600/haroldpark-ingrebourne.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpXcvwz8-IRd-SZXpcFVAnR0uRTWVPyuI1lrc6lCMepsMGXzoSin4WaUbBD1rEsSku24qieJcyFIEIRwjuFdVt09JNF7sRfNFyGkg13elE6Cl1X65Ic6pAxmcDyyNcJ9x5XmdJAC3f7_c/s640/haroldpark-ingrebourne.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the surprisingly rare sightings of the river Ingrebourne along the Ingrebourne Way, on Harold Court Road.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
In mediaeval times, the rough ground rising from the
south of the Ingrebourne to Shepherds Hill in the far north of Upminster parish
was managed as common: Upminster Common in the west and Tylers Common in the
east. In the early 18th century some of this was inclosed and improved as
farmland, including Goodhouse Farm immediately to the south of the river, which
even boasted vineyards. In 1870, the farm became the home of William Richard
Preston, a rather dodgy French-born Brentwood solicitor and property
speculator. Preston was one of the partners who, as explained under Loop 21,
had bought Gubbins Farm in nearby North End in 1866 with the intention of
turning it into the proposed Harold Wood New Town.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Despite lack of progress with the development plans,
Preston contrived to live in some style, building himself an elaborate white
brick Italianate mansion known as Harold Court, surrounded by extensive
grounds. He was finally declared bankrupt in 1881 and fled to Australia. Among
the unfinished business he left behind was a sewage disposal contract with the
Billericay Rural Sanitary Authority. The issue was resolved when the Authority
agreed to buy the northeastern part of the site at a reduced price: the sewage
works, first opened in 1884, still operates today.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
In 1882 the house became a home for pauper children from
Shoreditch and Hackney, and in 1891 the estate was bought by the Essex County
Lunatic Asylum. By 1911 it housed 72 “male lunatics” who could not have enjoyed
much in individual attention given that the staff consisted of a husband-and-wife
management team and two attendants. In 1918 it became Essex’s tuberculosis
sanatorium, then a general hospital attached to Brentwood under the NHS in
1948, renamed Harold Court Hospital. The last of many institutional occupants
was Brentwood College of Education, under which it was turned into a teacher
training college in 1960. This finally closed in the 1980s and the house was
sold off for conversion to private flats.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The surrounding estate, meanwhile, passed to the Forestry
Commission as <a href="https://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/englandessexnoforestthameschasecommunityforestharoldcourtwoods" target="_blank">Harold Court Woods</a>, part of the developing <a href="http://www.thameschase.org.uk/" target="_blank">Thames Chase CommunityForest</a>, which the Ingrebourne Way first enters here. Though over 40,000 trees
have been planted since 2001, the site isn’t just being managed as woodland,
but as with several other areas in the forest is intended to have a more mixed
and open aspect, including meadows. Among the more unusual new plantings is a
traditional ‘Apostles’ Circle’ of 12 horse chestnut trees encircling a single
central tree: this is a little off the trail along the bridleway to the right
soon after the railway line. The mansion is also on the right as you climb the
hill.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
Pages Wood and Hall Lane<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQsqEIyAyEf4tZK1t17BaITfXUkkYol5X1U-Rjq9NynACvpNgcu9Wzl9-0p2hpM0rN4e6ohyvbUpSvCEjcACeMa764zwcoeKXpWX5DhkDf9bJyRvvp2ZpqFE7iuudjq3kSCzIqMiRo6t4/s1600/pageswood-shepherdshill.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQsqEIyAyEf4tZK1t17BaITfXUkkYol5X1U-Rjq9NynACvpNgcu9Wzl9-0p2hpM0rN4e6ohyvbUpSvCEjcACeMa764zwcoeKXpWX5DhkDf9bJyRvvp2ZpqFE7iuudjq3kSCzIqMiRo6t4/s640/pageswood-shepherdshill.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spectacular views from the track that sweeps down from Shepherds Hill in Pages Wood.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
Leaving Harold Court Wood, Harold Court Road
continues as a track through more former common land now used as farmland: the
farmhouse of Ivy Lodge Farm is on the left, now a veterinary surgery. Then you
reach the road at the top of Shepherds Hill, with the next Forestry Commission
site, Pages Wood, immediately opposite. This northern part of the site was
originally Pages Farm, also carved out of Upminster Common. The signed official route twists and turns a
little to use a safe crossing, but as you approach the main track, you’ll see
the buildings of the old Pages Farm ahead of you. The pebble-dashed farmhouse
dates from 1663, while the barns and outbuildings are from the late 18<sup>th</sup>
and late 19<sup>th</sup> centuries: all are now Grade II listed.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The London Loop also runs through Pages Wood so I’ve said
more about it and about Thames Chase Community Forest on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/london-loop-22-harold-wood-upminster.html">Loop section 22</a>. The
Loop follows the valley, but the Ingrebourne Way gives you a very different
experience by entering on top of the hill and then plunging down towards the
river. The views here are bracing, southwest ahead towards the Thames, with the
North Downs on the opposite bank visible on good days, and eastward on your
left towards the hillier parts of Essex.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
At the bottom of the hill, the Way meets the Loop and at
last follows the Ingrebourne for a while although it’s soon forced away from
the river and across a tributary. After leaving Pages Wood, there’s quite a
long section following roads and streets, over the Southend Arterial Road, past
the Strawberry Farm and along Hall Lane, described in more detail in Loop 22. The
paths separate again inside the built-up area of Upminster at the junction of
Hall Lane and Avon Road. Here you may prefer to stay on the Loop, which returns
to the river on a green walkers-only route – but if you’ve already done that,
there’s a bit more of Upminster to see by following the Ingrebourne Way along
the road.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
Upminster<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibqfBmZj7jEJsFYqSaGcwmxIlASoV7N_9iR3FlrND13EogR5zyLNFMWoeVatDKFSKqxmq4rZJ3s3h1wdsiobXsf_ArtUr3NN7KmmIlp7Kr_HCM4T_wiCvuy4AjI5mH12hyphenhyphenj-pypcGFTEc/s1600/upminsterhallfields.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibqfBmZj7jEJsFYqSaGcwmxIlASoV7N_9iR3FlrND13EogR5zyLNFMWoeVatDKFSKqxmq4rZJ3s3h1wdsiobXsf_ArtUr3NN7KmmIlp7Kr_HCM4T_wiCvuy4AjI5mH12hyphenhyphenj-pypcGFTEc/s400/upminsterhallfields.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Contemplating the hills of Essex from Upminster Hall fields.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
I’ve introduced Upminster in some detail under <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/london-loop-22-harold-wood-upminster.html">Loop22</a>, but the Ingrebourne Way will take you past a few more places of interest. Upminster
Hall Playing Field, a public recreation area on the left soon after the
junction with Avon Road, is on the grounds of Upminster Hall, one of three
mediaeval manors in the parish. It was the property of Waltham Abbey from just
before the Conquest to the Dissolution, when Henry VIII gave it to his chief
minister Thomas Cromwell. From 1685 it was the property of the Branfill Family,
who began selling it off in the early 20<sup>th</sup> century.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Opposite is red brick Upminster Court, built in 1905-06 for
shipping and coal merchant Arthur Williams by architect Charles Reilly, on
farmland formerly attached to Upminster Hall. It’s a good example of a ‘Wren
Revival’ Edwardian country house, surrounded by noteworthy gardens. The house
is Grade II listed and the gardens registered by Historic England, but neither
is open to the public. After World War II the property was owned by Essex
County Council and later the London Borough of Havering, and variously used an
education and care centre; it’s now a commercial training facility operated by
a private firm.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Much of the estate was sold in the 1920s to Upminster Golf
Club, which still spreads on both sides of the road. One fragment not given
over to golf, slightly off the route but well worth a look, is a 45 m-long
thatched barn dating back to the 15<sup>th</sup> century and originally part of
the home farm. The building, now a Scheduled Ancient Monument, is known as the
Tithe Barn although there’s no evidence it was ever used to collect tithes. It
was bought by Havering council’s predecessor Hornchurch Urban District Council
in 1937 and continued in agricultural use for a while. Since 1976 it’s been a
museum managed by the Hornchurch & District Historical Society.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxrZ6w2Xo01fAGk86e4Zugx-7GCA2ke2nQuD51XGGwHLsIqphIdUXXnjyBZs28zdf-CzYOcnFZJRFZiFXtN8Kerj4H9fA8LAMyMsrixp4slMF_F4Bi0ClrIMfsAMDqKGrgB4gB6qaXdgE/s1600/upminstertithebarn.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxrZ6w2Xo01fAGk86e4Zugx-7GCA2ke2nQuD51XGGwHLsIqphIdUXXnjyBZs28zdf-CzYOcnFZJRFZiFXtN8Kerj4H9fA8LAMyMsrixp4slMF_F4Bi0ClrIMfsAMDqKGrgB4gB6qaXdgE/s400/upminstertithebarn.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Upminster Tithe Barn, apparently never used to collect tithes.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
It’s currently known as the ‘<a href="http://upminstertithebarn.co.uk/" target="_blank">Museum ofNostalgia</a>’ and houses a collection of 14,500 agricultural and household objects
dating from Roman times to the present. Further along the drive past the barn
is Upminster Hall itself. The Grade II*-listed timber-framed building, parts of
which date from the 15<sup>th</sup> century, is now used as a golf clubhouse.
Embedded in the big private course is a council pitch-and-putt facility, as if
that’s the only form of golf the less wealthy local residents are permitted.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
South of these you enter the residential area north of the
station, laid out from 1906 by developer Peter Griggs, who was also responsible
for much of surburban Ilford. Big houses line Hall Lane, while the side streets
are all named ‘Gardens’ though there’s precious little green. You soon pass
Upminster station, dating from the opening of the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway
(LT&SR) main line from London Fenchurch Street in 1885. The original
buildings and entrance still stand: they’re at track level along Station
Approach just off our route, past the station on the left. The entrance on the
main road bridge was added in 1932 when the station was expanded by the London,
Midland and Scottish Railway.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
In 1902, the largely underground Whitechapel and Bow
Railway between Whitechapel and Bromley-by-Bow, a joint venture between the
LT&SR and the Metropolitan and District Railway, enabled trains on what’s
now London Underground’s District Line to work through to Upminster. Underground
services were curtailed at Barking when the rest of the District Line was electrified
in 1908, but resumed in 1932 when a new pair of electrified tracks reached
Upminster. Today the station is operated by c2c, the National Rail successor to
the LT&SR, though still also offers District Line services.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivdcaItPKRMBijODYFlZDA3PXmcEeVEvg1o9zDpu76mnbPHK7BB8dUYzLxWatIHOtBhoFR98t_n4xbQSeM_qgQEC7wTL2_Aa6uWPLQISBVIuY4tNUl3WPtBKrvsPRTH_Du6dBGrQrSX3w/s1600/upminsterstation.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivdcaItPKRMBijODYFlZDA3PXmcEeVEvg1o9zDpu76mnbPHK7BB8dUYzLxWatIHOtBhoFR98t_n4xbQSeM_qgQEC7wTL2_Aa6uWPLQISBVIuY4tNUl3WPtBKrvsPRTH_Du6dBGrQrSX3w/s640/upminsterstation.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Upminster Station.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The Ingrebourne Way dodges through side streets (Branfill
Road, named after the last family owners of Upminster Hall) and finally returns
to green surroundings in <a href="https://www.havering.gov.uk/directory_record/102/upminster_park" target="_blank">Upminster Park</a> – though there’s an option here to visit
Upminster Windmill if you haven’t already, as it’s only a short detour along St
Mary’s Lane. I’ve said more about it under <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/london-loop-2324-upminster-bridge.html">Loop 23</a>. The park was originally ‘glebe’
land – farmland providing a living for a priest – attached to the parish
church, St Laurence’s.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
As the town expanded, the need for recreational
facilities grew and in 1929 the Urban District Council bought the land from the
Church Commissioners, levelling it to create grassed playing fields crossed by
tree-lined avenues. During World War II it was once of the few London parks
that weren’t given over to allotments and other war-related uses, though there
were bomb shelters near to where the Way enters the space today. At just under 7
ha, it’s a small but valuable space which has benefited enormously in recent
years from the activities of a <a href="https://www.friendsofupminsterpark.com/" target="_blank">Friends group</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGnSdk8Yxob2mnwj3UiNqI_grKu1cQx8p0z4pIDhS0oN-tXO_W1KLagy0fCgPVbLmV7BDPvcRj4uaowB733d98ckhkjjxkkYVL_40E2cbeT5lSIj69bXzAT4MR89VSR5GEqui69zwvoJg/s1600/upminsterpark.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGnSdk8Yxob2mnwj3UiNqI_grKu1cQx8p0z4pIDhS0oN-tXO_W1KLagy0fCgPVbLmV7BDPvcRj4uaowB733d98ckhkjjxkkYVL_40E2cbeT5lSIj69bXzAT4MR89VSR5GEqui69zwvoJg/s640/upminsterpark.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Upminster Park: valuable green space on former glebe land.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The church itself is across the park to the left: topped
by a typical Essex leaded and shingled spire, it’s at core a 13<sup>th</sup> century
building, though it was extensively rebuilt and altered in 1863 and 1928. It’s
off the route of the Ingrebourne Way, which instead heads east through the park
and along more streets to meet the London Loop again by the entrance to
Hornchurch Stadium. To end the walk here, simply follow the Loop backwards
across the Ingrebourne to Upminster Bridge station, which has a few heritage
features discussed under <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/london-loop-22-harold-wood-upminster.html">Loop 22</a>. Otherwise, join <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/london-loop-2324-upminster-bridge.html">London Loop section 23</a>
following the river southbound along the succession of Ingrebourne parkways mentioned
above, with much of interest still ahead.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<ul style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<li><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/qwri0zkjvwcnv04/21a-22a-noakhill-upminster.pdf?dl=0" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Download full route description</a> (PDF)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=ze8MGLx4VZ8Q.kz_iSyKD3QHI&usp=sharing" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">View Google map</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjgueOB__fWAhVKKFAKHfEUAAwQFggtMAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sustrans.org.uk%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Ffile_content_type%2Fhavering_web.pdf&usg=AOvVaw2HSWbrD-wD0muPbM_bfqxk" target="_blank">Sustrans Ingrebourne Way/Havering cycle map</a></li>
</ul>
Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-12954581569616696302017-08-29T17:32:00.000+01:002017-08-30T09:16:20.891+01:00Hillingdon Trail 2: West Ruislip - Harefield - Rickmansworth<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7nDiB7jUsbxpuVqW2pJmTAoJcBDJCHwvox3CNDbdC7sUKw_K5HV8OqCNEOwaT0x-jWC8odp7Uv6lhvFDxxfDoBszgwMc-SxbA4Iv5XZkQ6ctx4nN4XUbNDD1Ot7syQiC8W77wql8OQ8o/s1600/ruisliplido.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7nDiB7jUsbxpuVqW2pJmTAoJcBDJCHwvox3CNDbdC7sUKw_K5HV8OqCNEOwaT0x-jWC8odp7Uv6lhvFDxxfDoBszgwMc-SxbA4Iv5XZkQ6ctx4nN4XUbNDD1Ot7syQiC8W77wql8OQ8o/s640/ruisliplido.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ruislip Lido: half-close your eyes and you might be in Switzerland...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
This second part of the Hillingdon Trail is arguably
even more attractive than the first part, including a lengthy walk through
Ruislip Woods National Nature Reserve and a section through the Colne Valley
Regional Park, with wide views over the valley itself. You can rejoin the
London Loop at Harefield West, or continue to the picturesque end point of the
trail at Springwell Lock on the Grand Union Canal, with the option of catching
the Tube home from Rickmansworth.</div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
There are other options to split the walk using buses,
though no convenient public transport for almost 6 km through Ruislip Woods.
For more about the background to the Trail and advice on walking it as an
alternative to the London Loop or in its own right, see my introduction to the
<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/hillingdon-trail-1-cranford-west-ruislip.html">first section</a>. I’ve explained how my description here fits with the official
description published by Hillingdon council at the end of the post.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<h3>
Ruislip<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9cZddKrNyHYE9qOBc9YwHiClbXSbgKoV7CcYGXLbeOWd3EkFW5wbgSV70OaQwYMR_ZJcOrgU7g1PPCr8wwY1eCQz9-8vCbi9j7aOpfdjANk113yChuiW_NxkD9nlsxak3W07W_PjBI4A/s1600/clackbridge-riverpinn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9cZddKrNyHYE9qOBc9YwHiClbXSbgKoV7CcYGXLbeOWd3EkFW5wbgSV70OaQwYMR_ZJcOrgU7g1PPCr8wwY1eCQz9-8vCbi9j7aOpfdjANk113yChuiW_NxkD9nlsxak3W07W_PjBI4A/s640/clackbridge-riverpinn.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">River Pinn from Clack Bridge, Ruislip: the right bank was once the responsibility of Kings College, Cambridge.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
To me the name Ruislip will be forever associated
with the 1974 comic novel <i>Tropic of
Ruislip</i> by Leslie Thomas, best known as the author of <i>The Virgin Soldiers</i>. For Thomas, Ruislip was the ideal backdrop for
his satirical take on the pretensions of social mobility and the hypocrisies of
suburban sexual infidelity. But although he included references to actual
locations, like the Breakspear Crematorium, the fictitious Plummers Park estate
where most of the action takes place is more likely to have been based on
Carpenders Park, northeast of here between Harrow and Bushey and on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/london-loop-15-hatch-end-borehamwood.html">London Loop section 15</a>. The estate in the novel stands just across from a large council
estate, from which the residents sharply distinguish themselves – which sounds
like the traditional relationship between Carpenders Park and the adjoining
South Oxhey estate, originally built as social housing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Even so, the description might ring a bell with walkers in
this and other similar London suburbs. Plummers Park, according to Thomas, was:<o:p></o:p></div>
<blockquote>
…in the country but not of it. The fields seemed almost
touchable and yet remote. Wild roses bloomed and blew in seclusion just out of
reach; rooks and flashing magpies in elm and rowan were merely distant birds in
distant trees; the fox and the rabbit went unseen from the human windows…When
[the estate] was built some trees were permitted to remain like unhappy
captives spared because they are old. They remained in clusters, sometimes
embedded in garden walls as selling points for house-buyers desiring fresh air,
twigs, greenness and autumn acorns for their children. It was rumoured that the
builders had a mechanical squirrel which ran up trees to delight, deceive and
decide prospective purchasers…
<br />
<br />
The streets had, with commercial coyness, retained the
sometimes embarrassing names of the various pastures and fields that now lay
beneath concrete, crazy paving and statutory roses. Cowacre, Upmeadow,
Risingfield, Sheep-Dip, The Sluice, and Bucket Way…Husbands polished cars;
wives polished windows or fingernails. On summer and autumn evenings sunset
gardeners burned leaves and rubbish, the smoke climbing like a silent plea for
deliverance that forever went unanswered.</blockquote>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The inspiration of Carpenders Park also explains why
Thomas refers to his fictitious estate as in Hertfordshire, which the real
Ruislip certainly isn’t. Historically, it’s a Middlesex parish, which in the
early 11<sup>th</sup> century belonged to Wilward Wit, a thegn of Edward the
Confessor. Its name likely means ‘rush-leap’, perhaps referring to a place on
the river Pinn where rushes grew and fish leapt. It’s recorded in the Domesday
survey, and after the Norman Conquest was given to Notre-Dame du Bec, a
Benedictine abbey in Le Bec Hellouin, Normandy. In 1211, as England separated
politically from Normandy, it was sequestrated and passed through several noble
hands, until 1441 when it was granted by King Henry VI to the college he had
just founded in Cambridge, known today as Kings College.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Much of the land in Ruislip stayed under college ownership
until well into the 20<sup>th</sup> century, although substantial portions were
leased to private incumbents. This changed after 1904 when Ruislip station
opened on the Uxbridge branch of the Metropolitan Railway, and the college
began to parcel up and sell off its land for housing. The fact that the
subsequent development was a little better-managed than in some similar
locations partly accounts for Ruislip’s ‘desirability’, and was a result of the
foresight shown by members of the parish council. In 1903, noting the imminent
arrival of the railway and the plans of the college to profit from it, the
council successfully petitioned to become an Urban District so it would be
better placed to coordinate the changes and limit the potential damage.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The District then became something of a pioneer in urban
planning, a task made much easier by the unified ownership of most of the land
up for grabs. Working in partnership with Kings College and a builder selected
following a competition, and in consultation with residents, it produced a
first master plan in 1914. Had this been implemented it would have resulted in
the destruction of much of the green space and historic buildings, but it was
held up by World War I.<br />
<br />
Changing opinion after the war, including an
intervention from the Royal Society of Arts, secured much of the heritage
enjoyed today, which was then further protected by the tighter planning regime,
including the Green Belt, after World War II. The new Ruislip was, and is,
almost exclusively a commuter settlement, with very little local industry,
although the nearby military presence at Northolt and, to a lesser extent, West
Ruislip (as discussed in the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/hillingdon-trail-1-cranford-west-ruislip.html">previous section</a>) also applied pressure on local
housing<br />
.<o:p></o:p></div>
<h3>
The river Pinn and Cannon Brook<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitnhHWP2lBQygRkQ9Ohi9fi8bBTx7rDbGwIQ3Cikl4Sl45Q2foUCWqFXG86KySOrZjajxmZ3EJVfVdBTTniCGyMZQCLyNm9z8lapWYb70keeAmlOiExMJ-6qrdbMpb-4j-c8F-HH9TdMY/s1600/westruislip-canalfeeder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitnhHWP2lBQygRkQ9Ohi9fi8bBTx7rDbGwIQ3Cikl4Sl45Q2foUCWqFXG86KySOrZjajxmZ3EJVfVdBTTniCGyMZQCLyNm9z8lapWYb70keeAmlOiExMJ-6qrdbMpb-4j-c8F-HH9TdMY/s400/westruislip-canalfeeder.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Grand Union Canal Feeder enters Ruislip under the Chiltern Main Line.<br />
The rather gloomy pedestrian route is through the left arch.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Trail enters Ruislip by following a footpath
alongside the Grand Union Canal Feeder, here with quite a healthy flow of
water, under the Chiltern Main Line railway. The Feeder has been shadowing the
Trail since Southall and is now not far from its source – I’ve said more about
it and the railway in the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/hillingdon-trail-1-cranford-west-ruislip.html">previous section</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Beyond the railway is Ruislip golf course – refreshingly
in these outer suburbs, the only golf course crossed by the Trail. It’s a
council-owned course on some of the land conserved for recreation under the
original development plans and has been open since 1922. The Trail continues
across it alongside the Feeder for a while and soon you can see evidence of the
farmland it was moulded from, in the form of old hedgerows.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Then you’re on Clack Lane, an old lane that’s now a footpath.
This was part of a route to Kings End from Newyears Green, a hamlet closer to
Harefield. It takes you northwards to Clack Bridge on the river Pinn, where
there has been a crossing since at least mediaeval times.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The Pinn flows for around 19 km from a source on Harrow
Weald Common, on the slopes just below the Old Redding viewpoint visited on
<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/london-loop-15-hatch-end-borehamwood.html">London Loop section 15</a>. From there it runs roughly southwest through Pinner and
Eastcote to Ruislip, then turns south past Ickenham and the west of Hillingdon
village, to a confluence with the Frays river near Yiewsley, so ultimately
flowing into the Colne near West Drayton. It was formerly known as the Ruislip
Stream, and its current name is a back-formation from Pinner.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
As often in London, the riversides have generally been
kept clear of development, but in this case the arrangement has something of a
history. When the land around Ruislip was inclosed in 1804, the lord of the
manor, who held a lease from the college, insisted on a right of way three feet
(0.9 m) on both banks so that he and his servants could continue to fish. Today
Hillingdon council maintains a 19 km walking trail, the <a href="https://www.hillingdon.gov.uk/article/8718/Celandine-walks" target="_blank">Celandine Route</a>,
largely along the Pinn and Frays rivers from Pinner to Cowley where it connects
with the Grand Union Canal Walk, and via that to the London Loop heading
southeast. Much of the river upstream of Pinner into Harrow borough is also
walkable and I’ll explore it in a future post.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Following the Celandine route east from here will take you
past the aqueduct where the Feeder crosses the Pinn to the old village centre
of Ruislip, which is some distance off the Trail, but might merit exploration
on another day. Several historic buildings have been preserved, including
houses and shops arranged around a village square with a water pump, and the
recently restored buildings of Manor Farm, including a large 13<sup>th</sup>
century barn. You could perhaps find your own way back onto the route via Park
Wood.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
A little upstream of Clack Bridge, the Pinn is joined by a
tributary known as the Cannon Brook, which rises on the slopes of Duck Hill
above Ruislip and flows in a westward-facing bow to the confluence here. The
Canal Feeder tracks its valley, with good reason as we’ll soon see, and from
Old Clack Farm at a main junction of the lane, we’ll either follow the Feeder
or the Brook, both of which have left green ribbons through the houses.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The land to the north of the Pinn here was originally a
separate manor within the parish, known as St Catherine’s or Little Manor. This
was gifted separately after the Conquest to another Norman abbey, Abbaye
Sainte-Catherine du Mont in Rouen, which also held the manor of Harmondsworth,
and the two shared the same ownership for several centuries. St Catherine’s was
linked to another small manor south of Ruislip village, known as Southcote, and
Clack Bridge was once the joint responsibility of the lord of Southcote Manor
and Kings College. The manor was broken up in the late 19<sup>th</sup> century
into smaller farms, and you’ll walk through a few fragments that still retain a
rural feel. But the northern part of it was one of the sections of Ruislip
developed by the Urban District as council housing in the 1950s and 1960s, and
it’s through this that the Trail now threads.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
You’ll see the Feeder again with its distinctive miniature
brick overbridges alongside the path past the playing fields of Whiteheath
School. Then you cross a bridge over the Cannon Brook on Ladygate Lane, and
follow residential drives to Howletts Lane, where a typical 1960s housing
estate shopping centre stands beside the path. Beyond it is a more open green
strip with grassy patches and shady willows: the Trail here more-or-less
follows the route of the Feeder, which has been filled in, and the more
meandering course of the Brook is over to your right. This path delivers you to
a roundabout at the junction of Breakspear Road and Bury Street, the latter an
ancient north-south route through the parish.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Leslie Thomas is one of several writers who assume the Breakspear
Crematorium nearby is named after Nicholas Breakspear (c1100-59), who as Adrian
IV became the only English-born pope to date. In fact, it’s a reference to
William Breakspear, who owned an estate to the north in Harefield parish in the
late 14<sup>th</sup> and early 15<sup>th</sup> centuries. A little south along
Brakspear Road stands a pub known as the Breakspear Arms, at the junction with
Breakspear Road South, an old north-south route linking Uxbridge and
Rickmansworth and originally known as Harefield Lane. The pub was rebuilt in
the 1970s and is now an Indian restaurant, but there was a pub on the spot for
at least a century before that. It’s likely the road names echoed the pub and
the crematorium echoed the road.<br />
<br />
The preponderance of Breakspear names locally
has helped generate a local legend that the papal Breakspear was born nearby, but
there’s much better evidence that his birthplace was in Bedmond, Hertfordshire,
not far from <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/london-countryway-10-kings-langley-st.html">London Countryway section 10</a>. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Ruislip Lido and Woods<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR9YlywW1zTuTo96mbnHzKsGdD3ZIHaOl2ywAK1pUKt1Vu5y7mPZUqDWbdg-5CLBMKBdMvTDHhwzYKCB0HA5EDb4A0_FPgG9zQfQSSgB_h-9m7sUsnUuT9W650wASQTNvLuXGCWxDwJw0/s1600/ruislipwoods-copsewood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR9YlywW1zTuTo96mbnHzKsGdD3ZIHaOl2ywAK1pUKt1Vu5y7mPZUqDWbdg-5CLBMKBdMvTDHhwzYKCB0HA5EDb4A0_FPgG9zQfQSSgB_h-9m7sUsnUuT9W650wASQTNvLuXGCWxDwJw0/s640/ruislipwoods-copsewood.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The dappled surroundings of Copse Wood, with hornbeam coppices.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Of the numerous surprising sights to be seen along
the walking trails of London, <a href="https://www.hillingdon.gov.uk/ruisliplido" target="_blank">Ruislip Lido</a> is one of the most un-Londonlike.
With its concrete surrounds, it’s obviously artificial but if you half-close
your eyes, the 24 ha expanse of water with its sandy beach at the foot of a
thickly wooded hillside could almost be in Switzerland. Today it’s a
flourishing leisure facility almost surrounded by a National Nature Reserve, with a waterside pub and café, boating and swimming facilities. But it
was created with the much more practical purpose of topping up the Grand Union
Canal, some 11 km away (discussed in more detail in the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/hillingdon-trail-1-cranford-west-ruislip.html">previous section</a> and in
<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/london-loop-1112-hayes-hillingdon.html">London Loop section 11</a>), to which it was connected by the Canal Feeder.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The canal was only recently opened when in 1804 Kings
College began to inclose its lands at Ruislip. To help finance this, the
college sold a portion along the valley of the Cannon Brook to what was then
the Grand Junction Canal Company for the construction of a feeder reservoir. As
often with reservoirs, this necessitated the inundation of an existing
settlement, Park Hearne, amid the woodland of Park Wood. It’s not known what
happened to the displaced inhabitants, but there’s a local story that they had
to be evicted by the militia. By the end of 1811, the stream had been dammed
and the valley was filling with water.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
As mentioned in the previous section, the system never
worked very well, and was taken out of service in 1851. The reservoir remained
in canal company ownership and became something of a white elephant. Then in
the period between the wars, with a growing local population and increasing
numbers of leisure visitors to the area, the company realised it might generate
an alternative income. In 1933, it was reopened as Ruislip Lido, complete with
an art deco building housing changing rooms and café, a swimming area and
boating facilities. A miniature railway was added in 1945.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Most of the canal companies were included in the post-war
nationalisation of transport, and the site was inherited by the British
Transport Board, which didn’t see itself as an operator of leisure facilities.
In 1951, the Board sold the Lido to Ruislip Urban District Council, which by
now also owned much of the surrounding woodland. Leisure use flourished into the
1970s, when the site attracted visitors from all over London. It soon boasted a
sailing base, and a water skiing club with action-loving <i>Doctor Who</i> actor Jon Pertwee among its members, adding celebrity
appeal to regular tournaments. It was used to stage the sinking of the Titanic
for the film <i>A Night to Remember</i> (Roy
Ward Baker 1958) and featured in Cliff Richard vehicle <i>The Young Ones</i> (Sidney J Furie 1961).<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The Lido then entered a more troubled period, triggered by
current owners Hillingdon council hiking the admission charges. In 1991, it was
leased to a private management company, but this venture failed after two
years, not helped by the lowering of the water level to reduce the risk of
flooding, which made sailing and water skiing impractical. The situation
reached a low point in 1993 when arsonists burnt down the main building. The
Lido’s fortunes have steadily improved since then, with the opening of the
successful Water’s Edge pub-restaurant, which provided enough income to restore
the beach and boathouse and provide a watersplash pool. The lake is still out
of bounds to swimmers for health reasons, though there’s an aspiration to change
this too.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
At the point where the Trail reaches the corner of the
reservoir, you can see the original dam, on which the refreshment kiosk and
boathouse now stand, roughly at right angles to Reservoir Road. The water
originally reached the dam itself, but since the level was reduced, a grassy
margin separates it from the water’s edge. This has revealed the intake for the
feeder, visible behind a grille underneath the dam in the southwest corner.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Further along at the end of Reservoir Road, a short
diversion from the Trail leads to Willow Lawn station at one end of the <a href="https://www.ruisliplidorailway.org/" target="_blank">Ruislip Lido Railway</a>, now the longest 12” (305 mm) gauge railway in the UK. When first
opened in 1945 it was much shorter, running from close to the beach in the
southeast corner northwards along the eastern lakeside. Following an accident
in 1978 it was almost closed permanently, but volunteers formed the Ruislip
Lido Railway Society to keep it going, and the society eventually took over its
operation.<br />
<br />
The rails were extended to Haste Hill on the northeast corner of the lake in
1990 and on around the lake to the current terminus in 1998, where there’s a
turntable to switch the direction of the locomotives. The railway operates daily during
school holidays and at weekends for the rest of the year, and even boasts a
steam loco, Mad Bess, built onsite by volunteers in the late 1980s.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBfoka-IMe5Km1bZtDIc2I_c985zFOjuw35qhURQbfQf2yL9xWS-vFtreKe2GKIp3x2lDKKMU59QLRllmuDGV1zDJmWjjp_1zF7lYRo6JEz0mC-xtnxrE1vFJY3UIbl9QREjUkCREzzJE/s1600/ruislipwoods-madbesswood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBfoka-IMe5Km1bZtDIc2I_c985zFOjuw35qhURQbfQf2yL9xWS-vFtreKe2GKIp3x2lDKKMU59QLRllmuDGV1zDJmWjjp_1zF7lYRo6JEz0mC-xtnxrE1vFJY3UIbl9QREjUkCREzzJE/s400/ruislipwoods-madbesswood.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Path through the delightfully named Mad Bess Wood.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Things get even better as the Trail enters the 294 ha
<a href="https://www.hillingdon.gov.uk/article/13149/Ruislip-Woods-National-Nature-Reserve" target="_blank">Ruislip Woods National Nature Reserve</a> (NNR; see also the <a href="http://www.ruislipwoodstrust.org.uk/" target="_blank">Ruislip Woods Trust website</a>) through a gate into Poors Field.
The woodland here, like most of the surrounding parts of London, was once part
of the great Forest of Middlesex (see for example the discussion of Enfield
Chase on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2016/10/london-loop-17-cockfosters-enfield-lock.html" target="_blank">London Loop section 17</a>). Not all the area has been continually wooded
since then – parts of it are known to have been cleared by grazing, followed by
regrowth as secondary woodland when this ceased, and there are some deliberate
plantations. But much of the NNR is ancient woodland which has been in
existence since at least Tudor times and likely much longer.<br />
<br />
Indeed, it’s the
largest block of ancient semi-natural woodland in Greater London, and
constitutes one third of the remaining tree cover in the former county of
Middlesex. Most of it is coppiced hornbeam with standards of penduculate oak (<i>Quercus robur</i>) growing on London clay,
but there are sections of sandier soil dominated by sessile oak (<i>Q. petraea</i>). You’ll also find birch, alder
and areas of scrub and acid and neutral grassland.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
There are four distinct but adjacent woods, and the Trail
runs through three of them. The one it avoids is Park Wood to the southeast, on
the other side of the lido. This was originally attached directly to the manor,
and included some of the parish common land, still known as Ruislip Common. Poors
Field was another part of the common, and has been conserved as rough
meadowland, but you’re soon climbing into Copse Wood, and further on are Mad
Bess Wood and Bayhurst Wood.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
As mentioned several times in London Underfoot, nearly all
of Britain was once covered in woodland, most of which was gradually cleared
for agriculture from the Bronze Age onwards (see <a href="https://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/london-countryway-12-welham-green.html">London Countryway section 12</a>).
There were three main reasons to keep woodland: for sticks and timber, as rough
grazing particularly for pigs, and to support game for hunting. All these uses
are evident at Ruislip Woods. Coppicing the hornbeams by cutting them back to
the stool every 20 years or so produced a ready supply of sticks for purposes
like fencing, furniture and vehicle making, while the tall oaks yielded sturdy
timbers for use in construction and shipbuilding. Ruislip timber helped build
the Tower of London, Windsor Castle and the Palace of Westminster, as well as
the nearby barns on Manor Farm.<br />
<br />
At the time of the Domesday survey the woods
provided a home to 1,500 pigs, and there was also a <i>parcus ferarum</i> or park for wild beasts. Probably the main reason
such large woods survived into modern times, though, was their geography. They
stood on the high ground between the valleys of the Pinn and the Colne, rising
to 90 m in Copse Wood, their soils poor for intensive agriculture and their
terrain discouraging for settlement. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
By the time urban development resumed in Ruislip after
World War I, the amenity value of the woods was gaining greater recognition. The
same railway line that threatened to engulf the area with commuter homes also
brought visitors seeking a green escape from the city, and the woods became a
popular destination for walking and other outdoor recreation. In 1931, Ruislip
Urban District Council bought Park Wood from Kings College for £28,100. Originally
the college had planned simply to gift the wood, but found it was legally
obliged to demand market rates for property it disposed of. The council turned for support to Middlesex County
Council, which contributed 75% of the cost, on the not unreasonable basis that most
visitors to the site would be from outwith the district.<br />
<br />
In 1936, the County
Council bought Copse Wood and Mad Bess Wood jointly with the London County
Council, another indication the woods were considered of more than local
interest, and in 1950 nearly all the woodland was designated a Site of
Scientific Interest (SSSI). In 1959, a small portion to the north of the lido
near Haste Hill, and off our route, became a Local Nature Reserve, and in 1982
Hillingdon council, which now owned all the woods, began managing them as a
single entity under a plan that aimed to restore traditional coppicing, grazing
on open grasslands and even charcoal burning. Finally, in 1997 the whole
complex was designated a National Nature Reserve (NNR), the first such
designation in London and the first in an urban area anywhere in the country, later
followed by Richmond Park NNR on the Capital Ring.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Copse Wood was formerly known as the Great Wood of Ruislip
and was much bigger: 348 ha in 1565, reduced to 134 ha by 1853. Just to the
south of the wood, and the left of the Trail, you’ll pass a more open, scrubby
area: this is the site of Battle of Britain House, a mansion built in 1905.
During World War II the US Army used it as a spy school. Following an
unsuccessful attempt to acquire it as part of an RAF memorial scheme after the
war, it became a youth centre, though was renamed in line with the original
memorial proposal. It later housed the Ruislip and District Local History
Society, but was burned down in 1984. The ruins and garden are gradually
becoming overgrown but there’s still a fine view from the site across the Lido.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
The Trail crosses Ducks Hill Road, a continuation of Bury
Street, into Mad Bess Wood. There’s no obvious explanation for the evocative name,
which is first recorded in 1769. The woodland was once part of Westwood Common
in the separate manor of St Catherine’s mentioned below, and was once more open
than today: only 37 ha of its present 56 ha were wooded in 1587, which might
explain why the area to the west of the Trail as you enter the woodland is
known as Young Wood. The wood is likely the site of the hunting park mentioned
in the Domesday survey: the bulge in the line of Breakspear Road North, to the
west of the wood, suggests that it was built to circumnavigate a park pale or
fence.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Across Breakspear Road North is the westernmost portion of
the NNR, Bayhurst Wood. This has a separate history from the rest of Ruislip
Woods as it isn’t historically in Ruislip but in the parish of Harefield: the
boundary followed the road. Harefield was held before the conquest by Countess
Goda, and passed through several Norman hands until the 1180s when the part of
it containing the wood was separated out as the Manor of Moorhall, and given by
owner Beatrice de Bollers to the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, the
religious order that gave rise to St John Ambulance. It’s not clear if the
Hospitallers ever occupied the manor themselves or rented it out.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
Ownership passed to the Crown following the Dissolution in
1542 and between 1553 and 1877 it was owned by the Newdigate family, who
annexed it to their Harefield Place estate. In 1934, the wood was one of
numerous parcels of land bought by Middlesex County Council to conserve as
green belt, and when the county was abolished in 1965 passed to the Greater
London Council (GLC), who managed it as Bayhurst Woods Country Park. When the
GLC was in turn abolished in 1986, the boroughs took on most of its green
spaces, and Hillingdon began managing Bayhurst as part and parcel of Ruislip
Woods. Following the creation of the NNR, the Country Park designation was
officially dropped, though is still used locally. The wood also represents the
Trail’s entry into the wider area of the <a href="http://colnevalleypark.org.uk/" target="_blank">Colne Valley Park</a>, introduced in
<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/london-loop-1112-hayes-hillingdon.html">London Loop section 11</a>.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirAFs_KBvJ07qcs2KRJo562g6FartqDS7lXPT5JryFkkRyjqaFnBRfAApL9ZVeykIEHf25rUprB-hlTLnGzr5ztElB4IlzJj_Jg_QzEPd8Rte_wRQxOuPJgWkgTcJ4SuAPQwZzSkXCj4U/s1600/ruislipwoods-bayhurst.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirAFs_KBvJ07qcs2KRJo562g6FartqDS7lXPT5JryFkkRyjqaFnBRfAApL9ZVeykIEHf25rUprB-hlTLnGzr5ztElB4IlzJj_Jg_QzEPd8Rte_wRQxOuPJgWkgTcJ4SuAPQwZzSkXCj4U/s640/ruislipwoods-bayhurst.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The open fields of the Colne Valley beyond the trees of Bayhurst Wood.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Bayhurst has a different aspect to the rest of Ruislip
Woods, with more sessile oak as well as birch, beech, alder and aspen. In 2008,
a 2 km perimeter cycle path was added, also open to walkers and known as the
<a href="https://www.hillingdon.gov.uk/article/15060/Cycling-facilities" target="_blank">David Brough Cycle Trail</a>. Unusually it honours a living person: Brough is
well-known locally as the former head of democratic services at the council and
the chair of Hayes Town Partnership. Following the cycle trail is now an option
for Hillingdon Trail walkers: it’s more direct and more accessible. The
traditional route doglegs deeper into the woods, offering a more immersive
green experience, but includes quite a steep climb.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
There’s one last fragment of the NNR over on your right: Tarletons
Lake, a serene old pond surrounded by swampy grassland and woodland which was
previously managed as a Local Nature Reserve by London Wildlife Trust but is
now back under council control. As the Hillingdon Trail’s exit from this very
special place, it certainly provides a contrast to Ruislip Lido at its
entrance.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Harefield<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji4UVmzodA3UUFMmzlnmmMoShQjS3ZkTTDPPuH2ge9vw-vEWosGW20E87SOslpuGy-1hPLrIAhJp0YhlV1-Fah29D0tVOdDdDOX5aPaYU7D_jKZVjyFwxnbQaisfnywGr2XTkUNxkwdQE/s1600/harefieldchurch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji4UVmzodA3UUFMmzlnmmMoShQjS3ZkTTDPPuH2ge9vw-vEWosGW20E87SOslpuGy-1hPLrIAhJp0YhlV1-Fah29D0tVOdDdDOX5aPaYU7D_jKZVjyFwxnbQaisfnywGr2XTkUNxkwdQE/s640/harefieldchurch.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Harefield Church just visible through the mature trees in its churchyard.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I’ve written a bit more about Harefield under <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/london-loop-1112-hayes-hillingdon.html">LondonLoop section 12</a>, but the Hillingdon Trail will give you more of a rounded view
of this old northwest Middlesex parish. Leaving the NNR you’ll find yourself
walking through some of London’s genuine countryside, today largely under
public ownership as part of the Green Belt. On the right is Middle Lodge, one
of the lodges of Breakspear House, and you might catch a glimpse of the house
itself through the trees.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
This was the nucleus of the Breakspears estate that once
belonged to the non-papal Breakspear I discussed above. The Grade I-listed
house was rebuilt in the mid-17<sup>th</sup> century and has recently been
converted to flats. The area to the left may well have been part of the old
park attached to the original Harefield manor house, until 1786 when the latter
moved to Harefield Lodge further south. Across the fields you can see Park
Lodge Farm, which is still operated as a commercial farm and includes a Grade
II-listed 18<sup>th</sup> century farmhouse. The path you join through a rather
damp woodland is known as Breakspear’s Path: the Breakspears and their servants
would have walked to church this way.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
You’re soon completing their journey alongside the
churchyard wall of St Mary’s church, the oldest building in Harefield. As
mentioned in my earlier piece on the Loop, it’s some way outside the village to
the south, perhaps because for many centuries it was more a manorial than a
parish church: for at least some of its history, the manor house was next door.
It was a ‘private peculiar’ until 1847 and didn’t become a parish church until
1898.<br />
<br />
Inside are numerous lavish monuments to people connected to the lords of
the manor, including one by Grinling Gibbons to Mary Newdigate who died in 1692.
It’s likely there was a church on the site in Saxon times, but the oldest extant
part is a patch of 12<sup>th</sup> century masonry in the west wall of the
nave. There’s a 13<sup>th</sup> century lancet window in the exterior north
wall, the nave is 14<sup>th</sup> century and the tower 16<sup>th</sup>, with
the oldest bell dated 1629, though there are the inevitable Victorian
rearrangements.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
If you wander in the churchyard, you’re sure to notice the
Commonwealth War Graves, and in particular a large group with unusual (in fact
unique) scroll designs surrounding an obelisk commemorating Australian victims
of World War I. The Australian presence here is not only testimony to the
international carnage inflicted by that war, but is also a clue to the early
history of Harefield’s best-known institution, Harefield Hospital, the specialist
heart and lung hospital to the north of the village.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
In 1914, the future hospital site was occupied by a
mansion known as Harefield Park House, home to a wealthy Australian couple, the
Billyard-Leakes. When war broke out, they offered the use of the house and
grounds to the Australian Ministry of Defence as a convalescent home for
wounded servicemen. It became the No 1 Australian Auxiliary Hospital, the only
entirely Australian war hospital in England. By October 1916 it had 960
patients accommodated in over 50 buildings, and even published its own
magazine, the <i>Harefield Park Boomerang</i>.<br />
<br />
Inevitably some of the wounded didn’t make it, and over 100 of these are now
buried here, commemorated in headstones designed by the patients and staff.
When the hospital closed in 1919, the site remained in medical use, initially
as a tuberculosis sanatorium, and eventually evolved into the renowned
specialist facility of today.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHULX6-AnEGuhdWxG7n3lliXeefPcmB97szSyxVes14u_TDba6tPD0NV2hLucoFfmJIbT07rjHGgUlDudDeTwRZyC44XxBfCfaaUjaWibD5hyphenhyphen5CFBijcVZwtXVvb1SJZZ2l7RpR3I_JPs/s1600/harefield-almshouses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHULX6-AnEGuhdWxG7n3lliXeefPcmB97szSyxVes14u_TDba6tPD0NV2hLucoFfmJIbT07rjHGgUlDudDeTwRZyC44XxBfCfaaUjaWibD5hyphenhyphen5CFBijcVZwtXVvb1SJZZ2l7RpR3I_JPs/s400/harefield-almshouses.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Countess of Derby almshouses, Harefield.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Trail now climbs Church Hill towards the village,
passing several historic buildings. The red brick Tudor almshouses with their
fairytale chimneys on the right were endowed by Alice Spencer, Countess of
Derby, lady of the manor in the early 17<sup>th</sup> century. She’s known to
have entertained Elizabeth I at the manor house, and is memorialised in the
church. The former White Horse pub on the left, a private home since 2010, is
largely late 17<sup>th</sup> century.<br />
<br />
The Trail then turns off along Bird Lane,
an old track beside an ivy-clad 17<sup>th</sup> century cottage, but the
village centre is not much further along the High Street, with its shops, cafés
and pubs arranged around a large green.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
You’re soon walking alongside hedgerows again, soon with
views towards the Colne valley. Off to the left is a little-known Site of
Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), Harefield Pit, which isn’t open to the
public. The interest here is geological: it’s a former chalk pit where digging
has revealed several layers of London’s geology, with chalk below gravelly
Reading Beds laced with tiny fossils of algae, topped off with London clay. You cross the end of a drive that leads up to
a splendidly sited posh pub-restaurant, the Old Orchard, well worth a visit,
before descending through a meadow into the valley, with the Grand Union Canal
visible ahead.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
The Trail arrives within a few metres of Black Jacks Lock,
with Black Jacks Mill, mentioned in <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/london-loop-1112-hayes-hillingdon.html">London Loop section 12</a>, on the towpath side.
The Loop and the Grand Union Canal Walk share the towpath, but the Hillingdon
Trail doesn’t join them quite yet, preferring to stay on Jacks Lane on the east
side of the canal. This is also the route of the Colne Valley Trail, which runs
north-south through the park from Staines-upon-Thames to Rickmansworth. The
lane runs along the foot of Coppermill Meadow, also known as Mount Pleasant, an
unusual outcrop of chalk grassland, part of the Mid-Colne Valley SSSI. Unlike
Harefield Pit, it’s openly accessible to the public.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiazRyQ6BlNB8OHcsFWz22w6E1UFwajQNToobPsbKnEaQaTLziQ96cqzi3vD7OK3AuCTZnE0lD2viuWMmswDb8q6rzMPCPZLpXlFEYYYaQjpVM-wt3V0ykKviL6s1D0y_ImeVAtCuOyX1Y/s1600/harefield-colnevalley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiazRyQ6BlNB8OHcsFWz22w6E1UFwajQNToobPsbKnEaQaTLziQ96cqzi3vD7OK3AuCTZnE0lD2viuWMmswDb8q6rzMPCPZLpXlFEYYYaQjpVM-wt3V0ykKviL6s1D0y_ImeVAtCuOyX1Y/s640/harefield-colnevalley.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View across the Colne Valley from the meadows west of Harefield.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The Trail and the Loop finally reunite at the bottom of
Summerhouse Lane in Harefield West, by the new development around Coppermill
Lock. A short step away is the bus stop that serves as the transport
interchange for section 12 of the Loop, so you could break your walk here, and
simply pick up <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/london-loop-1314-harefield-moor-park.html">section 13 of the Loop</a> next time around, disregarding the final
short section of the Trail. Both share the same paths for 1.4 km, running
through Old Park Wood to the hamlet of Hill End, discussed in my post on Loop
13. From here the Loop is additionally signed as the Hillingdon Trail Northern
Link as far as Woodcock Hill: when the Trail was first created, the intention
was to link it with the Loop in the north but it wasn’t yet clear which way the
latter would be going. But there’s a bit more of the Trail proper still to go,
and it’s well worth walking.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<h3>
Springwell<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUrZ0avQFXhJik_feY8neGg5nJuvAqFemI7ejhJQ7Sm2yhjm33OU3B7huSP4Kouber6DX9kiYHhv3tfj1pqTcOYxIxWJXBq_R2kQGJyoo13vQ22ZBEsl4gKZAMYYO_t3zA4OkbKg0D188/s1600/hillend-springwelllane.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUrZ0avQFXhJik_feY8neGg5nJuvAqFemI7ejhJQ7Sm2yhjm33OU3B7huSP4Kouber6DX9kiYHhv3tfj1pqTcOYxIxWJXBq_R2kQGJyoo13vQ22ZBEsl4gKZAMYYO_t3zA4OkbKg0D188/s640/hillend-springwelllane.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Across the fields at Hill End, on the original route of Springwell Lane.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Leaving the Loop, which heads to Batchworth Heath
and Moor Park, the Hillingdon Trail continues through Hill End, temporarily
leaving Springwell Lane to follow a path across fields. Looking at the map,
it’s clear the lane originally continued ahead along the line of the path here,
but when it became part of the modern road network, it was diverted via Cripps
House Farm.<br />
<br />
You take a farm track past Springwell Farm, which bends down to
join another running parallel to the valley, carrying the Colne Valley Trail
which has taken a more direct route from Harefield West. The view from here
across the valley with its numerous lakes is impressive, and you might even be
able to see the Chiltern hills in the distance. Beneath, alongside the canal,
is the boatyard of Wood Hall & Heward, which builds workboats, tugs and
barges for use on inland waterways. Even more prominent is Thames Water’s Maple
Lodge sewage treatment works, a massive site opened in 1950 that discharges its
purified water into the canal.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEibNhG_cVM5uFuxojweRXZF6o8_Y5OHT9o2Xy9kzeoJFBdm9nnUJmsrwh1H424qVloZer-Y3EXN8OX9IVplIPUqcdKQaX1f6yceAU2_uZg8HVEjWBbpew2QdZQrVBmAV8Ud2AkvpUIto/s1600/springwelllock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEibNhG_cVM5uFuxojweRXZF6o8_Y5OHT9o2Xy9kzeoJFBdm9nnUJmsrwh1H424qVloZer-Y3EXN8OX9IVplIPUqcdKQaX1f6yceAU2_uZg8HVEjWBbpew2QdZQrVBmAV8Ud2AkvpUIto/s640/springwelllock.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Springwell Lock near Harefield.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
And so the Hillingdon Trail ends on the <a href="https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/canal-and-river-network/grand-union-canal" target="_blank">Grand Union Canal</a>
in the picturesque location of Spingwell Lock, number 83. A narrow bridge
crosses the canal by the lock, and there’s a lock keeper’s cottage alongside a
scattering of other buildings, forming an attractive group: none are
individually listed but they form a designated Conservation Area. The bridge
and a disused quarry just to the northeast featured in 1974 <i>Doctor Who</i> story ‘The Three Doctors’.
You’re in one of London’s furthest-flung corners here, in the extreme northwest
of Hillingdon borough, and only a step away from Hertfordshire.<br />
<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
There’s a bus stop with a decent service into
Rickmansworth about a kilometre away on the A412 near Maple Cross, though this
is over the boundary so don’t expect to be able to use your Oyster card or
contactless. To reach it you’ll need to stay on Springwell Lane, which takes
you between Inns Lake and Springwell Lake and over the river Colne out of
London by Mill End pumping station. Perhaps a more agreeable, if longer,
option, is to continue to Rickmansworth on foot, where you can finish this
London walk with a proper Tube ride home from Hertfordshire.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Rickmansworth<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGzJFyWK5rdycPi5n7w_njkUtkhroku-XIsN6gL94THgE_nIjx0s90edpnCF7cZmdxYWlGgAm19mXtE14Td6o4F7NcdceNgkk9I62ezrSKAxIyOserghh8HEW44wFkQ5VCIHnguXSuPhE/s1600/harefieldrickmansworthboundary.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGzJFyWK5rdycPi5n7w_njkUtkhroku-XIsN6gL94THgE_nIjx0s90edpnCF7cZmdxYWlGgAm19mXtE14Td6o4F7NcdceNgkk9I62ezrSKAxIyOserghh8HEW44wFkQ5VCIHnguXSuPhE/s640/harefieldrickmansworthboundary.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Grand Union Canal leaves London at this old City of London coal tax marker, on the boundary between Hillingdon<br />
and Rickmansworth. Photo looking towards London from the Hertfordshire side.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The best way to Rickmansworth is along the towpath,
following the Grand Union Canal Walk and the Colne Valley Trail. You leave
London just under 500 m along the canal from Springwell Bridge. The point is
marked by a coal post – not one of the white cast iron posts typically found on
roads, but a waist-height granite obelisk of a type used for canals and
navigable rivers, one of only five remaining examples of the design. I’ve said
a bit more about these curious posts under <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/london-countryway-22-merstham-dorking.html">London Countryway 22</a>. The
inscription refers to the years of the reign of Queen Victoria when the Act of
Parliament that required them to be installed was passed, 1851, and the
relevant chapter.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
You’re now in Hertfordshire, in the modern district of
Three Rivers and the old parish of Rickmansworth, ‘Ryckmer’s stockade’. I’ve
introduced the county under <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/london-loop-1314-harefield-moor-park.html">London Loop 13</a>, while the parish was part of the
extensive land in the area granted to St Albans Abbey by Offa, the 8<sup>th</sup>
century ruler of the Saxon kingdom of Mercia. It remained in the possession of
the abbey until the Dissolution in 1539. By this time, the nucleus of the
parish had become a small town and an important local centre, with mills along
the Colne, and in 1542 Henry VIII granted it a market charter. The opening of a
station on the London and Birmingham railway in nearby Watford in 1838 abstracted
much of the market trade, and the market hall was demolished in 1868.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
By then the town had gained its own rail connection along
a branch line to Watford. This stimulated some growth after it opened in 1862
but was never very successful: most of it was closed in the late 1950s and it’s
now a cycle path. Far more significant was the arrival of the Metropolitan
Railway at a competing station in the town, via an extension from Pinner in
1887. This triggered extensive residential development aimed at commuters, some
of it carried out by the Met’s own property arm. Though excluded when London
expanded in 1965, Rickmansworth today remains on the Tube and functions as a
classic commuter suburb.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The next lock, Stockers Lock, number 82, is if anything
even more picturesque. On the southwest end of the lock, at the foot of the
steps leading up to the garden of Stockers House, is another coal post,
although this time it’s the more familiar cast iron design. It seems anomalous
here, beside the canal and some way outside the boundary. The explanation is
that Stockers House was originally built in 1862 to house a City of London coal
duty collector. It must have been much easier to strongarm the cash from boat
operators held captive in the lock rather than at the actual boundary. The post
initially stood in front of the house, but was moved here by the house’s
occupant, no longer a City taxman, in 1964. As well as Stockers House and the
coal post, several other structures round here are listed, including the lock
cottage, the bridge, the lock itself and Stockers Farm on the other side of the
canal.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFxaZUjrbhCq1iTxy0Wl_sIPu74CguwDBTEcehwMZtd1VkxTz2S-x-p6EtjmJ11hyphenhyphenlVO_fdZgPQ26jhoqiWDb0Ue5rJi2a0JlbSRO3eZGfw8iz6PKWj97-1iYeV1YyEibOC7rf_o4hAmI/s1600/rickmansworthaquadrome-burylake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFxaZUjrbhCq1iTxy0Wl_sIPu74CguwDBTEcehwMZtd1VkxTz2S-x-p6EtjmJ11hyphenhyphenlVO_fdZgPQ26jhoqiWDb0Ue5rJi2a0JlbSRO3eZGfw8iz6PKWj97-1iYeV1YyEibOC7rf_o4hAmI/s640/rickmansworthaquadrome-burylake.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bury Lake, Rickmansworth Aquadrome, partly owes its existence to the old Wembley stadium.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The Trail turns away from the canal and winds through the
watery landscape of <a href="http://www.threerivers.gov.uk/egcl-page/rickmansworth-aquadrome" target="_blank">Rickmansworth Aquadrome</a> and <a href="http://www.hertswildlifetrust.org.uk/reserves/stockers-lake" target="_blank">Stockers Lake Local Nature Reserve</a> (LNR) between the canal and the river Colne. Like much of the Colne
Valley Park, the landscape here has been shaped by gravel extraction: this was
the site of one of earliest large-scale gravel pits in the area, which opened
in the 1920s and provided some of the construction materials for the original
Wembley Stadium. The pits have since flooded naturally, creating inviting
environments for water birds. The LNR supports over 60 species of breeding
birds in summer, and in winter welcomes wigeon, goldeneye, shoveler and smew
ducks migrating from Iceland and the Baltic. The site has been a public amenity
since the 1970s and was designated an LNR in 1984.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
There are actually four lakes arranged from southwest to
northeast across the site. The smallest is Inns Lake in the southwest, which is
on the other side of the Colne, bounded by Springwell Lane and within the
Hillingdon boundary. Stockers Lake is next: this is the biggest, and its
western part is also in Hillingdon. These two lakes are now owned by water
company Affinity Water, although they’re managed by Hertfordshire and Middlesex Wildlife
Trust. Then there’s Bury Lake and Batchworth Lake, managed by Three Rivers
District Council as the 41 ha Aquadrome, which additionally includes formal
parkland and woodland. Activities on offer include sailing, kayaking, water
skiing, windsurfing and fishing.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The Colne Valley Trail runs briefly beside the eastern
shore of Stockers Lake before turning along the southern bank of Bury Lake,
passing the <a href="https://blym.org.uk/dev/" target="_blank">Bury Lake Young Mariners Base</a>, home of a charity promoting sailing
to young people that, unusually, has no paid staff. Then it turns north along
the bank of Batchworth Lake. Finally, it crosses the river Colne (see <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/london-loop-1112-hayes-hillingdon.html" target="_blank">London Loop section 11</a>) and joins the road by the roundabout just west of
Rickmansworth town centre, where it officially ends.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
The Ebury Play Area just by the park gate is named after
Robert Grosvenor, 1<sup>st</sup> Baron Ebury (1801-93), the local landowner
behind the town’s first rail connection, the not-terribly-successful Watford
and Rickmansworth Railway mentioned above. My suggested route to the station
runs part of the way along Ebury Drive, which also commemorates him. In case
you’re wondering, the original station was to the south of the town centre,
near the church, but it’s now been demolished. The comparative success of the
later Metropolitan Railway was partly due to its ‘Metro-Land’ strategy of
creating its own demand: off our route, on the other side of the roundabout to
the north of Uxbridge Road, is the Cedars Estate, developed by Metropolitan
Railway Country Estates Ltd in the 1920s as part of this approach.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvO7LBRJ9wVsM6KEpKeHAmdI5CHF_pufgK0RENXOymas7SN650CYb_tA27a0M0kj08kyTS1Ec4DCQ2wFDOPf0TssfHBeQMkFRezirH5H7UisouUc9szepfYT1NtV2UK5FrbccOhoKy1ho/s1600/rickmansworthstation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvO7LBRJ9wVsM6KEpKeHAmdI5CHF_pufgK0RENXOymas7SN650CYb_tA27a0M0kj08kyTS1Ec4DCQ2wFDOPf0TssfHBeQMkFRezirH5H7UisouUc9szepfYT1NtV2UK5FrbccOhoKy1ho/s400/rickmansworthstation.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rickmansworth station, landmark of Metro-Land.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
If you follow my directions you’ll cross the High Street
just shy of the centre of town, which clusters around the war memorial a little
further east. There are some Victorian and earlier buildings here, and a modern
library. But otherwise continue to the station, opened in 1887 and still
preserving much of its original Met architecture. At first it was a terminus, then
the line was extended to Chesham in 1889 and eventually got as far as Verney
Junction in Buckinghamshire.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
In 1925, the Metropolitan Railway was electrified as far
as here, and the station remained the point where trains into Buckinghamshire
changed from electric to steam traction until 1961, well into the London
Underground era. Chiltern Railways trains between Aylesbury and London
Marylebone still call, the successors to the Great Central Railway trains which
began serving the station in 1899 under a rather bumpy partnership agreement
with the Met. I’ve told a bit more of the story of these various railways in my
commentary on Moor Park under <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiqhJaLwv7VAhVDKFAKHe8_DScQFggtMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdesdemoor.blogspot.com%2F2016%2F04%2Flondon-loop-1314-harefield-moor-park.html&usg=AFQjCNHvUpf90N9A97Noq6bGZX6VacdFAw">Loop 13</a>.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Before you depart Rickmansworth, you might recall its fate
as a comic stereotype of middle class Metro-Land was sealed by the author and screenwriter Douglas Adams in the novel version of <i>The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy</i> in 1978:</div>
<blockquote>
And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man
had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people
for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth
suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she
finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it
was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
Minutes later, the Earth was demolished by the Vogons to
make way for a hyperspace bypass, and the secret of Life, the Universe and Everything
was lost forever.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Original sections<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="BodyTextfirstpara">
<br />
The Hillingdon council route cards for this section
are divided as follows:<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<b>4. Ickenham Marsh</b>. The card covers 6.1 km overall, but the first part of the route, from North Hillingdon to The Greenway in West Ruislip, is included in the previous section. The link from West Ruislip station to the break point is 500 m, then it’s 2.9 km along the route to Ruislip Lido bus stops along the Cannon Brook and the Grand Union Canal Feeder.<br />
<br />
<b>5. Ruislip Woods</b>. This is the most rural stretch of the Hillingdon Trail, from Ruislip Lido via Ruislip Woods National Nature Reserve to Harefield Church, a total of 5.7 km without transport. The most convenient bus stops are just a little further into the next section, along Church Hill.<br />
<br />
<b>6. Harefield Locks</b>. This card includes a total of 5.3 km, the first 2.1 km part of which climbs Church Hill from Harefield Church, then descends to Black Jack’s Lock and continues parallel to the Grand Union Canal to the bottom of Summerhouse Lane in Harefield West. There the Hillingdon Trail meets up with London Loop and continues for 1.4 km to Hill End. The final part of the Trail is 1.76 km to Springwell Lock, though part of the Loop is also shown on the card as the Northern Link. My recommended links to the bus stop near Maple Cross (1 km) and to Rickmansworth station (2.8 km) aren’t shown on the card.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<ul style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<li><b>Route description</b>: <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/cjorw5yn1cp0xjm/11b-12a-westruislip-rickmansworth.pdf?dl=0" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Hillingdon Trail 2</a></li>
<li><b>Official Hillingdon Council webpage</b>: <a href="https://www.hillingdon.gov.uk/hillingdontrail" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">https://www.hillingdon.gov.uk/hillingdontrail</a></li>
<li><b>The Grand Union Canal Feeder on London Canals blog</b>: <a href="http://londoncanals.uk/2013/02/01/the-grand-junction-canal-feeder-from-ruislip" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">http://londoncanals.uk/2013/02/01/the-grand-junction-canal-feeder-from-ruislip</a></li>
<li><b>Google map</b>: <a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kR1LrzqrpJjVZqKaXjIQqgOWVeE&usp=sharing" style="color: #940f04;">https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kR1LrzqrpJjVZqKaXjIQqgOWVeE&usp=sharing</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-56053518130981245302017-08-25T18:23:00.005+01:002017-08-26T08:15:40.326+01:00Hillingdon Trail 1: Cranford - West Ruislip<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfIODOymfMrtR78gM6q4zT0Fg9nFLV4r58TrANYa2-s9qZt-22BejQmiTNqlk9IJjsesy8TyHfyi2A2_-A1Xc33uloqBsvMgNyMbDef-dnFN3X18QOO-bgUxEOcBwRkcb4lc21IEYQgW8/s1600/yeadingmeadows.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfIODOymfMrtR78gM6q4zT0Fg9nFLV4r58TrANYa2-s9qZt-22BejQmiTNqlk9IJjsesy8TyHfyi2A2_-A1Xc33uloqBsvMgNyMbDef-dnFN3X18QOO-bgUxEOcBwRkcb4lc21IEYQgW8/s640/yeadingmeadows.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The grass expanses of Hillindgon. Yeading Meadows, off The Greenway, Yeading.</td></tr>
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<br />
<div>
The London Borough of Hillingdon is the second biggest London borough, and one of its greenest, with extensive swathes of parks, nature reserves, woodland and countryside including Ruislip Woods, one of the only two National Nature Reserves (NNRs) in the capital. In 2014, the borough held the highest number of Green Flag awards of any local authority in the country. Since the early 1990s some of these places, including the NNR, have been linked by a signed walking trail, the Hillingdon Trail, running roughly north-south through this rather elongated borough on London’s western edge. Not only is the Trail well worth exploring for its own sake, it also provides a useful alternative route to the London Loop, with which it connects at Cranford and Harefield.</div>
<div>
<br />
I’ll describe the Trail in two parts, both around 17.5 km or a reasonable day’s walk. The first follows the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal then heads off along the suburban green chain that lines the valley of the Yeading Brook, with some fascinating nature reserves along the way such as Yeading Woods and Ickenham Marsh. It ends by following an old lane to Ickenham and West Ruislip Tube station. The second section is even more varied, starting with another suburban green chain along the Grand Union Canal Feeder and the Cannon Brook, crossing Ruislip Woods and wandering through the Colne Valley Park around Harefield to finish at Springwell Lock back on the Grand Union Canal. An optional continuation will take you to Rickmansworth town centre and Tube station.<br />
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX0dmJ7PHnk31la9d_w7evxP4_J4mW5w7iwaJqHYYb8_tagv_TbAmR2_v_TOHqIxaWPdmy8usVpn2xFZGcHvllbJpqEZYaZj6boheewDpQuljtcQmi3lMwrEKQyUV0ETjcUrdcD_94Mjg/s1600/hillingdontrailsign-westruislipthegreenway.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX0dmJ7PHnk31la9d_w7evxP4_J4mW5w7iwaJqHYYb8_tagv_TbAmR2_v_TOHqIxaWPdmy8usVpn2xFZGcHvllbJpqEZYaZj6boheewDpQuljtcQmi3lMwrEKQyUV0ETjcUrdcD_94Mjg/s320/hillingdontrailsign-westruislipthegreenway.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hillingdon Trail signing off The Greenway,<br />
West Ruislip.</td></tr>
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<div>
<h3>
More about the Hillingdon Trail</h3>
<br />
The Hillingdon Trail is a product of the late 1980s when the idea of green walking trails across London caught the imagination of both council staff and voluntary groups. Local volunteers worked with the borough council to devise the route, which was first publicised in a route card folder sold at council outlets in 1994. At that point plans for the London Loop were well-advanced, which might explain why, although the Trail connects with the Loop at both ends, the Loop ultimately followed a different route, further out along the edge of London, occasionally venturing into Buckinghamshire, essentially tracking the Grand Union Canal and river Colne through the Colne Valley Park.<br />
<br />
The difference is certainly not in the attractiveness of the surroundings. The Hillingdon Trail is an excellent walk throughout, with very few roads and streets and a real sense of openness that’s still easily accessible via public transport. In a little less than 30 km it includes an impressive variety of surroundings: post-industrial canalsides, suburban green corridors, managed parks and nature reserves, rolling agricultural fields and fine views over the lakes and woods of the Colne Valley towards the end.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The jewel in its crown is Ruislip Woods National Nature Reserve, with its hectares of ancient woodland and the decidedly un-London-like prospect of a sandy beach beside the tree-lined reservoir of Ruislip Lido. The woods weren’t designated as an NNR until 1997, otherwise they may have proved more attractive to the London Walking Forum members who planned the Loop.<br />
<br />
I guess most walkers will still tackle the official route of the Loop first and possibly return to walk the Trail later. Even through the Loop ventures further west than the Trail, the latter wiggles about a bit so is less direct. It’s a 27.7 km walk from Bath Road in Cranford to Harefield West via the Trail, and only 23.3 km via the Loop, which can be shortened even further to 19.8 km if you ignore the excursions away from the towpath. The terrain on the Trail is a little more challenging too, particularly through Ruislip Woods and around Harefield.<br />
<br />
Besides the obvious break point at West Ruislip there are numerous other transport options including various bus stops so no matter how you choose to walk the route, you should be able to split it into lengths that meet your preferences and abilities.<br />
<br />
The Hillingdon Trail officially starts at the car park in Cranford Country Park, on London Loop section 10 and close by St Dunstan’s Church, but there’s no handy public transport here. A signed extension, the Southern Link, connects from Bath Road, well-served by buses, to Cranford Park Stables just north of the car park. Both these points are also on Loop section 10, and both trails share stretches of path, but the Southern Link follows a more circuitous course around Cranford Park, taking 1.5 km rather than 1.14 km. One advantage is that you get to see more of the park, but you also have a bit more noise from the M4.<br />
<br />
The Loop and the Trail then share largely the same paths for a while, although the Trail decides to dodge away eastwards to follow the river Crane more closely through Dog Kennel Covert north of the M4, a relatively minor additional 150 m. The two trails diverge decisively on the Grand Union Canal towpath at the bottom of the ramp from Parkway, on the edge of Hayes. Here the Loop heads west towards Hayes & Harlington and Uxbridge, while the Trail turns in the other direction for a short distance to Bulls Bridge to pick up the Grand Union Canal Paddington Arm and start its journey along the Yeading Valley.<br />
<br />
If you wanted to start at a station, the next one down the Loop from Cranford is at Hatton Cross, which will add another 2.5 km to your walk. Alternatively, you might decide that the early part of the Trail is too like the Loop to be worth walking, and start instead at Hayes & Harlington station where Loop section 11 begins. From here it’s only 1.5 km back down the Loop and the Grand Union Canal Walk to the Parkway ramp, resulting in a 14.5 km walk to West Ruislip station.<br />
<br />
If you’re walking the Loop and decide to substitute the Trail alternative between Hayes & Harlington and Harefield West, be aware that, while the distance via the Loop is 19.2 km (shorter if you stick to the towpath) on paths that are largely flat and easy to follow, and therefore doable in a day if you’re a relatively fit walker, it’s 25.2 km via the Hillingdon Trail, including some hills and fiddly wayfinding in woods. You might consider adding an extra day by breaking at West Ruislip or elsewhere.<br />
<br />
The Trail and the Loop eventually converge to within 100 m of each other at Black Jacks Lock, Harefield, and finally meet a little further on at Harefield West, at the bottom of Summerhouse Lane not far from Harefield Lock. This is the end point of section 12 of the Loop, one of the few that breaks at a bus stop rather than a station.<br />
<br />
The Trail and section 13 of the Loop then share the same route for 1.4 km through Old Park Woods to the hamlet of Hill End. Here, Loop walkers will finally part company with the Trail, which heads northwest back towards the Colne Valley, while the Loop goes northeast to the Hertfordshire boundary near Woodcock Hill and on to Batchworth Heath and Moor Park. Before the Loop was finalised through Hillingdon, the path to the boundary was signed as the Northern Link, and some of these signs remain today.<br />
<br />
The official end point of the Hillingdon Trail is back on the Grand Union Canal at Springwell Lock north of Harefield, in the northwestern tip of the borough, 28.5 km from Cranford Country Park car park and just over 30 km from Bath Road. The council guide gives the length of the Trail as 20 miles, which is 32 km: I think this is a slight overestimate.<br />
<br />
There’s no public transport immediately to hand at the end either, but you have at least two options. The closest bus stop is 1 km away on the Uxbridge Road: this is in Hertfordshire and outside the Transport for London fares area but has reasonably frequent services to Rickmansworth even on Sundays. Alternatively, there’s the pleasant and convenient option of continuing on the towpath for a while and then cutting through the lakes of Rickmansworth Aquadrome to Rickmansworth town centre and station. Although also in Hertfordshire, Rickmansworth has the virtue of being on the Tube, with frequent Metropolitan line services operating within the zonal fares system.<br />
<br />
The 2.8 km of path from Springwell Lock to Rickmansworth is included in the overall 17.5 km I’ve given for part 2 so should be easily manageable. Wayfinding is easy too, following not only the Grand Union Canal Walk but another trail, the Colne Valley Trail, which has been shadowing us since just west of Harefield Village.<br />
<br />
Looking at the map, you’ll note that if you divert from the Loop to the Trail and back again, you’ll be doglegging northwest to Harefield then northeast again towards Moor Park. Is there the possibility of a more direct walk leaving the Trail earlier, say northeast from Ruislip Woods to rejoin the Loop somewhere around Oxhey Woods or Hatch End? The sprawl of Northwood obstructs the way here, so for the moment I’ll leave this idea for future investigation.<br />
<br />
The Hillingdon Trail is signed in both directions using a variety of methods. In many places, you’ll see metal fingerposts with the trail name on a brown background, particularly at junctions with roads. No destination names or distances are included on these. Away from roads look out for stumpy wooden posts with the letters HT and a directional arrow carved and painted in white, installed relatively recently.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Occasional more conventional waymark discs on gates and fences bear the trail name and a graphic of a boot print coupled with the standard coloured arrows for public rights of way. Some older wooden fingerposts still stand, though often badly decayed. As always don’t rely on the signs, which may be missing, vandalised or eroded. When I last walked the Trail, at least one of the wooden wayposts was displaying an arrow pointing in the opposite direction from the correct one!<br />
<br />
The routecard pack is long out of print, but its contents have been helpfully transferred to the Hillingdon council website. Like the original cards, this divides the trail into six relatively short sections, with a page for each. There’s not much in the way of background information, but there’s a route description and a reproduction of the maps that appeared on the cards, which can also be downloaded separately as PDFs. These are sketch maps which don’t contain much in the way of detail and are not always easy to read, so I highly recommend you supplement them with Ordnance Survey Explorer map, on which the Trail is also shown using the standard line of green diamonds.<br />
<br />
The first part of my own description covers sections 1-3 plus part of section 4, while the second par covers the rest of section 4 and sections 5-6. There’s a bit more information about the original sections later.<br />
<br />
Hillingdon, incidentally, was one of the new London boroughs created when the capital was expanded as Greater London in 1965. Before then, the area was part of the now-abolished Middlesex county, with four predecessor authorities. The Trail only passes through two of them: Hayes and Harlington Urban District, including Yeading and part of Cranford; and Ruislip-Northwood Urban District, including Harefield and Ickenham. The other two are Uxbridge Metropolitan Borough and West Drayton Urban District. Hillingdon was originally planned to be known as the London Borough of Uxbridge but the name was later revised.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<h3>
Cranford</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg35r8iEOp1kRXR6wRRKeTl5MNyLuI23fEwn0iy1Ay2XymgfDwTOA-gVEMLVoXTnA62d47cqwAeoPVo6CyNgAfpeIyH3gY3WMTPtR4ekrEwJIEZ8gxl8y6qBUbMrM3ZnsuDqS2xKBu5KO0/s1600/rivercranecranfordpark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg35r8iEOp1kRXR6wRRKeTl5MNyLuI23fEwn0iy1Ay2XymgfDwTOA-gVEMLVoXTnA62d47cqwAeoPVo6CyNgAfpeIyH3gY3WMTPtR4ekrEwJIEZ8gxl8y6qBUbMrM3ZnsuDqS2xKBu5KO0/s640/rivercranecranfordpark.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">River Crane in northern part of Cranford Country Park, near the old Cranford Le Mote manor.</td></tr>
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<div>
<br /></div>
I’ve already talked about the river Crane, Cranford and Cranford Country Park in some detail under <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/london-loop-1112-kingston-hatton-cross.html">London Loop section 10</a>, which also includes a route description for anyone setting out from further down the Crane valley at Hatton Cross Tube. On Cranford Bridge along Bath Road, you’re right on the corner of London Heathrow Airport, with a constant stream of aeroplanes passing by, but you’ll soon be leaving this behind.<br />
<br />
If you choose to follow the Hillingdon Trail Southern Link rather than the Loop, you won’t see much of the river itself but you’ll see a bit more of the <a href="https://www.hillingdon.gov.uk/index.jsp?articleid=14629" target="_blank">Cranford Country Park</a>. This path follows the southern edge of the central meadows then turns north along the western edge of the site, on a pleasantly tree-lined bridleway following a stream known as Frogs Ditch, with fields visible on the other side. Soon you’re walking along the edge of Cranford Wood, some of which is thought to be ancient woodland and is noted for its seasonal bluebell displays. Near the point where the ditch and the wood meet is an earth mound of uncertain origin, possibly a Roman survey mound.<br />
<br />
The route then passes through a wall that once enclosed a walled garden forming part of the estate. Some of this site has been used as an orchard, and part is now fenced off as a wildflower meadow scattered with damson trees and occasionally grazed by cattle. The roar of traffic on the M4 slightly detracts from the peacefulness of the scene here: it runs just on the other side of the wall and you’re walking alongside it. There’s further brickwork off to the right as you approach the arch that leads you back to the Loop by the famous stable block.<br />
<br />
In the unlikely event that you’re starting from the official Hillingdon Trail start point at the car park, you’ll approach the stable block through a different arch, passing close to St Dunstan’s church with its memorial to Tony Hancock along the way. If you haven’t walked this way before, it’s well worth diverting a little to look at the church, also discussed under Loop 10.<br />
<br />
North of the Stable Block, the Trail follows the Loop under the M4 and through Dog Kennel Covert, then follows a minor variation to join the side of the Crane. The river once meandered freely through this area of woodland and meadow, but was canalised into its current straighter course when the motorway was built in 1964. Recent works to remove culverting have created a more natural bank. The footbridge here once led to the site of a secondary manor house, known as Cranford Le Mote, pulled down in 1780. The A312 road has subsequently covered the foundations of the house, but fragments of the moat from which it took its name remain.<br />
<br />
The Trail and Loop then run together along Parkway and descend on the giant ramp to the <a href="https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/canal-and-river-network/grand-union-canal" target="_blank">Grand Union Canal towpath</a>, built in 1992 along with the road as part of the Hayes Bypass. Here the two trails finally part company, heading off in opposite directions.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<h3>
Southall and the Paddington Arm</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bulls Bridge, with the main line of the Grand Union Canal to Brentford right, the Paddington Arm left.</td></tr>
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<div>
<br /></div>
A few steps from the Parkway ramp you reach Bulls Bridge junction where the <a href="https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/canal-and-river-network/paddington-arm-grand-union-canal" target="_blank">Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal</a> joins the main line from Brentford. The little white bridge that takes the towpath over the end of the Paddington Arm is a modest landmark for what was once one of the most important transport junctions in Britain, linking the rapidly developing industrial towns of the West Midlands with central London and Docklands.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div>
As explained in <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/london-loop-1112-hayes-hillingdon.html">London Loop section 11</a>, the first stretch of what was then known as the Grand Junction Canal opened between the river Thames at Brentford and Hemel Hempstead in 1798, with the intention of extending to Braunston in Northamptonshire, on the Oxford Canal which went to Coventry. This was the route approved by Parliament, but the detour into central London via the Thames was already considered less than ideal, and long before construction of the main line was completed, the company was already pushing for permission to provide a more direct link with the capital.<br />
<br />
The outcome was the Paddington Arm, opened in 1801 as a 22 km canal branch from Bulls Bridge to Paddington on what was then the northwest corner of the metropolis. Several decades before the railway terminus opened, the area was already an important transport interchange, standing on the intersection of Edgware Road – Roman Watling Street – and the New Road, London’s first bypass, a toll road to Islington and the City opened in the 1750s. The New Road still forms part of London’s Inner Ring Road, though it’s now known variously as Marylebone Road, Euston Road, Pentonville Road and City Road.<br />
<br />
The Grand Junction Canal was open throughout by 1811, by now with a more direct connection to Birmingham via the Warwick & Napton and Warwick & Birmingham canals, and by 1820 the Paddington Arm had more direct access to the London Docks via the Regents Canal from Paddington to Limehouse. Like all canals, it suffered badly from growing competition with the railways from the late 1830s on, though soldiered on, its owning company merging with the Warwick and Regents Canal companies in 1929 to create the Grand Union Canal. Following the transport nationalisations after World War II, it passed to government agency British Waterways, which has since been spun off into an independent charity, the Canal & River Trust.<br />
<br />
Today, a smattering of freight still travels along London’s canals, but almost all the boats you’ll see are homes and pleasure craft, or service vehicles belonging to the Trust and other businesses connected to the canal. The waterways have long since been reinvented for other uses: of course, they make great walking and cycling routes and wildlife corridors, but less visibly they earn income from telecoms and utility companies running cables and other services under the towpaths. This stretch is as welcoming to walkers as any, providing useful links in parts of London chopped up by industry and main roads.<br />
<br />
The Paddington Arm initially follows the valley of the Yeading Brook – actually the upper reaches of the river Crane under a different name. As we’ll see, almost all this first section of the Hillingdon Trail traces the valley. You’re right on the edge of Hillingdon here as the canal forms the boundary, which doesn’t run down the centre of the water but along the eastern edge of the canal land. So the towpath is in Hillingdon, but the industrial estate on the other side of the fence on your right is in the London Borough of Ealing.<br />
<br />
The towpath runs under Bridge 21A, which carries one of those pieces of infrastructure that helped bring the canal age to a close: the Great Western Railway, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. This is part of the initial stretch to Maidenhead, which opened in 1838, originally as a 7’ ¼“ (2140 mm) broad gauge railway, but subsequently converted to the emerging British standard gauge of 4’ 8 ½” in (1435 mm). Eastwards it also runs to Paddington, westwards to Bristol, Cardiff and Penzance.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6EQIATIAdOzitAo7PUaVybYKLmKf4ztp5tBHFKN0mhsVgVa9Hpv70exBayg4qdZjPqfgTjuXmeQKtLwHCbwufL402VP9bZM4d-nhMNzt59WbGi6u9K6m40LL3USgCQ7_zz6i-qrW8QBU/s1600/southallgasworks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6EQIATIAdOzitAo7PUaVybYKLmKf4ztp5tBHFKN0mhsVgVa9Hpv70exBayg4qdZjPqfgTjuXmeQKtLwHCbwufL402VP9bZM4d-nhMNzt59WbGi6u9K6m40LL3USgCQ7_zz6i-qrW8QBU/s400/southallgasworks.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Irises growing beside the Paddington Arm on the edge of the<br />
Southall Gasworks development site, May 2017.</td></tr>
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The Yeading Brook itself runs a little to the west, on the other side of the canal. Beyond the rail bridge and between the two waterways is a strip of overgrown rough woodland owned by the Canal & River Trust and on the west bank of the brook is Minet Country Park, created from neglected former farmland and industrial land in the early 2000s.<br />
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Meanwhile, at the time of writing, the Ealing side of the towpath was a massive 33 ha building site. This is the former home of Southall Gasworks, opened in 1869 and run down in the early 1970s after the discovery of natural gas made it obsolete. More recently the site been used as long-term car parking for Heathrow Airport. In 2015, work began on preparing it for redevelopment by cleaning 250,000 m3 of contaminated soil, and 2017 saw work begin on a 25-year master plan to provide 3,750 new homes.<br />
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While canals were once shunned by anyone who didn’t have to visit them, attitudes have changed, and the priority for the developers is to complete the 618-home Southall Waterside phase of the development in time for the opening of the Elizabeth Line in 2019. The good news for walkers is that this will open up a more direct connection to Southall station from the canal through the new estate. Two new footbridges across the canal are also promised, providing links through the Canal & River Trust land to the Country Park and raising the possibility of an alternative route for the Trail that stays closer to the brook.<br />
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The development is the latest in a succession of changes that have transformed this west London community numerous times over the course of a little more than a century. Until the early 19th century, the area now called Southall was a scattering of tiny rural hamlets in an area of Middlesex better known as Norwood. In mediaeval times, it had been part of Hayes parish and remained so formally until 1859, although the obvious geographical division of the Yeading Brook and then the Paddington Arm set it apart from the rest of the parish.</div>
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Significantly, a major road ran through it, an ancient route linking London and Oxford via Uxbridge known as the Uxbridge Road, which was turnpiked in 1721 and was part of a regular coach route by the early 19th century. The place names have shifted in meaning over the years: ‘Southall’ was once applied only to the area a little south of the road, around the Green, where the manor house stood. The settlement along the road itself, east of the bridge over the Yeading, was known as Northcott.<br />
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Population and industry in the area began to grow slowly with the opening of the canals. By then the biggest landowner was Lord Jersey, who also owned nearby Osterley Park, and he profited from the inclosure of the local land in 1814. Like several other rural locations just outside London, Southall was a retreat for the better off, with numerous “respectable villas of an ornamental character” around the Green. When the Great Western Railway was built, Southall was considered important enough to have a halt of its own, opened in 1839.<br />
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The first major industry taking advantage of the transport links was brickmaking, which spread from the 1850s, necessitating new cottages for workers. By 1890 there were still under a thousand houses, but by 1894 factories had been built and cheap housing was spreading. The transport link that made the biggest difference to the area’s accessibility was not the railway, which remained relatively expensive, but the electric trams which arrived in the first decade of the 20th century, linking with Uxbridge and Shepherds Bush along the main road: fares on these were much more affordable to people on modest incomes.<br />
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By World War I, Southall was a busy industrial area and continued to grow after the war. The Greater London Plan of 1944 described it as acutely overcrowded and recommended a brake on further industrial development, but large social housing estates were added in the 1940s and 1950s. By the time the last of these was completed in 1959, Southall was undergoing the social change for which it’s perhaps best known today, as a favoured destination for Commonwealth immigrants to Britain, and one group in particular – Sikhs from India’s Punjab region.<br />
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Southall was ideal for this: it was some distance from central London so accommodation was cheaper, but it was built-up and industrial, so there were plenty of jobs and homes. And once the first newcomers settled, the phenomenon of ‘chain immigration’ developed as new arrivals headed for places close to family members and friends or even just people from their own part of the world. Landlords were often reluctant to rent to immigrants, but a group of families could pool its resources to buy a house, which would then be shared while each individual family saved enough to buy their own.<br />
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But why Sikhs? Before Indian independence, many Sikhs served in the army under British officers, and some family legends mention an ex-officer with connections to the area who offered his former comrades work here. It’s also often stated that a local rubber factory, Woolf’s, had a deliberate policy of employing Sikhs. This has been contested by the descendant of a director of the firm, who believes the story was originally put about by racists needing to blame someone for immigration. Certainly, many immigrants worked at Woolf’s, but there were other large local employers keen to tap this new source of labour in the 1950s and 1960s, including bus maker AEG and Heathrow Airport, which was then expanding rapidly in response to the civil aviation boom.<br />
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The new arrivals were not well-treated. Even if highly qualified, immigrants were regarded by employers as cheap unskilled labour and often worked in poor conditions for very low wages. They faced casual racism in everyday life, and could expect little support from the police if this escalated into intimidation, violence and even murder. The council regularly bused immigrant children to schools far from home to avoid them becoming a majority locally. Councillors and MPs harangued the Sikh community for retaining traditional practices like turban-wearing rather than assimilating. But as the community grew, it also organised – the Southall Indian Workers Association, the first of its kind in Britain, was founded in 1956 and played a role not only in promoting unionisation and improving pay and conditions in the workplace but also more generally.<br />
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In the 1960s and 1970s, Southall became, along with some other London neighbourhoods like Brixton, a focus for an increasingly ugly debate about immigration and race in the UK. It was targeted by organised racists and anti-immigrant campaigners, sometimes with the support, tacit or otherwise, of the authorities. Gurdip Singh Chaggar, an 18-year-old student murdered by racists on the High Street in 1976 was dismissed by police as “just an Asian”.</div>
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On St George’s Day 1979, in the runup to the election that was to return Margaret Thatcher as prime minister, police attacked anti-racist demonstrators opposing a rally of fascist and racist party the National Front, provocatively held in Southall town hall. During the scuffles, one of the demonstrators, Blair Peach, a white New Zealand-born teacher, was struck and killed by a police truncheon, likely wielded by a member of the notorious Special Patrol Group. In July 1981, a gig by bands with a neo-Nazi following in the Hambrough Tavern pub became the flashpoint for a riot involving angry young Sikhs, racist skinheads and the police. These and other incidents triggered a succession of debates about institutional racism, particularly in the police, and some changes did eventually follow.<br />
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Though recent political developments remind us that racism and anti-immigrant sentiment haven’t gone away, the world has incontestably moved on. Most Londoners now seem comfortable with their city’s multicultural complexion, and people of all colours and backgrounds regularly descend on Southall to enjoy its food and music. Punjabi script is proudly displayed on street and station signs. Meanwhile, Southall’s local ‘Indians’ are now largely third and fourth generation British, and recent immigrants are more likely to be from Afghanistan or Somalia.<br />
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You won’t see much of this if you stick to the towpath, so for a closer look and to enjoy some of that food and music, turn right along Uxbridge Road when you reach Hayes Bridge. The gas works redevelopment will also make central Southall more accessible from the towpath, as well as bringing in a new wave of young professionals who will doubtless change the social composition of this troubled but resilient suburb once again.<br />
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<h3>
The Yeading Valley</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4jk8yFiuWi_IxcZXYr_4W45XJbevr-_e9WLlrmjeOpVCfjiogPArgkRY3EeDswN_4C6Or3tb6JF10PpQLhdMfVn2u00zOV9meUHeijFAdZAWwcsj039pu7yp1_uSawoGMx9FftF_mu0M/s1600/spikesbridge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4jk8yFiuWi_IxcZXYr_4W45XJbevr-_e9WLlrmjeOpVCfjiogPArgkRY3EeDswN_4C6Or3tb6JF10PpQLhdMfVn2u00zOV9meUHeijFAdZAWwcsj039pu7yp1_uSawoGMx9FftF_mu0M/s640/spikesbridge.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View along the Paddington Arm towards London from Spikes Bridge.</td></tr>
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A little further on the towpath on the other side of Hayes Bridge, you reach a footbridge known as Spikes Bridge. This bridge once linked farmland severed by the canal: now it links housing estates and urban green spaces, though it’s still a pretty spot. It’s at this point that the Paddington Arm begins to diverge from the Yeading Valley. The canal keeps going northeast before bending east towards central London, while the line of the brook turns northwest. To the right, and in Ealing borough, is Spikes Bridge Park, left as a green space when the surrounding estates were built in the 1930s, and now much used for sport. But our way is over the bridge, leaving the canal for the area known as Yeading.<br />
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Historically Yeading was a sub-parish of Hayes occupying a triangle of land in the northeast, east of the Yeading Brook and north of the Uxbridge Road. The first known historical reference is from 757, when it was known as Geddinges, and in 793 King Offa of Mercia granted land in Hayes and Yeading to the Archbishop of Canterbury. By the late 14th century the area was a sub-manor of Hayes, and at times during its history it may even have been more populous than Hayes itself. While researching his 1876 Handbook to the Environs of London, Stephen Thorne found an “irregular, commonplace collection of houses” whose inhabitants were “always found civil”.<br />
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Dense housing appeared much later in Yeading than Southall and Hayes, and much of the area traversed by the trail remained as farmland into the 1950s. As in some other parts of west London, the earliest development of industry resulted from the discovery of an abundance of brick earth conveniently close to a canal. From the 1820s, a complex of brickfields, docks and wharves grew up a little north of Spikes Bridge on the west side of the canal, variously known as Yeading Docks or Willowtree Docks, which after World War II was partly used for landfill, before being redeveloped in the 1980s as housing estates, parks and a marina.<br />
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Most of the rest of Yeading remained as marshy fields and meadows with almost no roads or even tracks across it until the 1950s and 1960s, when large social housing estates designed to cope with the post-war crisis spread on both sides of the river. But the land closest to the brook was wisely left as a green strip, partly for water management and partly to provide recreational space for the growing population. As a result, a nearly continuous chain of public recreation grounds, parks, open grassland and nature reserves lines the valley between Southall and Ruislip, like a miniature regional park.<br />
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To be honest, overall the space could be better-utilised than it is: though the nature reserves are fascinating and the Crane Valley Partnership has coordinated some largely volunteer-led improvements elsewhere, the swathes of grass dotted with decaying play equipment are rather too extensive in places. Nonetheless it provides a pleasant, off-road route for the Hillingdon Trail, with the brook itself never far away.<br />
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The Yeading Brook rises from a spring in Pinner Park, just southwest of Headstone Lane station, and feeds the moat in Headstone Manor before running roughly southwest through North Harrow, Roxbourne Park and Ruislip Gardens. It meanders around Northolt Aerodrome and through Ickenham Marsh, then runs southeast via Yeading and south towards Hayes. In the southwest corner of Minet Country Park, just north of the Great Western Railway, it’s joined by a couple of minor streams and for no apparently good reason changes its name to the river Crane – in Saxon times both streams were known as the Fishes Bourne. <br />
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The Crane then takes a roughly bowl-shaped course, via Cranford, Hounslow Heath, and Twickenham, where it curves up again through St Margarets to join the Thames at Isleworth. In its lower reaches, it becomes entangled with an artificial watercourse, the Duke of Northumberland’s River, as explained under <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/london-loop-1112-kingston-hatton-cross.html">London Loop section 9</a>. The total length of Crane and Yeading combined is just under 26 km, of which just over 12 km is officially the Brook. The entire course is within Greater London.<br />
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Another trail joins at the bridge, one of a number created through the Crane Valley Partnership in the late 1990s and early 2000s under the general title West London Waterway Walks. Known as the Dog Rose Ramble, it’s a 13 km circular walk – or, rather, triangular, with Sparks Bridge as the southernmost point. Two sides of the triangle are shared with other trails: the Grand Union Canal Walk from Northolt southwest to here, then the Hillingdon Trail northwest to Golden Bridge on the northern edge of Yeading. It then runs in its own right east back to Northolt again. Needless to say, the original leaflets are long gone but the trail is sporadically signed on the ground, shown on OS Explorer maps and documented on several unofficial sites.<br />
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Immediately on the other side of Sparks Bridge is a pleasant meadow, improved as part of the Willowtree development. Then, through a hedge, the first of the huge grassy spaces opens before you, known as Brookside Playing Fields. The brook runs along the left side of this space, but the Trail chooses the right side. This is so it can connect with the subway under the Hayes Bypass, a continuation of the road you descended from near Bulls Bridge, which has sliced across the grass here since the early 1990s.<br />
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On the other side, you’ll get your first proper view of the sprawling post-war Yeading Lane housing estate, then the Trail works its way across a smaller grassy area, known as Larch Crescent Open Space and, further on, as Yeading Lane Playing Fields. You arrive at Yeading Bridge on Yeading Lane, one of the few genuinely old roads in the area, connecting Yeading with Hayes since mediaeval times. The old village centre was a little way along the lane to your right, but no historic buildings remain.<br />
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The Trail now crosses the Yeading to the Hayes side, and enters a more pleasant and intimate space currently managed largely as a hay meadow, Shakespeare’s Avenue Open Space. Across a small bridge back to the Yeading side is another large area of open grass, Greenway Playing Fields. It’s at this point you’ll appreciate quite how vast the Yeading Lane estate is, as a long line of identikit red brick council houses marches along the Greenway, across the grass to your right. This tranche of valley is designated part of <a href="http://www.wildlondon.org.uk/reserves/yeading-brook-meadows" target="_blank">Yeading Meadows Local Nature Reserve</a> (LNR), parts of it managed by the London Wildlife Trust. The grassland dotted with mature trees provides a haven for insects, and the marshy area on the left, between your path and the brook itself, is an intriguing patchwork of grass tussocks and reeds.<br />
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Reaching Kings Hill Avenue itself, you once again approach close to the boundary with Ealing borough, the former parish boundary between Hayes and Northolt. This follows the north side of the avenue and then runs along the brook for a while. The Trail stays firmly on the west side of the brook, first on a fenced path beside it and then following the perimeter of a modest sports stadium known as Park Farm. Since 1982, this has been the home of AFC Hayes, a soccer team that grew from a pub team, founded in 1974 as Brook House FC. It adopted its current name in 2007 after another team in Hayes disbanded, and currently plays in the Combined Counties League, the 10th level of English football.<br />
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The Trail then stops short of entering a large public sports field, Grosvenor Field, where Hayes Rugby Club plays, and instead turns onto a tree-lined path parallel to its perimeter. To your left, between the path and the field, is a rather overgrown and usually dry ditch. This is the Grand Union Canal Feeder, part of the original elaborate system for keeping the artificial waterway adequately filled.<br />
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Completed in 1816 as one of two canal feeders, it ran 13 km from a large reservoir at Ruislip, which I’ll have to say much more about in the second section of the walk. The Feeder, which has been shadowing us on the far side of the Brook since Southall, emptied into the west bank of the canal about 200 m north of Uxbridge Road. You will have passed this point earlier on, but there’s nothing to see today – the system proved ineffective and inefficient and was last used in 1851. Parts were filled in and covered, but some of the channel remained in use for local drainage.<br />
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The Trail leaves the Feeder to run through Michael Frost Park and rejoins it again briefly just before reaching Charville Lane. This is another old east-west road across Yeading, connecting Hillingdon and Northolt. The Trail follows it for a short while but stops short of the bridge over the brook. There’s been a bridge here since at least the 14th century, and it now goes by the picturesque name Golden Bridge, though it was originally Golding Bridge. On the other side of the bridge, in the old parish of Northolt and present-day Ealing borough, the road becomes a bridleway, used by the Dog Rose Ramble. The Trail leaves Yeading here, keeping north for a while parallel to the Canal Feeder and Yeading Brook.<br />
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<h3>
Hillingdon and the nature reserves</h3>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaCY3JSrnpB5MtY5NYKv861Io3FnRXV_5x-RIiCDtNACT0_3kRmU6ewPIuyQZM4r2OewIwdul_H3GiV5Y50si197I2qpr35wzIPEsVClc8yh9vi1F-bNbElJOjVfSPmeOILM1YwvnHLtc/s1600/tenacrewood-canalfeeder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaCY3JSrnpB5MtY5NYKv861Io3FnRXV_5x-RIiCDtNACT0_3kRmU6ewPIuyQZM4r2OewIwdul_H3GiV5Y50si197I2qpr35wzIPEsVClc8yh9vi1F-bNbElJOjVfSPmeOILM1YwvnHLtc/s640/tenacrewood-canalfeeder.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Grand Union Canal Feeder running through Ten Acre Wood, part of the Yeading Woods nature reserves.</td></tr>
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The area north of Charleville Road offers perhaps the most attractive surroundings of this section of the Hillingdon Trail: it’s a patchwork of woodlands, fields, hedgerows and meadows that preserves fragments of an older landscape. The Yeading Brook forms a Y-shape through the area: in the fields north of Ten Acre Wood, there’s a confluence with an eastern arm that flows from a secondary source in South Ruislip. The main course, meanwhile, bends west through Gutteridge Wood and towards Ickenham, faithfully shadowed by the Hillingdon Trail and the Canal Feeder.<br />
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The route also roughly approximates the boundary of two ancient parishes: Ickenham to the east and north, of which more later, and Hillingdon, the parish after which today’s borough was named, to the west and south. It’s rather ironic that the Hillingdon Trail tiptoes so gingerly around Hillingdon itself. The manor of Hillingdon is mentioned in the Domesday survey, and originally included Uxbridge, which ultimately developed into the more important settlement. Parts of Hillingdon remained rural until after World War II when they were protected as part of the Green Belt, as here.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1LbCDmE1ehmRi6Fwx17EQwRCeR30nvhjCqTCY6lBYgzdHgaY7WSYt_81MAFdO1ggBWDbb0ADtAVEb9FLGVat81t-9Xd0UzVjYjh7tOe77Svm-UFhS6QTncxGXtTTyTyyJQlyrhr_-Zw0/s1600/gutteridgewood-boardwalk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1LbCDmE1ehmRi6Fwx17EQwRCeR30nvhjCqTCY6lBYgzdHgaY7WSYt_81MAFdO1ggBWDbb0ADtAVEb9FLGVat81t-9Xd0UzVjYjh7tOe77Svm-UFhS6QTncxGXtTTyTyyJQlyrhr_-Zw0/s400/gutteridgewood-boardwalk.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Boardwalk in Gutteridge Wood LNR</td></tr>
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The Trail crosses the Brook again into <a href="http://www.wildlondon.org.uk/reserves/ten-acre-wood" target="_blank">Ten Acre Wood</a>, an interesting combination of old hazel coppiced woodland with a late 19th century oak plantation superimposed on top. Since 1990, the wood and several other patches nearby have been a designated Local Nature Reserve and are currently managed by the London Wildlife Trust. Leaving the woods, the path runs through wildflower meadows across the Brook once again, and then the canal feeder, with the site of a former sewage works on the right, to enter another Wildlife Trust-managed woodland, <a href="http://www.wildlondon.org.uk/reserves/gutteridge-wood" target="_blank">Gutteridge Wood</a>.<br />
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The picturesque name is a corruption of Great Ditch Wood, referring to its proximity to the Brook. The western part at least, known as Cutthroat Wood, is ancient woodland, continuously wooded with oak and hazel since at least Tudor times, and noted for seasonal bluebells.<br />
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The Trail crosses and then turns to run alongside the Canal Feeder again in Gutteridge Wood, and the Brook isn’t far away here either, running roughly parallel to the Feeder over to the right. Then you cross it to emerge into a small grassy recreation ground, Lynhurst Crescent Open Space, where a path along the backs of houses leads to a more formal green space, Elephant Park – the place where the HT waymark points in completely the wrong direction. The Trail crosses the end of a street, Windsor Avenue in North Hillingdon. Once this area too was meadows and woodlands, most attached to a farm called Rye Fields, but in the 1930s the council built an estate here which expanded into today’s residential district.<br />
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The Hillingdon Trail negotiates the A40 Western Avenue along a cycle route, passing through a woodland known as Freezeland Covert on the other side of the A437 sliproad before running alongside the Yeading Brook under the A40 itself. This is one of the major London trunk roads, initially constructed in the 1920s as a successor to the old route to Oxford along the Uxbridge Road. Originally it had flat junctions but was substantially expanded in the 1980s, when the subway was built. The Trail continues along the Brook on the other side, ending its dalliance with Hillingdon parish to enter Ickenham.<br />
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<h3>
Ickenham</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzIpgbWKajyswwrB2uf84umyDJyrue2Ml59EjyP2KrsfdWdqDI3VNnWdtraQG1Hcg66J8jFcflFVuNgXNBgBQiO1nSz3E9ujQyhWCKwwopU-VC_MpJUDdvoz8wb2oJx4rGCHHLV-jwn-o/s1600/sheep-ickenhammarsh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzIpgbWKajyswwrB2uf84umyDJyrue2Ml59EjyP2KrsfdWdqDI3VNnWdtraQG1Hcg66J8jFcflFVuNgXNBgBQiO1nSz3E9ujQyhWCKwwopU-VC_MpJUDdvoz8wb2oJx4rGCHHLV-jwn-o/s400/sheep-ickenhammarsh.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sheep grazing at Ickenham Marsh.</td></tr>
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There’s archaeological evidence of an extensive Roman field system as well as earlier Bronze Age agriculture around Ickenham, though it’s not known if human habitation was continuous between Roman times and 1086 when the locality appears in the Domesday survey under the name ‘Ticheham’. After the Norman Conquest the manor was held by Geoffrey de Mandeville, Constable of the Tower of London. By the 16th century, two manors had emerged in what had become the relatively small independent parish of Ickenham: Swakeleys in the west and Ickenham in the east, each side of a traditional village at the junction of Wakeleys Road, from Uxbridge, and Long Lane, which ran north-south between Hillingdon and Ruislip.<br />
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The population of Ickenham was still only 329 in 1901, but enough of them were influential enough to lobby successfully for a halt on the Metropolitan Railway. This opened in 1905 and soon began to transform the area’s fortunes. In 1922, much of Swakeleys was sold off for housing, and other largely private developments soon followed, transforming the village into the ‘desirable’ commuter suburb it is today, with a population of over 10,000. The 20th century also saw a growing military and aviation presence in the area: Northolt Aerodrome, later RAF Northolt, was built on farmland to the east in 1915, and a military station and depot, RAF West Ruislip, was built closer to the village two years later.<br />
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The Trail connects Ickenham’s two historic commons. The first is <a href="http://www.wildlondon.org.uk/reserves/ickenham-marsh" target="_blank">Ickenham Marsh</a>, a low-lying area of wetland, meadow and secondary woodland beside the Yeading Brook. By 1892, the Marsh had become severely overgrazed by commoners’ cattle and the Parish council attempted to gain closer control, originally through a court case. When that failed, the council took out a lease from the manor and it’s been public land since 1906, now wholly owned by Hillingdon.<br />
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Some commoners were still exercising their traditional grazing rights on it up until the early 1960s, and grazing has recently been reintroduced by the London Wildlife Trust, which has managed the site since 1987. The marsh had a narrow escape: in 1970, the Greater London Council proposed it as a potential site for a major new UK exhibition, conference and performance venue, the need for which had been identified by the government. Vociferous local protest saw off the plans, and the National Exhibition Centre ended up in Birmingham, where it now occupies an area of over 2.5 km2.<br />
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It’s in Ickenham Marsh that the Hillingdon Trail finally parts company with the Yeading Brook, the course of which curves eastwards to run along the northern perimeter of RAF Northolt, just on the other side of the marsh. This was developed on the former farmland of Hill Farm in 1916 as a training school for the Royal Flying Corps, predecessor of the Royal Air Force (RAF). During World War II it was an active base for both the RAF and the Polish Air Force – the Polish war memorial stands on its southeast corner, some way off the route.<br />
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After the war, it served as an interim civilian airport for London during the construction of Heathrow. It’s still an active RAF base, in fact the main air force base in London following recent consolidation, and has the longest history of continuous air force use of any location in the UK, but it’s increasingly used by civilian aircraft too and hosts other organisations like St John Ambulance.<br />
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The Trail follows Austins Lane, an old lane that has long linked the marsh and the village, which begins as a track, but it’s not long before the first suburban housing appears. If you’re breaking the walk at Ickenham station, the easiest way is through these streets. Our old friend the Canal Feeder now runs to the right of the lane, occasionally visible through the hedge. The patch of grass and trees on the left is part of the grounds of Ickenham Hall, formerly the manor house of Ickenham Manor, rebuilt in 1740 as a red brick mansion. It’s been council-owned since 1947 and used mainly as an arts and youth centre and visitor attraction: a youth theatre was built next door in 1968 and now operates as the Compass Theatre. You could also wander to the station across the grass and past the hall though the route is a little indirect.<br />
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Austins Lane crosses the railway that spurred the suburbanisation of the neighbourhood. It began operations in 1904 as part of the Metropolitan Railway’s extension from Harrow-on-the-Hill to Uxbridge, the result of a deal with arch rival the Metropolitan and District Railway which had authorisation to build the route but lacked the finance. As part of the deal, the District had running rights through on its own line from Earls Court and Hammersmith via South Harrow, and still today this stretch of railway is part of both the District Line and Piccadilly Line. Originally, steam trains ran through Ickenham without stopping, but as previously noted local pressure resulted in the opening of a what was originally a simple wooden-platformed halt on the site of today’s Ickenham Station in 1905, and electric trains began running the same year.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDGIJ6hrC7cfJwpCvew6kcccjQRgu6huU2_2uqt5T9TntCKjIulFCVaH4hOe5esLQm3qVQGUD2R5YkXWs3DdrUmlUr1-GLq9V94Fih2NCZumq6kCaIkcP00wvruJKWOQcUCwfGorZp-5M/s1600/ickenham-churchplace.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="444" data-original-width="593" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDGIJ6hrC7cfJwpCvew6kcccjQRgu6huU2_2uqt5T9TntCKjIulFCVaH4hOe5esLQm3qVQGUD2R5YkXWs3DdrUmlUr1-GLq9V94Fih2NCZumq6kCaIkcP00wvruJKWOQcUCwfGorZp-5M/s400/ickenham-churchplace.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Church Place, Ickenham, with 17th century barn left.</td></tr>
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Just after passing a listed 17th century thatched barn behind the fence on the left, Austins Lane reaches High Road, the continuation of Long Lane, just a little to the north of the village centre. It’s worth a slight detour to admire the remaining cluster of historic structures, including St Giles Church, the 16th century Coach and Horses pub, the mediaeval Home Farmhouse, the village pond and perhaps the most famous landmark, the 1866 water pump, now on a traffic island in the middle of the road. With its elaborate octagonal Gothic canopy, the pump was a legacy of local resident Charlotte Gell, who also made several other philanthropic endowments to the village.<br />
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The Trail heads in the opposite direction, still following the Feeder alongside High Road on the right. Housing developments on the other side of it now cover the area of RAF West Ruislip, originally farmland which became a Royal Flying Corps depot in 1917, extending both sides of the railway through West Ruislip. It was later used as a military store and an RAF maintenance depot. In 1955, it was occupied by the US Air Force and from 1975 by the US Navy. In the late 1980s part of the site was redeveloped as the residential Brackenbury Village. The Stars and Stripes was finally lowered at West Ruislip in 2006 and the rest of the site is now housing too.<br />
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Incidentally, most of RAF West Ruislip was in Ickenham, not strictly in Ruislip which was a different parish to the northeast. Similarly, RAF Northolt isn’t entirely in Northolt, which was also a separate parish, and now part of the London Borough of Ealing. Sensibly, RAF bases were usually named after the nearest rail station. Today there are stations closer to RAF Northolt than Northolt but these didn’t exist when the base opened.<br />
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You could continue directly to West Ruislip station along the High Road, but I recommend following the Trail a little further through Ickenham Green, a remnant of the second area of common land in the parish. Although it’s been partially encroached, the Green still retains its strip-like shape, stretching northwest from the High Road – ultimately it reaches the river Pinn although the Trail doesn’t venture that far. One of the encroachments, unusually, was the work of local paupers who claimed part of it for gardens, and remained there unchallenged long enough to claim squatters’ rights. It’s been public open space since 1906 when the lord of Swakeleys manor granted it to the parish council, and Ickenham Cricket Club has occupied a square of it since 1950.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUjj5kP7MHvC4HFP85tfxGffbpVJxrDmgJaT7OwM7sfsxAoBG9gikK8wwko2x5YvCQKgYkbv3KJ6y2Sc0b52t0eu8LIfSfvL7y9dKtwzdwETIZMLjJakplhkcfYeLqg7Y-yw90actQ0_E/s1600/ickenhamgreen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUjj5kP7MHvC4HFP85tfxGffbpVJxrDmgJaT7OwM7sfsxAoBG9gikK8wwko2x5YvCQKgYkbv3KJ6y2Sc0b52t0eu8LIfSfvL7y9dKtwzdwETIZMLjJakplhkcfYeLqg7Y-yw90actQ0_E/s640/ickenhamgreen.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Across Ickenham Green. Squatting paupers not shown.</td></tr>
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The Trail crosses the Canal Feeder and continues through some pleasant woodland, turning right at the cricket ground and emerging in a street of genteel interwar bungalows. From here it rejoins the Feeder under the Chiltern railway and across Ruislip golf course, but that’s a walk for another day.<br />
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<h3>
West Ruislip</h3>
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The area now known as West Ruislip was once a hamlet known as Kings End in the far south of the old Middlesex parish of Ruislip, of which I’ll say more in the next section. The original parish boundary was obscured by developments such as the bungalows, the golf course and RAF West Ruislip. It would have crossed the High Road a little southwest of the railway bridge but was later realigned to follow the railway. The High Road approaching the bridge now is a typical interwar suburban shopping parade, all mock-Tudor retail units with flats above.<br />
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The railway was opened in 1906 as the Great Western and Great Central Joint Railway (GW&GCJR) between Ashendon Junction in Buckinghamshire via High Wycombe to Northolt. From here, the Great Western Railway (GWR) built a link known as the New North Main Line to its existing main line at Old Oak Common, and the Great Central Railway (GCR) built a link via Wembley to Neasden and its line into Marylebone. The GCR was a Sheffield-based railway company with aspirations to operate a main line into London, and in the late 1890s it worked in partnership with the Metropolitan Railway.<br />
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As described when I visited Great Missenden on the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/london-countryway-7-west-wycombe-great.html">London Countryway section 7</a>, the Met, which had begun as the founder of London’s Underground system, also had main line ambitions, and already ran deep into Buckinghamshire at Quainton Road. Originally the GCR’s main line services were planned to access Met tracks here, but it was a challenge to slot these services between frequent local trains. When relations between the GCR and the Met broke down, the GCR formed a joint venture with the GWR to build an alternative route, which became the last main line to be built into London until High Speed 1 in 2007.<br />
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West Ruislip was one of the original stations along the line, originally known as Ruislip and Ickenham. Then, following the creation of the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB), one of the forerunners of today’s Transport for London (TfL), in 1933, major plans for the expansion of the Underground were drawn up. They included extensions at each end of the Central Line, which by then ran alongside the GWR at its western end to terminate at Ealing Broadway.<br />
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Work was interrupted by World War II but by 1948 a new branch of the Central Line had opened from near North Acton, running alongside the GWR’s New North Main Line to Northolt then alongside the joint line to West Ruislip. The original plan had been to continue the Central Line out to Denham, but as the creation of the post-war Green Belt had now protected that area from further development, the project was cut short at West Ruislip. The next stop west would have been a new station at Harvil Road.<br />
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There have also been changes to the way main line trains operate along this stretch of line. Today the New North Main Line is rarely used for its original purpose to get Paddington trains to and from Birmingham, and its local function has been taken over by the Central Line. The line to and from Marylebone had become something of a Cinderella service by the 1980s, and the London terminus almost closed, but since the 1990s it has flourished under the Chiltern Railways banner. While most Chiltern stopping trains from here only go as far as Gerrards Cross, regular expresses once again pass through on their way to Britain’s second city, as well as to Oxford and Stratford-upon-Avon.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGhxZtksdQC5UFkbhz5Wv7wLQOU0QCDwYJXfHHqFF44T7RZo3E8m5JXz2Ij6Fvkr-FBMiwGwFQW6MLek6cFRYpMG-ak8Bl3AgbjQ5berRU0O43B3bdviveSav8Ex5tqNTUzziYsKLmbGA/s1600/westruislipstation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGhxZtksdQC5UFkbhz5Wv7wLQOU0QCDwYJXfHHqFF44T7RZo3E8m5JXz2Ij6Fvkr-FBMiwGwFQW6MLek6cFRYpMG-ak8Bl3AgbjQ5berRU0O43B3bdviveSav8Ex5tqNTUzziYsKLmbGA/s640/westruislipstation.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">West Ruislip station.</td></tr>
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<br />
<h3>
Original sections</h3>
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The Hillingdon council route cards for this section are divided as follows:<br />
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1. <b>Cranford Park</b>. This covers the 2.5 km Southern Link and the first very short section of the Trail proper, 1.8 km from Cranford Park car park to Bulls Bridge. As explained above, the Link and the Trail here follow a very similar route to the London Loop, but it’s slightly more roundabout.<br />
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2. <b>Hayes Towpath</b>. This follows the Grand Union Canal Paddington Arm towpath to Spikes Bridge then the Yeading Brook green corridor to Yeading Lane, a total of 4.2 km. You can also start this section from Hayes & Harlington, an additional 1.2 km.<br />
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3. <b>Yeading Valley</b>. This section is entirely along the Yeading Brook green corridor, including the various nature reserves, and ends at the end of Windsor Avenue in North Hillingdon, a total of 5.6 km.<br />
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4. <b>Ickenham Marsh</b>. The Trail continues along the Yeading Valley as far as Ickenham Marsh then heads into Ickenham, where I’ve decided to break my description at the point where the Canal Feeder crosses The Greenway. The distance to here is 3.2 km and the section has 2.9 km still to run to the bus stops by Ruislip Lido. The link from The Greenway to West Ruislip station is about 500 m.<br />
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<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Route description</b>: <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/aigizfsg8yhiltw/10a-11a-cranford-westruislip.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank">Hillingdon Trail 1</a></li>
<li><b>Official Hillingdon Council webpage</b>: <a href="https://www.hillingdon.gov.uk/hillingdontrail" target="_blank">https://www.hillingdon.gov.uk/hillingdontrail</a></li>
<li><b>The Grand Union Canal Feeder on London Canals blog</b>: <a href="http://londoncanals.uk/2013/02/01/the-grand-junction-canal-feeder-from-ruislip" target="_blank">http://londoncanals.uk/2013/02/01/the-grand-junction-canal-feeder-from-ruislip</a></li>
<li><b>Google map</b>: <a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kR1LrzqrpJjVZqKaXjIQqgOWVeE&usp=sharing" style="color: #940f04;">https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kR1LrzqrpJjVZqKaXjIQqgOWVeE&usp=sharing</a></li>
</ul>
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Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-39172354157804767152017-05-24T14:36:00.000+01:002017-05-24T15:33:03.162+01:00Cray Riverway: Erith - Crayford - Foots Cray - Orpington<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiahTZDgbdQqaVQimD2SvgLyu7A9mkkA-1MufyHPKa4pxmil4i5ODEWL_l_o5vxlAGb0EbOh94GlFjNvo4Ul9tNjY87iVHh3wmtAZTUcphxWDI8rfXHQB7uiWU9rt-B1tlQUJeP2XLQ-IQ/s1600/sourceofthecray.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiahTZDgbdQqaVQimD2SvgLyu7A9mkkA-1MufyHPKa4pxmil4i5ODEWL_l_o5vxlAGb0EbOh94GlFjNvo4Ul9tNjY87iVHh3wmtAZTUcphxWDI8rfXHQB7uiWU9rt-B1tlQUJeP2XLQ-IQ/s640/sourceofthecray.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source of the river Cray in Priory Gardens, Orpington. Not gardens, and never attached to a priory.</td></tr>
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The river Cray connects the distinct environment of Crayford Marshes, where it joins the Darent just short of the Thames, with the source deep in suburbia in the grounds of Orpington Priory, via a string of historic villages in outer southeast London, most of them named after the river. The London Loop follows part of the Cray, but the earlier Cray Riverway tracks the entire length of the valley from mouth to source. And as Orpington is only a short step from the official route of the Loop via Crofton, the Riverway provides an interesting alternative.<br />
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The Riverway is 27 km long, rather too much for most walkers in a single helping, and if you’ve already walked the Loop, the first 11.5 km will be familiar. Crayford provides an alternative starting point for a more manageable 17.5 km walk with minimal duplication. Stations at Bexley and St Paul’s Cray and numerous bus stops along the way provide opportunities to create shorter walks.<br />
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<br />
<h3>
River and Riverway</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ6A10X3yNfH1dUsouCz1wsKElL1qaJcHawFpbAFX1-gGWYmYtRtseErr2Bi_SQif_vQFZpZREMEDHrVSsMNHXJrWkAdAhZwX1FyDIIJN876X-u1mpQnR9SRIH5oycBHQG-X7QJhdeetc/s1600/ruxleypits.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ6A10X3yNfH1dUsouCz1wsKElL1qaJcHawFpbAFX1-gGWYmYtRtseErr2Bi_SQif_vQFZpZREMEDHrVSsMNHXJrWkAdAhZwX1FyDIIJN876X-u1mpQnR9SRIH5oycBHQG-X7QJhdeetc/s640/ruxleypits.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View over Crayford Pits and the Cray Valley from Sandy Lane, Ruxley.</td></tr>
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<div>
The river Cray is a chalk stream, a river type encountered numerous times in London underfoot but internationally highly rare. Its name most likely means ‘the clean, fresh and clear river’, a fair description of the quality of such a stream, though it could also mean ‘the river that often floods’. Its source is in Priory Gardens, Orpington, a pond formed where permeable chalk meets impermeable London clay just below the surface.<br />
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From here it flows around 14 km north and slightly northeast, entirely inside Greater London and the boroughs of Bromley and Bexley. Near Hall Place, Bexley, it’s joined by a substantial tributary, the Shuttle, which rises at Avery Hill near Eltham. Below Barnes Cray and out into Crayford Marshes, the river becomes tidal and is known as Crayford Creek. It drains into the river Darent in the marshes east of Slade Green, just 1.5 km short of the latter’s confluence with the Thames.<br />
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As with its parent the Darent, the Cray’s valley is fertile and there’s considerable evidence of prehistoric settlement, particularly in the upper section around Orpington. There were Roman settlements here as well as further downstream at St Paul’s Cray and Crayford. Later, the river shaped industrial development: at one point, when the flow was much more vigorous than today, it powered 14 mills, and the purity of its water encouraged the development of the bleaching, paper making, cloth dyeing and printing industries. These mills were the predecessors of the heavy industry that emerged along the lower reaches in the 19th and early 20th centuries, like the Vickers plant at Crayford.<br />
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As often along London’s rivers, housing generally stays away from the river bank for flood management reasons, creating a chain of green strips intermittently broken by waterside industry. And as elsewhere in London, these green strips have been exploited as a resource for walkers. The London Borough of Bexley was one of the original four council partners in the Green Chain project, launched in the late 1970s to make better use of southeast London’s generous endowment of green space for recreation and conservation. The partnership’s most visible creation, the Green Chain Walk, is a pioneering path network that changed the mindset on urban walking and inspired countless similar projects. I’ll have much more to say about it in future blogs, but for the moment I’ll note that it prompted the council and local walking campaigners to create additional connecting trails.<br />
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Two signed river-based routes, the Cray Riverway and the Shuttle Riverway, resulted, both launched in the late 1980s. The Shuttle Riverway is essentially an extension of the Green Chain so I’ll talk it about then. The original Cray Riverway ran for about 16 km between Erith, where for part of its journey it accompanied the Thames and Darent, and Foots Cray, just short of the borough boundary with Bromley.<br />
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As there was a lengthy gap in riverside access between Hall Place and North Cray, the Riverway offered two alternative routes slightly away from the river. An inner, northwest branch went over the Black Prince Interchange on the A2 and along the road into Bexley Village, then through the slowly recovering gravel extraction site at Upper College Farm to the edge of the Albany Park estate, rejoining the riverside at Stable Meadow, North Cray. An outer, southeast branch ran past Churchfield Wood, skirted the edge of Bexley Village, climbed the slope of Mount Mascal below Joydens Wood then descended again to Loring Hall and on to Stable Meadow. This alternative included an inconvenient diversion to a safe crossing on the busy A223 road. The two routes formed a narrow waist on the map where they almost met, approaching within 250 m of each other in Bexley.<br />
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When the London Walking Forum began planning the London Loop in the early 1990s, the obvious way to start it off was to make use of the Cray Riverway. The Forum opted to mix and match the two branches, first following the southeast branch past Churchfield Wood, then hopping across to the northwest route past Bexley Station and through Upper College Farm. This cunningly avoided the higher proportion of road walking at the beginning of the northwest option, and the tricky crossing near the end of the southeast variant.<br />
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Meanwhile, neighbouring Bromley council incorporated a route based on its own section of the river in its portfolio of shorter green trails, largely developed in partnership with local voluntary organisation Environment Bromley, or EnBro. This was included in the council’s Circular Walks and Trails routecard pack issued in the early 2000s, and an updated version is now available to download. <br />
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The Bromley section has always been described in the downstream direction, from the source, and although the Bexley section was originally described in the opposite direction from the river’s mouth, the most recent official text runs from Foots Cray downstream too. This is arguably the most logical way of describing a riverside route, but I’ve opted to work from Erith towards the source, keeping the Riverway in line with the Loop. There’s an obvious alternative Loop route from Erith to Foots Cray in simply following the branches of the Riverway the Loop doesn’t use. But as the source of the Cray isn’t all that far from the Loop where it passes through Crofton, it’s straightforward to complete the whole of the Riverway then return to the Loop, as described here.<br />
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All things considered, the Riverway isn’t quite such an attractive option as the official London Loop. Riverside access isn’t continuous and there’s quite a bit of pavement pounding. The Loop’s creators cherry-picked the best bits of both Riverway branches, and you certainly shouldn’t omit Scadbury Park and Petts Wood on the official route from your round-London wanderings. But as an additional ‘bonus feature’, the Riverway offers plenty of interest, as well as giving the river a chance to complete its story for those who’ve enjoyed its company so far. <br />
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To minimise potential confusion, I’ve produced two route descriptions for the Riverway that align with those for the Loop. Cray Riverway 1 covers Erith to Bexley and is identical to London Loop 1 except for the very last bit. Cray Riverway 2 covers Bexley to Orpington station. Walkers who’ve already completed the Loop may well want to start the Riverway at Crayford, so will only need to use part of the first description. I’ve included the link between Orpington and the official Loop route in Darrick Wood in a revised description for London Loop 3. There are links to all of these at the end of the post.<br />
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Here’s an outline of the options:<br />
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1. <b>Erith to Hall Place</b>. For just over 11 km, the Cray Riverway and the London Loop share the same paths, which you’ll find described in both Cray Riverway 1 and <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/london-loop-1-erith-bexley.html">London Loop 1</a>.<br />
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2. <b>Hall Place to Bexley</b>. The northwestern branch of the Riverway, described in Cray Riverway 1, takes a more direct 1.8 km route with some road walking, though also with good views of Hall Place, a link to the Shuttle Riverway and some heritage buildings along Bourne Road. The Loop follows the southeastern branch on a slightly longer and greener 2 km route via Churchfields Wood as described in <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/london-loop-1-erith-bexley.html">London Loop 1</a>. Because the Riverway branches don’t quite meet in Bexley village, there’s a short stretch of the Loop that’s on neither, which you’ll walk in reverse at the start of Cray Riverway 2.<br />
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3. <b>Bexley to Stable Meadow, North Cray</b>. The southeastern branch of the Riverway, covered in Cray Riverway 2, follows quite a rural route past the Woodland Trust’s Joydens Wood and Mount Mascal stables then through fields to Loring Hall and back to the riverside. There’s a slightly tricky crossing of the A223 at North Cray which the Riverway solves rather unsatisfactorily by diverting you to the nearest controlled crossing, and if you follow this, it’s a 3.3 km walk. But the problem is less severe than it used to be and if you feel confident to use the more direct dropped kerb crossing instead, it’s only 2.1 km. As described in <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/london-loop-2-bexley-petts-wood.html">London Loop 2</a>, the Loop follows the northwestern branch of the Riverway via Upper College Farm, pleasant enough with no dodgy crossings, and very slightly shorter at 2 km.<br />
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4. <b>Stable Meadows to Foots Cray</b>. The two branches of the Riverway and the Loop merge here to follow the picturesque path through Foots Cray Meadows, a distance of 2.4 km described in both <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/london-loop-2-bexley-petts-wood.html">Loop 2</a> and Riverway 2.<br />
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5. <b>Foots Cray to Orpington Priory</b>. From Foots Cray the Loop heads west on a completely different route via Petts Wood. As described in Cray Riverway 2, the Riverway continues to track the Cray valley via St Paul’s Cray and St Mary Cray, at first mainly along roads, though they are relatively quiet. There’s an historic village street at St Mary Cray then a riverside path nearly all the way from there to Priory Gardens. The Riverway officially ends (or starts) at Orpington Priory by the southern entrance to Priory Gardens, 5.7 km from Foots Cray.<br />
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6. <b>Orpington Priory to Orpington Station</b>. For additional transport options, you may well want to continue to Orpington War Memorial or the station, so I’ve included this in my description of Cray Riverway 2. It’s 1 km from priory to memorial, much of it on a good stretch of urban footpath, and trhe station is 700 m further.<br />
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7. <b>Orpington Station to Darrick Wood</b>. For those who want to walk on to rejoin the Loop, in <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/london-loop-3-petts-wood-hayes.html">London Loop 3</a> I’ve outlined a link from Orpington station to Darrick Wood. The surroundings are mainly roads and residential streets, so nothing special, but just after the station you’ll pass Crofton Roman Villa and then get a good view back from the top of the hill over the Cray valley. The link is 1.6 km, and the best transport option beyond this is the bus stop in Farnborough village, another 1 km further on. From Foots Cray to Farnborough via the Riverway is 9.9 km; via the Loop, it’s 12.2 km.<br />
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The Riverway in Bexley is signed on the ground with fingerposts and circular waymarks incorporating a logo showing a stylised tree within a wavy blue line. There are also London Loop waymarks where the two trails are coincident, and carved wooden obelisks at key points. As far as I know, it has never been signed in Bromley, presumably as so much of it is along roads. Don’t expect to rely on signing even in Bexley, though, as missing signs and vandalism are not unknown.</div>
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<br />
<h3>
Erith to Bexley </h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfnXfIf5O5s4NHASF_jii46UBmUp1toSz7LZwRKd2khC2AGsFlX7aqyAVqclGukZC7bk-9zOvxMIYQxAyiUJl5-RQZGG0cQIAehZWBt9bavsbZTcUaG2xXp08oZVSksXzB2uA7OvTkI7w/s1600/crayfordtownhallsquare.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfnXfIf5O5s4NHASF_jii46UBmUp1toSz7LZwRKd2khC2AGsFlX7aqyAVqclGukZC7bk-9zOvxMIYQxAyiUJl5-RQZGG0cQIAehZWBt9bavsbZTcUaG2xXp08oZVSksXzB2uA7OvTkI7w/s400/crayfordtownhallsquare.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Andy Scott's Propella takes flight at Crayford Town Hall Square</td></tr>
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I’ve written about Erith, Crayford Marshes, Barnes Cray, Crayford, Hall Place and Bexley in more detail along <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/london-loop-1-erith-bexley.html">section 1 of the London Loop</a> so I won’t repeat myself here. But if you do start in Crayford, there’s now a more direct route from the station than the one in the official description. This cuts through Town Hall Square, a mixed development of housing association flats, private homes, retail units and a replacement library and community centre completed in 2015.<br />
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You’ll walk past two sculptures in welded galvanised mild steel, from designs chosen by locals and commemorating the former Vickers factory. Both are by Scottish public art specialist Andy Scott, best known for the Kelpies, the giant horse heads by the Forth & Clyde Canal in Falkirk. In the square itself is Propella, a female figure that homages a former Vickers logo, while on the corner of the supermarket car park is Captain Crayford, a young boy with a model aeroplane.<br />
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There’s also now more public art just off the station link to the right along London Road, in tiny Tannery Garden (this is also on the alternative station link and the main Loop route). Though as the name suggests a tannery once stood here, the designs commemorate a different local industry, Rutters brickworks. The steel screens add interest while also concealing an electricity substation.<br />
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You may already have visited Hall Place as a short detour off the official Loop route, but if not, the northwest branch of the Riverway runs right past the entrance, and I strongly recommend you look in. Otherwise the Riverway runs along the boundary wall and fence slightly away from Bourne Road, providing a view of the house with its delightfully mixed architectural styles and the bizarre topiary in the garden. It’s by the car park entrance to Hall Place that the trail links with the <a href="http://prelaunch.bexley.gov.uk/shuttleriverway" target="_blank">Shuttle Riverway</a> mentioned above, which at first climbs the hillside on the other side of Bourne Road, the northern section of Hall Place park before joining the Shuttle near BETHS school.<br />
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As discussed on London Loop 1, Crayford straddled one of the most important highways out of London, heading for the Kent coast and the mainland. Originally a Celtic trackway and then a Roman road later known as Watling Street, it became a coaching route, a turnpike and, from the 1920s, a trunk motor road classified as the A2. Crayford takes its name from the ford where this road crossed the Cray, later a bridge.<br />
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The highway followed different alignments over the centuries from the west to the river crossing: in coaching days, it ran along London Road, a part of which is also followed by the Loop and the Riverway. In 1927, during the early phase of government-sponsored motor road building, it was diverted along a new stretch of road running between Hall Place and Bexley, known as Rochester Way, crossing the Cray right by its confluence with the Shuttle, a little way south of the hall.<br />
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Originally this stretch of Rochester Way was a single carriageway road with conventional flat junctions, but in 1972 it was widened and upgraded, among other things by the construction of the split-level junction known as Black Prince Interchange which still stands today.<br />
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Just after crossing the A2, you cross the river Shuttle: the confluence is in the far corner of the Old Dartfordians rugby field over on your left. To your right on the other side of the roundabout ahead is the Black Prince itself, a much-extended red brick mock-Edwardian roadhouse hotel built at the same time as the first iteration of Rochester Way and now a part of the Holiday Inn chain. It was named after Edward of Woodstock, the 14th century Black Prince and Duke of Cornwall, who is known to have stayed at Hall Place on his way to war in France. In the 1960s and 1970s this was a well-known music venue, hosting acts like Cream and Genesis.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bexley National Schools, Bourne Road.</td></tr>
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Past a public sports field, St Mary’s Recreation Ground, on the left, Bourne Road narrows to a residential street leading into Bexley Village, or Old Bexley as it’s often known. There are some buildings of interest here, notably the Old School House, on the right, a neo-Jacobean yellow brick building from 1824 now used as offices, its stucco highlights brightening a façade apparently designed to intimidate as many schoolchildren as possible. This was originally known as the Bexley National Schools, though the panel above the main entrance bearing this legend is probably a later addition covering a window.<br />
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Outside no 11 on the left, not long before the junction with the High Street, are two listed 1930s red K6 phone boxes, though no longer containing phones.<br />
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<h3>
North Cray</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View across the Cray Valley descending from Mount Mascal at North Cray.</td></tr>
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From Bexley, our route switches to the outer branch of the Riverway, which climbs the hillside rising above the river Cray to the southeast. You’re now in the area known as North Cray, part of the extensive swathe of Kent given to Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, by his half-brother William of Normandy following the conquest. We’ll be walking through Odo’s former territories for the rest of the Riverway, and I’ve said more about this surprisingly ferocious cleric at Crofton on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/london-loop-3-petts-wood-hayes.html">London Loop 3</a>.<br />
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North Cray was once a separate parish, but by the late 12th century it had fallen into the possession of the Rokesle family of nearby Ruxley parish, and in 1557 the two were amalgamated. By the 16th century, some of the land had been subdivided into smaller country estates, including a mansion known as Jackets Court on the slopes above the river. By the end of the 16th century, this has been replaced by a fine house known as Mount Mascal, on an “eminence”, as late 18th century historian Edward Hasted puts it, higher up. In the mid-18th century it was owned by a wealthy City of London porter brewer, William Calvert, also an MP. By Hasted’s time, an avenue of trees continued across the other side of North Cray Road to another house known as Vale Mascal, which overlooked a waterfall on the Cray.<br />
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These grand houses are long-gone, though the surroundings remain surprisingly rural and there are still fine views over the valley. Today the barns and farm buildings are devoted to the equestrian industry, and the fields are horse paddocks, though still divided by old hedgerows and rustic tracks. The ‘eminence’ is occupied by Mount Mascal Stables, a large riding school and livery service established in 1966 which advertises itself under the slogan ‘Horsemanship for all’. <br />
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Just before the stables, you’ll pass an access point into <a href="https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/wood/?woodId=4266&woodName=joydens-wood" target="_blank">Joydens Wood</a>, a 136-ha patch of ancient woodland that crowns the ridge. The woodland is just off the path but worth exploring if you have time, or returning to later. Its name derives from William Jordayne, who was granted ownership of the wood in 1556, though it had likely been continuously wooded for much longer than that. As well as wildlife and bluebells, it’s known for its ancient monuments, notably the remains of Iron Age roundhouses and the Fæsten Dic (‘strong dyke’), a ditch over 1 km long and several metres wide. It dates from the Saxon period but there’s some disagreement about exactly when: perhaps the 5th century, perhaps the 7th and 8th centuries during the conflicts between Kent, Wessex and Mercia.<br />
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The woodland was once more extensive but sections of it were levelled and developed from the 1930s, augmented by a post-World War II housing estate to create the residential area known as Joydens Wood to the east of the woodland. Most of this is on the Kent side of the London boundary, which runs through the wood, but a few streets form part of the continuously built-up connection between London and Dartford. The remaining woodland was taken on by the Forestry Commission in the 1950s, and since 1987 has been managed by the Woodland Trust.<br />
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The Riverway descends the slope again on a field path, emerging on North Cray Road, originally a modest lane but widened extensively in the late 1960s. Much of the historic fabric of North Cray village was demolished in the process, though a surviving 14th century timber-framed hall house, Woodbine Cottage, was dismantled and moved to an open-air museum near Chichester. This road is one reason why the Loop opts for the other branch of the Riverway, as the nearest controlled crossing involves a 1.2 km detour to the nearest roundabout and back. This is still the official Riverway route, but since then speed limits have slowed the traffic a little, and there’s a dropped kerb and a paved central reservation, so if you’re relatively nimble on your feet you shouldn’t have too much trouble crossing here.<br />
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On the other side, a little to the left is the White Cross pub, which originated as a roadside alehouse in 1729, although the present building is later. It was known as the Red Cross between 1730 and 1915, when the War Office instructed all pubs with that name to adopt a new one out of respect for the Geneva Convention. The Riverway then follows the drive past Loring Hall, the last remaining mansion in the area, discussed under <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/london-loop-2-bexley-petts-wood.html">Section 2 of the Loop</a>, with which you’re soon reunited on the banks of the Cray. For more about the many delights of Foots Cray Meadows, see my earlier post.<br />
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<h3>
Ruxley</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tudor Cottages, Foots Cray.</td></tr>
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Where the trail leaves Foots Cray Meadows, it starts its longest section alongside roads, beginning with the main junction in Foots Cray itself where the Riverway definitively splits from the London Loop. I’ve covered Foots Cray in detail <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/london-loop-2-bexley-petts-wood.html">elsewhere</a>, but you’ll see a bit more of it along the Riverway. Just along the High Street are some genuinely old buildings: the four timber-framed houses now known as Tudor Cottages on the right were adapted from what was originally a single high-ceilinged hall, perhaps dating from the late 15th century. The Seven Stars a little further on the left is that London rarity, a pub in a pre-Victorian building: the main part of this weatherboarded house has likely stood here since the 16th century.<br />
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You cross the Cray again on a relatively modern bridge, but on the alignment of a much older crossing, where the road from London to Maidstone crossed the river. This became part of the A20 in 1921, but lost this status with the opening of the Sidcup bypass the following year. The rest of the surroundings as you climb away from the valley are inescapably modern: an uninspiring parade of budget supermarkets, self-storage facilities and warehouse-based retailers. At the top is the big roundabout known as Ruxley Corner, where until the 1990s A20 traffic rejoined the historic Maidstone Road towards Swanley. A path on the right near the top briefly gets you away from the road, running between two massive car showrooms, to emerge on Edgington Way, the old link road between the bypass and the roundabout.<br />
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As well as once being a parish in its own right, Ruxley lends its name to one of the ancient subdivisions of Kent known as ‘hundreds’, broadly equivalent to today’s Bromley borough plus Bexley south of Watling Street. A little further east along the Maidstone road is the site of Ruxley Manor. This is now a garden centre but still contains the remains of the 13th century parish church, deconsecrated in 1557 when Ruxley was united with North Cray. But that’s a detour: our way is south along the grain of the valley. The Riverway follows Sandy Lane, immediately crossing the boundary into Bromley borough. This was once a continuation of the main road south from Erith and Bexley to Orpington and the south, but now it’s little more than a byway. The woodland on the left, Ruxley Wood, is mainly a post-war plantation, now used for paintball and laser games.<br />
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The lane then dips to pass under the current A20, which crosses the Cray on a viaduct built in the early 1990s as part of an upgrade in preparation for the opening of the Channel Tunnel. Now the slopes on the left are dedicated to an older form of outdoor recreation than paintball, in the form of the Orpington Golf Centre. On the right is an area of overgrown open space with wide views over the valley. Gravel was dug here between 1929 and 1951, leaving behind a series of flooded pits since colonised by wetland birds and other wildlife, where more than 500 plant species have been recorded. <a href="http://www.kentwildlifetrust.org.uk/reserves/ruxley-gravel-pits" target="_blank">Ruxley Gravel Pits</a> is now a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest and Local Nature Reserve managed by the Kent Wildlife Trust, but sadly it’s not currently open to the public.<br />
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This section of the Cray Valley was traditionally popular with the travelling people who for many centuries provided itinerant labour for the hop gardens, orchards and farms of Kent. Soon after the gravel pit was decommissioned in the 1950s, it became known as an <i>atchin tan</i> or stopping place for travellers during the winter season when work was scarce. Another such location nearby was Corkes Pit in St Mary Cray, now the Murray Business Centre. As the economic basis of their lifestyle was eroded, and following patchily-implemented legislation in 1968 that obliged councils to provide permanent caravan sites, many travellers settled in the area, and St Paul’s Cray and St Mary Cray still have one of the largest populations of settled travellers and people of Romani origin in the UK.<br />
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Given the open surroundings, Sandy Lane still feels much like a country lane where you might even imagine encountering a traditional wooden caravan: the pavement even disappears for a while. With traffic calming measures in place, it’s not too much of a deterrent, but you’ll undoubtedly be relieved when a further stretch of pavement rises above the level of the carriageway to run between hedges, screened from the traffic. It’s not long after this ends that a scattering of houses begins, as the lane gently descends back to the riverside at St Paul’s Cray.<br />
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<h3>
St Paul’s Cray</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St Paulinus Church, St Paul's Cray.</td></tr>
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One peculiarity of the Cray valley is the number of places incorporating the river’s name in theirs. Bexley and Orpington are the exceptions, but otherwise there are Barnes Cray, Crayford, North Cray, Foots Cray, St Paul’s Cray and St Mary Cray. Barnes and Foots were originally personal names, while St Paul and St Mary refer to the dedications of parish churches.<br />
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In the Domesday survey of 1086, the former is referred to simply as Craie and the latter as Sud Craie (South Cray), which must have been even more confusing, so it’s not surprising that the present names evolved. The Paul in question, incidentally, is not the famous biblical St Paul the Apostle but St Paulinus, an early missionary to England and colleague of Augustine’s who became the first archbishop of York before his death around 644.<br />
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In the late 13th century, St Paul's Cray was held by Simon de Cray, made Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports on the Kent and Sussex coast in 1275. It was always a small parish, strung out along the river and road, though busy with milling activity, which from the later 18th century increasingly focused on paper. “There is no village,” wrote Edward Hasted in 1797, “the houses in the parish, about fifty in number, standing dispersed throughout it. The church stands alone, half surrounded by tall elm trees, the shade of which casts a pleasing gloom, and makes a picturesque appearance to the building”.<br />
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The biggest changes followed in the 1950s when St Paul’s Cray became the site of one of the new out-of-town social housing estates developed by the London County Council in response to the post-World War II housing shortage: we’ve already encountered several similar estates on the main London Loop. 3,000 new homes were built, mainly houses and maisonettes with small back gardens, on the slopes of Paul’s Cray Hill to the east of the river. Within a decade or so, the area had become part of the London sprawl, though on the very edge of the metropolis: beyond the estate is a country park and then the fields of Kent.<br />
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There are several features of interest around the mini-roundabout at the bottom of Sandy Lane. The weatherboarded Bull pub to the right is Grade II listed, with an 18th century front and 19th century rear extension. The industrial area behind it and further right along Main Road is on the site of the former Ruxley Paper Mills. On the right side of Sandy Lane just before the junction are the red brick Ivy Cottages: the oldest is no 2, with an exposed timber frame, which dates from the 17th century: its neighbour is perhaps a century younger. There’s another listed K6 phone box too.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Riverside Gardens, St Paul's Cray.</td></tr>
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Soon you'll catch sight of the Cray for the first time in a while, running over weirs and through channels in Riverside Gardens, a lush and pretty little park. The paths here look tempting but sadly there’s no continuous riverside route yet, so you’re better off keeping along Main Road. As its name suggests, like Sandy Lane this was part of the original main route along the valley from Bexley to Orpington. Since the 1920s, a parallel route, the A224 Sevenoaks Way, has run on the other side of the river, but as this passes through a lengthy US-style strip of boxy retail parks, car dealerships, self-storage facilities and wholesale warehouses, most walkers will prefer the route I’ve described.<br />
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Opposite the gardens is St Paulinus church, still set back slightly from the road within a tree-filled churchyard. Parts of the flint rubble building including the nave date back to the 11th century, and you can still see a small window from that period in the north wall. There are numerous later additions, including a late 12th century tower, 15th century windows and unsympathetic Victorian extensions. It hasn’t been a Church of England church since 1978 but it’s still in religious use, now occupied by the Nigerian-based Pentecostal movement the Redeemed Christian Church of God. The rest of Main Road is largely modern, with the modest brick houses of the LCC estate visible on the left.<br />
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<h3>
St Mary Cray</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St Mary at Cray church, St Mary Cray.</td></tr>
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Crossing Station Road you’re over the old parish boundary and into St Mary Cray, and the first prominent building is the church. It’s not quite as old as its neighbour St Paulinus: the foundations are likely 12th century in origin, and the tower and some of the arcades in the nave are from the following century. Indoors are some notable 15th century screens. The building was also a target of Victorian church restorers, with three separate projects in 1863, 1876 and 1895, and the current flint-faced exterior largely dates from this period, though following some of the original designs.<br />
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A paper mill once stood on Station Road, beside the Cray immediately to the west of the church, expanded in the 1850s into a substantial factory by owner William Joynson. This was converted to produce vegetable parchment in the 1930s and closed by then-owners Wiggins Teape in 1967: it was demolished and modern industrial units and car dealerships now occupy the site. Some historic buildings still stand around the junction, however, including 18th century Lime Tree House on the north side of Station Road opposite the church, and the former Blue Anchor pub at the top of the High Street on the east side, part of which comprises the remaining two bays of a four-bay 15th century hall house.<br />
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By the 1240s, the manor had become attached to Orpington but, despite this connection, for most of its history St Mary Cray remained a separate and more important town. In 1246, it was granted the right to hold a weekly market, which lasted until 1703 when the market house was blown down in a storm. In the later 18th century and throughout the 19th, it was the venue for an annual toy fair. Unlike St Paul’s Cray, it has a proper centre which has been well-preserved enough to give a flavour of the past.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglUbNZd5QFah0koxy11JQ7q0kBUtWHbokqo0DAOv5i1OEtaFexcLj0TlaeVAH-KgbSeXdEg9j7xifmc6QsvI4IE1ugS7w7ENjutceAo2bkhVszRm7cs77wVyPLILUvaXjnPqB-hwI_hzQ/s1600/crayviaduct.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglUbNZd5QFah0koxy11JQ7q0kBUtWHbokqo0DAOv5i1OEtaFexcLj0TlaeVAH-KgbSeXdEg9j7xifmc6QsvI4IE1ugS7w7ENjutceAo2bkhVszRm7cs77wVyPLILUvaXjnPqB-hwI_hzQ/s400/crayviaduct.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cray Viaduct from the south: note concrete arches nearest camera.</td></tr>
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The Riverway route follows the historic High Street, now a conservation area. Since 1860, it’s been dominated by one of the nine massive arches of the Cray railway viaduct carrying the Chatham Main Line across the valley. This was originally opened by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LC&DR) as part of its route from London Victoria to Dover.<br />
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Labourers working on the project founded what became Cray Wanderers FC, one of the world’s oldest surviving football clubs: there’s a little more about this in my commentary on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.no/2015/09/london-loop-2-bexley-petts-wood.html">London Loop 2</a>. The track here was quadrupled in 1958 and the viaduct widened to the south: look up as you walk beneath and you’ll see that the southern half of the arch is concrete, but the facing of the extension was carefully finished in brick to match the north side.<br />
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The opening of the railway attracted new residents and most of the houses that now line the High Street are post-1860 at the earliest, but the L-shaped weatherboarded Mary Rose Inn overlooking a little courtyard on the right just before the traffic barrier is 17th century, with a shop front added in the Victorian era. Beyond this, the street opens out onto the old market place, now a small village green. The village sign was installed here by the St Mary Cray Action Group to mark its 21st anniversary in 1992: the centre shield shows the white horse of Kent, while the flanking shields bear the arms of ancient families linked to the parish.<br />
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Beyond the green, the Riverway at last becomes a riverside walk again, along an open grassy bank between the river and the High Street, the northernmost extremity of a public open space known as Riverside Gardens. Until World War II, this was the private back yards of shops and houses fronting the High Street. The riverside suffered badly from wartime bombing and after the war, rather than rebuilding, the land was allocated to provide badly-needed green space for the increasing local population. Across the bridge to the right and just off the route is the Nugent Shopping Centre, built on the site of the Morphy Richards electrical appliance factory, operating between 1936 and 1970: at its peak in the mid-1960s it produced 1,000 electric irons per hour.<br />
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The small waterfall a little further on is the only surviving remnant of Snelling Mill, a water-powered flour mill which ended its days serving ornamental fountains in the Rookery, a big house on the High Street which is also now demolished. The most prominent building on the High Street visible from here is the Temple United Reform Church, a 1950s replacement for what was originally a much more impressive non-conformist chapel, built in 1851 and demolished following bomb damage in 1954.<br />
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You pass an old paddling pool that’s been remade as a sand and water play ‘fun zone’, and now on the other side of the river, cross Kent Road. There was once a ford at this point and the area to the west, developed since late Victorian times, is still known as Fordcroft. Archaeological digs here have uncovered a Saxon cemetery and a Roman bathhouse. Beyond this is a 1950s model boating lake and then a pleasingly wilder and more overgrown area around a pond, formed by a spring that’s one of the sources of the Cray. South of here, the original course of the Cray has been covered over by more recent development, including the A224 road, so the path runs east, around allotments. It then crosses the yard of St Andrew’s Church, built as a chapel to serve the swelling population in 1893.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbgH-Hml4PonqQt8ZW4xhnVaxTGpFHzxOTJnQcXyAVgcRXLd_0CROUfr6t64ydvyhd_LDGQUgfzmlq3kjPQmbQ59K-O24pvuGwweDfMuSaGuqOymwJrizzfgBBxHSMvjrqIAN8qQmrgD0/s1600/stmarycrayponds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbgH-Hml4PonqQt8ZW4xhnVaxTGpFHzxOTJnQcXyAVgcRXLd_0CROUfr6t64ydvyhd_LDGQUgfzmlq3kjPQmbQ59K-O24pvuGwweDfMuSaGuqOymwJrizzfgBBxHSMvjrqIAN8qQmrgD0/s640/stmarycrayponds.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ponds fed from springs near St Mary Cray - Orpington boundary.</td></tr>
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Lower Road, which you now follow, once ran straight down onto Orpington High Street: the tangled junction ahead was created in the 1920s when the A224 Orpington bypass was driven through. A typical interwar parade of shops, Carlton Parade, is over the road on the right, on the site of the millpond serving Orpington Mill or Colgate’s Mill. This flour mill was the uppermost mill on the river, just below the source, and is recorded in the Domesday survey. It was converted to steam in the 1870s but soon ran into financial difficulties, and ended its days as a storehouse before being demolished in 1935.<br />
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<h3>
Orpington</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Orpington Priory. Never a priory but now an Asset of Community Value.</td></tr>
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Like St Mary Cray, Orpington was known to the compilers of the 1086 Domesday survey, and for much of their history the two neighbouring settlements competed to be the most important centre in the area. With its industry, market and fairs, St Mary Cray was the more significant of the two for much of the second millennium, but Orpington emerged triumphant in the 20th century and is now one of the biggest urban centres on the Greater London fringes.<br />
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The town first appears in the written record several decades before the Norman conquest in 1032, when Eadsy, treasurer to England’s Danish king, Cnut the Great, gave his lands at Orpedingetune (meaning ‘farmstead belong to Orped’) to Christ Church Canterbury. Following the Conquest and then the fall from grace of Bishop Odo, the monks of Canterbury claimed the manor back. In the 12th century it was largely leased to the Ruxley family, encountered above, and following the Dissolution passed into private hands. For a while it was in shared ownership with nearby Lullingstone in the Darent valley to the east, now over the boundary in Kent.<br />
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Some development followed the opening of Orpington station in 1868, but the transformation from a small country town into a suburb only really kicked off after the station was rebuilt and enlarged in 1904. The first big privately developed estate was the Knoll, on former hop gardens between the west side of the High Street and the railway. Development continued through the interwar years, with the Ramsden council estate added in the 1950s to the east of the bypass. Like the rest of the Cray valley, Orpington has a significant traveller population, and an inaugural international congress held here in 1971 led to the foundation of the Romano Internacionalno Jekhetanipe or International Romani Union, a member of the Council of Europe and with special consultative status at the United Nations.<br />
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The Riverway makes a grand entrance into Orpington through two imposing 18th century gates, originally at the High Elms estate (on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.no/2015/10/london-loop-3-petts-wood-hayes.html">London Loop 3</a>). These give access to the park known as <a href="https://www.bromleyparks.co.uk/portfolio/priory-gardens/" target="_blank">Priory Gardens</a>, with its extensive ornamental lakes – or rather lake, as there is actually a single 1 ha body of water divided by an artificial cascade, originally a sluice to control the water level. The lake started life as a mediaeval fishpond, fed by the spring that provides the main source of the Cray, and was remodelled in the late 19th century as a feature of the private parkland attached to Orpington Priory, complete with artificial islands. It’s worth taking a brief pause here, congratulating yourself on having traced the river to its source.<br />
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The route onwards crosses the cascade and continues on a straight path through the park, known as Monk’s Walk. After walking through a grassy meadow, you pass formal gardens on the right – well worth a detour to explore – and then the building known as Orpington Priory, just short of the southern gate out of the park. The Riverway officially ends here, though my description continues.<br />
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The references to monks and priories are 19th century fancies, as this site never accommodated a religious order, though the small estate did remain in the hands of Christ Church Canterbury until the Dissolution. The core of the building dates from the 15th century, and was extended in the 17th century. It was originally used as a rectory, attached to nearby All Saints Church, which is a little off our route but visible from it, over on the left, and also worth a visit. Parts of the church predate the Conquest, with the nave likely built early in the 11th century, perhaps when the Canterbury monks first took over. It presents two contrasting exteriors: a mediaeval main section pierced by 13th century lancet windows and a large 1957 extension in simplified pseudo-Gothic style. Inside is an Anglo-Saxon sundial, discovered and reset during restoration work.<br />
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After the Dissolution, the rectory was leased to the Hart Dyke family of Lullingstone, and eventually, in 1865, passed into the hands of Dr Herbert Broom, a keen historian who is thought to have been responsible for creating the formal gardens, broadly in the Arts & Crafts style. Remodelling was continued from 1919 under the next owner, publisher and landscape painter Cecil Hughes, under the influence of renowned garden designer Gertrude Jekyll, a friend of Hughes and his wife. A particularly noteworthy feature added during this period is the Theatre Garden to the northwest of the house, designed by Geoffrey Jellicoe in 1927, with ranked platforms so it can be used both as a theatre and a garden. There’s also a monument to Ivy Millichamp, the last civilian victim of a World War II V2 rocket.<br />
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Orpington District Council, a predecessor of today’s London Borough of Bromley, leased the house as offices after Hughes’ death in 1940 and by 1959 had taken ownership of house and grounds. The present park, incorporating additional land to the north, opened in 1962. The house was turned into Orpington Museum, later Bromley Museum, but this fell victim to austerity in 2015 as the council voted to sell the building. Local protesters blocked a proposed conversion to private housing by registering it as an Asset of Community Value, and it’s since been bought by a contemporary art organisation, <a href="http://www.v22collection.com/v22-orpington-priory/" target="_blank">V22</a>.<br />
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Continuing ahead, you arrive on Bark Hart Road, with the church to your left and the original centre of Orpington along Church Hill to your right. An old road, Lych Gate Road, now continues ahead as a footpath where Bark Hart Road curves away, and soon there’s a view of the Walnuts shopping, further education and leisure centre over on the right. In the 1970s it was this development that destroyed the few remaining pre-Victorian buildings in the town. Residential streets lined with identikit interwar detached houses now lead to the village sign, installed in 2000, and the Portland stone war memorial displaying the familiar white horse, tellingly now the only listed building on the High Street.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmONrcJTa9G-hThYLkifdUTq1MeGcMLppFDJGdZ3vJYDZo4LunARoArURRkOkFuMH5cP_fS6DCJz_-s1BL6NucqVGASIm1F5Z2RF_1oJA3fVKSApVaYmhKSov7pOWyen207lgCgbwkzBw/s1600/orpingtonwarmemorial.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmONrcJTa9G-hThYLkifdUTq1MeGcMLppFDJGdZ3vJYDZo4LunARoArURRkOkFuMH5cP_fS6DCJz_-s1BL6NucqVGASIm1F5Z2RF_1oJA3fVKSApVaYmhKSov7pOWyen207lgCgbwkzBw/s640/orpingtonwarmemorial.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Orpington war memorial now marooned on a roundabout.</td></tr>
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At the start of the 20th century, this part of town was still largely rural, the southern end of the street dwindling into a few scattered cottages. But as the main route from the station ran this way, the rustic surroundings were not to last. When the memorial was installed in 1921, it provided a proud and sombre municipal end-stop to a newly extended commercial strip. Today the effect isn’t quite so striking, as it’s marooned on a roundabout encircled by thick traffic, with an unsympathetically boxy glass curtain-walled Tesco Extra on the opposite corner.<br />
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It’s a shortish walk west from here along Station Road to the station itself. As stated above, this was opened in 1868 by the South Eastern Railway (SER, no relation to today’s Southeastern), established in the 1840s as the operators of the first rail route from London to Dover, with its ferry connections to Belgium and France. Originally, the SER used a circuitous route which headed south from London Bridge on the London & Croydon Railway to Reigate before cutting east via Tonbridge and Ashford. Following the opening of the competing LC&DR route encountered earlier, the SER built a cut-off line from New Cross via Orpington and Sevenoaks to Tonbridge, greatly reducing journey times. This line eventually came to be regarded as the South Eastern Main Line.<br />
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The station has entrances on both sides, though the main entrance has always been to the west of the line, on the Crofton side of the tracks. The current building dates from 1904, when the line was quadrupled and the platforms expanded from two to six in response to the increasing importance of commuter traffic. This hadn’t been a major consideration in the 1860s but in the early 20th century it stimulated a dramatic transformation of the area, as we have seen. Two further terminating platforms on the Crofton side were installed on old carriage sidings in 1992.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmdaXC9M6js08TEc0cggSZEVV8XXV-44uaVGHyn_u6b2-uLyIOLkRSk32P99TE7A5xvxSINLy45zK9BPhzN3sj1mmmDtDpW6Ofw4UyMt78If9SxoXG2VZQNuECGs6taVv398OkYV79qu4/s1600/orpingtonstation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmdaXC9M6js08TEc0cggSZEVV8XXV-44uaVGHyn_u6b2-uLyIOLkRSk32P99TE7A5xvxSINLy45zK9BPhzN3sj1mmmDtDpW6Ofw4UyMt78If9SxoXG2VZQNuECGs6taVv398OkYV79qu4/s640/orpingtonstation.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Main entrance to Orpington station, proudly flying the flag.</td></tr>
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<br />
<h3>
Crofton</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi33fRakIL3E4XC818XYt7-7tAM9Ub8IkST68JSExrkekhVm48MukMSWHWRRBeTyGeI7rCKdWu5TZR7BSyiWLrJSjvj4hZQ0477JCqxuQKgk-sEJXmlpHM-QUvtdn58a9iFdf7e65xn9p8/s1600/croftondaffs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi33fRakIL3E4XC818XYt7-7tAM9Ub8IkST68JSExrkekhVm48MukMSWHWRRBeTyGeI7rCKdWu5TZR7BSyiWLrJSjvj4hZQ0477JCqxuQKgk-sEJXmlpHM-QUvtdn58a9iFdf7e65xn9p8/s400/croftondaffs.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Crofton: well-tended lawns among the bungalows.</td></tr>
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I’ve written about Crofton in a little more detail along <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.no/2015/10/london-loop-3-petts-wood-hayes.html">London Loop Section 3</a>, including its main attraction, a little off the official Loop route but right next to this alternative, adjacent to the main station entrance. This is <a href="http://cka.moon-demon.co.uk/crofton-villa.htm" target="_blank">Crofton Roman Villa</a>, one of many that stood in this part of Kent in pre-Saxon times, and along with Lullingstone Villa not too far away (and on the Darent Valley Path), a fine reminder of the area’s pre-mediaeval past.<br />
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To connect back to the Loop from here, the best way is first to climb the hill ahead: undistinguished of itself, but look back for a sweeping view across the valley you’ve been following. The hill crests the watershed, with the Cray on one side, and the Kyd Brook or Quaggy, a tributary of the Ravensbourne, on the other.<br />
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Then you’ll need to take to more interwar residential streets, many of them lined with bungalows, though with plenty of trees and some patches of green. You rejoin the Loop in a small clearing in Darrick and Newstead Woods Local Nature Reserve, not far from the village of Farnborough and the very edge of London’s sprawl.<br />
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<ul style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<li><b>Route description: <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/vyyv7mlomjh0e2m/1b-erith-bexley-nwroute.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank">Cray Riverway 1</a></b> Erith to Bexley</li>
<li><b>Route description: <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/u03v675ld0cczah/2a-bexley-orpington.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank">Cray Riverway 2</a></b> Bexley to Orpington </li>
<li><b>Route description: <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/gulw654nmwlzhqg/3-pettswood-hayes.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank">London Loop 3</a> </b>including Orpington to Darrick Wood link</li>
<li><b><a href="http://www.bromley.gov.uk/downloads/file/1692/cray_riverway" target="_blank">Official Bromley Cray Riverway page</a>: </b>Orpington to Foots Cray</li>
<li><b><a href="http://prelaunch.bexley.gov.uk/article/3222/Cray-riverway---introduction" target="_blank">Official Bexley Cray Riverway page</a></b>: Foots Cray to Erith</li>
<li><b>Google map: </b><a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kR1LrzqrpJjVZqKaXjIQqgOWVeE&usp=sharing" style="color: #940f04;">https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kR1LrzqrpJjVZqKaXjIQqgOWVeE&usp=sharing</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-18478432555594718812017-05-07T09:28:00.001+01:002017-05-07T22:42:30.524+01:00London Loop alternative: Dartford Crossways - Crayford<div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Welcome to the Enchanted Woodland, actually a smallpox cemetery in disguise.</td></tr>
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Completing my proposed alternative route of the London Loop using the public bus service across the Dartford Crossing, this is a moderately short and largely urban but pleasant and interesting walk linking the bus stop at Crossways in the suburbs of Dartford with Barnes Cray, back on the official route. Along the way, you can enjoy flooded gravel pits remodelled as landscape features of business parks, a closeup view of the Queen Elizabeth II bridge, and a visit to an enchanted woodland. The final stretch sticks to riversides through Dartford Marshes followed by an optional extension along the official trail to Crayford station.</div>
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There are plenty of opportunities to split the walk by bus, including the frequent FastTrack dedicated busway services linking Dartford, Bluewater and Gravesend, although these don’t accept TfL cards. And you’ll pass close to Dartford station which although outside London is now conveniently in TfL’s Zone 8.<br />
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Since the Crossways bus stop is a short walk from the south bank of the river Thames, another obvious way of completing this walk would be to use the riverside paths more-or-less throughout, upstream along the Thames to Crayford Ness then upstream along the Darent to Bob Dunn Way Bridge to meet the route described below. This is a very good walk, and a little more straightforward, but it’s 2 km longer. At some point I plan to explore the Thames Path and its actual and possible extensions in more detail in these pages, so for the time being I’ve found a more varied and surprising route inland. For more about the issues of completing the Loop in the east and why I’ve proposed this alternative as a bonus feature to the official trail, see my <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/london-loop-alternative-upminster.html">previous post</a>.<br />
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<br />
<h3>
Dartford, Kent</h3>
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It’s appropriate that the geographical area where our circuits of London start is named after a rim or border. The word ‘Kent’ most likely derives from a Celtic term with this meaning, Latinised by Julius Caesar as <i>Cantium</i>. Its people, whom Caesar described as “by far the most civilised” of the Britons, were known to the Romans as the <i>Cantiaci</i>.<br />
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As the closest part of England to the European mainland, Kent will always be border country. But borders are rarely entirely impermeable, and the county has long been the conduit for people, cultures and ideas. Caesar himself first landed in Walmer near Deal from Boulogne in 55 BCE, and the ancestors of the Belgic and Celtic people he encountered had likely reached England via that same shoreline. The force that finally annexed most of Britain to the Roman Empire during Augustus’ reign in 43 likely landed at Richborough. Where their march northwest was interrupted by the Thames, they created a river crossing on the line of the later London Bridge, and inadvertently founded London.<br />
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Following the withdrawal of Roman rule in the 5th century, Jutes from what’s now southern Denmark migrated to East Kent and Saxons from western Germany followed them to West Kent. By 597, the year the Italian Christian priest Augustine landed at Reculver, Kent was a stable Anglo-Saxon kingdom, under Æthelberht, the first reliably attested king, some of whose laws survive as the oldest-known written English texts. Augustine completed his mission to convert the king, and became the first archbishop of Canterbury. The next and, so far, most recent successful occupation of Britain, by William of Normandy in 1066, was an exception, beginning in Sussex rather than Kent. The fact that William’s troops marched through Kent without formally demanding a surrender is the explanation for the county’s traditional motto, <i>Invicta</i>, meaning ‘undefeated’.<br />
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There’s still an echo of that old split between Saxons and Jutes in numerous institutional divisions between east and west Kent, and in the folk distinction between the demonyms ‘Man/maid of Kent’ for the east and ‘Kentish man/maid’ for the west, with the boundary almost but not quite following the river Medway. As these pages don’t look much beyond the immediate hinterland of Greater London, Jutes and men and maids of Kent are beyond our area of interest.<br />
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From Roman times, London itself has formed part of this rim country, the first big metropolis where the flow from the southeast eddied and often settled. So the city became the greatest borderland of all, flourishing as a multicultural, polyglot melting pot and a laboratory of new ideas. It’s long maintained a Kentish foothold, with a royal palace at Greenwich since before 1300, and a later royal dockyard at Deptford, both effectively extending the capital downstream along the Thames. When the county of London was belatedly created in 1889, it formally incorporated those parts of Kent roughly equivalent to today’s Greenwich and Lewisham boroughs. London returned for more in 1965, absorbing Bexley and Bromley.<br />
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And as everywhere, that borderline status of both London and Kent has remained problematic, its permeability both desired and resented. You’re forcibly reminded of the border if you’re unlucky enough to get caught up on the M20 approaching Folkestone during Operation Stack, the periodic clampdown on vehicle passage through the Channel Tunnel. Sadly, the current trend is hard rather than soft: in the referendum that sparked the current self-harming process of the UK leaving the European Union in June 2016, while almost 60% of Londoners voted to remain, 59% of Kent voted to leave.<br />
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Dartford takes its name from the ford on the river Darent around which the original town grew in Roman times. It’s the easternmost of three ‘Ford’ towns where the Roman highway later known as Watling Street, and highly likely its Celtic predecessor, crossed Thames tributaries. The others, from west to east, are Deptford, the ‘deep ford’ on the river Ravensbourne, and Crayford, on the river Cray – the destination of today’s walk. I’ve said more about Watling Street when discussing the London Countryway, which crosses it between <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/london-countryway-alternative-gravesend.html">Gravesend and Sole Street</a>.<br />
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In the Roman period, Dartford could well have been an important local centre, given the attested presence of several apparently prosperous villas in the fertile Darent valley. The road later became a pilgrim route to Canterbury, as made famous by Geoffrey Chaucer, and Dartford, which could be reached from London in a day by an energetic walker, was an important stop on the way.<br />
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By the 14th century the town boasted two priories and a weekly market, and was likely one of the key rallying points for the rebels from Essex and Kent who marched on London in 1381 during the ill-fated Peasants’ Revolt. Alongside Deptford and Maidstone, it’s a claimant to the birthplace of revolt leader Wat Tyler, though there’s no proof of this. I’ll have more to say about this incident in a later post, likely on a walk visiting Blackheath, much closer to London along Watling Street.<br />
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Dartford industrialised comparatively early, thanks to a convergence of geographical factors including the river and road links to London, the abundance of good water which also provided power for mills and, like Purfleet and Thurrock across the Thames, the presence of chalk deposits close to the surface. The first paper mill in England opened here in 1588 and more soon followed. There were chalk pits in mediaeval times, and more recently pharmaceuticals figured highly among the local produce, as we’ll see. Among Dartford's more recent exports is Rolling Stone Mick Jagger, who has a local arts centre named after him.<br />
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By the mid-20th century, Dartford had effectively become a commuter suburb and continuous urban sprawl connected it to London in several places. It was one of the areas reviewed by the Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London in the late 1950s for possible inclusion in an enlarged capital. But the Commission’s final report stopped short of recommending this, presumably because the town was still relatively self-contained: unlike some places outside London encountered on the Loop, it wasn’t excluded at a later stage following local protest.<br />
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In 1974, the Victorian-era Municipal Borough was enlarged with the inclusion of the rural hinterland to create the present Borough of Dartford. A more recent proposal to create a unitary authority by merging it with Gravesend was also rejected, so it remains part of the two-tier local government system of Kent. Unsurprisingly, though, the idea of Dartford becoming part of London is still regularly discussed, and local opinion appears almost equally divided on the issue.<br />
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Like many other places just outside London, Dartford is dominated by the capital without being able to enjoy the benefits of belonging to it. Local identity and viability have been placed under enormous pressure from industrial decline and retail competition from the West End and closer by. The giant Bluewater shpping mall just downriver, is widely blamed for turning the once-flourishing town centre into a denuded parade of closed shutters, charity and pound shops. But today’s walk avoids the historic centre in favour of its post-industrial hinterland, so we’ll need to wait for a later post to test this judgement.<br />
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<h3>
Crossways</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Former chalk pits at Crossways are now lakes enjoyed by local workers.</td></tr>
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Observant walkers who have crossed the Dartford Crossing from the previous section will notice that the surroundings on both sides of the Thames here are telling essentially the same story. Both are the recently redeveloped sites of former chalk quarries.<br />
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Once across the river, the bus from Chafford Hundred stops at the Galleon Boulevard stop in the Crossways Business Park, right by a Campanile hotel set behind an attractive pond complete with a fountain. This area was once part of Stone, then the next parish downstream along the Thames from Dartford, and was known as Stone Marshes. As on the other side, the marshes were successfully drained in mediaeval times to create quality farmland. Then chalk was found in the late 1860s, and over the next few decades, fuelled by the demand for cement from the London building industry, no less than four quarries appeared, with associated cement works and other facilities, all linked by a private tramway. By the 1930s they had all been incorporated into one giant undertaking, the Dartford Portland Cement Works.<br />
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These works fell into progressive disuse after the war and were finally demolished in the 1970s, leaving a blasted landscape of pits and slag heaps. Regeneration began in 1988, with a big distribution depot for supermarket Asda soon opening on the riverside, and the former cement wharf next door becoming a freight shipping terminal. The 120-ha Crossways Business Park now houses over 50 businesses employing 5,000 people. Rather like Stockley Park on section 11 of the Loop, it just missed the change in planners’ thinking towards more mixed-use development, so it’s one of those places that feels oddly compartmentalised and lonely, although there are two hotels and a scattering of residential properties.<br />
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This may seem an unpromising environment to walk in but turns out to be more pleasant than expected, helped enormously by a network of off-road paths and numerous water features remodelled from chalk pits, like that Campanile pond. Soon, you’re walking beside another, rather larger example known as Cotton Lake. Until the late 19th century there was a farm here, Cotton Farm, later overwhelmed by the pit which forms the basis of today’s lake. North of the lake, an 1870s map shows watercress beds steadily being encroached by chalk workings. <br />
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Our route leads straight across the Littlebrook Interchange connecting Dartford and Crossways with the M25 and the Dartford Crossing. This was first opened as part of the initial construction of Crossways in 1988 and substantially enlarged in 1996. The main interest here is the view from the flyover end-on to the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge and down to the tunnel approaches. Try to imagine the scene in the 19th century when this was Littlebrook Farm: the only survivor from this era other than the name is the fragmented strip of woodland that surrounds the A282 to the southwest. There’s a lot more about the Dartford Crossing and the bridge <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/london-loop-alternative-upminster.html">in my previous post</a>.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View from the Littlebrook Interchange: tunnel beneath, bridge below.</td></tr>
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<h3>
Joyce Green and Temple Hill</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWprcdrzHP0kE2LzzmdE-mRaMC6Vj87yNmukOGreVE2XqxBKLwlt-6y7oL4oQaZR3NVRuQFPFtD9zVXgw-MsXosi5Y4fFPu0cpJ3tztmlElLT-8_78KST6v96Z1ahLNY0Fy80aEGW7f7I/s1600/enchantedwoodland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWprcdrzHP0kE2LzzmdE-mRaMC6Vj87yNmukOGreVE2XqxBKLwlt-6y7oL4oQaZR3NVRuQFPFtD9zVXgw-MsXosi5Y4fFPu0cpJ3tztmlElLT-8_78KST6v96Z1ahLNY0Fy80aEGW7f7I/s400/enchantedwoodland.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Repurposed fence posts in the Enchanted Woodland</td></tr>
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The residential streets west of the interchange were built on farmland as social housing between 1951 and 1960 in response to the post-war housing crisis, and still comprise Dartford’s largest area of deprivation. The neighbourhood is known as Temple Hill, recalling the fact that this was once Temples Manor, gifted by Henry II to the Knights Templar in the 12th century. Temple Farm stood in the northwest corner until it was demolished to make way for housing during the original development.<br />
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The trail runs through another fragmentary strip of woodland surviving from Littlebrook Farm, before following streets named rather pompously after poets and authors: Wordsworth Way, Wodehouse Road, Chaucer Way. Another familiar name around here is Joyce Green, not after the experimental Irish novelist but another farm to the northwest, which still survives, unlike the hospital which borrowed the farm’s name in the 20th century.<br />
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Following the advance of epidemiology in the late 19th century, but before the perfection of effective vaccines and antibiotics, highly infectious diseases like smallpox, which spread rapidly in densely populated urban areas, were contained by isolating those already infected. In a grim echo of the prison hulks from the Napoleonic period, in 1881 two former Royal Navy wooden warships were pressed into service as offshore hospitals. At first, they were moored off Deptford but in 1883 were moved to Long Reach off Dartford where they were joined by a third vessel, a former cross-Channel paddle steamer.<br />
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But conditions on board were far from ideal for the purpose, and in 1901 the Metropolitan Asylums Board began work on a land-based isolation hospital at Joyce Green Farm, a little inland from the ships. Work had barely started when a new smallpox epidemic hit London, so two further hospitals were built originally on a temporary basis a little closer to the river, known as Long Reach and Orchard hospitals.<br />
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Joyce Green hospital opened with 940 beds in 1903, though the outbreak of the previous year turned out to be last major smallpox epidemic in London, so in 1910 the hospital was repurposed to handle fever cases. It remained largely empty for periods in the 1920s and 1930s before becoming a military hospital during World War II, at one point reserved for the Free Dutch Forces based in Britain. Later it was a general hospital, becoming part of the NHS in 1948. It finally closed in 2000, superseded by Darent Valley Hospital near Bluewater.<br />
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The site is currently undergoing redevelopment as a housing estate and science park known as the Bridge. The curious layout of the original hospital, so distinctive on contemporary maps with its 22 separate ward buildings arranged symmetrically in an echelon formation and originally connected by a horse-drawn tramway, has been completely obliterated by demolition.<br />
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One curious corner of the hospital does survive, though in a rather different form. In the early 20th century there was no effective treatment for smallpox and the mortality rate was high, so a corner of the grounds to the southeast was consecrated as a cemetery. The site was last used for burials in 1951, and gradually became overgrown. By the 1960s it was surrounded by new houses, and it became known locally as an informal open space, especially after 1993 when it was severed from the hospital site by the construction of the new A206 road. But it also suffered major problems with litter and fly tipping.<br />
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Following the closure of the hospital, a local campaign pushed for the creation of a community woodland on the cemetery site. It was bought from the Department of Health for £1 in 2009 and reopened under the management of charity the <a href="http://www.temple-hill.kent.sch.uk/the-temple-hill-trust/" target="_blank">Temple Hill Trust</a> as the Enchanted Woodland, remarkably the only substantial area of public woodland in Dartford. With little funding available, the restoration and maintenance of the site, including the removal of over 20 t of illegally dumped rubbish in 2013, has largely been a volunteer-supported project. Since 2016 it’s been managed by a local school, the Temple Hill Primary Academy, and students have embarked on a new programme of planting using saplings nurtured in the surrounding house gardens.<br />
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Visiting the woodland requires a horseshoe-shaped deflection of the route but I’m sure you’ll agree it’s worthwhile. It’s a dappled patchwork of mature trees planted when the hospital was first developed, ivy-carpeted secondary woodland, more recent saplings and patches of grass. In spring, it’s noted for violets, likely descended from some that were once planted on a grave. Dotted throughout are more recent and often quirky decorations, like hand-carved signs, and an old fence line turned into a decorative feature, lending a distinctive and intimate feel.<br />
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Only one headstone remains, commemorating a nurse, Ethel Chapman, who died in 1922. This, and the overgrown yew trees, are among the few on-site clues to the site’s origins. So it’s astonishing to learn that 1,039 bodies are buried here, of which 802 are from a single year, victims of the last great London smallpox epidemic in 1902. According to the <a href="https://primarysite-prod-sorted.s3.amazonaws.com/templehill/UploadedDocument/7ce1bf6b3ce045bebbfe63bbd397951f/enchanted-woodland-background-and-history-24.3.16.pdf" target="_blank">official history</a> compiled by the Trust, at the peak of the epidemic a new communal grave was dug each day, and filled with up to 14 corpses in sacks stuffed with straw and charcoal to absorb the bodily fluids. Most graves were marked with a simple numbered metal spear, none of which still stand, though some are preserved by the Trust. There are two military burials from World War I but, unusually for war graves, even these are unmarked. After 1936, there were no more burials until the final five in 1951.<br />
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The walk then threads through grassy strips that formed part of the original estate design, and suddenly you find yourself atop a modest cliff. A wide view opens north towards the Queen Elizabeth II bridge and the Thames, with the low hills of Essex visible on the other side. The cliff appears on mid-19th century maps and is likely a relic of chalk diggings, although from an earlier period than the large scale works of the 1870s and after. Today, a flight of steps leads down it to a children’s playground nestling in its shadow, known as the Joyce Green Lane Recreation Ground.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clifftop view north over Joyce Green Lane Recreation Ground and the marshes.</td></tr>
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A gate from the playground leads onto Joyce Green Lane itself, once an old farm track from Temple Hill into the marshes, and later the route travelled by hospital patients from the station. Then another grass patch, Wellcome Avenue Open Space, bridges the transition to an area of rather different character. The clue is in the name, for Wellcome Avenue commemorates one of Dartford’s most significant industries.<br />
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<h3>
Industrial Dartford</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This birch on the corner of the former Wellcome North Site<br />
overhangs the route of a cement works tramway.</td></tr>
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The marshy area to the north of Dartford town centre, with the tidal river Darent close at hand for water, power and transport, has been an industrial zone since at least the 16th century. Back then, a tidal-powered steel slitting mill stood on the riverside near the northern end of the High Street. Over the centuries this grew into the biggest milling complex on the river, known as the Phoenix Mill and used at various times for timber, cotton, flour, mustard, linseed oil and paper. This last commodity is something of a local speciality, produced in the area since at least 1588 until early in the 21st century.<br />
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In 1889, the mills were sold to pioneering pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome & Co, founded by two US-born pharmacists, Silas Burroughs and Henry Wellcome. This originated in Wandsworth, on another Thames tributary we’ll be visiting on later walks, in 1880 but soon outgrew its original site. If you break your walk at Dartford Station, you’ll be able to see the mill pond, remodelled by Burroughs Wellcome into a decorative lake with artificial islands, providing a suitably attractive frontage for what was intended to be a model factory. The station opened when the South East Railway extended its North Kent Line west from Gravesend towards London in 1849, improving the connectivity of the mill site still further.<br />
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Burroughs Wellcome played a lead role in establishing the pill as a form of medication, and is further noted for the emphasis it placed on research: among other things it made major advances in the production of antihistamines, insulin and, more recently, the antiviral drugs used to manage HIV infection. Its philanthropically-inclined co-founder wanted the profits spent on improving human health, and after his death in 1936, his legacy was used to set up the Wellcome Trust, still a major funder of medical research, as well as the owner of one of London’s most fascinating museums at its Euston Road headquarters. But the original company has subsequently been absorbed through mergers, and is now part of the world’s sixth largest pharma multinational, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).<br />
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At first Wellcome occupied only part of the mill complex, with some of it leased to a flour miller, but in the early years of the 20th century the drug company expanded to fill the rest, and then beyond. Immediately to the north, and to your left as you begin to walk south along Central Road, was one of the late 19th century cement works, connected to a wharf on the Darent by a tramway which crossed your path through what are currently the locked gates on the right a few steps further south: an interpretation board marks the spot. Another tramway ran north-south along Central Road to the mills. The cement plant was disused by World War I when it housed German prisoners of war before being occupied by Wellcome.<br />
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The area on the right (west) side of Central Road, known as the North Site, was farmland attached to Temple Farm until as late as the 1980s, when it too became an extension of the Wellcome plant. This use proved relatively short-lived: GSK closed the entire plant in 2011, laying off 650 staff – equal to half the 1,300 who had worked at the site in its peak years. Unsurprisingly given its proximity to the station, the whole lot is being redeveloped as housing. At the time of writing, building has only just started on the North Site, but 400 homes on the older site opposite are nearing completion. Pleasingly, the new neighbourhood will be known as the Phoenix Quarter, reviving the old name of the mill.<br />
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The land between the North Site and a former paper mill close to the station is occupied by a later 20th century development of light industrial units: not especially attractive or distinguished, but providing a straightforward walk along the obviously named Riverside Way to the Darent and the more open surroundings of the final stage of the walk.<br />
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<h3>
Dartford Marshes and the Darent</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Boardwalk alongside the river Darent by Riverside Way Industrial Estate, looking upstream at low tide.</td></tr>
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The river which gives Dartford its name rises from the Greensand ridge at Crockhamhill Common, south of Westerham, close to Kent’s western boundary with Surrey and only a few hundred metres from the route of the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/london-countryway-19b20-riverhill.html">London Countryway through Kent Hatch</a>. The Darent skims the northwestern edge of Sevenoaks and runs through Otford, Shoreham, Eynsford and Dartford to join the Thames on the marshes at Crayford Ness, a distance of 34 km. It’s a chalk stream, one of several encountered on these walks, and the exceptional purity of its water is one of the reasons its valley is associated with the paper and pharmaceutical industries.<br />
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A 31-km signed walking trail, the <a href="http://explorekent.org/activities/darent-valley-path/" target="_blank">Darent Valley Path</a>, traces the river’s course. Although this runs entirely outside London, it’s entirely within the London Countryway and therefore within the scope of this project, so I’ll discuss the river in more detail alongside the trail when I get around to it. This route follows a short section of the northernmost part of Darent Valley Path between Riverside Way and Bob Dunn Way Bridge.<br />
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The Darent is tidal below Mill Pond Road near Dartford station, where there’s a now-derelict lock that gave access to Phoenix Mills. As is the custom with Thames tributaries in the London area, the tidal section is known as a creek, Dartford Creek. Quite large boats could once sail this far at high tide, and a right of navigation still exists, although silting has made boating difficult. The recently formed <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/1493013297641232/" target="_blank">Dartford and Crayford Creek Restoration Trust</a> is currently working to remedy this. <br />
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From Riverside Way a decent riverside path, augmented by a newish stretch of boardwalk, leads downstream into the marshes, soon leaving the industry behind. With Crayford and Erith Marshes (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/london-loop-1-erith-bexley.html">section 1</a> of the Loop) further up the Thames and Rainham Marshes (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/london-loop-2324-upminster-bridge.html">section 24</a>) on the Essex side, Dartford Marshes forms the largest surviving remnant of an environment that once stretched much further upriver, and is now a designated Site of Nature Conservation Interest. Managed and drained since mediaeval times, the marshes were traditionally used for grazing, though also for activities that require isolation, such as explosive storage and testing and, as previously discussed, the treatment of infectious diseases. We’re far enough down the estuary here that the section closest to the Thames is salt marsh, though we won’t get that far today.<br />
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As I’ve said <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/london-loop-1-erith-bexley.html">elsewhere</a>, the marshes are a unique environment in the London area, both in terms of their wildlife value and their special and rather curious sense of remoteness. Yet they are undervalued and underappreciated. Fragmented ownership, split between ten different landowners on the Dartford side including the council and private interests, makes coherent management difficult, and paths and access points are limited. For the confident walker, this can provide a surprising sense of escape – sometimes you seem to have the whole marsh to yourself – but it provides insufficient surveillance to deter the likes of fly tippers and illegal off-road motorcyclists and partly explains the local reputation for antisocial behaviour. Don’t let this put you off – you’re unlikely to be troubled and can enjoy the space and the bird life on the muddy creek.<br />
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When I first walked these paths in the very early 1990s, there were no crossings of the Darent below Mill Pond Road, so the only possible riverside route north from there was all the way to the confluence and downstream along the Thames towards Gravesend. But in 1993 they opened the new A206 bypass, the road which severed the hospital site, originally known as University Way, but later renamed when the planned university failed to appear as Bob Dunn Way. Dunn, who died in 2003, was the Conservative MP for Dartford throughout the Thatcher and Major years, from 1979 until the ascent of Tony Blair’s New Labour in 1997.<br />
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This fast and busy road crosses the Darent just south of the mouth of the Cray, and pedestrian access from the riverside to the bridge has thankfully been provided, so although the traffic is something of an intrusion, there’s at least the opportunity to nip across the river.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW426RnKTAFk_efEy1vvb84WPIF-q3My4fRZJk2Q9x3QlOa1Pm17eeryf1SDQJROF_IOWaz__KWvVhXZaudRLzx8gr2SIZFulxauv1L1rms2UvsxRifwfynQXDIa61yiDW-pDPZA7ricY/s1600/dartfordmarshes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW426RnKTAFk_efEy1vvb84WPIF-q3My4fRZJk2Q9x3QlOa1Pm17eeryf1SDQJROF_IOWaz__KWvVhXZaudRLzx8gr2SIZFulxauv1L1rms2UvsxRifwfynQXDIa61yiDW-pDPZA7ricY/s640/dartfordmarshes.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking towards Dartford Salt Marshes from just north of the Bob Dunn Way Bridge.</td></tr>
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From here you follow the river wall around the triangle of marsh between the Darent and its lowest tributary the Cray, soon turning to walk upstream along the latter as you’ll continue to do for the rest of this section. This stretch of river is also tidal and therefore known as Crayford Creek. It forms the boundary between Kent and Greater London here and <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/london-loop-1-erith-bexley.html">the official route of the London Loop from Erith</a> lies within hailing distance, along the corresponding path on the other side. Nearing the industrial buildings of Barnes Cray, you cross a footbridge over a minor tributary, the Stanham River, or rather a straightened arm of it that was once served the industries in Crayford like the Vickers works.<br />
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Crossing the footbridge, you leave Kent and enter the London Borough of Bexley, but there’s still a good path following the river as it bends past the waste reception centre and under the 1849 brick rail viaduct that also provides a distinctive feature on the official Loop route nearby. On the opposite bank, a bicycle is hoisted improbably on a tall pole above a ramshackle collection of huts and old containers: perhaps a trophy captured by the locals on nearby National Cycle Network Route 1 and displayed here <i>pour encourager les autres</i>. The Cray’s appearance changes dramatically here: you can see how it’s been straightened, widened and culverted, with boat docks and a turning bay. This work was largely carried out in 1840 to improve access to the mills on the site.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Did the locals seize this bike from a hapless cyclist on NCN1? River Cray, Branes Cray.</td></tr>
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And so our walk reaches Thames Road at Barnes Cray where it finally meets the official London Loop as well as the more local Cray Riverway trail. There are buses from here, but I’d recommend continuing at least a little further into Crayford, enjoying the river’s further change of character into a more rustic and verdant stream, as well as the satisfaction of having actually completed a circuit around London, even if a short part of it had to be by bus.<br />
<ul style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<li><b><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/2kzuljl4lkk5s9k/1a-crossways-crayford.pdf?dl=0" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Route description</a></b></li>
<li><b>Google map: </b><a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kR1LrzqrpJjVZqKaXjIQqgOWVeE&usp=sharing" style="color: #940f04;">https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kR1LrzqrpJjVZqKaXjIQqgOWVeE&usp=sharing</a></li>
</ul>
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Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-12511734901932396492017-04-27T16:36:00.002+01:002017-05-07T16:04:06.611+01:00London Loop Alternative: Upminster Bridge - Chafford Hundred<div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stifford Pumping Station, above Davy Down. Engines not visible.</td></tr>
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This alternative final section of the London Loop suggests a way of bridging the gap in the trail by crossing the river Thames in the east, albeit by bus on the Dartford Crossing. Diverging from the official route shortly after Upminster Bridge, you’ll traverse several noteworthy green spaces in Thames Chase Community Forest, including three Forestry Commission woodlands, the expansive Belhus Woods Country Park and richly verdant Davy Down with its historic water pumping station. The last stretch finds hidden ways through Chafford Hundred, a new town built in an old quarry, with unexpectedly spectacular views.<br />
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There are no bus options for quite a while after the routes diverge, and there’s also an unavoidable stretch of not especially pleasant road walking, though the Forest sites that bookend this are considerable compensation. You could then break the journey at Belhus using a non-TfL bus if you wish. Otherwise the walk ends at Chafford Hundred station, adjacent to the massive Lakeside shopping mall, where, as well as trains to London, an hourly bus (not on Sundays and non-TfL) will take you on a scenic ride across the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge to the suburbs of Dartford. I’ll describe the shortish and pleasant walk that connects this point back to the official Section 1 of the London Loop at Barnes Cray in a later post.
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<h3>
Bridging the gap in the Loop</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Charge notice for Dartford Crossing</td></tr>
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As mentioned several times in these pages, the biggest disappointment of the London Loop is that, due to the lack of a convenient river crossing, it’s not a loop at all. The lowest point at which anyone can walk from the north to the south bank of the river Thames is Woolwich, where a foot tunnel forms an integral part of the Loop’s inner London sister trail the Capital Ring. Continuing downstream, the next and last opportunity to walk to the riverside and cross to the opposite bank is on the Tilbury to Gravesend ferry. This is too far outside the London boundary to be of any use to Loop walkers, though it does form a part of the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/london-countryway-1617a-west-horndon.html">London Countryway</a>, the unofficial orbital route through the outlying countryside, described elsewhere in these pages.<br />
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Confronted with this issue, the London Walking Forum, original devisers of the Loop, opted simply to start and finish at two stations close to the river and to London’s eastern edge: Erith and Purfleet. Historically, a ferry linked Coldharbour Point at Rainham, a little upriver of Purfleet, with Erith, and both its former termini are beside the trail. This ferry has been defunct since Victorian times, but doubtless the Forum hoped that at some point a boat service might be revived.<br />
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With the area now designated for long term development as part of the Thames Gateway, and the advent of the successful Thames Clippers riverbus service which now reaches as far downriver as Woolwich Arsenal, that possibility is a little less remote than it once was, but is certainly not imminent. So, for the foreseeable future, anyone who wants to walk to Purfleet and continue to Erith faces a roundabout rail journey quite a long way back into London then out again, via c2c to West Ham, the DLR to Woolwich and Southeastern to Erith.<br />
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There is however one fixed river crossing at about the right point that’s all too visible from the Loop itself but is tantalisingly out of reach to walkers. This is the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, a high and graceful suspension bridge visible for miles around which since 1991 has taken southbound traffic across the river, while northbound drivers use the earlier tunnel crossing.<br />
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It’s enduringly frustrating that this expensive and beautiful bridge with its spectacular views of the estuary has always been off-limits to walkers, despite many other equally long and high bridges, both in the UK and around the world, operating safely with walking and cycling lanes. When the tunnel first opened in 1963, it was understandably considered a hostile environment for walkers, and too dangerous for cyclists. But cyclists successfully insisted on provision, and at first a small fleet of specially adapted buses was provided to ferry them through, and for free too, unlike motorists. The buses were soon phased out due to lack of demand, but the provision remained, provided by more conventional vehicles.<br />
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During the planning of the bridge, an attempt to cancel the cycle service was resisted by pro-cycling MPs, but nobody successfully argued the obvious point that the public should simply to be able to cross the bridge under their own power, on foot or by bike. The M25, lest we forget, was one of the pet projects of then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a woman who allegedly held the opinion that “a man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure”.<br />
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Had the bridge been built just a few years later it’s likely the need for footways and cycleways would have been considered more seriously. As things stand, determined cyclists can still find their way via convoluted routes to assembly areas at each end, where yellow telephones are provided to summon a free lift in a dedicated 4x4 with a cycle rack. Waiting times extend up to 40 minutes, and cyclists friends tell me the people providing the service can be less than helpful, particularly when groups attempt to pre-book. But walkers don’t even have this opportunity.<br />
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Fortunately, there is still one way that people without vehicles or bikes can access the crossing, on the X80 bus. This is commercially operated by Thurrock-based private bus company Ensign Bus, so isn’t a public service obligation. Its primary purpose is to link Lakeside and Bluewater, two huge competing out-of-town shopping malls which nestle in former chalk quarries on each side of the estuary. It’s a limited stop route with stops that aren’t as close to the bridge as you might like, and it doesn’t run on Sundays, but it does help provide a viable alternative way of completing the Loop, and one way of doing this is suggested here.<br />
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If this is your first journey around the trail, my recommendation is to <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/london-loop-2324-upminster-bridge.html">stick to the official route</a> and enjoy the riverside walk through Rainham and Crayford marshes. But do consider this option as a bonus feature. Apart from an unwelcome stretch of road walking, it has much to recommend it: sites like Belhus Woods and Davy Down equal the highlights of the official trail, and even Chafford Hundred has pleasant surprises in store. Make sure you walk clockwise rather than anticlockwise so you cross via the bridge rather than the tunnel: the southbound bus ride is itself an experience, even if the views are brief and sometimes obstructed. Unless and until sense prevails in retrofitting walkways onto the bridge, it’s the closest you’ll get to what must be one of most exhilaratingly spectacular viewpoints on the river Thames.<br />
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<h3>
Hacton</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYHOHNZuokttID_vxTAzJubpwv1UcxwjrZQFOa6DHUoo0bynE-SlB4dM7gMYfymORDF7781QTi9rAi2wFKQc-JqW2X4d7A0jtSEoQ2ljzZuy1pkiVseUyjjTfL9aO6mL4jKRC6k8CKPL0/s1600/hactonparkcornerfarm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYHOHNZuokttID_vxTAzJubpwv1UcxwjrZQFOa6DHUoo0bynE-SlB4dM7gMYfymORDF7781QTi9rAi2wFKQc-JqW2X4d7A0jtSEoQ2ljzZuy1pkiVseUyjjTfL9aO6mL4jKRC6k8CKPL0/s640/hactonparkcornerfarm.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Horse paddocks in rustic Upminster, Hacton Park Corner Farm</td></tr>
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At first, the alternative route simply follows the official one, so I’ll leave you to refer to a <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/london-loop-2324-upminster-bridge.html">previous post</a> to find out more about Upminster Bridge and the Havering Parkways. It’s along Gaynes Parkway that the walk diverges, continuing on a grass path along the east side of the river Ingrebourne approaching Hacton Bridge, rather than crossing to the west side with the official Loop route and National Cycle Network 136.<br />
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In my post on Loop section 23 I introduced Hacton as a hamlet of Upminster that grew up beside the bridge around the early 14th century. Its original centre was to the south, at White Hart Corner – the pub of this name, opened in 1854, is still marked on maps though it closed in the 2000s. Hacton Lane, which runs north from the White Hart to cross the bridge, was once lined with cottages, but 19th century rural depopulation saw most of these disappear. The streets you walk down today were developed in the 1950s, and the Optimist on the corner of Hacton Lane and Little Gaynes Lane opened in 1956 as the first new pub in Upminster in the 20th century.<br />
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Opposite the pub and set back from the road is one of the remaining historic buildings in the area, the red brick Hacton House. It was built between 1762 and 1765 for William Braund, a successful merchant and financier and one of several well-off Londoners who bought country estates in Upminster around this time. After military use during World War II, it was converted somewhat unsympathetically into flats. Past the house, a footpath leads between playing fields and horse paddocks, the latter belonging to Hacton Park Corner Farm to the south. This once boasted a Jacobean farmhouse, destroyed during the war by bombs doubtless aimed at nearby RAF Hornchurch, though a 300-year-old Grade II-listed barn survived. It’s now a livery stable.<br />
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Pleasingly, the horse paddocks soon give way to a genuine fragment of London agriculture: arable fields now preserved as green belt, some of them still divided with the remnants of ancient hedgerows. Along these paths the Loop shares the way with the 16 km Upminster Circular Walk, originally developed by Hillingdon council in the 1980s, and well worth exploring. Though the leaflets are long out of print, the route is well-waymarked and easy to find out about online.<br />
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Suburban streets laid out in the 1930s loom ahead, but the path dodges them, stumbling instead into a delightful hidden corner known as Parklands Open Space, where mature trees tower over a stream, a tributary of the Ingrebourne, that has been dammed to create a rather sombre long, narrow lake. This is the only surviving remnant of Gaynes, which as previously mentioned was once the largest manor in the parish, named after the Engaine family who held it in the 13th century. In 1766, it was bought by James Esdaile, owner of a successful cooperage business and later a Lord Mayor of London. Esdaile already owned New Place and added several other local plots, knitting them together into a large estate. He rebuilt the modest manor house on a grand scale and had 40 ha of its surroundings landscaped into a park, with the lake as one of the features.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Last remnant of Gaynes Manor: The lake at Parklands Open Space</td></tr>
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The estate was eventually divided up and in 1929 the last significant tranche was sold off for housing development, but Hornchurch Urban District Council, as it was then, bought the immediate surrounds of the lake as a public space. The area fell into neglect in the late 20th century, especially following the Great Storm of 1987 when fallen trees blocked many of the paths. Thankfully it’s been revived more recently with the help of an active <a href="http://www.friendsofparklands.org.uk/" target="_blank">Friends Group</a>, formed in 2012. Our route crosses the water and soon leaves the site, but it’s worth a short detour a little further along the north bank of the lake for a view of the elegant Grade II-listed bridge at its opposite end, built in the 1780s by architect James Paine. The bridge is on Historic England’s ‘at risk’ register and in need of restoration, but so far funding for this hasn’t been forthcoming.<br />
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<h3>
Bonnets Wood</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Damyns Hall Aerodrome</td></tr>
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A parish boundary once ran along Park Farm Road, onto which you emerge when leaving Parklands Open Space, dividing Upminster to the north from Rainham to the south. The trail now crosses onto the Rainham side to enter <a href="https://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/englandessexnoforestthameschasecommunityforestbonnettswood" target="_blank">Bonnetts Wood</a>, one of the first of several Forestry Commission sites on today’s walk. As the official Loop route runs right through Rainham village, I’ve said more about the old parish there.<br />
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For centuries, the land to the south of the road was farmland attached to the manor of Gerpins, its name derived from the Jarpeville family who held it from the later 12th century. By the early 20th century, the estate had been broken up, and these fields were farmed by the Bonnetts family, based at Central Farm on Aveley Road. In 2002, the land was sold to the Forestry Commission as one of the new woodland areas in Thames Chase Community Forest (see my post on the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/london-countryway-15b-brentwood-west.html">London Countryway between Brentwood and West Horndon</a>). In common with several other Forest sites, like Pages Wood on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/london-loop-22-harold-wood-upminster.html">section 22</a> of the Loop, it’s managed to create a varied environment with a more open aspect than you might expect. Woodland is interspersed with meadows, and paths are lined with wide grassy margins.<br />
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In 2012, the wood was doubled in size to 33.6 ha with the addition in the southwest of a former landfill, capped, so it’s said, with rubble left over from building the Shard at London Bridge. This has helped create a linked chain of green spaces westwards via Berwick Glades to Hornchurch Country Park on the official route of the Loop, soon to be improved further by the opening of a new road crossing. Unfortunately, though, there’s still rather a gap between Bonnetts and the next cluster of Forest sites to the south and east, the direction in which we now need to walk. So currently there’s no real alternative to an unappealing trek along Aveley Road.<br />
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Considering that it runs through the heart of a community forest, this is a disappointingly unfriendly stretch of road, narrow but straight enough that many drivers exceed the already generous 40 mph limit. There’s no continuous pavement, though there are occasional stretches of verge. The road, incidentally, once formed another part of the boundary between Rainham, to the west (right), and Upminster to the east. One feature of interest along the way is Damyns Hall Aerodrome, opened in 1969 on the site of the parkland surrounding 16th century Damyns Hall, which had burnt down four years earlier. It’s the only privately-owned general aviation aerodrome in Greater London, and is used by light aircraft, microlights and helicopters.<br />
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Once past the aerodrome drive there are various gaps in the hedge giving access to its large grass field, and nothing to discourage you from walking on the other side of the hedge parallel to the road, although this is strictly private property. An official permissive path around the aerodrome perimeter would be an improvement here. There’s also some hope that the former gravel pit behind the thick hedge on the right may eventually be reclaimed as part of the Forest.<br />
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As it is, the road walking is almost done at the junction with Bramble Lane. This was once the gateway to an important site known as Chafford Heath, the meeting point for the ancient hundred of Chafford, a pre-Norman geographical subdivision of Essex not to be confused with today’s Chafford Hundred where the walk ends. Three parish boundaries met here: Rainham to the west, Upminster to the east and Aveley to the south. One of these is still functional, as when Greater London was created in 1965, Aveley remained outside it. The boundary here doesn’t quite follow the road, so when you walk past the car park in Cely Woods and follow the track right, you’re leaving London, though not for the final time.<br />
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<h3>
Cely Woods</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLDUTGL6zsfJSpZrtiEVI_RaFRTJwqUAkFGfiDAZTI4horlxDUFsSa1VfwFaWxXVFKAVnW9_WGaopR4axCte1E6K2lYputsmkWDAkQUaZudakITeV61vjHj3pIt9618-RN5uyMps-oCYo/s1600/celywoods.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLDUTGL6zsfJSpZrtiEVI_RaFRTJwqUAkFGfiDAZTI4horlxDUFsSa1VfwFaWxXVFKAVnW9_WGaopR4axCte1E6K2lYputsmkWDAkQUaZudakITeV61vjHj3pIt9618-RN5uyMps-oCYo/s640/celywoods.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Track through Cely Woods, showing the wide margins of the new Thames Chase woodlands.</td></tr>
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Aveley was once a large and prosperous parish in Chafford Hundred, centred on a large village off the trail to the south. This was already in existence in Saxon times and is mentioned several times in the Domesday survey of 1086, its name likely derived from the personal name Ælfgyþ and a suffix meaning a woodland clearing. In 1929, Aveley was allocated to Purfleet Urban District, which became a part of Thurrock in 1936 – originally an urban district of Essex, then, from 1974, a borough and finally, in 1997, a unitary authority separate from both London and Essex.<br />
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Thurrock’s reputation is not a happy one – in 2012 it was the lowest-ranked of all council areas in England in the government’s Wellbeing survey, and I’ve said more about this and other issues in my writeup of the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/london-countryway-via-tilbury-town.html">London Countryway alternative route via Tilbury Town</a>. But I doubt you’ll feel unhappy in the modestly pretty Cely Woods, the second Forestry Commission site on today’s walk.<br />
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There were five manors in the parish in Norman times, with this northwest corner occupied by one known as Bretts after the Bret family who rented it from the Swein of Essex in the 13th century. It was bought in 1462 by London wool merchant Richard Cely, and he and his descendants occupied it for the next 70 or so years. During a legal dispute about the inheritance of the estate in the 1490s, the Court of Chancery seized a collection of family papers as potential evidence. This cache of letters, invoices and other business documents written between 1475 and 1488 ended up at the Public Records Office, where it was rediscovered in the late 19th century, and published in edited form in 1900 under the title <i>The Cely Papers</i>.<br />
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The papers turned out to be a goldmine for historians researching economics, politics and everyday life not only in England but Flanders, France and the Netherlands in the 15th century. Their importance is better appreciated if you understand that the wool trade accounted back then for much of the English economy: taxes on it contributed considerably to state income, and consequently it was heavily regulated, forcing its practitioners to play politics whether they liked it or not.<br />
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The Celys sourced wool largely from the Cotswolds and shipped it via Calais, then an English possession, to customers in the southern Low Countries. Their correspondence records them confronting piracy in the English Channel, sharp practice in the Flemish markets (they weren’t above a little dodgy dealing themselves), losses from constantly fluctuating exchange rates, and numerous wars as alliances shifted between England, Burgundy and France. All the same, they appear to have been among the more prosperous merchants of the day, at least under the guiding hand of Richard – his three sons proved less adept at running the business after his death.<br />
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Historian Henry Elliot Malden, who edited the papers for publication, summarised the Celys’ life in his introduction in a way that says as much about his society as theirs:<br />
<blockquote>
Taken for all in all, the life revealed is not worse in point of morality than that of the same class at other times. It is more vigorous and manly than commercial life is now. The modem young business man has his holidays devoted to sport. The Celys, besides occasional relaxations — and Richard rode down to buy in Gloucestershire hawk on fist, ready to let fly at heron or partridge as he journeyed — had a continual experience of roughing it in their working days. In peril of robbers by sea and land, in peril of bogs and stones on the English apologies for roads, among the contending troops in Flanders, tossing in smacks across the Channel, they probably became men, more natural and tougher-fibred than those who have to cultivate their manhood by sport and games in the intervals of business. There is very little sensibility about them, but plenty of sense.</blockquote>
In 1568, Bretts became one of numerous plots merged with the expanding Belhus estate, of which more later. When that estate was broken up in the 1920s, the area now comprising Cely Woods was separately farmed, until the early 2000s when the <a href="https://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/englandessexnoforestthameschasecommunityforestcelywoods">Forestry Commission bought it as part of the Thames Chase project</a>, pleasingly reviving the Cely name.<br />
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The Commission’s land is newly wooded in the style of other Thames Chase sites, but also encloses two patches of ancient woodland now owned and managed as part of Belhus Woods Country Park, which very likely would have been known to the Celys, at least on the occasions when they were in Aveley rather than Ieper, Calais or Gloucester. To the west, and off our route, is Warwick Wood; to the east, and to your left before you leave the site, is White Post Wood, likely named after a parish boundary marker which once stood here.<br />
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<h3>
Belhus Woods Country Park</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Belhus Lakes, Belhus Country Park. Essex, not Essex.</td></tr>
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By the end of the 17th century, Belhus was one of the biggest landed estates in Essex, comprising over 910 ha. It had begun as a smallish post-Conquest manor in Aveley parish, rented from the Knights Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem and variously known as Nortons, Manywares or Coppins Crouch. Its most enduring name is from the family who held it in the 1330s, derived from their original home in the village of Ramsden Bellhouse near Billericay, but the dynasty most responsible for its expansion are the Barretts. John Barrett acquired part of the manor through marriage in 1397 and his distant descendant Thomas Barrett-Lennard sold off the much-expanded estate bit by bit in the first half of the 20th century.<br />
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In its pomp, Belhus straddled not only Aveley but the adjoining parishes of Upminster, North Ockendon and Wennington. The manor house, to the south, was rebuilt in 1526 and expanded several times over the succeeding centuries. In 1618, a large tract of land nearby was converted into a deer park and from 1749 this was fashionably remodelled, partly to the designs of the ever-busy landscape architect Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown.<br />
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The last family owner, Thomas Barrett-Lennard, preferred his clan’s other home at Horsford in Norfolk and neglected Belhus, selling a substantial tranche to Essex County Council in 1937 for preservation as Green Belt. During World War II, the house was badly damaged by bombs aimed at Hornchurch and the London docks, and was finally demolished in 1957. By then, most of the remaining land had been sold to the London County Council for housing.<br />
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Essex still owns an extensive portion of the estate. The northern section, including Warwick and White Post Woods, became public open space, designated in the late 1960s as a <a href="http://www.visitparks.co.uk/places/belhus-woods-country-park/" target="_blank">Country Park</a>. The southern part, including the site of the house, is leased as a golf course. In between is Belhus Chase, which in the late 1990s was leased to the <a href="https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/wood/5145/belhus-chase/" target="_blank">Woodland Trust</a>. Essex’s ownership is now rather anomalous, as none of its holdings are within its current boundary. The Upminster segment became part of the London Borough of Havering in 1965, while the rest is in Thurrock, a unitary authority since 1997. But the county makes a decent job of running the country park.<br />
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As you cross Romford Road and enter Belhus Woods Country Park, you’re once again crossing the old Upminster parish boundary and returning to the London Borough of Havering. Much of the site is ancient woodland, though dotted with open grassland and meadows recalling the former deer park and shrubbery plantings from Brown’s day. There’s an excellent visitor centre right beside the route, with information boards and a decent café. A little past this, in a meadow off to the left, is the <a href="http://www.belhus-woods-railway.co.uk/" target="_blank">Belhus Woods Railway</a>, actually two miniature railways at 184 mm (7¼”) and 127 mm (5”) gauge, built and operated by the volunteers of the Docklands and East London Model Engineering Society. It operates at least one afternoon a month except in winter, normally on a Sunday or bank holiday, and you can ride on it for a small charge.<br />
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The path runs through one of the largest patches of woodland, Running Water Wood, before the surroundings open out with Whitehall Wood on the left. A little further on is one of the most popular spots in the park, the grassy bank beside the first of several lakes, a legacy of gravel extraction. Turning south at the corner of the lake you’re following the London boundary again: the area to the east (left), though also part of the Belhus estate, was once another parish, North Ockendon. In 1936 it was divided, with this part allocated to Thurrock Urban District, and therefore remained outside London after 1965. You finally leave London for Thurrock when you cross the redundantly-named Running Water Brook, the south side of which was in the old Aveley parish.<br />
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The woodland to the north of the brook is known as Little Brick Kiln Wood; to the south you’re in Brick Kiln Wood. The names indicate these were, and still are, working woods. The brick kiln operated, with the occasional gap, between at least 1603 and the 1890s and bricks for the rebuilding of the mansion in the mid-18th century were likely made here. Some structures still survive among the trees. Hazel trees in the woods are still regularly coppiced and the timber used for thatching, fencing and hurdle making.<br />
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Over the brook, you’re officially out of the country park and into the Woodland Trust land of Belhus Chase. Much of this was grassland, but is now being replanted with trees in a layout intended to recall both the 17th century deer park and the 18th century landscaped version. The water channel to the left is artificial, a canal dug to supply water to the house. The original 18th century plans for the estate included a large lake, but the money ran out before this could be completed, and in 1770 engineer Richard Woods widened and expanded the canal to create this cheaper alternative, now known as the Long Pond. A little further on, the water expands into a broader pool, one of the more pleasant and secluded corners of the site.<br />
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The sense of seclusion is undermined by the nearby roar of traffic, and soon the trail climbs to cross the M25 orbital motorway. The official Loop route stays well within the motorway, but it’s encountered several times on the London Countryway and I’ve said more about it elsewhere, notably in my commentary on the walk between <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/london-countryway-21-oxted-merstham.html">Oxted and Merstham</a>. The road here, opened in 1982, bisects the Belhus estate, cutting straight across the line of the Long Pond. On the other side is a woodland known as the Ash Plantation. It’s a shame this is now severed from the rest of the site, but there’s the pleasing impression of a secret corner. Futher on, the trees end in a wide grass strip alongside the motorway, ushering you into the modern-day Belhus housing estate.<br />
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<h3>
Belhus</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiGoGPZrmtFu56V1wtWZo9vx3Nrnn4E0-gpEZyQ8Xda606y8p0ux2cZC-VLYeeIHKcu6dEguXXvkK3QNeEd-79_Jxxm4bR1KH6kgIAd_lAOUW1i3vzcpdF7yo6MDAyWTA2j9q6FHkHA0w/s1600/dilkesparkspiral.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiGoGPZrmtFu56V1wtWZo9vx3Nrnn4E0-gpEZyQ8Xda606y8p0ux2cZC-VLYeeIHKcu6dEguXXvkK3QNeEd-79_Jxxm4bR1KH6kgIAd_lAOUW1i3vzcpdF7yo6MDAyWTA2j9q6FHkHA0w/s640/dilkesparkspiral.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The curious wooden spiral in Dilkes Park, Belhus.</td></tr>
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The Belhus estate once extended considerably beyond the Ash Plantation, but the tranche to the east was sold off to the London County Council (LCC) in the late 1940s. Along with an adjoining patch to the northeast in South Ockendon, this became another of the housing estates the LCC built on the London edge, well outside its own territory, as a solution to the capital’s postwar housing problems. The Loop runs through several similar estates, for example at South Oxhey (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/london-loop-15-hatch-end-borehamwood.html">section 15</a>) and Harold Hill (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/london-loop-2021-chigwell-havering-atte.html">section 21</a>).<br />
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The first house in Belhus was occupied in 1950, and there were 4,000 houses and 1,320 flats by 1959. The Greater London Council (GLC) inherited the estate in 1965, though it still lay just outside London. It’s been managed by Thurrock council since 1980, though retains the appearance of a typical LCC estate of the period. In line with the ‘garden city’ ethos of postwar planning, it incorporates considerable areas of green space which enliven otherwise unremarkable and sometimes rather bleak architecture: there’s a large patch of grass just to the left soon after you leave the Plantation, overlooked by a desultory shopping parade.<br />
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A slightly incongruous Regency-inspired street layout featuring a pair of crescents abuts a more extensive green space. The 6.3 ha <a href="http://www.fieldsintrust.org/Dilkes-Park" target="_blank">Dilkes Park</a> incorporates part of the former Dilkes Wood, an 18th century plantation attached to Belhus Park that included fragments of ancient woodland. It’s now owned by the charity Fields in Trust, though managed by Thurrock, and is a valued local amenity. It was singled out for praise by Play England for the way the children’s play equipment isn’t fenced off but “seamlessly integrated with its woodland setting and there is no sense of where the play space begins and ends”. I’ve drawn a blank, though, in trying to find out more about the spiral of small wooden posts that decorates the circular junction in the middle of the park.<br />
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<h3>
Mardyke Woods and Davy Down</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Belhus Woods, one of the oldest woodlands in Essex.</td></tr>
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The old Belhus estate stretched as far south as the river Mardyke, and the slopes on the north side of its valley were thickly wooded. Like many of the other woods on the estate up until the later 19th century, these were important workplaces: trees were coppiced for timber used for building, firewood gathered and livestock grazed. The LCC bought the woods with the housing estate land after World War II but thankfully conserved a large wooded area as a public amenity. These woods, known as <a href="https://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/englandessexnoforestthameschasecommunityforestmardykewoods" target="_blank">Mardyke Woods</a>, are now managed by the Forestry Commission, and since 2012 have been improved with new paths, signing and woodland thinning with the help of a grant from the Veolia Trust, discussed in my commentary on the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/london-loop-2324-upminster-bridge.html">London Loop section 24</a>.<br />
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Unlike the other Commission sites on today’s walk, these are delightfully thick and tangled ancient semi-natural woodland. Tree cover is classified as ancient in England if an area has been known to be continuously wooded since 1600 (see my commentary on the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/london-countryway-12-welham-green.html">London Countryway between Welham Green and Broxbourne</a>) but these woods are much older, and were likely well-established by Roman times. The site was once three adjacent woods, under separate ownership before being brought together by the Barretts, and the remains of mediaeval woodbanks still separate some of the portions. The oldest surviving document mentioning the largest portion, Brannett’s Wood, dates from 1339, making it the second-oldest recorded woodland in Essex.<br />
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The section of wood you first enter is known as Millards Garden, with a more open green space and playground beside it, then as the walk turns east you’re in Brannett’s Wood. The ruggedness of the paths here makes a pleasant change from the walk so far, and there are some surprising ups and downs, particularly as the path turns south and descends the steep river terrace of the Mardyke. You emerge into a contrasting scene, where the Mardyke itself has created a flat, marshy floodplain, a finger of the Thames marshes clutching its way inland. <br />
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The Mardyke rises between Great Warley and Little Warley on the outskirts of Brentford, and runs for roughly 18 km to join the river Thames at Purfleet, where the official London Loop crosses it just above the confluence. Its name means ‘boundary ditch’, as a stretch to the north once formed part of the boundary between Chafford and Barstaple, the next hundred east. Our route temporarily joins the <a href="http://www.thurrock-history.org.uk/MardykeWay.htm" target="_blank">Mardyke Way</a>, an 11-km walking and cycling trail opened in 2007 alongside part of the river. Westwards this will take you to Aveley village itself where there’s an easy link to Purfleet and the official Loop; eastwards and northwards it links to Bulphan and the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/london-countryway-1617a-west-horndon.html">London Countryway</a>.<br />
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You walk under a substantial brick viaduct carrying a railway across the Mardyke valley. Known locally as the Fourteen Arches, this was built in 1892-1893 by the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway (LT&SR) as part of a southern loop between the company’s stations at Romford and Grays. For much of its existence the line had only one intermediate station, Ockendon to the north of here, and it remains single track. An old parish boundary ran down to the Mardyke just the other side of the railway, dividing Aveley from South Ockendon parish, and the route ventures just a few steps beyond this before leaving the Mardyke Way to cross the reedy river on a new foot and cycle bridge.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Mardyke between Davy Down and Mardyke Woods.</td></tr>
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On the other side, the land between the Mardyke and the Thames was once part of another parish, West Thurrock, held before 1066 by the ill-fated King Harold. From mediaeval times this was a relatively prosperous patchwork of farms, market gardens and even vineyards with extensive marshes bordering the Thames. Fruit and vegetables grew well thanks to the chalky soil, and it was the presence of a thick ridge of chalk, the Purfleet Anticline, running through the area that determined its fate in the industrial age. Purfleet, beside the Thames to the southwest and at the end of the official London Loop, began as a hamlet of West Thurrock and is discussed in more detail elsewhere.<br />
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The chalk is linked to a longstanding puzzle of the Mardyke: how did an apparently minor river cut such a substantial valley between the chalk to the south and the higher ground to the north. Careful study of gravel deposits has led to the conclusion that, some 300,000 years ago, the Thames flowed this way, north of the chalk, before cutting through the narrow gap at Purfleet and continuing on its present course. <br />
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The footbridge delivers you into <a href="https://www.thurrock.gov.uk/davy-down-riverside-park/overview" target="_blank">Davy Down</a>, a delightful 6 ha green space with a verdant mix of grassland, wetland and woodland patches, overlooked by an imposing brick pumping station. In the early 18th century this was a farm, and later a market garden. Its name derives from the family that owned it, and the fact that part of the site was on a finger of chalk ridge. The site was severed when the A13 opened in 1982, becoming economically unviable and falling into dereliction, until rescued by a local trust with the support of the council and the water company, and opened as a green space in 1993. It’s now managed by the Land Trust with the help of local volunteers.<br />
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Following the path across the meadow, it’s well worth dodging left into the woodland known as Pilgrims Copse, where a footbridge crosses a pond from which a sculpture of a stork juts up, creating an attractive picture. The path then climbs up the ridge to pass the chapel-like Stifford Pumping Station, opened by the South Essex Waterworks Company in 1928 to pump water from a 42 m borehole into the chalk. Water is still pumped and treated here by successor company Essex & Suffolk Water, but much of the original structure has been made redundant by modern technology. The original massive Sulzer diesel engines are preserved in situ and can be viewed if you call at the right time: the waterworks and the adjacent modern visitor centre are open most Thursday afternoons and on intermittent other days.<br />
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The old track south through the farm is now blocked by the A11, so the drive swings back north to deposit you on Pilgrims Lane. Known further south as Mill Lane, this is a very old road linking Ockendon, North and South Stifford and the Thames, and does indeed have an historic association with pilgrims. A ferry ran from Stoneness on Thurrock Marshes across the river to Greenhithe from at least 1310 and, like its upstream counterpart between Rainham and Erith on the official Loop, formed part of a pilgrimage route through Essex to Canterbury. The ferry operated with some gaps until the 1860s.<br />
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The lane once formed the boundary between West Thurrock and the next parish east, Stifford, but our route follows this line without crossing it, remaining on the Thurrock side. It rises up onto a modern bridge across the early 1980s dual carriageway of the A13, the current iteration of the main road from London to Southend. Passing a travellers’ site on one side and the main coach park for Lakeside shopping centre on the other, you soon reach a roundabout at a junction with an earlier version of the A13, the West Thurrock Arterial Road, opened in 1925 and now numbered A1306. On the other side of this, the walk continues along Pilgrims Lane, now a footpath and cycleway through the much-redeveloped area of Chafford Hundred.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Chafford Hundred</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gorge-eous Thurrock. The view of Chafford Gorges Nature Park from Grifon Road Outlook.</td></tr>
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Even more so than Purfleet on the official London Loop, the modern development of West Thurrock was determined by the existence of a large chalk outcrop so close to easy transport on the river Thames. Chalk is a component of cement, and demand for it rocketed in the 19th century as one of the key raw materials of the ever-expanding city. Gibbs & Co, later Associated Portland Cement, opened a large quarry and works in the area south of Mill Wood and immediately to the west of Mill Lane in 1872.<br />
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Two years later, the Lion Cement Works opened on the Stifford side of Mill Lane, with quarrying later extended almost as far north as where the Arterial Road now runs. The same year, the Tunnel Portland Cement Co began operations at Tunnel Farm, on what’s now the other side of the railway: by the early 1970s this was the largest such plant in Europe, producing over 1 million tonnes of cement annually and employing 1,200 people. Other industries then filled in many of the gaps between the quarries.<br />
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But chalk quarries have a habit of becoming exhausted, and by 1920s the Associated Portland works were already closed. Production on the other sites ceased in 1976, leaving behind a vast expanse of devastated and dangerous land. Regeneration began in the late 1980s, with the western part of Thurrock colonised by light industry, main roads and retail parks, and a new town emerging to the east, straddling the old parishes of West Thurrock and Stifford. The first new homes here were completed in 1989, and the site now includes some 5,300 houses and flats. The town bestowed itself with fake heritage by borrowing the name of the old Anglo-Saxon administrative division in which it was located, Chafford Hundred, although the original hundred covered a much larger area.<br />
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These “near-identikit houses…each one with a regulation rectangle of lawn, a name-plaque and at least one car in the driveway,” as the <i>Evening Standard</i> put in 2001, attracted young East Enders looking for starter homes that were cheaper and more spacious than their London equivalents but still with good transport connections. Property values rose rapidly in the 1990s, when the area became “the most coveted address in Britain”. Today, despite the obvious bland late 20th century look of the architecture, Chafford Hundred remains a relatively desirable address in otherwise-depressed Thurrock.<br />
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One of the town’s positive features is its green space, much of it imaginatively reshaped from the former quarries. And despite the <i>Standard</i>’s assertion that it’s “a place where everybody drives, unless they’re pushing a pram or pulling a dog”, there are numerous off-road paths, including the preserved alignment of Pilgrims Lane. Very little of our route through here uses residential streets.<br />
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Shortly you pass a lookout on the left with a birds-eye view of the Lion Cement Works, now transformed into the 81 ha <a href="http://www.essexwt.org.uk/reserves/chafford-gorges" target="_blank">Chafford Gorges Nature Park</a>, managed by Essex Wildlife Trust and slightly off our route. In front of you, the ground drops sharply to a lush, sheltered landscape of lakes, meadows and woods, hidden away in an artificial pit like a suburban Shangri-La.<br />
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This part of the park is known as Warren Gorge, after a farm which in turn was named after a nearby rabbit warren. With a visitor centre on the other side of Warren Gorge, and two other gorges, Lion Gorge and Grays Gorge, to the south, the site is well worth exploring if you have time or make a return visit. As well as wildlife, it’s noted for geology and industrial heritage, with exposed layers of chalk and sands and the remains of an industrial railway in Lion Gorge. Parts are a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).<br />
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Continuing down Pilgrims Lane, the housing to the right, west of the nature park, was built not on reclaimed quarries but farmland. The path emerges by a more modest but well-used recreation ground, Chafford Hundred Park, on the corner of Warren Lane and Mill Lane. A school once stood on this site, and the surrounding quarries must have made it a dangerous location. You’re soon walking through Mill Wood, an area of woodland which somehow survived the quarrying and subsequent redevelopment and is now part of the nature park. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQFxIUQA7b_AyhExtrcCxU7uKkrsWpvVRyFA-Fb5yn-DDTxcPT9LWvl3zYg4tpL_q13hdwLgfaAkt6MjKX9u-n0powjSdCrw1yd-H5QTbn0NYAT_3veWiay4icn_sM-_OQPKfyWLfYOmY/s1600/millwoodsandcliff.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQFxIUQA7b_AyhExtrcCxU7uKkrsWpvVRyFA-Fb5yn-DDTxcPT9LWvl3zYg4tpL_q13hdwLgfaAkt6MjKX9u-n0powjSdCrw1yd-H5QTbn0NYAT_3veWiay4icn_sM-_OQPKfyWLfYOmY/s400/millwoodsandcliff.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mill Wood Sand Cliff: legacy of the Thames and Scottish beaches.</td></tr>
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There’s another surprise as the trees to your left suddenly disappear and you find yourself striding along a clifftop: Mill Wood Sand Cliff. There’s a breath-taking view across the rooftops towards the industrial structures along the Thames, with the spindly geometry of the Queen Elizabeth II bridge close by to the right. Further south, the ridge of the North Downs rears up on the Kent side.<br />
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You’re now overlooking the oldest of the 19th century chalk workings, the Associated Portland Cement Works, also known as the Thames Works, Gibbs Pit or Mill Wood Pit – a significant site for industrial historians, as it was where the first rotary cement kiln was invented. The houses beneath are relatively recent, built in the mid-2000s, by which time the quarry had been disused for 80 years and had become something of a wildlife haven, noted for wild flowers and their associated invertebrates. But local efforts to save it failed, and now only this fragment is left.<br />
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As you descend the steps to street level and look back at the cliff, it’s worth studying the layers that comprise it. The bulk of it is yellow Thanet Sand, made from sands washed down over the millennia from the Scottish coast by coastal currents. But there’s an upper crown of gravel, stained distinctively reddish by iron. This is known as Orsett Heath Gravel, deposited by the wider river of about 380,000 years ago, and marks the oldest and highest of the Thames’ series of river terraces.<br />
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Finally, there’s a short stretch past the ‘identikit’ houses of the new town, to reach the uninspiring roundabout and square in front of Chafford Hundred station, or Chafford Hundred Lakeside to use its full name. Unsurprisingly, it’s the newest station on the line, opened only in 1993. There’s only a single platform on this single-track branch line at what’s now the busiest single platform station in the UK, serving not only the town but the massive Lakeside mall occupying the site of the old Tunnel works on the other side of the railway. The bus stop for Kent is located conveniently right outside the station door.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVxfcbpGd2ltSoe7f7ALJGJ2SnA1jX9671h-dWUAT27qeakJJzpiv_JdZrvcCzHX1Jdv_j50yAaI2fwk8xzmUAOBADgpbHKPfDmiMz105yTEG0ME5r1O1b9VyfKZo7ihumdpiI4zfuc18/s1600/chaffordhundredbus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVxfcbpGd2ltSoe7f7ALJGJ2SnA1jX9671h-dWUAT27qeakJJzpiv_JdZrvcCzHX1Jdv_j50yAaI2fwk8xzmUAOBADgpbHKPfDmiMz105yTEG0ME5r1O1b9VyfKZo7ihumdpiI4zfuc18/s640/chaffordhundredbus.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looping the Loop by bus: the X80 waits outside Chafford Hundred station.</td></tr>
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<h3>
The Dartford Crossing</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Snapped from the bus: the Thames from the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, looking downstream Note fragment of Kent sign right.</td></tr>
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The area between Chafford Hundred and the Dartford Crossing is perhaps not quite as inhospitable now as it was in its quarrying days, but neither is it the most welcoming corner of the London region. Over the past few decades, large-scale industry has been supplanted by an environment more familiar in the environs of US cities, designed to optimise mass retail and travel by car, all big and ugly with no sense of human scale and thoroughly discouraging to anyone on foot.<br />
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It’s the sort of place where people drive to work in bleak business parks, drive to shop in hanger-like discount warehouses marooned among vast parade grounds of car parks, then drive to eat in drive-thru chain restaurants, perhaps stopping off to sleep in global-brand hotels. The absence of a sense of place is exacerbated by the knot of major highways that converges here: the A13, M25 and numerous feeder roads from other parts of Essex and East London. These fast roads connect a substantial portion of southeastern and eastern England into the homogenous retail and leisure experience that is Lakeside, the nucleus of a dispersed web of globalised culture.<br />
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It’s indicative of the way the place is designed that the bus follows such a convoluted route, up and down slipways, round multiple roundabouts and along service roads. Nobody except perhaps the most obsessive or masochistic psychogeographers would walk a route like this. The fact that such large areas of characterless late 20th century sprawl-scape are mercifully still relatively rare around London gives this one something of a gruesome fascination, but you will probably still be glad you’re whizzing through it on a bus.<br />
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The first stop is the small bus station tucked away rather embarrassedly on the edge of the main Lakeside shopping centre, or as it's recently been rebranded, <a href="http://intu.co.uk/lakeside" target="_blank">Intu Lakeside</a>. This is on the site of the quarry that once served the Tunnel Portland Cement works, named after Tunnel Farm which once stood nearby. The lake in question is a flooded pit, now the centrepiece of the shopping mall which, when it opened officially in 1990, was the biggest in the London area. It’s still the 11th biggest such centre in the UK, with 133,200 m2 of floorspace. The lake is admittedly well-used within the site, and the area known as the Boardwalk that surrounds it is a pleasant place to sit, at least on quieter days, but all the eating places surrounding it are branches of overfamiliar chains.<br />
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To the south of Lakeside, somewhere among the knot of access roads and motorway junctions, is the original parish centre of West Thurrock, but the bus avoids this. Instead it works its way up onto the Dartford Crossing approach, passing further retail parks that are much uglier than Lakeside. So that they can be used by non-motorway traffic, the crossing itself and its immediate approaches are not classified as part of the M25 but instead are numbered A282, running right through the site of the Tunnel Cement Works.<br />
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A road crossing at this point was first suggested in the 1920s, and preliminary boring began in the late 1930s before being interrupted by World War II. It was resumed in 1955 as part of the ambitious and later abandoned scheme to build concentric ringways around London, discussed elsewhere. Originally there was only a single carriageway tunnel, opened in 1963 and supplemented by a second tunnel in 1980. As plans for the orbital motorway took shape, it was clear that further capacity would be needed.<br />
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This was provided in 1991 by the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which now conveys southbound traffic while northbound traffic uses the tunnels, so for Loop walkers the clockwise option is by far the best here. But the crossing is of course still regularly congested, as additional capacity only stimulates further demand. Drivers have always had to pay to cross the river here – at first the fee for a car was 6d (2.5p) – and the original promise that this was a temporary arrangement to recoup construction costs has since been abandoned. There’s now officially a ‘DART charge’ rather than a ‘toll’, currently £2.50 for a car, collected virtually and enforced using number plate recognition.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdwcF0TbnZxrMEGWFnxb28gl9Y059HYSmmhOKlTSHh5xcIxkB9vRtQ4HZaYhxdpMlzvm0mesIaB37F7J12TZ1lZDykPZ9BZESYZ6oYwN7XSYCILPwVzdx5WafJXnqkY8h7LVU7wVR5bpM/s1600/crosswaysbusstop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdwcF0TbnZxrMEGWFnxb28gl9Y059HYSmmhOKlTSHh5xcIxkB9vRtQ4HZaYhxdpMlzvm0mesIaB37F7J12TZ1lZDykPZ9BZESYZ6oYwN7XSYCILPwVzdx5WafJXnqkY8h7LVU7wVR5bpM/s320/crosswaysbusstop.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Galleon Boulevard bus stop, Crossways, Dartford:<br />
Queen Elizabeth II bridge piers just visible.</td></tr>
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For all the problems and issues, crossing the Thames on the bridge is still quite an experience, and I suggest you sit on the left for the best views. The German-designed structure cost £120 million, and when it was opened it had the largest cable-stayed span in Europe, at 450 m. It is still the lowest bridge across the Thames and the only one downstream of central London to be built since Tower Bridge in 1894.<br />
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The two main piers rise to a height of 137 m, embedded in caissons which are designed to withstand the impact of a 65,000-tonne ship. The deck is 65 m above the Thames, enough to allow cruise liners to pass beneath. It affords amazing views, though inevitably partially obscured by passing traffic, both upstream towards Crayford Ness, the Dartford Flood Barrier and the towers of Docklands and the City, and downstream to Swanscombe Marshes and Tilbury Docks. This alone is worth the bus fare, along with the satisfaction of having actually crossed the river.<br />
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On the Kent side there’s more convoluted navigation through the Crossways estate on the edge of Dartford, an area not too dissimilar to the jumble of Thurrock, perhaps because it too was built on the site of an abandoned cement works and quarry. The bus drops you on the corner of Galleon Boulevard, and the walk from here to the river Darent and on to reconnect with the main London Loop trail at Barnes Cray is a subject for another post.<br />
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<ul>
<li><b><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/6n695ieygozgczy/23a-upminster-chaffordhundred.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank">Route description</a></b></li>
<li><b>Google map: </b><a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kR1LrzqrpJjVZqKaXjIQqgOWVeE&usp=sharing">https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kR1LrzqrpJjVZqKaXjIQqgOWVeE&usp=sharing</a></li>
</ul>
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Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-6171770794389708472017-02-17T13:46:00.000+00:002017-11-21T17:06:03.993+00:00London Loop 23/24: Upminster Bridge - Rainham - Purfleet<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes, concrete can float. World War II concrete barges dumped by the Thames at Rainham.</td></tr>
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The London Loop ends in style, with one of its most interesting and rewarding sections. It continues to track the river Ingrebourne, first along a succession of green strips south of Upminster, then through Hornchurch Country Park, a former airbase that’s now one of the best open spaces on the trail. The green space now extends nearly all the way to pretty Rainham with its handsome 18th century Hall. A stride across Rainham Marshes in the footsteps of pilgrims takes you to the final stretch along the Thames, passing wartime concrete barges, a large but easily ignored landfill site and the RSPB’s Rainham Marshes reserve to finish at Count Dracula’s former home of Purfleet, just outside the London boundary.<br />
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For one last time, I’ve combined two Loop sections to create a longer walk. The official break point is at Rainham, but note that other transport options are surprisingly sparse, with only a couple of bus stops within easy reach between Upminster Bridge and Rainham. The stretch from there to Purfleet is the longest on the Loop without a convenient break point, so be prepared to walk the full distance: 8.5 km on the official route, though it’s all on easy paths and there’s an option to shorten the walk a little while missing some of the riverside features.<br />
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<b style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: red;">Update November 2017</span></b><span style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "trebuchet" , "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">. Although I'd recommend first-time walkers follow the official London Loop route as described here, there is an unofficial option of branching off just before Hacton Bridge towards Chafford Hundred for the bus across the Dartford Crossing, currently the best available option for connecting the two ends of the Loop. <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/london-loop-alternative-upminster.html">Read more here</a>.</span><br />
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<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
The Ingrebourne Parkways</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxvZ9W-Z0tGnaVGr_fr9czwKV5Uhj-Ii_G5AG8-OvM3dRJCGaGquKvx-tGn3QnTuY2NhMLnI2KsCZN2SLpOksOoXsgnJigGemtLjMGkt3BrxCwJnrG-TFv01GX4J7G058kWCuGrOvSj2Q/s1600/upminstermill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxvZ9W-Z0tGnaVGr_fr9czwKV5Uhj-Ii_G5AG8-OvM3dRJCGaGquKvx-tGn3QnTuY2NhMLnI2KsCZN2SLpOksOoXsgnJigGemtLjMGkt3BrxCwJnrG-TFv01GX4J7G058kWCuGrOvSj2Q/s320/upminstermill.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rural past: Upminster windmill under repair.</td></tr>
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Upminster today is deep suburbia, but that’s a 20th century phenomenon. The best way to imagine its rural past is to look at the geography. 200 or so years ago, Upminster Road was a country lane crossing a river valley between two ancient settlements, both crowned with hilltop churches so typical of this part of Essex.<br />
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To the west, on your left as you leave the Tube station, was Hornchurch, longstanding commercial centre of the Royal Liberty of Havering, discussed in the previous section, which stretched as far east as the river Ingrebourne. Overlooking the eastern slope of the valley was the parish centre of Upminster. On the Upminster side, the road is named St Marys Lane, after the parish church, but was originally known as Cranham Road, after its next destination.<br />
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The river has been bridged at this point at least since 1375, though for most of its history the bridge was pedestrian only, with horses and vehicles using an adjacent ford. One of the privileges of living in the Liberty was not having to pay for the upkeep of the bridge, which was entirely the responsibility of Upminster parish. The current stone and brick structure was installed, complete with time capsule, in 1892 as the most recent of a succession of bridges here. The river banks have been straightened and culverted but the water runs as it always did, from the hills north of Harold Wood down to the Thames.<br />
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The Loop heads off the road a little past the bridge, but for a more visible reminder of the area’s rural past, it’s worth a detour up the hill to view <a href="http://www.upminsterwindmill.org/" target="_blank">Upminster Windmill</a>, one of the seven intact windmills surviving in London (another, Shirley Windmill, is just off <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/london-loop-4-hayes-west-wickham-common.html">section 4</a> of the Loop). The Grade II*- listed smock mill was built in 1803 to serve a new bakery on Hunt’s Farm, which once covered the site. Wind power was supplemented in 1811 with a steam engine, and at its peak, in the 1860s, the surviving mill building was the centre of an extensive complex with six pairs of millstones driven by both wind and steam.<br />
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It’s also known as Abraham’s Mill, after the family who owned it between 1857 and 1934, when it ceased commercial operations. Three years later, it was bought by Essex County Council, and was almost demolished but for a public outcry that eventually resulted in its being listed. The mill has enjoyed mixed fortunes since, though it’s currently leased on a long-term basis to a charity, the Friends of Upminster Windmill, who intend to return it to full working order, including an expanded visitor centre. When I last visited, the sails had been removed for restoration, giving the remaining smock a curiously naked look, but they shouldn’t be gone for long. <br />
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The Loop regains the Ingrebourne behind Hornchurch Stadium, which despite its name stands not in historic Hornchurch but on the Upminster side of the river. This council-built football and athletics venue has been here since 1956, on the site of the old Bridge House that once guarded the bridge. It’s home to a non-League football club, AFC Hornchurch, successors to the old Hornchurch FC, who play in the Isthmian League, as well as to West Ham United’s ladies’ team.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgdZQUSQupxkay8SdfZWeE9YHIUAQ9zEAlQw78Rihoa8ip6DlEZyWWuyZt4pHuFYuMfyO9PLdYyH66Ecov2QieusrEMeBprKc73L6i_Si6fketJVerdVPXz_j-1GBMrUA5V2EYuXt5Gek/s1600/ingrebournehacton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgdZQUSQupxkay8SdfZWeE9YHIUAQ9zEAlQw78Rihoa8ip6DlEZyWWuyZt4pHuFYuMfyO9PLdYyH66Ecov2QieusrEMeBprKc73L6i_Si6fketJVerdVPXz_j-1GBMrUA5V2EYuXt5Gek/s640/ingrebournehacton.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">River Ingrebourne approaching Hacton Bridge.</td></tr>
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As we have seen many times before on the trail, rivers passing through outer London tend to paint green strips through suburbia, thanks to their tendency to flood. The open margins of the Ingrebourne between the stadium and Hornchurch Country Park were improved by the council in the early 1960s to create a pioneering 2.5 km riverside walkway. It’s known as a ‘parkway’, a term that’s sometimes employed by planners to mean a motor highway with landscaped surrounds, but the Havering version is blissfully traffic-free. In fact there are officially three successive parkways: Gaynes Parkway as far as Hacton Bridge, Hacton Parkway to the edge of the old St George’s Hospital site, and Sutton Parkway on to the country park.<br />
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All three borrow well-established local place names. Gaynes was once the biggest manor in Upminster parish, deriving its name from the Engaine family, who held it in the 13th century. Hacton is still known today as a distinct locality, and we’ll have a lot more to say about Suttons shortly.<br />
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Today the parkways and other land alongside the river are part of the designated area of Thames Chase Community Forest, introduced in the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/london-loop-22-harold-wood-upminster.html">previous section</a>. They also serve as cycle routes, and not long after the Loop rejoins the riverside, it shares its path once more with the Ingrebourne Way, National Cycle Network 136, which has followed a more easterly route via Upminster town centre. Then the trail swaps from the Upminster to the Hornchurch side to arrive at Hacton Bridge.<br />
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Hacton likely developed around 1300 as an outlying hamlet of Upminster, to the east of the bridge, which has existed from about the same time. The river bends southwest here, so the route across the bridge runs roughly north-south, linking the Harold Wood area with Aveley and the Thames at Purfleet. It was also important as part of a route to Romford Market from the south.<br />
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On the other side of the bridge, the green space opens out a little, becoming wilder and more natural, though the housing estates of Hornchurch are never far away, sometimes pressing on the path which remains on the west side of the Ingrebourne. Soon visible on the right is the site of St George’s Hospital, founded in 1939 as Suttons Institution, originally to treat airmen from RAF Hornchurch. It became an NHS hospital in 1948 but was closed in 2012 and is being redeveloped as housing.<br />
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<h3>
Hornchurch Country Park</h3>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9UdiDvnLE2hHlxzfvFyuZTyJFKeHJG4Lg5QiwrFNe6ZzjF7WAICOyJ8MrgCO8ivQuq-J9URlZecrmm8bNCLy3oMtJG-Krp60ZxolK__F-8Yla-AkrUtjXxxG8cHxp6cuZNeXuJxIK7MM/s1600/hornchurchcountrypark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9UdiDvnLE2hHlxzfvFyuZTyJFKeHJG4Lg5QiwrFNe6ZzjF7WAICOyJ8MrgCO8ivQuq-J9URlZecrmm8bNCLy3oMtJG-Krp60ZxolK__F-8Yla-AkrUtjXxxG8cHxp6cuZNeXuJxIK7MM/s640/hornchurchcountrypark.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The wetlands of Hornchurch Country Park.</td></tr>
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Suttons was one of two manors granted by Henry II to Hornchurch Priory in the 1150s, and when the priory was dissolved in 1391, the Bishop of Winchester used the property to endow New College, Oxford. Remarkably, the college still owned Suttons Farm in 1915, during World War I, when the War Ministry leased part of it for a Royal Flying Corps airfield. This original airfield covered only a small part of the site, to the north, and was at first a rather improvised affair. ‘Flightways’, as they were known, were marked out on the grass with flaming torches when needed, and pilots were billeted in a nearby pub. But it later grew into one of the most important military airbases in the UK.<br />
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The site was chosen as the Ingrebourne’s flood plain here provided a large, flat, open area strategically close to the Thames estuary. For centuries, the wide-open highway of the Thames had been both a key factor in London’s success and one of the biggest weak spots in Britain’s defences. Much effort had been made over those centuries to protect it from potential seaborne belligerents, from the Spanish Armada to Napoléon Bonaparte, as seen on previous walks such as the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/london-countryway-1617a-west-horndon.html">London Countryway past Tilbury Fort</a>.<br />
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This riparian vulnerability persisted into the new age of aerial combat: before radar, let alone GPS, navigation was one of the many challenges of flying, but the Thames was clearly visible from above even at night and pointed the way to some of the most strategic targets in the country. The first pilots based at Suttons Farm were tasked with intercepting and repelling or destroying any aircraft that tried to take advantage of this.<br />
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Initially the threat came not from aeroplanes, which still had limited range, but from airships, the famous German Zeppelins. Although these were essentially huge bags of potentially explosive hydrogen, they initially proved resistant to the unreliable canvas and wood biplanes flown by British pilots, until one night in September 1916 when Lieutenant William Leefe Robinson, based at Suttons Farm, shot down an SL11 airship, which crashed in flames on a field in Cuffley, Hertfordshire, with the loss of all hands. A few nights later, another Suttons Farm flyer, Lieutenant Frederick Sowery, downed a second airship near Billericay, Essex.<br />
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These and subsequent incidents were widely publicised and celebrated, helping establish the idea of the air ace as a modern folk hero. The popular image of daring Biggles types with elaborate moustaches intensified in the later years of the war as aerial dogfights became commonplace, and more sophisticated aircraft flew from Suttons Farm to combat a new threat to London from Gotha bombers. Despite this, not long after the armistice that ended the war in 1918, the air base was deemed surplus to requirements, and the following year the land returned to farming.<br />
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This pastoral interlude was not to last. In 1922, as part of a major expansion of the newly-formed Royal Air Force (RAF), aviation returned to the Ingrebourne valley, over a much larger swathe of Suttons bought outright from New College. At first the base was known as RAF Suttons Farm but was renamed RAF Hornchurch in 1928 to make it easier to find by public transport.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEprRatleKT2cLItnl8k42km9lNsA2Yfn07QwuI-SZdhfPSXOXXU7AtCj3i7wq_s2yr3RDkkC46iC2HlHN_mnCTEmHQPuFhYRYyR-A6rBPWcvH87IM8_GsixOGwYG9cww_tb5RSOTSbC0/s1600/hornchurchcountryparkpillbox.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEprRatleKT2cLItnl8k42km9lNsA2Yfn07QwuI-SZdhfPSXOXXU7AtCj3i7wq_s2yr3RDkkC46iC2HlHN_mnCTEmHQPuFhYRYyR-A6rBPWcvH87IM8_GsixOGwYG9cww_tb5RSOTSbC0/s640/hornchurchcountryparkpillbox.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">World War II pillbox from RAF Hornchurch todays surviving in Hornchurch Country Park.</td></tr>
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During World War II, Hornchurch flyers played a major role in supporting the withdrawal of Allied troops from Dunkirk in 1940, and in the subsequent Battle of Britain, which, as I noted when the Loop passed the former RAF command post at Bentley Priory in <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/london-loop-15-hatch-end-borehamwood.html">section 15</a>, was the first significant military defeat for Nazi Germany. It was hard won, with Hornchurch alone losing 144 planes in the process of destroying 205 German aircraft. In total 2,662 German and well over 1,500 lives on the British side were lost. The crews at Hornchurch at this time, incidentally, included not just Brits but personnel from the USA, Canada, Australasia, South Africa, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia and Poland.<br />
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Hornchurch continued to defend the estuary in the years following the Battle of Britain, but by 1944 the planes had been relocated to the mainland, closer to the front, and the site’s history as an operational base ended. After the war, it was used for training and occasionally as a mobilisation depot. During a series of bitter strikes in the London docks and elsewhere in 1948-50, service personnel gathered at Hornchurch in readiness to take over essential services at the command of the Labour government, though these plans were never implemented. The base was also used as a centre for military support following the floods of 1954.<br />
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RAF Hornchurch was officially closed in 1962, with most of the structures demolished in 1966. The eastern part of the site, closest to the river, was used for gravel extraction in the 1970s. The western part became a housing estate, and the footprints of flightways, hangers and auxiliary buildings now lie under streets with names like Robinson Close, Sowrey Avenue, Deere Avenue and Tuck Road in honour of the flyers of two world wars.<br />
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The gravel workings exposed evidence of a much longer history of human habitation and use of the valley, unearthing artefacts from the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages and Roman times. In 1980, with the gravel exhausted, the site was restored as the 104.5 ha <a href="https://www3.havering.gov.uk/Pages/ServiceChild/Parks--Hornchurch-Country-Park.aspx" target="_blank">Hornchurch Country Park</a>. Much was then designated as the Ingrebourne Marshes Site of Special Scientific Interest and the Ingrebourne Valley Local Nature Reserve. And though the original layout of the airbase has been obscured by digging and development, a few remnants have survived as reminders of less peaceful times, several of them visible from the Loop.<br />
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The main biological interest is in the wetlands bounding on the river, the heart of the SSSI, with their patchwork of reed beds dominated by two different species of reeds, tall fen and wet grassland. According to the official SSSI citation, they form “the largest and one of the most diverse coherent areas of freshwater marshland in Greater London…nowhere else in London do these habitats occur on such a large scale or in such intimate juxtaposition.” They support a rich population of invertebrates, including rare damselflies and hoverflies, and 61 species of breeding birds, including kingfishers, reed warblers and redshank. Elsewhere there are patches of planted woodland, rough grazed meadows and ponds.<br />
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The park is owned and managed by Havering council but has benefitted enormously since 2005 from a partnership with the Essex Wildlife Trust, which has set up a Friends group and helped raise additional funds from the National Lottery and sources such as the Veolia North Thames Trust, of which more later. Some of that cash has gone on the Wildlife Trust’s outstanding <a href="http://www.essexwt.org.uk/reserves/ingrebourne" target="_blank">Ingrebourne Valley Visitor Centre</a>, opened in 2015 with fascinating displays on both wildlife and wartime heritage. With a decent café too, it’s the first of three tempting pit stops along this section of the trail.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMn29FlKUqosD3TCFVD48MAFyHg5PTBSq8WZh75N6Fr33cqlsdjMDPWZxK4fs5gJRDS39aic4vihBvMCFp5JDsjv0OWbe0iqbnWj4tTZPEA7RYizfdozXwZJHGhAGZL4p5ajdadU5wfns/s1600/hornchurchspitfire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMn29FlKUqosD3TCFVD48MAFyHg5PTBSq8WZh75N6Fr33cqlsdjMDPWZxK4fs5gJRDS39aic4vihBvMCFp5JDsjv0OWbe0iqbnWj4tTZPEA7RYizfdozXwZJHGhAGZL4p5ajdadU5wfns/s400/hornchurchspitfire.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Spitfire that never got off the ground.</td></tr>
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Before reaching the visitor centre, it’s worth pausing at the playground to observe the item of play equipment roughly based on a Spitfire, the most famous model of fighter plane to fly from here in World War II. There’s something oddly cheering about the way children clamber obliviously over this tribute to an efficient instrument of death and destruction on sunny weekends and holidays. The car park beyond, only a little further off the trail, is on the site of a former aircraft dispersal bay, and a red brick E-shaped blast pen, like those noted at Kenley aerodrome on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/london-loop-56-hamsey-green-coulsdon.html">section 5 of the Loop</a>, still stands here.<br />
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Not far past the visitor centre, a viewpoint on the right gives a fine view of the reed beds and river, and a little further, down a dip, is a half-sunken hexagonal concrete pillbox, one of the surviving installations from World War II. Still further are two much smaller and rather rarer conical structures known as Tett Turrets, actually the tops of submerged concrete cylinders just about big enough to shelter a single gunner in what must have been a very cramped and claustrophobic environment. Just past the turrets, the woodland to the right covers the southeastern end of what was once the longest of two flightways, which ran northeast as far as what’s now Deere Avenue.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIcXp0FmhMZYuVM0MKyiQghDtjp4WU1pjc7WgnWTDm0JjW3tdsPeKzGy6bviwxwOzjWfyVUpaEErRTYijFdn-PEQalG8qDIQIuqPA5VUjW8bhOc5zE-ddIcr1Sh_DkW1XelCvaX4V-ZpI/s1600/tettturret.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIcXp0FmhMZYuVM0MKyiQghDtjp4WU1pjc7WgnWTDm0JjW3tdsPeKzGy6bviwxwOzjWfyVUpaEErRTYijFdn-PEQalG8qDIQIuqPA5VUjW8bhOc5zE-ddIcr1Sh_DkW1XelCvaX4V-ZpI/s400/tettturret.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tett Turret at Hornchurch Country Park</td></tr>
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The trail then turns away from the river, passing another pillbox right beside the path, to reach Albyns Farm Lake, created from gravel diggings in the 1980s and now a popular fishing spot. The name indicates that this part of the site lay within the bounds of another farm, but still within the airfield. A second, shorter, flightway ran roughly north from the northern corner of the lake, almost to today’s Scotts Primary School, crossing the longer one.<br />
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As you round the lake and follow the surfaced lane, you’re walking along what was once the airfield perimeter. You soon pass the farmhouse of Albyns Farm, now an upmarket walled residence in an unusual setting. During wartime, its occupants must have been regularly deafened by aircraft movements – and under constant threat of stray bombs and bullets from attacks on the base.<br />
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At the farmhouse, the Loop was originally forced into a frustrating detour through streets, but in recent years a field edge path has opened, connecting directly to a welcome extension of the green spaces along the valley. <a href="http://www.forestry.gov.uk/ingrebourne" target="_blank">Ingrebourne Hill</a> is the second of the major Thames Chase Forestry Commission sites along the Loop, a 57 ha area which, like Hornchurch Country Park, was quarried for gravel, until it was restored and gradually reopened between 1998 and 2008.<br />
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Like the Commission’s Pages Wood in the previous section, it’s designed to mix areas of tree cover with broad paths and grassland, so will retain a relatively open aspect even as it matures. A major feature is a state-of-the-art 2 km mountain bike course, so watch out for fast and muddy bikers crossing your path. There’s also a viewpoint atop an artificial hill with a line of sight to central London’s high rises, but since this is about 300 m off the trail to the east, I haven’t counted it among my views from the Loop.<br />
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The swathe of reed beds continues into Ingrebourne Hill, past the viewpoint, providing a backdrop in the southern part of the site to a landscaped lake, named Stillwell Lake after Squadron Leader Ronnie Stillwell, one of the Spitfire pilots based at RAF Hornchurch. Another aviation reference is the grassy mock-flightway that terminates near the car park at a sculpture inspired by runway approach lighting. One of the Loop’s best stretches of continuous off-road walking ends here as you leave the environs of Thames Chase Community Forest, heading for Rainham along busy South End Road.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr0GCjnk6bTFrQNfROUvs_IPIswNQPq3ZK2X1kZJbxF61Twl2CPIViuwHwe-mv8c_P3LRbRGYrtcYNKN4DG5VIj6Mit3M0E6dLwkPYhV9cWNXJdyPwLa_44obWOck_tzR0B87yJpT44rk/s1600/ingrebournehillsculpture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr0GCjnk6bTFrQNfROUvs_IPIswNQPq3ZK2X1kZJbxF61Twl2CPIViuwHwe-mv8c_P3LRbRGYrtcYNKN4DG5VIj6Mit3M0E6dLwkPYhV9cWNXJdyPwLa_44obWOck_tzR0B87yJpT44rk/s640/ingrebournehillsculpture.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Flightway sculpture at Ingrebourne Hill.</td></tr>
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<h3>
Rainham</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR2zTZyBvDUzVj3B04K4vG-d-hW2zuOxJrzPGjgIxnE432mxqhiBuPN0iX7TcqxYareKxsO7lby5ArDJHe_Xyzg7hcUQHb-c69i1gC7PsRyabENe-anA3ZfmpR-aE0hdo0zdhW1ONaVzg/s1600/rainhamhall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR2zTZyBvDUzVj3B04K4vG-d-hW2zuOxJrzPGjgIxnE432mxqhiBuPN0iX7TcqxYareKxsO7lby5ArDJHe_Xyzg7hcUQHb-c69i1gC7PsRyabENe-anA3ZfmpR-aE0hdo0zdhW1ONaVzg/s400/rainhamhall.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rainham Hall</td></tr>
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Rainham is an ancient parish and village, recorded in the 1086 Domesday survey, its Saxon name meaning a settlement associated with someone called Regna (the other Rainham, on the Kent side of the estuary near the mouth of the Medway, is thought to have a slightly different derivation, from a tribal name). Like Upminster to the north, it was once part of Essex’s Chafford Hundred. It stands on the northern rim of the Thames marshes, on several significant transport routes.<br />
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Two roads, Upminster Road and Wennington Road, merged here to cross the Ingrebourne, before splitting off again as South End Road towards Hornchurch and Rainham Road towards Dagenham. The main route between London, Tilbury and Southend followed Rainham and Wennington Roads, passing through the village. Rainham Creek, the navigable tidal lower section of the Ingrebourne, connected a wharf at the west end of the village to the Thames. Another road, Ferry Lane, led down to the Thames itself, where the Pilgrim Ferry crossed the river to Kent and the ‘long ferry’ from Gravesend to London also called by.<br />
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A simple plank bridge crossed the Ingrebourne in 1356 when Edward III used it regularly on hunting expeditions. He granted local landowner Thomas de Hoggeshawe special protection when de Hoggeshawe undertook to repair it. The current bridge, known as Red Bridge, dates from 1898 when it was rebuilt by Essex County Council. By then, the tiny hamlet on the east bank had grown into a relatively prosperous village, boosted by proximity to the Thames, with several grand houses appearing in the 18th century. The railway from Fenchurch Street arrived in 1854, and from the 1920s, upwardly mobile East Enders built houses and smallholdings on plots which were said to be cheaper per square yard than linoleum.<br />
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Just before the bridge, the Loop crosses New Road, built in 1926 so the Tilbury road, by now numbered A13, could bypass the village centre. It’s since been superseded as a through route by a much bigger road we’ll walk under later. After the bridge, the Loop follows Bridge Road around another roundabout, beside which is a curious garden stocked with Australasian plants, created as a legacy of London 2012. The trail now finally bends with Bridge Road away from the creek, as there’s no convenient way of following this to its mouth. Then it reaches a triangular space on the left, the old village green, at the point where the Wennington and Upminster Roads meet.<br />
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Two buildings dominate the scene here. The Grade I listed Church of St Helen and St Giles is the only remaining mediaeval building in the village and the only church in the British Isles dedicated to these two saints. Much of the structure, built partly from clay eroded from the cliffs of the Essex coast, dates from around 1170. Until 1327 it was administered by Lesnes Abbey, across the river near present-day Thamesmead, the ruins of which we’ll encounter on the Green Chain Walk. The stumpy Grade II-listed red brick clock tower and war memorial topped with an unlikely Portland stone balustrade, as if waiting for someone to preach from the top of it, dates from 1920.<br />
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Despite its dearth of truly old buildings, Bridge Street retains a quiet and pleasant character, with several 18th and 19th century buildings. The most significant of these, and arguably Rainham’s greatest architectural gem, is <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/rainham-hall" target="_blank">Rainham Hall</a>, a little further on the left. This fine three storey brick townhouse in Dutch Queen Anne style was built in 1729 for former sea captain John Harle, then the owner of Rainham Wharf. A later owner, Colonel Herbert Hall Mulliner, used it to house his collection of furniture and pottery. The colonel gave the house to the National Trust in 1949, but for many years it wasn’t fully open to the public. That finally changed in 2015 following Lottery-funded refurbishment and the opening of a café and reception centre in the adjoining coach house.<br />
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Even if the café doesn’t tempt you, it’s worth a slight detour to view the opposite side of the house, which presents its back to the street. The front façade is especially handsome, framed by original wrought iron railings featuring the intertwining initials of Harle and his wife Mary. It’s thought they were created by Jean Tijou, who also provided ironwork for Hampton Court Palace. You can wander freely in the large and charming garden, which includes vases listed in their own right and a recently replanted orchard that’s now one of the largest in London.<br />
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Much newer, but still incorporating elements of traditional vernacular architecture such as red brick and pitched roofs with end gables, is Rainham Library, opened in 2015. The building incorporates residential flats, shops and a café and is supposed to be highly sustainable. The design, by Maccreanor Lavington, does a good job of fitting into the street scene without seeming fake or nostalgic.<br />
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Rainham station, right by the library, was opened in 1854 on the original stretch of the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway (LT&SR) between Forest Gate and Tilbury: originally trains followed existing lines from Forest Gate to London Fenchurch Street until a more direct route into the City opened in 1858. The current buildings, though, are much more recent. Then, running parallel to the LT&SR here, is High Speed 1 (HS1), at the time of writing Britain’s only modern high speed railway line, linking London St Pancras International, Ashford and the Channel Tunnel portal. This stretch was part of the second phase of the line, opened between London and Ebbsfleet, on the Kent side of the Thames, in 2007.<br />
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The Loop crosses HS1 on a massive foot and cycle bridge, opened in 2006 as a fine entrance to Rainham Marshes. From the top, there are wide views across the flat, wet land, down to the Thames and across to the Kent side, with the North Downs rising up in the distance. A lengthy ramp supported on timber columns, designed by architect Peter Beard, majestically descends on a gentle slope to deposit you in the unique environment of the marshes, ready to enjoy a network of paths that were also improved as part of the construction of the railway.<br />
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<h3>
Rainham Marshes</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdtzzU-SHqjrys3wuagbhyKpws06vmdDW5LGCZydNOUs3ODfDdaYPqsFV4Jygo6PKEiL_wDVLLh9qjio3IzEqQCi1NBgjGp3ekPAguCeM5nsTnX3vnQ6UOV3lhHK_xQsgX1Buj8dQUy3U/s1600/rainhammarshesramp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdtzzU-SHqjrys3wuagbhyKpws06vmdDW5LGCZydNOUs3ODfDdaYPqsFV4Jygo6PKEiL_wDVLLh9qjio3IzEqQCi1NBgjGp3ekPAguCeM5nsTnX3vnQ6UOV3lhHK_xQsgX1Buj8dQUy3U/s640/rainhammarshesramp.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View across Rainham Marshes from the ramp across HS1.</td></tr>
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<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/london-loop-1-erith-bexley.html">The very first section of the London Loop</a>, from Erith, spends most of its time in the Crayford Marshes to the south of the Thames, so it’s fitting that the trail ends with a lengthy stride through their counterparts on the north bank. As explained in section 1, large parts even of central London were once marshes, though much was drained in mediaeval times. Thankfully, the marshes survive here on the fringe, and Rainham’s now comprise the largest area of marshland in the upper part of the estuary. Not only are Rainham Marshes larger than Crayford Marshes, they’re also comparatively less developed. There are patches of industry, in big blocky buildings close to the river, as well as a massive landfill site. But surrounding these are vast tracts of wetland more-or-less unchanged since mediaeval times.<br />
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How this will be affected now that Rainham is part of the massive Thames Gateway development area remains to be seen, although the wildlife and amenity value of the marshes is well-recognised and protected. Since 1986, the marshes between Rainham and Purfleet have been included in the 479 ha Inner Thames Marshes Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), as “the largest remaining expanse of wetland bordering the upper reaches of the Thames Estuary…of particular note for its diverse ornithological interest and especially for the variety of breeding birds and the numbers of wintering wildfowl, waders, finches and birds of prey, with wintering teal populations reaching levels of international importance.”<br />
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The marshes are a largely natural landscape, protected from the worst of storms and floods by the way the river bends around Coldharbour Point. It’s thought only a small part of today’s land area, to the southeast, was artificially reclaimed from the Thames during the 17th century. The marshes were long used for grazing sheep and cattle, with some market gardening for both local and London markets.<br />
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This latter use increased in the 18th century when Captain Harle improved Rainham Wharf, using it not only to ship produce to the capital but for the decidedly unglamorous purpose of importing London’s horse muck to fertilise the expanding fields and gardens. At one point Rainham was notorious for its unpleasant odours rather than renowned for its riverside charms, although a small resort, with pubs and pleasure grounds, did develop by the mouth of the creek in the 19th century, catering to day trippers from upriver. This has long since vanished beneath industry.<br />
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Originally the Loop followed Ferry Lane here but now a new path continues ahead from the foot of the HS1 ramp through open grassland. It carries not only the Loop but National Cycle Network route 13, which will eventually connect Tower Bridge with Fakenham in Norfolk, and the prosaically named Rainham to Purfleet Walk. This last is rather obsessively waymarked, with posts every 100 m counting the distances between the two ends.<br />
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The trail passes under the A13 flyover, between the two Thames Gateway roundabouts with their unlikely public art welcoming you to the Ferry Lane industrial zone. The most recent incarnation of the Tilbury and Southend road, roaring above your head, was opened in 1997 as part of a new raised causeway across the marshes. It’s the last radial trunk road from London, and indeed the last A road, crossed by the Loop.<br />
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Re-entering the marshland on the other side of the A13, you have a choice of paths. The official Loop line is still shown on many maps as simply following Ferry Lane from here, but it now takes a narrow off-road path that’s sometimes slightly overgrown, continuing to track the lane but at a pleasant distance from the heavy traffic heading for the industrial estate. This route isn’t entirely accessible, so NCN13 and the Rainham to Purfleet Walk follow a broader path across a particularly verdant and lonely stretch of marsh, which rejoins the Loop at Rainham riverside, though is slightly longer and misses out a couple of riverside features.<br />
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A third alternative, also part of NCN13, branches off from this second route at the entrance to the riverside car park to rejoin at Aveley Bay: I don’t particularly recommend this as it misses out much of the riverside stretch, though it’s considerably shorter overall.<br />
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I’ll restrict my description to the official Loop route, which crosses Coldharbour Lane and nips down a green strip between buildings on the Easter Industrial Estate to cross Ferry Lane. Straight ahead is a slope surmounted by a wall, and on the other side of the wall, at last, is the river Thames. The Loop has almost completed its journey.<br />
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<h3>
Along the Thames</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The lighthouse at Coldharbour Point, with Erith Deep Wharf and the start of the Loop visible across the Thames.</td></tr>
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This is the same broad and slightly briny stretch of the Thames, widening towards the estuary, that we enjoyed in section 1, but seen from the other side. And once again it’s worth pausing to note the contrast with the last time we saw the river, much narrower, non-tidal and more genteel, at Kingston on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/london-loop-78-banstead-ewell-kingston.html">section 8</a>. There, the passing traffic consisted of narrowboats and pleasure cruisers. Here, you might spot substantial ocean-going freighters on their way to and from the various commercial terminals upriver.<br />
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A plaque on the river wall, corresponding to the one we noted at Erith riverside, commemorates the Pilgrim Ferry, which operated between 1199 and the 1850s. The Erith plaque is on the actual site of the former ferry pier, but for some reason, this one is a long way off, as the ferry served Coldharbour Point further downstream. It was also known as the ‘Short Ferry’, to distinguish it from the Long Ferry mentioned above. This wasn’t a ferry in the modern sense at all, but more like a riverbus service that ran between Gravesend and the City of London, calling at several points along the way, including a pier by the mouth of Rainham Creek, a little upstream. It’s first recorded in 1279, and was withdrawn in the face of railway competition probably in the 1860s.<br />
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The trail now turns to follow the river downstream, though when I last walked this way the path along the very top of the river wall was overgrown with buddleia. This improves past the Tilda Rice Factory, the self-proclaimed “home of genuine basmati rice”. The company began in 1970 to serve the UK’s South Asian community, and claims to be the first importer of the fine basmati variety of rice into Europe. It’s since grown into a familiar supermarket brand, and its success is attested by the size of this plant, opened in the late 1980s. You walk between the factory itself and its private jetty, where bulk brown rice arrives by boat to be processed and packed. Some finished products are exported from the jetty too: the company, now owned by a US-based group, is active in 50 countries.<br />
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The trail soon reaches a riverside car park, where it’s rejoined by the first alternative route described above. This is a popular spot for river watching, with a couple of curious features close by. First is Rainham’s celebrated collection of abandoned concrete barges. If you think that the notion of a concrete barge must be a wind-up or a conceptual joke, here’s the proof that they exist, in the form of 16 substantial vessels, each one around 25 m long and 7 m wide, some of them half-submerged in mud. They were made in the early 1940s by the building firm Wates, at a time when more traditional boatbuilding materials were scarce due to the war effort, using the same precast concrete techniques as prefabricated buildings. As they’re reinforced with steel mesh, they’re technically known as ferro-concrete barges, with the model number PB200.<br />
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The barges, which were unpowered and designed to be towed by another vessel, were used for transporting bulk liquids, particularly fuel and drinking water. The frequently repeated claim that they were used as part of the temporary Mulberry harbours during the Allied invasion of Normandy in 1944 has been called into question, though the harbours were made using similar techniques, and some of the barges may have helped to supply the operation. These examples have apparently languished here since the high tides of 1953, when they were used as improvised flood defences.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The sometimes submerged Diver sculpture at Rainham.</td></tr>
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Just beyond the barges and likewise mired in the Thames mud is one of London’s quirkiest and most playful pieces of public art. It’s sometimes hard to spot, though, as it’s regularly partly and sometimes completely submerged at high tide. This is The Diver: Regeneration, a 4.6 m-tall galvanised steel cage in the shape of a figure wearing an old-fashioned ‘copper hat’ diving suit, placed here in 2000. It was created by self-taught local sculptor John Kaufman (1941-2002), inspired by his grandfather who was a diver in the London docks. The piece is both melancholy and comical, particularly when a gull chooses it as a convenient perch.<br />
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If you’ve a good memory of the first section, the surroundings may now start to look a little familiar, although viewed from a different angle. There are glimpses of the central London high rises upriver behind you. Ahead, a large grey and drab green hanger-like structure extends over the river. There’s an urban myth that the ubiquitous yellow barges full of rubbish towed down the river by tugs are taking their cargo out to sea for dumping, but in fact quite a lot of it is heading here, to the Veolia Waste Management Terminal jetty, for processing and, often, for landfill on the adjacent marshland.<br />
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Veolia, a multinational descended from a French water company that once also owned Universal Studios, states on its website that a landfill site has existed here for 150 years. Today, the facility has swelled to 177 ha, and currently accepts 1.5 million tonnes of waste every year, some of which is recycled at the onsite materials recovery facility, the rest buried. Note the plastic pipes sprouting from the grassy hills, to release the methane and carbon dioxide generated by decomposing waste: some of the gas is captured onsite and used to generate up to 15 MW of electricity for sale to the National Grid. There’s also a ‘leachate processing plant’ for dealing with the large quantities of foul liquid drained from waste.<br />
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The landfill was due to close in 2018, but Veolia successfully applied to the council for an extension and it will now be operational until 2024. After this, it’s due to be re-landscaped and opened as a further significant extension to the riverside public space. With those forbidding plastic tubes and the succession of smelly lorries coming and going, it’s hard to imagine the peaceful place this will eventually become, but there are other places on the Loop with a similar history, including just beyond Bexley on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/london-loop-2-bexley-petts-wood.html">section 2</a> and at Stockley Park on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/london-loop-1112-hayes-hillingdon.html">section 11</a>.<br />
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Meanwhile at least some of the company’s profits are diverted to public benefit, including through various charitable trusts, now united as the Veolia Environmental Trust. This has helped fund improvements along the Loop, including at Central Park in Harold Hill (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/london-loop-2021-chigwell-havering-atte.html">on section 21</a>), the Ingrebourne Valley Visitor Centre and the RSPB reserve a little further along. The riverside walkway itself was secured partly as a condition of Veolia’s operation of the site, and the company has been made to fund extra mitigation measures at the RSPB site, as landfill attracts predators like foxes and gulls, creating a disproportionate threat to breeding birds.<br />
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A little past the waste jetty, the river bends sharply left. The corner here is known as Coldharbour Point, and is marked by a small automatic lighthouse, one of only nine remaining along the Thames, to warn shipping of the change of direction. The spindly 12 m-tall steel gantry remains more-or-less as it was when installed by Trinity House in 1885, and is now the responsibility of the Port of London Authority (PLA). When I last visited, it was undergoing maintenance and sheathed in a protective cover which made it look more substantial than it actually is.<br />
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If you’ve walked section 1, you should be able to identify several landmarks on the opposite bank. Right opposite, seemingly reaching out towards the lighthouse, is the long pier of Erith Deep Wharf. To its right are the riverside gardens where the London Loop first encountered the Thames, and a way over to the left is the rectangular outline of Dartford Creek Flood Barrier, straddling the mouth of the river Darent. In the distance, downriver, is the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, the southbound section of the Dartford Crossing on the M25. Coldharbour Point was the location of the northern pier of the Pilgrim Ferry, and standing here you may well ponder how wonderful it would be to hop on a boat or stride across a bridge here to complete your journey back where it started. But for the time being at least, the Erith side remains frustratingly out of reach.<br />
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Round the bend, the path passes a cluster of industry known as the Freightmaster Industrial Estate, on the site of an old freight depot, but this is soon left behind on one of the loneliest stretches of the whole trail, as you thread between the river and the area of marshland known as Wennington Marshes. After a while, the trail turns slightly inland, temporarily losing sight of the river to follow the landward side of the river wall across Aveley Bay, once a much more watery inlet. It’s here that the second alternative route rejoins, having followed Coldharbour Lane.<br />
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About 100 m or so along Aveley Bay, the Loop crosses the Greater London boundary for the last time, leaving Havering and entering the Borough of Thurrock, once also part of Essex but since 1998 a separate unitary authority. There’s no obvious sign on the ground, although on the left, to the north, the boundary follows one of the ditches across Aveley Marsh. You might well spot Eurostars and other high speed trains whizzing across the marshes on HS1 to your left here.<br />
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Then a substantial fence marches towards you from the left, although the panels that once blocked the path have been removed. This is a reminder of an even less appealing former use than landfill. In 1906, the War Office bought the swathe of land downriver of the fence as a rifle range. Gun emplacements here were used to defend against Zeppelin raids during World War I, and beacon fires lit as decoys. Some of the structures from these times are still visible, with the site of an old gun emplacement off to the left soon after the fence. But after World War II the site was little used. As in several other places with a similar history, the military occupation had the side effect of leaving the natural environment relatively undisturbed, and in 2000 the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) took advantage of this by acquiring the former defence lands as its Rainham Marshes <a href="https://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves-and-events/find-a-reserve/reserves-a-z/reserves-by-name/r/rainhammarshes/">nature reserve</a>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTw30dZAe5R-XE8B_PGrVfFJD7WuLrwnIpUgkKK3BsGBnP446R7Sd_KTiQW-OqCFCi2Ia4FV_q3M3fZnd04n_cVgKzMlwwGF0HlEF60rSA2SKWdA0ErdaZsl7Yc1HFA1EufWZgcL2s_Ow/s1600/rspbrainham.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTw30dZAe5R-XE8B_PGrVfFJD7WuLrwnIpUgkKK3BsGBnP446R7Sd_KTiQW-OqCFCi2Ia4FV_q3M3fZnd04n_cVgKzMlwwGF0HlEF60rSA2SKWdA0ErdaZsl7Yc1HFA1EufWZgcL2s_Ow/s400/rspbrainham.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">RSPB visitor centre, Rainham Marshes.</td></tr>
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The reserve opened to the public in 2008, and you’ll soon see its rather unobtrusive infrastructure of boardwalks and hides appearing on the landward side. The star species here are avocet, lapwing, little egret, peregrine and ringed plover, and the wetlands also support water voles, grass snakes and dragonflies. There’s an admission charge if you’re not an RSPB member, but you have a good view from the trail. This now runs back alongside the river for a while then splits again: the official route is along the lower path on the left, closer to the reserve, and there are notices deterring you from the upper path, but no actual blockages, so you may prefer to spend more time closer to the Thames.<br />
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Soon visible ahead, although well-camouflaged, is the reserve visitor centre, designed by van Heyningen & Haward architects to be as sustainable as possible. The distinctive conical structures on the roof are part of a natural light and ventilation system, and the design also features solar cells, rainwater collection and a ground source heat pump. Open free to the public, this is a third highly recommended stop on today’s walk: inside you’ll find extensive information and displays, an inviting volunteer-staffed café and massive windows providing a fine view over the marshes.<br />
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The trail turns away from the river to pass the visitor centre entrance and cross one final Thames tributary. This is the Mardyke, which rises in Holden’s Wood between Great and Little Warley, and flows for around 18 km. Its name means ‘boundary ditch’, and for much of its length it formed parish boundaries. Until 2010, it was something of a barrier here, necessitating a diversion further inland to get across, but now there’s a convenient cycle- and footbridge, funded by the Veolia Trust and known as the Veolia Mardyke Bridge. Crossing this, you’ll pass through the Sun Arch which, together with the adjacent wave-themed seats, was designed by artist Edward Allington.<br />
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There are paths along much of the Mardyke, and a partially-completed project to upgrade them into a walking and cycling trail, the Mardyke Way, which links with the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/london-countryway-1617a-west-horndon.html">London Countryway at Orsett</a>. If you try following the Mardyke from here, though, you won’t get very far before the way is blocked, so if you want to explore this option, it’s best to continue along the Loop a little further into Purfleet.<br />
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<h3>
Purfleet</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gumpowder Magazine No 5, now the Purfleet Heritage and Military Centre.</td></tr>
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In Bram Stoker’s seminal Gothic novel <i>Dracula</i>, first published in 1897, estate agent Jonathan Harker describes a potential property of interest to his mysterious client, the Transylvanian Count Dracula, who unbeknown to him is a bloodsucking immortal vampire:<br />
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<blockquote>
“At Purfleet, on a byroad, I came across just such a place as seemed to be required, and where was displayed a dilapidated notice that the place was for sale. It was surrounded by a high wall, of ancient structure, built of heavy stones, and has not been repaired for a large number of years. The closed gates are of heavy old oak and iron, all eaten with rust. The estate is called Carfax, no doubt a corruption of the old Quatre Face, as the house is four sided, agreeing with the cardinal points of the compass…The house is very large and of all periods back, I should say, to mediaeval times, for one part is of stone immensely thick, with only a few windows high up and heavily barred with iron. It looks like part of a keep, and is close to an old chapel or church…There are but few houses close at hand, one being a very large house only recently added to and formed into a private lunatic asylum."</blockquote>
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Dracula buys the house, and has 50 large boxes delivered to it, which he then distributes to several other properties he has discreetly acquired around London. The boxes are coffins of Transylvanian soil to be used as refuges for the vampire as he proceeds to infiltrate the Victorian establishment. The driver who collects the boxes from Carfax is astonished at the Count’s vigour:<br />
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<blockquote>
“There was the old party what engaged me a waitin’ in the ‘ouse at Purfleet. He ‘elped me to lift the boxes and put them in the dray. Curse me, but he was the strongest chap I ever struck, an’ him a old feller, with a white moustache, one that thin you would think he couldn’t throw a shadder…Why, ‘e took up ‘is end o’ the boxes like they was pounds of tea, and me a puffin’ an’ a blowin’ afore I could upend mine anyhow, an’ I’m no chicken, neither.”</blockquote>
Dracula recruits Renfield, one of the patients in the adjacent asylum, as his thrall. The doctor in charge of Renfield's case, John Seward, is a would-be suitor of one of the vampire's victims, Lucy Westenra, and teams with his former mentor Professor Abraham van Helsing and with Harker in an attempt to save her.<br />
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The house, which for added Gothic atmosphere became Carfax Abbey in the famous 1931 Universal film and in several subsequent adaptations, turns out to be fictitious, though Stoker drew on fact. Local historian Jonathan Catton, of Thurrock Museum, says (in ‘<a href="https://www.thurrock.gov.uk/historical-places-in-thurrock/purfleets-dracula-connection" target="_blank">Purfleet’s Dracula Connection</a>’, a fascinating piece on the Thurrock website from 1997), a house known as Carfax stood in Purfleet until 1980, though it wasn’t built until 1900 and didn’t match the description in the novel.<br />
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Instead, Catton identifies the original inspiration for the vampire’s lair as Purfleet House, not mediaeval in origin but built in 1791 for brewing magnate Samuel Whitbread, who at that time owned extensive property in the village. The house was sited in a former chalk quarry, secluded from surrounding streets, and the philanthropically-inclined Whitbread built a chapel and school next door. By the 1890s the site was a minor visitor attraction for day trippers, who could obtain the key from the caretaker and explore the winding paths and grottoes in the grounds.<br />
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Catton suggests Stoker may have been among the visitors, on a day off from his duties as acting manager at the Lyceum Theatre. He identifies the asylum with Ordnance House, a secure building nearby which was the residence of the Clerk of the Royal Gunpowder Magazines. Purfleet House was demolished in stages in the 1920s and 1950s, Ordnance House in the 1960s, although the chapel and school buildings, now private homes, still stand and are Grade II-listed. <br />
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The above account touches on several important aspects of Purfleet’s history: chalk, gunpowder, the Victorian leisure industry and the presence of the Whitbreads. In mediaeval times, it was a small riverside hamlet and manor of West Thurrock parish in the Chafford hundred of Essex. The parish centre was further east, under what’s now the suburban sprawl on the other side of the M25. The economy then was largely based on grazing and market gardening on the marshes, but from at least the 15th century chalk was dug from the large deposit that rises here as a cliff to the immediate north of the marshes, and kilned to produce lime for agricultural and building use. The convenience of transport on the nearby river encouraged this industrial development, and by the end of the 19th century there were major concrete works in the area.<br />
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In 1760, the government also took advantage of the river to build the Royal Gunpowder Magazine at the mouth of the Mardyke on its east bank, a storage facility replacing one at Greenwich. When the Royal Gunpowder Mills at Waltham Abbey (on the London Countryway) were opened in 1787, powder was shipped down the rivers Lea and Thames for storage here. Later it arrived by rail, with a private rail system connected to the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway (LT&SR). At its height in the 1890s, the 10 ha site housed around 3,200 tonnes of gunpowder and cordite in seven magazines, with more in disused ships moored in the river. Remarkably, it suffered no serious accidents before its closure in 1962.<br />
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The railway facilitated not only industry but leisure, with cheap excursion tickets sold at weekends bringing Londoners to the various local watering holes and to the pleasure gardens, also operated by Whitbread, that now covered another part of the old chalk quarry.<br />
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All this is hard to imagine today, as Purfleet suffers from the same malaise that affects many other parts of Thurrock, named the most miserable local authority area in England following a government survey in 2012. The modern-day bloodsuckers that cast their pall over the place are economic and political. I noted at Tilbury, <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/london-countryway-via-tilbury-town.html">on an alternative section of the London Countryway</a>, the woes of a deindustrialised zone that misses the benefit of being part of London by lying just outside it. There have been attempts to cheer the area up, notably by the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, which in 2010 established a scenery production facility on the edge of town, since evolved into the flourishing High House Production Park. Purfleet isn’t as dilapidated as Tilbury, and most of the Loop’s route is through a conservation area, but there are still signs of boarded-up neglect. <br />
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The trail rounds the worn-looking 1970s Garrison Estate that replaced the gunpowder magazine, soon passing one of the surviving red brick heritage buildings. This is Magazine No 5, built in 1759, which was kept for storage when the estate was built, and saved following a local campaign in the 1990s. It opened in 1994 as the <a href="http://www.purfleet-heritage.com/" target="_blank">Purfleet Heritage and Military Centre</a>, and survives in this role today, with an old shell casing and other exhibits on display outside. It’s open on Thursday and Sundays, staffed entirely by volunteers, and contains displays not only on the Gunpowder Magazines but on other aspects of local history, including the rifle range, Whitbread and the Dracula connection.<br />
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A little past this, near the beacon in Riverside Gardens, you have one last opportunity to admire the Thames before turning your back on it. The trail winds past the Royal Hotel, rebuilt in grand style with a stucco façade on the site of an earlier pub by Whitbread in the early 19th century, and still in use as a hotel today.<br />
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Opposite where you emerge on the High Street beside the hotel is a war memorial and open space, and beyond it St Stephen’s Church. This was built in the 1920s by the Whitbread family, from masonry largely recycled from partially demolishing Purfleet House. So the church is now the epicentre of the Dracula connection, somewhat ironically given the traditional vampire aversion to Christianity. There’s the opportunity for a detour not only to the church but to the historic Whitbread buildings in Church Hollow behind it. If you want to follow the Mardyke, it’s best to leave the riverside a little earlier, following Tank Hill Road and Tank Lane.<br />
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And finally, the London Loop reaches its conclusion rather anti-climatically, at Purfleet station a little further along London Road. The station was opened in 1854 as the next stop down from Rainham on the same stretch of the LT&SR, though the current rather undistinguished single storey yellow brick building, with large rectangles of forbidding grey shutters, is from the 1960s. It’s quite a schlep to link the two ends of the trail by public transport from here, though not quite as bad as it once was, thanks to the Docklands Light Railway (DLR). You’ll need to take a c2c National Rail train to West Ham, the DLR under the river to Woolwich Arsenal, then Southeastern National Rail to Erith, where, if you wish, you can start all over again. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6E1I43hFYwas_VAbQ8CQJL0x6lGGcGQMyyqbiOkNEW_R5uIgBtXpbfMdTidFt1An6iChzyGWLvrWt6F-CcLdZe1gFUCT-ANrP6RvRyu5qm3OPTjkKERbc0lq6E-op_ib4JC5zCA66qmw/s1600/purfleetstation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6E1I43hFYwas_VAbQ8CQJL0x6lGGcGQMyyqbiOkNEW_R5uIgBtXpbfMdTidFt1An6iChzyGWLvrWt6F-CcLdZe1gFUCT-ANrP6RvRyu5qm3OPTjkKERbc0lq6E-op_ib4JC5zCA66qmw/s640/purfleetstation.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Purfleet station, the rather unimpressive end point of the London Loop.</td></tr>
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<h3>
Looping the Loop</h3>
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To write these posts, I walked the London Loop for the third time. Strictly speaking, though, the Loop didn’t yet exist on my first time round.<br />
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In the early 1990s, I stumbled on a leaflet published by the London Walking Forum, the pioneering partnership between local authorities and volunteer bodies that championed a coordinated approach to walking in London at a time when coordinated government in the capital had been abolished by Thatcherite spite. The leaflet included a map illustrating the Forum’s plans for a network of green London trails, some already in existence, some planned, some aspirational. That map was a revelation, and I set about walking all the existing routes shown on it that hadn’t already passed beneath my feet.<br />
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At that stage, the Loop and its sister trail the Capital Ring were merely gleams in the Forum members’ eyes, still known by the rather more prosaic titles Outer Orbital Path and Inner Orbital Path respectively. The map was certainly not a practical walking guide: it fitted the whole of Greater London onto an A4 sheet, and the only additional details besides the route lines were a few place names, the Thames and the borough boundaries.<br />
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But it was clear that the orbital routes were planned largely to make use of paths and access that already existed: indeed, sections of them followed already recognised trails like the Cray Riverway and the Green Chain Walk, and obvious features like rivers, canals and the ‘Greenway’ sewer. By carefully comparing the route map with more detailed street atlases and Ordnance Survey maps, it was possible to work out with some degree of accuracy where they were intended to go. And this is how I became one of the first people outside the London Walking Forum to walk the London Loop.<br />
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I walked the trail again in the early 2000s when the first edition of David Sharp’s guidebook was published, and then completed sections of it yet again over the years, sometimes because I was leading walks along it for Walk London. The only section, incidentally, completely new to me this time round was the final riverside one between Rainham and Purfleet, which was inaccessible until 2009 or so.<br />
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Based on these excursions, I developed a View of the London Loop which I expressed in print on a couple of occasions. My View was that the Loop was fine, but the Ring was much better. The Ring, I reasoned, was an unavoidably and unashamedly urban walk, constantly challenging expectations about urban walking by revealing London’s surprisingly extensive reserves of green space and a succession of ‘I never knew this existed’ features that you’d only ever find on foot. But the Loop, with its mix of large green urban fringe spaces, genuine countryside and inevitable built-up areas, seemed neither one thing nor the other.<br />
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People who liked country walking would enjoy the more rural bits, then carp about lengths of waterside tarmac and complain bitterly about streets and industrial estates. Less prepared walkers meanwhile found themselves grappling with muddy paths, rickety stiles, absent waymarks, ferocious nettle patches and all the other dubious pleasures of a classic English ramble. And to the would-be flaneur, the urban bits were not the multi-layered and vibrant streets of the inner city, but the apparently undifferentiated sprawl of boring old middle class suburbia.<br />
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Having walked the Loop again, this time digging into the background of the areas it passes through in considerable detail as I went, I can say I enjoyed it much more than I expected to. Yes, there are still issues, particularly where golf courses and interwar residential streets lap across the desire line or major roads sever paths. The sections between Banstead Downs and Warren Farm, between Bushy Park and Hospital Bridge, and up and down the A1 are a particular drudge in this respect.<br />
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On the other hand, if you find yourself sinking ankle deep into the mud at Pinnerwood, you may recall the kilometres of identikit semis with fondness. But such issues only trouble a minority of the Loop’s total length, and elsewhere there’s so much to enjoy, in terms of views, wildlife, natural beauty, landscaping or often-overlooked heritage. It’s still gobsmacking that environments like Rainham Marshes, Farthing Down and the Wellingtonia avenue in Havering Country Park can be found within the bounds of London.<br />
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And in the end London’s fascination is surely in its variety. Suburbia is as much a part of this great city’s story as its Roman and mediaeval core and its inner Victorian ‘villages’ and post-industrial zones. Seeing the way that the streets simply stop just north of Cockfosters, the result of the conjunction of historical circumstances that locked the built-up area into its current envelope while simultaneously preserving the magnificent adjoining country park, itself the result of successive waves of world history overlaying the natural endowment of the Forest of Middlesex, is surely as instructive as stumbling on urban woodlands and commons or tracing the industrial footprint of the East End on the Ring. All environments have something to teach the observant walker, and those on the Loop are no exception.<br />
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I concluded my writeup of the London Countryway with a rather lengthy reflection on the stories and places visited. If I did the same thing here, I might easily find myself writing an alternative version of the entire past 16 posts. So, to indulge a personal preference, I’ve picked out a dozen places along the way which I quite likely would never have found without the Loop, and which I’m delighted to revisit again and again, as they’re just so surprising, and so beautiful.<br />
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1. <b>Hall Place, Bexley</b> (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/london-loop-1-erith-bexley.html">section 1</a>), a haphazard but delightful building, well- refurbished in a riverside setting, with bizarre topiary to enjoy.<br />
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2. <b>Scadbury Park moated manor</b> (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/london-loop-2-bexley-petts-wood.html">section 2</a>), a pile of very significant old stones in surely one of the most rural parts of Zone 5, with links to Christopher Marlowe and Elizabethan intrigue.<br />
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3. <b>The Wilberforce Oak</b> (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/london-loop-3-petts-wood-hayes.html">section 3</a>), a significant site in the development of civilisation, tucked away in Bromley’s countryside and only reachable on foot.<br />
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4. <b>Farthing Down</b> (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/london-loop-56-hamsey-green-coulsdon.html">section 5</a>), London’s very own chalk down, with prehistoric heritage. Adjacent Happy Valley lives up to its name too.<br />
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5. <b>The Lavender Farm</b> (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/london-loop-56-hamsey-green-coulsdon.html">section 6</a>), because where else would you expect to find fields full of commercially-grown lavender but in the London Borough of Sutton?<br />
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6. <b>St Dunstan’s, Cranford Park</b> (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/london-loop-1112-kingston-hatton-cross.html">section 10</a>), where the lad himself, Tony Hancock’s ashes are scattered close to the river Crane, a Georgian coach house, and the roaring M4.<br />
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7. <b>Hatch End Station</b> (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/london-loop-1314-harefield-moor-park.html">sections 14/15</a>), a miniature Romanesque masterpiece that’s all the more impressive for being so unexpected, thought by some the most attractive station in England.<br />
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8. <b>The Obelisk, Trent Park</b> (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2016/10/london-loop-17-cockfosters-enfield-lock.html">section 17)</a>: its setting, with a keyhole view of the house across sweeping parkland, is a monument to the tasteful flamboyance of a previous owner.<br />
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9. <b>Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge</b> (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/london-loop-1819-enfield-lock-chingford.html">section 19</a>), one of London’s most historic buildings, effectively evoking a Tudor past against the backdrop of Epping Forest.<br />
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10. <b>Wellingtonia Avenue, Havering Country Park</b> (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/london-loop-2021-chigwell-havering-atte.html">section 20</a>), lined with towering giant sequoias, one of the most awe-inspiring walkways in London and indeed the UK.<br />
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11. <b>Hornchurch Country Park</b> (section 23 above), combining intriguing fragments from its days as a wartime RAF base with a generous and rich expanse of wetland and marsh.<br />
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12. <b>Rainham Riverside</b> (section 24 above), for its improbable and unexpected collection of concrete barges and tidally-revealed public art, and its magnificent views of the Thames.<br />
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The Loop’s major flaw remains the fact that, owing to the lack of a convenient river crossing in the east, it isn’t a loop at all. On my first circuit, I was so frustrated by this that I attempted to find a way of linking the two ends via the Dartford Crossing, and I’ve revisited this idea again recently. As walkers aren’t allowed on the Queen Elizabeth II bridge, the only viable way of crossing the river here involves a bus ride, using a service that’s primarily intended to link the two massive shopping malls at Lakeside and Bluewater. There’s a good walk to be had from Hacton Bridge via several improving sites in Thames Chase Community Forest to the nearest convenient bus stop at Chafford Hundred station, and at least a couple of pleasant options from the first bus stop on the Kent side through the outskirts of Dartford to rejoin the Loop at Barnes Cray. I’d certainly recommend walking the official route first, or you’ll miss the highlights of the Thames Estuary. But for the benefit of those who understandably can’t get enough of the Loop, I’ll give more details of this alternative in future posts.<br />
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<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/london-loop-alternative-upminster.html">More about the unofficial alternative</a>.<br />
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<ul style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<li><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/5ru1dl0e22wr4im/23-24-upminster-purfleet.pdf?dl=0" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Download full route description</a> (PDF)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=ze8MGLx4VZ8Q.kz_iSyKD3QHI&usp=sharing" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">View Google map</a></li>
<li><a href="https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/walking/upminster-bridge-to-rainham" target="_blank">Official Transport for London page: Upminster Bridge to Rainham</a></li>
<li><a href="https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/walking/rainham-to-purfleet" target="_blank">Official Transport for London page: Rainham to Purfleet</a></li>
</ul>
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Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-83644939206859612302017-01-10T21:08:00.000+00:002017-11-21T16:53:09.651+00:00London Loop 22: Harold Wood - Upminster Bridge<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSQRdIvokCVni4kSHxk0w1xXOoG9fLwcVaLABZmwsGWW9eHncYYkmCai-LQSNGMCxp1TwssELD4BiNfHRXCtbdwvarCMioNep1ONVWRiznEfLLyLyVD2C9KK65g6fG4JNnhRGxbRipW88/s1600/pageswoodvegetation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSQRdIvokCVni4kSHxk0w1xXOoG9fLwcVaLABZmwsGWW9eHncYYkmCai-LQSNGMCxp1TwssELD4BiNfHRXCtbdwvarCMioNep1ONVWRiznEfLLyLyVD2C9KK65g6fG4JNnhRGxbRipW88/s640/pageswoodvegetation.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pages Wood, the largest site in Thames Chase Community Forest.</td></tr>
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The London Loop has now turned decisively back towards the Thames, and this short section follows the valley of Thames tributary the river Ingrebourne, though not always on riverside paths. It begins with two contrasting green spaces: a large traditional urban public park and a newer, more rugged area of community woodland that also serves as an introduction to Thames Chase Community Forest. On the other side of the Southend Arterial Road it descends to the Ingrebourne itself, tracking the edge of the last proper fields on the trail within sight of Upminster windmill. Just before the end, it passes one of the most important geological sites in Britain.<br />
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I couldn’t work out a way of combining this walk with those either side without splitting an official section, so I’ve left it as a short walk on its own. One useful option might be to break the previous walk at Noak Hill Road (where buses are more frequent than at the official Section 20 endpoint of Havering-atte-Bower) and combine the rest of that walk with this one. There’s a good bus option just over halfway if you want an even shorter walk.<br />
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<b style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: red;">Update November 2017</span></b><span style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "trebuchet" , "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">. Although I'd recommend first-time walkers follow the official London Loop route as described here, there is a slightly more roundabout alternative via the </span><a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/ingrebourne-way-noak-hill-upminster.html" style="background-color: #f6f6f6; color: #940f04; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Ingrebourne Way</a><span style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "trebuchet" , "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">, which is fully accessible and includes some green spaces and historic buildings not on the Loop. It doesn't pass that close to Harold Wood but there are various bus options. The later section of this is largely along roads although there's the option to revert to the Loop.</span><br />
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<h3>
Harold Wood Park</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Harold Wood Park retains its cricket ground roots, visible left.</td></tr>
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Until the late 1960s, the most prominent building in sight when leaving Harold Wood station was the Matthews Brothers Mill, opposite the main station building and to the left. This had its roots in the early years of suburbanisation, when the Matthews family first opened a shop selling animal food on Gubbins Lane in 1895. The mill, which made animal food and fertiliser, followed in 1905 and became the hub of a successful regional business. It was sold to Unilever in 1963 then closed and demolished in 1968, after which the present houses and flats were built on the site.</div>
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The mill’s owners were generous supporters of Harold Wood Cricket Club, formed the year after their shop opened, and the club played a role in the creation of the first green space along today’s section, <a href="https://www3.havering.gov.uk/Pages/ServiceChild/Parks--Harold-Wood-Park.aspx" target="_blank">Harold Wood Park</a>. To reach it, you’ll need to double back on the other side of the railway, past streets with names like Athelstan Road and Ethelburga Road, commemorating the area’s Anglo-Saxon past. There were two female Saxon saints named Æthelburh with local connections: an East Anglian princess who died in 664, and the first abbess of Barking Abbey in the 670s. Æthelstan ruled England from 927-939.<br />
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The core of the park dates from 1934, when a local landowner, Edward Bryant, donated farmland to what was then Hornchurch Urban District Council on condition that it was used for cricket. The cricket club still plays in the park today, although the site has been much expanded around the cricket facilities, particularly in the late 1950s and early 1960s to cater for the growing population. It’s now a relatively large urban park of 19.4 ha. Much is given over to sports pitches, but the field divisions and hedgerow lines of the site’s agricultural past have been preserved and there are some attractive rows of trees, including a weeping willow avenue planted to aid drainage after the Great Storm of 1987 brought down many of the veteran trees.<br />
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The park has benefited from recent refurbishments and now holds Green Flag status. One of the more curious recent additions is a set of oral history notice boards transcribing the reminiscences of park users, from very young children to people who remember being in the park when World War II broke out in 1939. It’s a shame nobody thought of a more imaginative way of presenting these, as I doubt the large slabs of text are often read, but collectively they give an excellent account of the value of public spaces like this to the local community.<br />
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It’s in a corner of the park that the Loop first encounters the river Ingrebourne, the penultimate major Thames tributary along the way, and one that will stay close throughout most of the rest of the trail. The river rises in Essex, just south of Brentwood, and is joined just after it’s passed under the M25 by a longer tributary, the Weald Brook, which rises in what’s now Weald Country Park near South Weald. Its second major tributary is the Paynes Brook, which the Loop followed towards the end of the last section, though the confluence is off the trail, in the industrial estate just before Harold Wood station. From the park, the river flows in a slight bow, first southeast then southwest, via Upminster Bridge, Hornchurch Country Park and Rainham, joining the Thames on Rainham Marshes, a total distance of 43.3 km.</div>
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<br />
<h3>
Pages Wood</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4dwWCpUB2QFtKtNCCQbSUYD2D6Atwc7B0LGA3Z14Lgpn5oA7Kpq2e8Huao00sd9hePZO0dgZM6zEIyMZzUVmKqbgJLFeocRp3DjzD1Uw-JPlfd0j9-TjPnQEMg1c2OcJVogg0CHGWZ8c/s1600/pageswoodposts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4dwWCpUB2QFtKtNCCQbSUYD2D6Atwc7B0LGA3Z14Lgpn5oA7Kpq2e8Huao00sd9hePZO0dgZM6zEIyMZzUVmKqbgJLFeocRp3DjzD1Uw-JPlfd0j9-TjPnQEMg1c2OcJVogg0CHGWZ8c/s400/pageswoodposts.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The rainbow arch has been replaced with more prosaic signing at Pages Wood.</td></tr>
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The Loop leaves Harold Wood park on a footbridge across the Ingrebourne, installed in 2006 to link with <a href="http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/englandessexnoforestthameschasecommunityforestpageswood" target="_blank">Pages Wood</a> on the other side of the river. This is also the trail’s entry into <a href="http://www.thameschase.org.uk/" target="_blank">Thames Chase Community Forest</a>, the second (after Watling Chase, first encountered on section 15) and by far the most visible of the community forests along the way. I discussed the project at some length on the stretch of the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/london-countryway-15b-brentwood-west.html">London Countryway between Brentwood and West Horndon</a>, so I’ll only summarise here.<br />
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Thames Chase, one of 12 community forests in England, was designated in 1990 over almost 100 km2 of green belt, brownfield sites and derelict land in the London Boroughs of Barking & Dagenham, and Havering, and the Essex districts of Brentwood and Thurrock (the last now a unitary authority), with a remit to increase tree cover in the area from 4% to 30% over 40 years as well as improving access, recreation and conditions for wildlife. Originally all the forests had government funding but that has long expired and many have struggled in the new era of local authority austerity.<br />
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The two London forests face additional challenges from administrative quirks. They were established at a time when there was no cross-London government, but now find themselves straddling the boundaries of territories with very different ways of doing highly relevant things like the strategic development of green space, nature conservation and active travel. Though the various landowning bodies continue to support their own sites, funding for central coordination at Thames Chase has been much reduced, with some local council contributions now completely withdrawn. The work continues thanks to the heroic efforts of the Thames Chase Trust, an independent charity now responsible for coordinating the project that’s proved adept at finding funds from other sources and mobilising volunteers and communities.<br />
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When I last checked, a few years back and already well over halfway to the 2030 target, over 2 million new trees had been planted in Thames Chase, with woodland cover now at 8%, twice what it was but well short of the 15% it should have been by now. Nonetheless, the Forest project has made a major contribution to the growth and interconnection of accessible green space in the area, including a portfolio of extensive, user-friendly and consequently very popular Forestry Commission sites.<br />
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At 74 ha, Pages Wood is the largest of these, created from two farms, Mount Pleasant and Pages Farm, bought by the Commission in the late 1990s. Originally the trail passed across the bridge and under a ‘gateway feature’ in the shape of a rainbow-painted arch, still mentioned in the Transport for London walk description but since removed due to vandalism, as are some of the carved wooden benches which originally brightened the site.<br />
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Despite this, the stretch through Pages Wood is a pleasant one, on gravelly multi-user tracks which accommodate cycles and wheelchairs but are still comfortable to walk on. The environment is more mixed than the name suggests, as the design intersperses patches of wood with meadows and broad grassy strips alongside the paths, so even when the 100,000-plus new trees have matured fully, there will still be a sense of openness. Our path parallels the Ingrebourne, not always obvious behind hedgerows off to the right, and shortly the Ingrebourne Way walking and cycling route, introduced in the last section, rejoins from the left. Further on, the trail is forced away from the main stream to cross a small tributary, finally winding its way out of the site and along Hall Lane.<br />
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<h3>
Upminster Hall</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDL1ZNFDajUkyH7Abkz9VJ-34uKwP8JwpH5IC6xsnYBjHUtFuaRUu5G8UbkktV5c7Dt0QR3qtOEYKB3X_Dhx_83uH6JcKDXfQwh_ORxlJ-bcE2h6MG_GZW4GQevP8KDgoP0XHpH3l_mQs/s1600/ingrebourne.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDL1ZNFDajUkyH7Abkz9VJ-34uKwP8JwpH5IC6xsnYBjHUtFuaRUu5G8UbkktV5c7Dt0QR3qtOEYKB3X_Dhx_83uH6JcKDXfQwh_ORxlJ-bcE2h6MG_GZW4GQevP8KDgoP0XHpH3l_mQs/s640/ingrebourne.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">River Ingrebourne glimpsed through the willows at the foot of River Drive.</td></tr>
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When the Loop crosses the Ingrebourne into Pages Wood, it’s not only entering the community forest but the old manor of Upminster Hall. Today, Upminster is part of the London Borough of Havering, but historically it was a separate parish from the Royal Liberty of Havering described in the previous section, with the river running between them.<br />
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Upminster was a long, thin parish quartered by two main roads: a north-south route roughly parallel to the river, of which Hall Lane now forms the northern part; and the road now known as St Mary’s Lane, running east from Hornchurch, crossing the Ingrebourne at Upminster Bridge and continuing towards Cranham, the next parish east. At some point during the Anglo-Saxon period, a village centre developed where these routes crossed, on the high ground of the eastern side of the valley above the river: the name Upminster means ‘church in a high place.’<br />
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There were three manors in the parish, with Upminster Hall occupying nearly all the land north of St Mary’s Lane. Along with 16 other manors, it was gifted by Earl Harold in the mid-11th century to support the religious house he’d founded at what’s now Waltham Abbey. It was the property of the abbey until Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536, when the king gave it to his chief minister Thomas Cromwell.<br />
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It remained a rural manor under various private owners until the early 20th century when the land was broken up and much of it sold for development, beginning in the south, close to Upminster station and the historic village centre, which rapidly grew into the nucleus of a suburban town. But here in the north, substantial areas of land remained undeveloped into the Green Belt era. There are still fields on both sides of Hall Lane, which the Loop now follows south for some time.<br />
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The lane is soon interrupted by a 20th century intrusion, the Southend Arterial Road (A127), opened in 1925, one of several trunk roads from this period encountered on the Loop. It was built as a branch of Eastern Avenue, the A12, from Gallows Corner at Harold Hill, to provide a faster route from London to Southend, superseding the old road via Tilbury, the A13. By the end of the 20th century, a newly widened and bypassed A13 had reclaimed its role as the preferred Southend route and the A127 was ‘detrunked’, though it’s still a busy route for shorter distance traffic. Originally it was a single carriageway with a simple flat junction where it crossed Hall Lane: it was dualled by the end of the 1920s and the current flyover junction, which now deflects you off your route a little, was finally opened in 1966.<br />
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On the other side are more fields with views of Canary Wharf, and the attractively named Strawberry Farm, which does indeed offer pick-your-own strawberries in season, as well as a pumpkin patch for Hallowe’en. Reaching houses, the Loop follows a residential street parallel to, but set back from, Hall Lane. This was one of the last patches of housing built on the former Upminster Hall estate, in the 1950s, and is now the northern limit of Upminster’s built up area.<br />
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Reaching the junction with Avon Road (the roads in this small estate are named after rivers: there’s even a Fleet Close), the Ingrebourne Way and the Loop separate for a while. The former, obliged to provide a suitable route for cyclists, simply continues along Hall Lane towards Upminster town centre (more about following the Ingrebourne Way as an alternative <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/ingrebourne-way-noak-hill-upminster.html">here</a>). A short distance along, and just off the Loop, is a large public open space, Upminster Playing Fields.<br />
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In the southern part of this, some distance from the road, is Upminster Hall itself, the old manor house. It’s a Grade II*-listed timber-framed building, parts of which date from the 15th century, though it’s now used as the golf course clubhouse. Nearby and closer to the road is a 45 m-long thatched barn, also from the 15th century, known as the <a href="http://upminstertithebarn.co.uk/" target="_blank">Tithe Barn</a> although there’s no evidence it was ever used to collect tithes. It’s now a ‘Museum of Nostalgia’ housing a collection of everyday objects from Roman times to the present.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjARA6pFvILQ3mI5XVYF8bExlkgC_8yfHTj4jJaNjkiqNMhnGbt95kt4jhVcjQ0k0qhTmeVeiWYW0Ki3vIl9IsWCaN-r0xxQCJiPshEz4A7FX3hJPzZTYkA1dSW9IPPP7Kxufg5wyDPsQk/s1600/riverdrive.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjARA6pFvILQ3mI5XVYF8bExlkgC_8yfHTj4jJaNjkiqNMhnGbt95kt4jhVcjQ0k0qhTmeVeiWYW0Ki3vIl9IsWCaN-r0xxQCJiPshEz4A7FX3hJPzZTYkA1dSW9IPPP7Kxufg5wyDPsQk/s400/riverdrive.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vintage lampposts along River Drive.</td></tr>
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The Loop, meanwhile, follows an intriguing walkers-only route which begins by descending the valley again along River Drive, an unremarkable residential street except for its vintage lamp standards with swan-neck brackets. Where the tarmac runs out, the route continues ahead as a rather rough path running steeply downhill through a patch of surviving woodland. This ends at a picturesque spot where a footbridge crosses the Ingrebourne back into the old Havering Liberty. The river here runs along the bottom of a field, and the Loop once again follows it downstream.<br />
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The next field along has been commandeered as a playing field by Emerson Park School, which glowers rather forbiddingly at the top of the slope to the right. But through the next hedgerow there are more arable fields. Finally, the path is forced up the valley again, along the field edge away from the river, with glimpses of Upminster Windmill over to the left, to reach an alleyway back to the streets. But it’s worth pausing a minute to savour the rolling and remarkably rural scene, as these are the last ‘proper’ agricultural fields on the trail.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiubcumiqjJJV1K9xFFs7Ymgtdw8J1-ahnf9VWKrC08yjYPWfr7ZWq2DA8S8aJdJqBSnVJI6-U93gU9C8J67wZaw0tZ-_hrsHb9h1LrWbn0SfCf-t-0OVP5xoMmTwvBUHab5rLaYqH_FkM/s1600/hornchurchfields.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiubcumiqjJJV1K9xFFs7Ymgtdw8J1-ahnf9VWKrC08yjYPWfr7ZWq2DA8S8aJdJqBSnVJI6-U93gU9C8J67wZaw0tZ-_hrsHb9h1LrWbn0SfCf-t-0OVP5xoMmTwvBUHab5rLaYqH_FkM/s640/hornchurchfields.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The last fields on the London Loop climb up the Ingrebourne Valley near Hornchurch.</td></tr>
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<h3>
To Upminster Bridge</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYzssejgTPX1PMlY0YVfrXk5xF0v2yH4U79EK0Y7u5pnVzFjvuo-TfHqVR0hHiChH5PWQG4RFrqRGJ1JKRd431jbr2G8TL7KTdJ26MQ1knR6PthwV5hYnJMedaFtKLVius9z6hlhGLThA/s1600/hornchurchcutting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYzssejgTPX1PMlY0YVfrXk5xF0v2yH4U79EK0Y7u5pnVzFjvuo-TfHqVR0hHiChH5PWQG4RFrqRGJ1JKRd431jbr2G8TL7KTdJ26MQ1knR6PthwV5hYnJMedaFtKLVius9z6hlhGLThA/s640/hornchurchcutting.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hornchurch Cutting, where evidence of the Anglian ice sheet is revealed.</td></tr>
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The walk concludes with a short section through residential streets between Hornchurch and Upminster. Shortly it crosses a bridge over a single track railway: the Romford to Upminster Line, one of the more obscure backwaters of London’s transport system. A mere 5.4 km long, it was built as a branch line by the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway in 1893 to provide a link with the Great Eastern Railway, originally with no intermediate stops: Emerson Park was added in 1909.<br />
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Narrowly avoiding closure in the 1960s, it became one of the lines transferred to Transport for London’s control in 2015, and is now operated as part of the London Overground, though with no connections to any other Overground lines, and with only half-hourly shuttle trains that take nine minutes to complete their journey. With Romford soon to find itself on the Elizabeth Line (formerly Crossrail), this little-known stub could enjoy a new lease of life.<br />
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But there’s much more of interest here than a minor railway line, although it’s difficult to see. Several times on these pages I’ve mentioned that during the last glacial period, the ice sheets rolled as far south as Hornchurch, reshaping the geology of the London area, and this site provides the evidence. During the construction of the cutting in 1892, local geologist T V Holmes, of the Essex Field Club, noted the excavations had exposed a 5 m layer of boulder clay, of a type now known as Hornchurch Till, topped with gravels that could only have been laid down by glaciation. Furthermore, the configuration of the layers showed that the upper river terrace of the Thames was formed after the ice sheet deposits, providing evidence that as the ice retreated, the river shifted from its original course through the Vale of St Albans to its current route through what is now London.<br />
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Subsequent investigations found rocks and fossils carried by the ice from the Midlands, and confirmed this was indeed the southern edge of the Anglian ice sheet, which reached this point about 450,000 years ago. Evidence of ice has also been found nearby at the more southerly site of the Dell, south of St Andrew’s church in central Hornchurch. The stretch of cutting south of the tracks and west of the bridge, on the right once you’ve crossed the line, is now a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest, though given its location alongside a working railway it’s understandably closed to the public.<br />
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This section ends at Upminster Bridge station, which as it’s on the west side of the Ingrebourne is technically in Hornchurch, though most locals will think of this as Upminster. The Loop continues across Upminster Bridge itself and approaches closer to the famous windmill, so I’ll cover these features in more detail later – but you might well have time on your hands after walking such a short section, and a visit to the mill, not far away at the top of the hill to the east, might be a good way to fill it.<br />
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When the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway (LTSR) first opened its route through this area from Fenchurch Street in 1885, Hornchurch and Upminster were small towns surrounded by countryside, so there were no stations between them. But the railway itself prompted development, especially after 1902 when a new line from Whitechapel to Bromley-by-Bow provided a through connection to the District Railway through central London. A second set of tracks for local services was built alongside the old LTSR lines in the early 1930s, and several new stations added, including Upminster Bridge, which opened in 1934. Today, National Rail trains operated by c2c run fast between Barking and Upminster, while the London Underground District Line serves the intermediate stops.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDZodFIKZINAV-ofc2JWI9jxI71HJsbT-cJl6iyODV4TYAxxZmR4EXP7afyz_IySUYZSeE_Zo0hJQfzbEInbGoTrQlkGbP1kvfSQH5fmo30vm8X-uWLcKaVkF4qgDIaA_0CX3FIIj2G5M/s1600/upminsterbridge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDZodFIKZINAV-ofc2JWI9jxI71HJsbT-cJl6iyODV4TYAxxZmR4EXP7afyz_IySUYZSeE_Zo0hJQfzbEInbGoTrQlkGbP1kvfSQH5fmo30vm8X-uWLcKaVkF4qgDIaA_0CX3FIIj2G5M/s400/upminsterbridge.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The surprising swastika at Upminster Bridge station.</td></tr>
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Upminster Bridge, now something like the 13th least busy station on the Underground, retains its attractively compact 1930s polygonal station building and tastefully tiled interior. One of its features of interest is a vintage K2 red telephone kiosk, the only one inside an Underground booking hall. Rather more striking is the decorative tiling on the floor in front of the ticket barriers, in the unmistakable shape of a swastika.<br />
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Today, the swastika is indelibly associated with fascism, racism and genocide through its appropriation by the National Socialist Party in 1930s Germany, but it was originally an ancient Hindu symbol of good fortune, and a relatively common element in architectural decoration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some swastikas which predate Nazi associations have subsequently been discreetly removed. This is one of those that remain, respecting the integrity of the original design, though it’s hard to imagine a time when it will once again be viewed as the attractively symmetrical flourish it was originally intended to be.<br />
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<ul style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<li><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/td9fucct8zjozuk/22-haroldwood-upminster.pdf?dl=0" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Download full route description</a> (PDF)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=ze8MGLx4VZ8Q.kz_iSyKD3QHI&usp=sharing" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">View Google map</a></li>
<li><a href="https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/walking/harold-wood-to-upminster-bridge" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Official Transport for London page</a></li>
</ul>
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Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-69726779644812433582016-11-29T16:58:00.001+00:002017-11-21T16:47:42.139+00:00London Loop 20/21: Chigwell - Havering-atte-Bower - Harold Wood<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaYVaDat1NS8I-VkE52fmkUyQMXDM75AHrO5-QQtiPzyL9dCCym8UIXVSJBPkw3Ssnbkrea7ylNH9B1JZBbEokM78rtIOmKYYuV_yH0ZT727VkluCAba1xJCKumTa9TKPyJ5SevABzzzI/s1600/haveringview.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaYVaDat1NS8I-VkE52fmkUyQMXDM75AHrO5-QQtiPzyL9dCCym8UIXVSJBPkw3Ssnbkrea7ylNH9B1JZBbEokM78rtIOmKYYuV_yH0ZT727VkluCAba1xJCKumTa9TKPyJ5SevABzzzI/s640/haveringview.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wide views west from the edge of Havering Country Park, 100 m up.</td></tr>
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Although it’s mainly within London, this walk includes some of the most rural stretches of the London Loop, along paths and tracks through rolling fields. On the way are two notable country parks: Hainault Forest, a surviving remnant of the old Forest of Essex; and Havering with its spectacular avenue of giant redwood trees. The walk continues past vanished royal estates via the pretty village of Havering-atte-Bower and through the fields to Harold Hill where the surroundings become more suburban as the trail begins its final journey back towards the river Thames.</div>
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Once again I’ve combined two shorter sections of the Loop to create a longer walk. Between Chigwell Row and the official break point at Havering-atte-Bower is on one of the longest stretches without a convenient transport option. Havering is one of the only three Loop start/end points at a bus stop rather than a station, but buses are sporadic, with no Sunday service. You may want to continue at least to Noak Hill Road, which has a much more frequent bus service, and combine the rest of this walk with the very short following section instead.<br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">Update November 2017</span></b>. Although I'd recommend first-time walkers follow the official London Loop route as described here, there is a slightly more roundabout alternative from Noak Hill via the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/ingrebourne-way-noak-hill-upminster.html">Ingrebourne Way</a>, which is fully accessible and includes some green spaces not on the Loop. Note this doesn't pass that close to Harold Wood though there are bus options.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-S6JCI-fE1c81kgCl3wXj9EoGzrNMFQNTWMSIu-jZJ-wfUG_WnYrwH24H_97VGQVE1fuK0beR-gkJijOI3qHNOvf_6du6t8DpeHT4T9Yxz2F2XERR8n6SUkTfI0tf1ed0X6xg4wy02Qc/s1600/chigwellkingshead.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-S6JCI-fE1c81kgCl3wXj9EoGzrNMFQNTWMSIu-jZJ-wfUG_WnYrwH24H_97VGQVE1fuK0beR-gkJijOI3qHNOvf_6du6t8DpeHT4T9Yxz2F2XERR8n6SUkTfI0tf1ed0X6xg4wy02Qc/s400/chigwellkingshead.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You're fired: the Kings Head at Chigwell</td></tr>
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<h3>
Chigwell</h3>
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As mentioned in the previous section, Chigwell is an example of a village that grew a second centre following its connection to the rail network. The stretch around the station is a more recent development on the lower ground favoured by the railway, while the historic village centre is on top of the hill, further north along the High Road. There has been a settlement of some kind in this commanding position beside the old road from London to Abridge and Epping, which closely follows an old Roman route, since at least Saxon times. The name likely indicates a well belonging to someone called Cicca, though the traditionally claimed site for the well itself is some way east, off Brocket Way near Grange Hill station.<br />
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The Loop climbs the hill, through what’s now a conservation area, passing several significant buildings. On the left is the drive to Chigwell Hall. This isn’t the original manor house, which was beside the river Roding on a site that later became an RAF base: the Loop passed close by in the last section. The old manor had fallen into disuse by the 17th century and the current Hall, an 1876 Grade II-listed red brick mansion by architect R Norman Shaw, is the second of two replacements. Since 1967 the site has been occupied by the Metropolitan Police sports and social club, though the house is rented out as an events venue and has a public restaurant.<br />
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Near the top of the hill, set back in its own grounds on the right, the elaborate but handsome neoclassical mansion known as Grange Court is the first of four listed buildings in the village meriting the superior Grade II* classification. It was first built in the 17th century, but its current appearance dates from a rebuild in 1774. After 1946 it was a boarding house for Chigwell School but has recently been sold for conversion to flats.<br />
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St Mary the Virgin Church, at the top of the hill on the left, is a pleasingly attractive building with its cement-rendered white walls, red roof tiles and timber-framed bell turret surmounted by an elegant spire. Much of the south aisle and chancel survives from the 12th century, with 15th century extensions including the turret and uncharacteristically sensitive and restrained Victorian additions.</div>
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The buildings of Chigwell School, just along from the church, include the original red brick school house, dating from 1619 when it was founded as a grammar school for ‘poor scholars’: it’s now an independent school for rather richer ones. Among its ex-pupils are William Penn (1644-1718), founder of the US state of Pennsylvania; native American ‘Prince George’, son of a chief of the Yamasee Confederation of South Carolina, who was sent here by missionaries to learn English in 1713; and the actor Ian Holm.<br />
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The fourth Grade II*, opposite the church, is the most celebrated building in the village. This is the Kings Head, a massive coaching inn with an exposed timber frame and a delightfully untidy array of overhanging jetties and angular gable ends. The oldest part, with a projecting oriel window on the second floor, dates from the 1620s, though there are numerous later additions, including the window itself which is a 19th century pastiche of Tudor style. The pub’s current appearance is the result of more recent intervention: photos from the early 20th century show the building was once fully rendered, and it appears the frame was only exposed in the late 1940s or early 1950s, presumably to increase its ‘olde worlde’ appeal.<br />
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Like the Leather Bottle at Cobham near Gravesend on the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/london-countryway-alternative-gravesend.html">London Countryway</a>, the Kings Head is one of several real-life pubs that feature in novels by Charles Dickens. It’s a major setting in <i>Barnaby Rudge</i> (1841), where it symbolises both the good and the bad of English tradition in a story that unfolds in Chigwell and London in the 1780s. Near the end of the novel, the pub is sacked by anti-Catholic rioters, but rises again. Dickens renames it the Maypole, but it’s still clearly recognisable:<br />
<blockquote>
The Maypole was an old building, with more gable ends than a lazy man would care to count on a sunny day; huge zig-zag chimneys, out of which it seemed as though even smoke could not choose but come in more than naturally fantastic shapes, imparted to it in its tortuous progress; and vast stables, gloomy, ruinous, and empty. The place was said to have been built in the days of King Henry the Eighth; and there was a legend…that Queen Elizabeth had slept there one night while upon a hunting excursion, to wit, in a certain oak-panelled room with a deep bay window…With its overhanging stories, drowsy little panes of glass, and front bulging out and projecting over the pathway, the old house looked as if it were nodding in its sleep. Indeed, it needed no great stretch of fancy to detect in it other resemblances to humanity.</blockquote>
It’s a sign of our own times that since 2009 the Kings Head has been owned by celebrity businessman Alan Sugar, and turned into an upmarket ‘smart dress only’ Turkish restaurant, entertainment venue and cocktail bar called Sheesh. Sugar is the most famous of the well-heeled Londoners and ‘Essex wives’ who have turned Chigwell into one point of the so-called ‘golden triangle’ in recent years, alongside Loughton and Buckhurst Hill.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIbPgaKPpPLvULjyO8xaYKREZqfOCAniy_sSGFaikjpvcr7PfHosFXk9oxSlqTlZ8-klZ5SSzQy-Uz9FDmkqwjQSaXQ4YTGRyDTAMEQjVn1XR3Tb1rekQ6t5AxJ6XArp-b3Wp-gGjErVs/s1600/chigwellwaymark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIbPgaKPpPLvULjyO8xaYKREZqfOCAniy_sSGFaikjpvcr7PfHosFXk9oxSlqTlZ8-klZ5SSzQy-Uz9FDmkqwjQSaXQ4YTGRyDTAMEQjVn1XR3Tb1rekQ6t5AxJ6XArp-b3Wp-gGjErVs/s320/chigwellwaymark.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Three Forests Way and London Loop<br />
waymarks near Chigwell</td></tr>
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Just past the pub, a footpath takes you almost immediately into meadows, emerging on Vicarage Lane. A short detour to the left here will bring you to the Dickens Tree, a wide-girthed veteran oak, perhaps 500 years old, sprouting improbably from the edge of a pavement.<br />
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The Loop takes to field paths and farm tracks on the other side of the lane, briefly joining the Three Forests Way. This sporadically signed 96 km circular trail connects the remaining patches of the Forest of Essex: Epping, Hainault and Hatfield Forests, the last to the north near Bishops Stortford and Stansted Airport. Like the Epping Forest Centenary Walk encountered in the previous section, it’s largely the work of the late Fred Matthews of Essex Ramblers, who originally devised it as the route of a walking event held in 1977 to mark the Queen’s silver jubilee. An annual challenge walk continues to this day, though now organised by the Long Distance Walkers Association using a revised route.<br />
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<h3>
Chigwell Row</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3JY4tCQGZfLVMPjnIj7wug3GS5q492psngmlQ56_uccestJ3j4eobT71dlnlZFUQVuOIGfXTgtkT4sIlFjtZJjEMn-VDPgrpsszj0e4B7qqDiFD1KZtBYznIeIWETVPsK05sdsHpgiwU/s1600/chigwellwaterworks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3JY4tCQGZfLVMPjnIj7wug3GS5q492psngmlQ56_uccestJ3j4eobT71dlnlZFUQVuOIGfXTgtkT4sIlFjtZJjEMn-VDPgrpsszj0e4B7qqDiFD1KZtBYznIeIWETVPsK05sdsHpgiwU/s640/chigwellwaterworks.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Round reservoir at Chigwell Water Works, glimpsed through a fence.</td></tr>
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Chigwell Row has long been an outlying hamlet of Chigwell in an even loftier location, on a ridge to the southeast that rises to 86 m. Originally surrounded by thick forest, it began to grow from the end of the 18th century, first when medicinal springs were found in the area, and then when a new road suitable for coaches was opened to Romford, today’s A1112. The first of its landmarks encountered on the Loop is Chigwell Row waterworks, built in 1967 and now operated by Essex & Suffolk Water. The trail tracks part of the fence around this large site, with a view of a circular concrete reservoir; elsewhere, there are 18 filter beds and a bigger, kidney-shaped reservoir. Most of the water is pumped up from the Chingford reservoirs in the Lea Valley (encountered on the last section), before being distributed over a wide area of east London and southwest Essex.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMfEAlPdyT8tHUEVSiYv30N2Uo7d3lRklnrq9tZBH56EtRd5ZAzU_VBzSrTnt4dBJXdAb9UMvS6dUBHNzOeNJf9GaZLujVO078nKieCxIw-6kelFDoHpdU2tvswEzD9VKzui9P6PmT90k/s1600/chigwellrowchapel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMfEAlPdyT8tHUEVSiYv30N2Uo7d3lRklnrq9tZBH56EtRd5ZAzU_VBzSrTnt4dBJXdAb9UMvS6dUBHNzOeNJf9GaZLujVO078nKieCxIw-6kelFDoHpdU2tvswEzD9VKzui9P6PmT90k/s400/chigwellrowchapel.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chigwell Row Chapel</td></tr>
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Along Chapel Lane you pass the eponymous chapel, a spare but rather elegant building with neo-classical flourishes. It was built as an independent nonconformist chapel allied to the Essex Congregational Union in 1804 but shows signs of extensive alteration from later in that century. It’s now administered by the United Reform Church.<br />
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Opposite the chapel, the trail winds through Chigwell Row Recreation Ground. The land here was originally part of Hainault Forest, and allocated as common land following disafforestation in the 1850s. In 1863, much of this common was inclosed and awarded to various private landowners, but a 20 ha plot was subject to the condition it was kept as a public recreation ground. This has since passed to a charitable trust of which Epping Forest District Council is now the trustee. The trail rounds but doesn’t quite enter an area of woodland immediately to the southeast which is also part of the public space, though managed separately by the council as Chigwell Row Wood Local Nature Reserve (LNR). It’s one of the few surviving fragments of the Forest that still preserves its old wooded appearance.<br />
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Rearing up ahead is All Saints Church, built on former Forest land to a design by J P Seddon in 1867, the year Chigwell Row became a separate ecclesiastical parish in response to its growing population. Though it’s not obvious from a distance, the tower is a separate building, added in 1903 – there were insufficient funds to include a tower in the original church. Developments on former forest and farmland continued apace into the 20th century, given a further boost by the 1903 Fairlop Loop railway, the same line that serves Chigwell and is now part of the London Underground Central Line – Grange Hill station is a little to the west here. Doubtless the housing would have spread over the fields along the Loop today but for the Green Belt.<br />
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The trail carefully tiptoes here around a major post-war infill development: just on the other side of Chigwell Row Wood, and now just inside London, is the vast Hainault Estate. This was one of the big post-war housing estates built outside its own territory by the London County Council, about which I’ll have a lot more to say later when we reach Harold Hill.<br />
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<h3>
Hainault Forest</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOBoKS5fQK4NZEVhAcFQLi2EabtoZvpn5BYrVaFUtWFnz32ndA5LMHFg_nwec2asVMdlDx98chS8TAlzSXKOlRtqBc8WbXyUI_z-Loj8St8AgRBOvF-rSlwUuGnDTVgs7diXN1cpQLYig/s1600/hainaultforestboundary.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOBoKS5fQK4NZEVhAcFQLi2EabtoZvpn5BYrVaFUtWFnz32ndA5LMHFg_nwec2asVMdlDx98chS8TAlzSXKOlRtqBc8WbXyUI_z-Loj8St8AgRBOvF-rSlwUuGnDTVgs7diXN1cpQLYig/s640/hainaultforestboundary.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Essex-London boundary runs left-right through Hainault Forest Country Park</td></tr>
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The earliest vague reference to Hainault Forest as a separate section of the Forest of Essex dates from the year 1130, with more definite mentions in the 1220s and 1230s. Back then it was known as Henehout or Hyneholt, meaning ‘wood belonging to a religious community’ and referring to its attachment to Barking Abbey. The current spelling derives from a 17th century misapprehension that there was some connection to Edward III’s queen, Philippa of Hainault (1310?-1369), from the mediaeval county of Hainaut in the southern Low Countries, now part of both Belgium and France.<br />
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Following Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, the land passed to the Crown, and in 1544, a perambulation of its boundaries ordered by Henry found it encompassed 12 km2, stretching from Leytonstone to Havering-atte-Bower in the east, and from Aldborough Hatch to Theydon Bois in the north. Its main function was to provide venison for the royal household, but local people also exercised certain seasonal common rights such as grazing and lopping wood.<br />
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As usual with mediaeval forests, by no means all the land was wooded, with numerous open rough grassland areas punctuated by stands of trees. There were various unofficial and strictly speaking illegal encroachments over the succeeding centuries, and mounting pressure to put the remaining ‘waste’ to more productive use. Agriculture expert and campaigner Arthur Young suggested in his 1807 <i>General View of Agriculture in Essex</i> that the forest lands would be ten times more profitable if cleared and cultivated, echoing the opinions of the various local landowners he had spoken to, including the lord of the manor of Chigwell.<br />
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In 1851, Hainualt was disafforested by act of parliament and 90% of the woodland was cleared almost immediately. As we have seen, some sections were originally reserved as commons but it wasn’t long before these too were apportioned to private owners. The rapid near-complete destruction of the forest shocked the fledgling conservation movement of the day, and helped inform the successful campaign in the 1870s to preserve significant stretches of nearby Epping Forest, which the Loop traversed in the previous section.<br />
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A belated preservation campaign led by early environmentalist and Liberal MP Edward North Buxton resulted in 324 ha of the remaining forest land being bought for public use by the London County Council (LCC), with contributions from other local authorities, for £21,000. Parliament had to pass a further act enabling the land to be sold, with 213 ha of both woodland and grassland opened as a public green space in 1906. This land, plus some additional areas acquired since, now forms Hainault Forest Country Park.<br />
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The old forest spread over numerous parish boundaries, and one of these still runs northeast-southwest through today’s park. It separated Chigwell, in the ancient Essex hundred of Ongar, to the northwest, from Barking and later Ilford in Becontree Hundred, to the southeast. The original plan for the LCC’s replacement with a new and much bigger Greater London Council (GLC) in 1965 proposed to incorporate the whole of Chigwell into the capital, which met furious local resistance. So today the boundary has been preserved, with the northwest of the park in Essex, and the southeast in the <a href="https://www.redbridge.gov.uk/leisure-sport-and-the-arts/parks/hainault-forest-country-park/" target="_blank">London Borough of Redbridge</a>.<br />
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Like its predecessor, the GLC managed the Country Park as a single unit, but when it was abolished in 1986, the ownership was split between Essex County Council and Redbridge borough. Since then, the county has leased its holding on a long-term basis to the <a href="https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/wood/?woodId=5067&woodName=hainault-forest" target="_blank">Woodland Trust</a>, and the Trust has bought several adjoining fields on its own account, including land that was cleared after 1851 and is gradually being restored to woodland again. Both sides work together to ensure a relatively seamless visitor experience.<br />
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Almost all the surviving ancient woodland is on the Essex side, and after crossing a rough meadow, the Loop plunges into it. This woodland area is now a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). With its traditionally pollarded hornbeams and oaks, it’s regarded as one of the best surviving examples of a mediaeval forest despite its much-reduced extent, giving, according to the current management plan, “a better impression of the structure and management of a forest than Epping…not having suffered so much from well-meaning attempts to turn it into ‘ordinary’ woodland.”<br />
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At a junction, well-marked with recently-installed fingerposts, the Loop crosses the prominent footpath which follows the old boundary, leaving the current county of Essex for the last time and returning to London not only for the rest of this section but for almost all the rest of the trail. You’re now in the London Borough of Redbridge, and the entire length of the Loop through this borough is within the forest land.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj43c7_fgm-u3WjXdu5563M1S9YqArpYenPzejhjc5_sJPb25aTL7hhalzQfnmg6ly4_8ImLv-6SJ2xK2yUxNL2Vuwe-oImrhV1vNSuRN7VG2-AGFPyGJ7CUpPtN-RJNAfDZPEbBjQ2Fk4/s1600/hainaultforestlake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj43c7_fgm-u3WjXdu5563M1S9YqArpYenPzejhjc5_sJPb25aTL7hhalzQfnmg6ly4_8ImLv-6SJ2xK2yUxNL2Vuwe-oImrhV1vNSuRN7VG2-AGFPyGJ7CUpPtN-RJNAfDZPEbBjQ2Fk4/s640/hainaultforestlake.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canada geese love Hainault Forest lake, originally dug as a 1909 job creation scheme.</td></tr>
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The trail soon emerges into the more open southern area of the country park, on the shores of the artificial lake dug in 1909 as part of a job creation scheme for unemployed men from the East End. Originally it was intended for boating and fishing and, while the latter activity still goes on, it’s also now much favoured by waterfowl. This is the best point to divert to the park café, just a little uphill on the other side of the lake. Climbing this way, there’s the sudden surprise of the view westwards towards London, a reminder of how high up we are. The multiplying high rises of Canary Wharf and the City, along with the Shard at London Bridge, now make central London seem much closer than it is in reality.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwwWfHsn5XbJDwJB3nJmgL6xtVD6NuhG2TBES2f4NA1-nX4GqlvoMQuEHbDxb-PJuM6mifyC46mVH7JkHYsbMCFItkSqa63bv_ieKBRc-Py1LYJ460qkbfvCJ7jp6Sza1rPQMLtlGyoBY/s1600/hainaultforestview.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwwWfHsn5XbJDwJB3nJmgL6xtVD6NuhG2TBES2f4NA1-nX4GqlvoMQuEHbDxb-PJuM6mifyC46mVH7JkHYsbMCFItkSqa63bv_ieKBRc-Py1LYJ460qkbfvCJ7jp6Sza1rPQMLtlGyoBY/s640/hainaultforestview.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">High rise London from Hainault Forest Country Park</td></tr>
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Leaving the lakeside, the Loop runs alongside the woodland edge along the perimeter of a vast, gently sloping open green space. This is another area cleared of tree cover after 1851, and for many decades it was used for sports pitches, but these have been replaced with less rigorously managed grassland to encourage species diversity, and the space now does a good imitation of a traditional forest plain. The cluster of buildings to the south is Foxburrows Farm, part of the original 1906 purchase, and now a popular visitor centre and ‘community zoo’ where meerkats and llamas rub shoulders with rare breed sheep and chickens.<br />
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Beyond the plain, the Loop finds a woodland track uphill, almost rejoining the Three Forests Way, which has found a different route through the forest. But instead, our trail heads off east across Hainault Forest Golf Course. This land, too, is part of the public space bought in 1906, although the golf club, founded in 1912, now leases and manages it. Loop walkers will probably be pleased to know that this is the very last golf course the trail crosses.<br />
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Take care here: if you attempt to follow the route exactly as shown on the Ordnance Survey map you could easily get lost. What looks like a nice straight public right of way on the map turns out to be near-impossible to trace through the golf course landscaping, and the route that’s physically signed with often rather eroded waymarks is rather easier and safer. It runs through a strip of woodland known as the Mile Plantation which also marks an ancient boundary that now separates the London Boroughs of Redbridge and Hillingdon. When you finally leave the trees, at a point further south than the one shown on the OS map, you end your brief sojourn in the former and enter the latter, the very last London borough on the London Loop.<br />
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<h3>
The Royal Liberty of Havering</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The rollling fields of Havering, just east of Havering-atte-Bower</td></tr>
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Havering is the third largest of the London boroughs, after Bromley and Hillingdon, and like these it includes extensive areas of green space. More than half the borough is parkland, with some genuine agricultural countryside. It’s the only London borough to extend beyond the M25, with a rough square of farmland and marsh around North Ockendon. As with the other more rural boroughs, this mixed complexion is the result of modern boundaries following much older divisions, in this case of considerable historic significance. For Havering once had a special status, with connections to royal privilege stretching back much further than any other London authority. Today, practically every trace of these connections has vanished.<br />
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The high ridge the Loop treads has been settled since at least Roman times, with archaeological evidence of a villa and industrial activities. In the later Saxon period, much of the current borough was covered by a large parish and manor known as Hornchurch, in the ancient hundred of Becontree. The parish stretched from the wooded northern heights, south through Romford and Hornchurch and all the way to the Thames at Hornchurch Marshes. Though Romford later developed into a major market town and is now the administrative centre, the original manorial nucleus was on the hilly ground in the north, by the village of Havering, its name derived from an Anglo-Saxon personal name, Hæfer.<br />
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There’s a strong tradition that the first English king to hold the manor was the penultimate Anglo-Saxon monarch Edward the Confessor or Ēadweard Andettere (reigned 1042-1066). He is commemorated as such in mediaeval stained glass at Hornchurch and Romford, though there’s no known confirmation of this from primary sources. What is known is that by Edward’s death, the manor was held by his successor, Harold Godwinson, Earl of East Anglia, who reigned briefly during 1066 before his death at the Battle of Hastings, which secured the Norman invasion of England.<br />
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The victor of Hastings, William of Normandy, who became the first Norman king, decided to keep the manor for himself. It became the Royal Liberty of Havering, a liberty being an autonomous area exempt from surrounding authorities, with its own laws and courts. For example, residents of Havering were exempt from many taxes, and the market at Romford was the direct result of royal privilege. The special status of the Liberty was confirmed in a charter of 1465.<br />
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Numerous royals stayed at the palace which developed on the site of the manor house. Henry III began a tradition of granting the property to the queen consort or dowager when he passed it to Queen Eleanor in 1262. The tradition was broken by Henry VIII, who kept it himself rather than passing it to his fourth wife Anne of Cleves. But by this time the palace was already deteriorating, and James I was the last king to use it regularly. In 1619, he granted it to Prince Charles, later Charles I, who became the last monarch to rest at the palace in 1638. During the Civil War period the building was abandoned and by 1816 there was no trace of it above ground.<br />
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By then, the manor had long since fragmented through a succession of tenants and the creation of sub-manors, and in 1652 these tenants clubbed together to buy out many of the manorial rights. Finally in 1828, the Crown sold out the remaining rights and property, including the site of the palace and its surrounding park, to a private buyer. Though no longer royal, Havering’s anomalous status as a liberty persisted until 1892 when it was finally reunited with Essex. Two years later it was split between Romford Rural and Romford Urban District Councils, with other areas originally outside the parish like Upminster included in the rural district. Later, Romford became a municipal borough and the rest became Hornchurch Urban District, which, with a few minor adjustments, combined again to form the London Borough of Havering in 1965.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The river Rom just east of Hainault Forest.</td></tr>
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The fields beyond the golf course are under Havering council’s ownership. They were once part of the extensive park around the palace, thus the name of the farm you pass, Lower Park Farm. Just past here you cross the river Rom, which rises as Bourne Brook over the Essex boundary in Stapleford Abbots. Like several other river names encountered on the Loop, this is a back formation arising from the fact that the river flows through Romford, which originally simply meant ‘wide ford’. The lower section of the river is known as the Beam, which joins the Thames in the Dagenham Industrial Estate.<br />
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From the Rom, the path climbs along the edge of the woodlands of Havering Country Park to reveal another sudden and surprising view back towards the central London. Take your time to enjoy it, as it’s the last such view on the Loop. Then it’s into the trees of the country park and another encounter with history.<br />
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The new lord of Havering in 1828 was Hugh McIntosh, a successful building contractor responsible for several of the London docks. His family had a new house built, also later demolished, and gardens and pleasure grounds were laid out in what was left of the old estate. In 1909 the site included extensive gardens, four vineyards, orchards and glasshouses and conservatories with roses, carnations, ferns and palms. In 1924, following the death of Hugh’s daughter-in-law Charlotte McIntosh, the property was sold off. A few portions went for development but, in 1938, Essex County Council bought substantial amounts, including much of the farmland, to preserve as Green Belt. Some of the land was sold in tiny 1 acre (0.4 ha) portions to better-off East Enders as country retreats, known as plotlands.<br />
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When London expanded in 1965, the Greater London Council (GLC) inherited the publicly-owned land. Belatedly implementing proposals in Patrick Abercrombie’s <i>Greater London Plan</i> of 1944, the council planned a new Country Park. From 1970, amid considerable local opposition, it began buying back the plotlands by compulsory purchase, gradually reassembling the estate, and <a href="https://www3.havering.gov.uk/Pages/ServiceChild/Parks--Havering-Country-Park.aspx" target="_blank">Havering Country Park</a> first opened in 1976. Following the GLC’s abolition in 1986, the site passed to Havering council, who developed it further into today’s 67 ha park.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDGil0iijsV2FyUNcna9cQEu2S8fhoLK6I7V3IpAUwijrgJidY56LfPabA8nQMNmYLIpIwd6YprYbyfI3xVQOZBumJWYBkoDXxvhDBrDxnooauonSqeU0ra9i-w32TK1wpzCy-PowGjTI/s1600/haveringredwoods.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDGil0iijsV2FyUNcna9cQEu2S8fhoLK6I7V3IpAUwijrgJidY56LfPabA8nQMNmYLIpIwd6YprYbyfI3xVQOZBumJWYBkoDXxvhDBrDxnooauonSqeU0ra9i-w32TK1wpzCy-PowGjTI/s400/haveringredwoods.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Giant sequoias lining Wellingtonia Avenue, Havering</td></tr>
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The Loop crosses the park along Wellingtonia Avenue, one of the most spectacular lengths of path on the whole trail. Lining it are around 100 giant sequoias or redwood trees, the second biggest such plantation in the UK, created in the 1860s when this conifer species, known scientifically as <i>Sequoiadendron giganteum</i>, had been brought to the European public’s attention during the California gold rush. The term ‘Wellingtonia’ was used in Britain in honour of the Duke of Wellington. The world’s tallest and some of its thickest and oldest trees are giant sequoias. They don’t get quite so big here as in their native Sierra Nevada, but they’re still awe-inspiring, with some of them approaching 50 m in height. The avenue is sometimes compared to a cathedral aisle, but no cathedral column towers quite this high, and the vivid colours of red bark contrasting with dark green foliage add to the effect.<br />
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Around two thirds of the way along the avenue is the junction known as Five Ways, a good place to set off exploring the rest of the park if you have time. There are pine plantations, more traditional broadleaved woodlands, grassy meadows with rolling views, and an easy access trail. Very little evidence of the site’s lengthy history survives except the various plantations, exotic specimen trees and fragments of boundary wall and terrace from the McIntosh period, and a plotlands bungalow now used as a park office. The site of the old palace, and the later McIntosh house, is under modern houses to the right, after the avenue passes a traffic barrier and becomes a roughly surfaced drive. A plan made in 1576 shows an extensive complex including guest apartments and a royal bathhouse, but a survey of Royal property in 1650, after the Civil War, found only “a confused heap of ruinous decayed buildings,” barely worth the costs of salvage.<br />
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<h3>
Havering-atte-Bower</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Water tower, Havering-atte-Bower</td></tr>
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The avenue emerges on North Road, the main street of Havering-atte-Bower, right next to the village green. Havering today is that rarity in London, a genuine rural village surrounded by green space. Its curious suffix, pronounced locally ‘atty bower’, refers to the tradition of its being held by the queen or dowager. But though the village is picturesque enough, there are no mediaeval remnants left standing, and precious little from before Victorian times.<br />
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The green itself is part of the land acquired by local councils in the 1930s, and the row of horse chestnut trees across it was planted to mark the coronation in 1953. It’s said a depression on the green was formerly a pond used for ducking suspected witches, and on the south end there’s another reminder of less enlightened attitudes to crime and punishment in the form of a set of stocks and a whipping post. Although some of the metalwork on these is very old, the woodwork is from 1966: somewhat ironically, the originals were destroyed by vandals. The village sign was only added in 2010, unveiled by then Mayor of London Boris Johnson.<br />
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Across Orange Tree Hill from these relics is Blue Boar Hall, a former pub that could be the oldest building in the village, perhaps from the early 17th century, but its timber frame is now fronted by Victorian brickwork. Completing a pretty scene is the Church of St John the Evangelist, which overlooks the green. Its history goes back to the original palace chapel, which may well have stood on this site before the Norman conquest, but the present building with its flint facing was built in 1878 to a design by Basil Champneys in the popular Decorated style of the day.<br />
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All this rural charm has its downside: the 375 is the 10th least frequent bus route in London, and the only one to operate on a 90-minute cycle, except on Sundays when it doesn’t operate on any cycle at all. This is also one of only three official loop sections that ends at a bus stop rather than a rail station. If you just miss a bus, exploring the village could keep you occupied: the best pub recommendation is probably the Orange Tree a little down Orange Tree Hill on the other side of the green.<br />
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Otherwise you may decide to push on to Noak Hill where services are more frequent. The trail now turns along North Road to find a footpath right next to another pre-Victorian building, the Grade II-listed Rose Cottage, timber-framed and weatherboarded with an external brick chimney stack. It likely dates from before 1750, though was altered in the next century to create a now-closed shop front.<br />
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From the fields behind the cottage you should spot two of the village’s other remarkable buildings off to the right, although as both are round and white, they’re easily confused. The squatter, fatter one, just glimpsed through the trees, is the Round House, a three-storey villa built in 1794 for tea merchant William Sheldon. Its unusual elliptical shape, so it’s said, was designed to resemble a tea caddy. A little further along, taller, slenderer and much more prominent, is an elegant water tower that faintly resembles the tower of a Spanish castle. It was built in 1934, taking advantage of the elevation in ensuring sufficient water pressure for the householders of Romford. The base of the tower is 104 m above sea level, and on a good day you can see its tip from the London Eye, 27 km away.<br />
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<h3>
Pyrgo Park</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Decorative iron gatepost at Pyrgo Park</td></tr>
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Across the fields from Havering, rusted and leaning precariously amid a strip of rough grass along the edge of a wood, is a curious decorative wrought iron 19th century gatepost. This is one of the few surviving reminders of the second great aristocratic park in Havering, Pyrgo Park. The place name probably means ‘triangle of land where pear trees grow’ and has been spelt in various ways over the centuries, including Pergore, Portegore and Pergo. The park here was created in 1536 by Brian Tuke, steward to Henry VIII, but, in typical style, the king took a liking to the site and claimed it for himself, developing it into an extension of Havering Park nearby.<br />
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Henry’s daughter Elizabeth I gave Pyrgo to a courtier, John Grey, uncle of the ill-fated Lady Jane Grey, and it passed through several subsequent aristocratic and, later, bourgeois hands. The old house was demolished in 1814, and a new one built in 1852 for stockbroker Robert Field, though this too was demolished in 1940, by which time the park had become part of Essex’s green belt holdings.<br />
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Most of the buildings you can see through a gap in the trees to the left as you round the site are recent, though an 18th century farmhouse still stands, and a stable block, garden terraces and two lodges remain from the Victorian period. Pyrgo is the fourth of Henry VIII’s palaces on or near the Loop, after Nonsuch (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/london-loop-78-banstead-ewell-kingston.html">section 7</a>), Hampton Court (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/london-loop-1112-kingston-hatton-cross.html">section 9</a>) and Forty Hall (<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/london-loop-17-cockfosters-enfield-lock.html">section 17</a>). All but Hampton Court have now completely vanished from sight. <br />
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Now in notably rustic surroundings, the Loop tracks the edges of fields. It’s easy to miss a footbridge along this stretch which skips across a field edge: often overgrown, it’s one of the more precarious pieces of infrastructure on the trail. But soon you’re on more solid ground, following a track lined by scattered housing, known as Paternoster Row.<br />
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It’s not immediately obvious, but the right turn along Paternoster Row is also a major turning point for the London Loop as it approaches its final stages. A stream, Carters Brook, rises just to the east of this junction, and the track turns south to parallel its valley. From now on, the Loop will follow the water south and southwest, first along the Carters Brook and Paines Brook, then along the river Ingrebourne to the Thames, continuing downstream alongside the main flow to its finishing point at Purfleet. I’d like to say it’s downhill all the way, but that’s not entirely true, as lack of waterside access sometimes forces the trail back of the side of the valley a little. Certainly, though, the walking is much easier from now on.<br />
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Where Paternoster Row ends at the gate of Widdrington Farm, and the Loop takes to field paths again, you enter the old chapelry of Romford, a historic subdivision of Havering Liberty. A small stream from a pond on the right feeds the brook. To the east, the land rises from the Carters Brook to the village of Noak Hill. To the south and immediately ahead lies the old estate of Harold Wood and a return to suburbia. <br />
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<h3>
Harold Hill</h3>
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The Loop reaches Noak Hill Road, which clearly marks the boundary between country and town. On its northwestern side you’ll see only scattered houses and other buildings, but the opposite side is intensively developed. At one point, of course, all this land was countryside. By the 14th century, there were two separate estates to the southeast of the road: Gooshayes, ‘goose enclosure’, to the west and Dagenhams or Dagnams to the east. The latter had itself originally been two estates, Dagenhams and Cockerels, named after former owners. <br />
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Richard Neave, a well-off merchant with the West India company, bought Dagnams in 1772, and his descendants extended it in 1829 by buying neighbouring Gooshayes too. The resulting estate remained intact until well in the 20th century, unthreatened by housing development thanks to its remote location, and was protected as Green Belt in the 1930s. Today’s swathes of housing are the work not of a private developer, but of the London County Council (LCC), in response to the housing crisis in London after World War II, when residential property in inner London, and particularly the East End, had been devastated by air raids.<br />
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Inspired by the ‘garden city’ movement of the 1920s and 1930s, the view adopted in Abercrombie’s <i>Greater London Plan</i> was that it was better in any case to shift populations out of the polluted and congested inner city to greener, more spacious and healthier surroundings on the periphery. As we now know, that approach ultimately brought its own problems of social and economic dislocation, but today’s reclamation of the inner city as a pleasant and desirable place to live must have seemed unthinkable to 1940s decision makers. The LCC was given special dispensation to build new housing on Green Belt outside its own territory, which at the time covered only Inner London.<br />
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The Loop has already encountered one of the resulting housing estates, at South Oxhey on <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/london-loop-1314-harefield-moor-park.html">section 14</a>, and skirted around another at Hainault earlier in this section. The Neave family’s estate of Dagnams and Gooshayes was among the other sites chosen. It was not only of sufficient size, but had the advantage of being well-defined and integrated, which planners hoped would help give a sense of place to the new community.<br />
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In 1946 the LCC compulsorily purchased the main estate, plus some additional plots that had originally been part of it but had been sold off in 1919. The following year, 605 prefab houses were built as a temporary measure, and in 1948, construction commenced on 7,631 new homes. The work was finally completed in 1961. The name chosen for the new neighbourhood was Harold Hill, as it stood overlooking Harold Wood. Like several estates of this vintage, it’s now the subject of a long-term regeneration scheme, Harold Hill Ambitions.<br />
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The ‘garden city’ influence ensured that extensive areas of open space were preserved among the houses and flats, and the Loop makes good use of these as it crosses the area, particularly the green strips alongside the brook, which also provide a margin for flooding. Our first site of the brook itself is where it crosses Priory Road by its junction with Tees Drive. It runs here in a steeply cut channel surrounded by trees and shrubs, so attempting to reach the water’s edge is an uncomfortably twiggy experience. You’re better off walking on the grass above. Just before Whitchurch Road, another small stream joins from the left, rising from a series of ponds in Dagnam Park a little to the east. From here, the combined streams are known as Paines Brook, although the watercourse is often designated by the joint name Paines and Carters Brook.<br />
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The green strip continues to Dagnam Park Road, once a path linking Gooshayes and Dagnams but now one of the main roads through the housing estate. On the other side, the stream enters <a href="https://www3.havering.gov.uk/Pages/ServiceChild/Parks--Central-Park.aspx" target="_blank">Central Park</a>, one of two major public parks on former farmland and parkland built into the original design (the other is Dagnam Park to the east, around the former site of the now-demolished manor house). The mediaeval nucleus of Gooshayes once stood on the other side of the brook to the right here, and Gooshayes House itself stood until 1961 when it was demolished to make way for a community centre. It’s clear from old photographs and maps that the unusually angular kinks in the brook here were deliberate diversions to create more conveniently-shaped fields and farmyards.<br />
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Central Park became rather neglected, but received a boost in 2014 with funding from the Veolia North Thames Trust. Veolia is the big French-based utilities company which among other things operates a massive landfill site on Rainham Marshes, further along the Loop. The Trust, which has since been merged with another nationally-based trust, was a vehicle for ensuring that some of the profits from this were invested for public benefit. The cash paid for the state-of-the-art BMX track and skate park on the right as you enter the park, the play area further on, new plantings and other improvements.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Portrait Bench in Central Park, Harold Hill.</td></tr>
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Just past the play area is a roundabout of paths where the <a href="http://www.sustrans.org.uk/ncn/map/route/route-136" target="_blank">Ingrebourne Way</a>, part of National Cycle Network route 136, joins from the left. We’ll be sharing much of the rest of the trail with this route, which has long been in the planning stages and was completed in 2014 as a partnership between Havering council and active travel charity Sustrans. It runs for 21 km from Noak Hill, not far from where the Loop met Noak Hill Road, to the Thames at Rainham Marshes, and indeed you could simply follow it all the way, as it’s more prominently signed than the Loop. But as it’s a multi-user route also suitable for cyclists, there are stretches along the valley where it’s forced to follow roads, while the Loop takes more interesting paths suitable only for walkers. <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/ingrebourne-way-noak-hill-upminster.html">More information about walking the Ingrebourne Way as an alternative to the Loop</a>.<br />
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On the roundabout is a simple park bench surrounded by three shadow puppet-style metal sculptures, the Portrait Bench, installed in 2011 as part of the Ingrebourne Way improvements. You’ll surely recognise Henry VIII and appreciate his connection to the area, but the other two subjects, chosen following a public call for nominations, are rather more obscure. To Henry’s left, and maintaining a respectful distance, is Harry Norman Ecclestone, a Bank of England employee who lived locally, and designed the D series banknotes familiar from the 1970s to the 1990s. Next to him is Dick Bouchard, founder of the Romford Drum and Trumpet Corps, who was still alive when the sculptures were unveiled and attended the ceremony. The wood just off to the left, Long Wood, survives from the Gooshayes estate, as does another patch of woodland, Sale Wood, further along.<br />
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The Loop leaves Central Park past the ground of Ardleigh Green Cricket Club, founded in 1940, on the left, and continues along the brook through another green strip on the other side of Petersfield Avenue. It runs here between Paines Brook Way and Amersham Road, a street which has a tale to tell about housing policy over the decades.<br />
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As at South Oxhey, most of the properties at Harold Hill are now privately owned. The process of selling them to their occupiers began in the 1970s under the Greater London Council, but accelerated significantly under the Right to Buy policy for council tenants, introduced in 1980 as a flagship policy of the Conservative government of the day.<br />
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One of the earliest properties sold under this scheme was 39 Amersham Road. In an obligingly media-friendly photocall, prime minister Margaret Thatcher personally sealed the sale and handed over the keys to the Patterson family, who had lived there as tenants since 1962. They paid only £8,315 for the three-bedroomed house, but after the marriage broke up, Maureen Patterson struggled with mortgage repayments and ended up selling it and moving to a mobile home.<br />
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The house has since passed through several other hands and its value is now approaching £220,000. Today, the proportion of houses owned by their occupiers in the UK is 61%, exactly the same proportion as in the 1980s, as many of the people who exercised their right to buy ended up selling to private landlords who were buying to rent. Yet in the face of a major housing crisis in London, the current government is intent on extending the right to buy to housing association tenants.<br />
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The path along the brook continues through another, smaller, green area, St Neots Road Open Space, to arrive at the A12 Colchester Road close to where it crosses the watercourse at Paines Bridge. The road is the modern incarnation of Iter V, the old highway that linked London northeast with Colchester, the first capital of Roman Britain, via Mile End, Stratford, Ilford, Romford, Brentwood and Chelmsford. By the mid-17th century this road had been turnpiked and, as the A12, it was one of the first British trunk routes designated in 1922. West towards London, the A12 has subsequently been diverted along more recently built roads and the old route renumbered A118. But at this point, though widened to a dual carriageway in the 1940s, it’s likely close to the old Roman route.<br />
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This is another point where the Loop is severed by a busy main road, and the official option is to divert to the next light-controlled crossing west, which isn’t too far away though still annoyingly off the desire line. But here you also have the option of an uncontrolled crossing straight ahead, which makes use of the central reservation. As the road is straight with good visibility and the flow of traffic is often interrupted by nearby lights, you should have no trouble using this if you’re quick on your feet and take special care.<br />
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<h3>
Harold Wood</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Harold Wood station: before its time.</td></tr>
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The A12 marks the southern boundary of Harold Hill: the neighbourhood on the other side is now known as Harold Wood, although the scope of that name has changed over the centuries. In mediaeval times, the area to the north of the Colchester Road, where Harold Hill now stands, was known as Harold Wood, and attached to the Romford chapelry. The area to the south was North End, attached to the Hornchurch chapelry. The Harold in question was Harold Godwinson, the ill-fated last Anglo-Saxon king of England, who as mentioned above once held all of Havering.<br />
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The area that’s now Harold Wood developed rather earlier than Harold Hill, although it was still rural in 1840 when the Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) cut through it. In 1866, a development company bought land at Gubbins Farm to turn into a new town, served by a new station to be opened by the ECR’s successor the Great Eastern Railway. Even though the site was technically in North End, the developers adopted the more picturesque name Harold Wood, also used as the name for the station when it opened in 1868.<br />
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Demand for housing in the area at first proved lower than expected: the planned new town never happened, and the development of Harold Wood didn’t take off until after World War I. Residential development avoided the watercourses, so once again the Loop has a green strip to follow into the area, although the waterside is soon blocked by an industrial estate. This is the site of Harold Wood Brickworks, established in 1878, which once had its own extensive railway sidings. It was closed in 1902 and the land used for grazing and light industry. The present Bates Industrial Estate was built in the late 1940s, and named after the building firm that developed it.<br />
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The trail runs along streets dating from the 1920s and 1930s, and then past the distinctive modernist building of Harold Wood Library, opened in 1960: the Christmas tree in front was planted to mark the 50th anniversary in 2010. The King Harold pub, in contrast, is an 1868 survivor of the aborted Victorian new town scheme. The main station building, perched above the tracks along Gubbins Lane, is from the same year.<br />
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This section of the Great Eastern Main Line originally linked the old Bishopsgate station on the edge of the City of London with Brentwood, extending in stages to Colchester and Ipswich and reaching Norwich by 1851. Its London terminal was superseded by Liverpool Street station in 1875, and in 1883 it became an international link to the Netherlands and northern Europe with the opening of a branch to a ferry terminal at Harwich. In 1932 the line was quadrupled, and today express services run non-stop through Harold Wood on the central pair of lines.<br />
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From 2019, the station will stand on only the second main line-sized railway to run through central London and out the other side. Services on the Elizabeth Line, formerly known as Crossrail, will run from Shenfield through new underground tunnels linking Liverpool Street and Paddington, passing through Hayes and Harlington at the end of <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/london-loop-1112-kingston-hatton-cross.html" target="">Loop section 10</a>, on their way to Slough and Reading. Since 2015 the local stopping trains from Liverpool Street to Shenfield have been overseen by Transport for London under the brand name TfL Rail in preparation for the new service.<br />
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Meanwhile, hidden in the industrial estate, the Paines Brook has joined the main flow of the river Ingrebourne. In the next section, the London Loop meets this river for the first but by no means the last time as it continues its final journey back towards the river Thames.<br />
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<ul style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<li><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/eglmiz0wlftxuah/20-21-chigwell-haroldwood.pdf?dl=0" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Download full route description</a> (PDF)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=ze8MGLx4VZ8Q.kz_iSyKD3QHI&usp=sharing" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">View Google map</a></li>
<li><a href="https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/walking/chigwell-to-havering-atte-bower" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Official Transport for London page: Chigwell to Havering-atte-Bower</a></li>
<li><a href="https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/walking/havering-atte-bower-to-harold-wood" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Official Transport for London page: Havering-atte-Bower to Harold Wood</a></li>
</ul>
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Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-47513180957539949832016-10-30T22:21:00.002+00:002017-03-19T15:53:38.006+00:00London Loop 18/19: Enfield Lock - Chingford - Chigwell<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View across the Lea Valley from Daws Hill, Sewardstone Hills</td></tr>
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You’ll cross two of the region’s most valuable large green spaces along this section of the London Loop: the Lee Valley Park and Epping Forest. Both plunge deep into east London, bridging city and countryside, though most of our walk is outside London, in Essex, the last historic county on the Loop, even though some of it has a London postcode. It passes through the forest gateway town of Chingford with its Tudor hunting lodge, and on out of the Forest to cross the river Roding where it runs between nature reserves and lakes at Buckhurst Hill.<br />
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I’ve returned to combining two shorter sections of the Loop for this instalment. The official break point is at Chingford, and the only practical place to stop before this has a relatively infrequent non-TfL bus. From Chingford to Chigwell there are several other transport options along the way.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Enfield Lock on the River Lee Navigation</td></tr>
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<h3>
Enfield Lock</h3>
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For well over a century, the name ‘Enfield’ brought to mind an image rather less peaceful than that of a sleepy Middlesex market town. Between the 1850s and the 1960s, the majority of rifles used by the armed forces both of Britain and other countries in the British Empire and, later, Commonwealth, were made at the Royal Small Arms Factory beside Enfield Lock. The most famous of these was the Lee-Enfield rifle, of which variants were used in a depressingly long list of conflicts from the Second Boer War of 1899-1902 to Afghanistan in the early 2000s.<br />
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The Lee part of the name only coincidentally resembles that of the river that passes the site: it derives instead from the designer of the rifle’s bolt system, James Paris Lee. The name Enfield, though, was applied in whole or part to most of the factory’s products, including the Enfield revolver; the Bren gun, a contraction acknowledging that this was a modification of a Czech machine gun made in Brno; and the Sten gun, combining the place name with the initials of designers Shepherd and Turpin.<br />
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The factory was founded in 1816 following the Napoleonic wars, out of frustration with the poor quality of weapons then being supplied to the armed forces by Birmingham gunsmiths. Its location on an artificial island between the River Lee Navigation and the River Lea itself provided a convenient transport route not only downstream to London but to the Royal Gunpowder Mills in Waltham Abbey, just a little upstream (and briefly encountered on the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/london-countryway-13-broxbourne-theydon.html">London Countryway</a>), as well as water power from the river. Much adjoining farmland in the valley was requisitioned for testing. The factory expanded significantly during the Crimean War in the 1850s, adopting US-style mass production methods. By the 1880s, 2,400 people worked at the site, which was then producing thousands of rifles a week.<br />
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Two world wars prompted further expansion, but in the 1950s production began to decline, and half the site was decommissioned in 1963. The remaining factory was privatised in 1984, soon becoming part of British Aerospace, who closed it in 1988. The site was finally redeveloped as housing between 1997 and 2003 under the name Enfield Island Village, incorporating some of the historic buildings including part of the original machine shop and clock tower, and an <a href="http://www.rsaic.org/index.php/80/the-interpretation-centre/" target="_blank">interpretation centre</a> which is open by appointment only. A less welcome legacy also persists – in 2000 a survey found evidence of contamination from lead, cadmium, arsenic and copper, and residents are warned not to dig more than a metre into their gardens.<br />
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Despite the fame of its brand, during its working life the factory wasn’t technically in Enfield at all. It stood on the east bank of the natural course of the river Lea, and therefore over the county boundary in Essex, in the hamlet of Sewardstone. Over the years, the waterways across the site were re-channelled, and in 1993, several years after closure, the boundary of the London Borough of Enfield was extended to the River Lea Flood Relief Channel which loops to the east, partly to resolve planning powers for redevelopment.<br />
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Enfield Lock station, where the short link to this section starts, and the modest terraced houses that line the streets you follow, are all here because of the Royal Small Arms Factory. Then there’s a short length alongside the Turkey Brook again, continuing from the last section, before a foot and cycle bridge rises up ahead. This takes the Loop over the first of many branches of the river Lea, known as the Small River Lea, and the Turkey Brook bends off to the right to join it just before both merge with the River Lee Navigation a little south of our route.</div>
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The bridge continues across Mollison Avenue, the A1055 road, built in the 1980s to provide better access to the industrial estates along the Lea Valley, and named after pioneer aviator Jim Mollison. You then walk along the edge of Prince of Wales Open Space, today a rather straightforward recreation ground, but there are plans by the council and the Wildlife and Wetlands Trust to create a wetland reserve here.<br />
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The path emerges right opposite Enfield Lock itself, on the <a href="https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/canal-and-river-network/lee-navigation" target="_blank">River Lee Navigation</a>. There was probably a crude lock on the river here back in the 14th century, and certainly by 1725, predating the Navigation which opened in the early 1770s. The lock cottages and toll office date from 1889 and the lock itself, number 13, was rebuilt in 1922. The path crosses the downriver end of the lock: the row of cottages stretching to the left on the other side was built for gun factory workers, and is known as Government Row. Just beyond, and running parallel to the navigation, is the river Lea itself, with the former factory site beyond. You could explore it by turning slightly left and crossing the first bridge across the Lea, but the Loop turns right, briefly following the Lea Valley Walk along the towpath into the Lee Valley Park.</div>
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<h3>
Lee Valley Park</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Cattlegate Flood Relief Channel, which now marks the boundary of London and Essex at Enfield Lock. The houses with solar cells on the left are in Enfield Island Village, on the former Royal Small Arms Factory site.</td></tr>
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I introduced the river Lea or Lee, the River Lee Navigation, the <a href="https://www.visitleevalley.org.uk/" target="_blank">Lee Valley Park</a> and the <a href="http://www.leavalleywalk.org.uk/" target="_blank">Lea Valley Walk</a> (see also <a href="https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/walking/lea-valley" target="_blank">Transport for London</a>) at length when they were first encountered on the <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/london-countryway-13-broxbourne-theydon.html">London Countryway</a> at Broxbourne, including an explanation of the variant spellings, so I’ll keep this brief. The Lea is one the Thames’ biggest tributaries and arguably London’s second most important river. It rises on the edge of the Chilterns at Leagrave in the northern suburbs of Luton, runs roughly east and southeast via Harpenden and Hertford to Ware, then turns south via Broxbourne and east London. As tidal Bow Creek, it joins the Thames at Leamouth near Poplar, right opposite the O2 on the North Greenwich peninsula, a total distance of 68 km.<br />
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Throughout its history, the Lea has been important both politically and economically. Towards the end of the 9th century, the lower half of the river became the agreed boundary between the Saxon Kingdom of Wessex on the west bank, and the Danelaw, the part of England governed autonomously by Danish settlers, on the east. It remains the boundary between Hertfordshire and the London boroughs of Enfield, Haringey, Hackney and Tower Hamlets, formerly in Middlesex, to the west; and Essex and the London boroughs of Waltham Forest and Newham, to the east. Following various tweaks both to the boundary and to the waterway itself, though, the dividing line doesn’t always follow the course of the Lea today.<br />
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Economically, the river was a source of water for drinking and irrigation, fish and power for mills, and also a major transport corridor. One important cargo was grain, and particularly malted barley for the extensive London brewing industry, which was grown in the fields of Hertfordshire and malted in the towns of Hertford and Ware before being shipped south. Wheat was also shipped this way – at one point the abbey at Stratford had a near-monopoly on milling it into flour for London bakers – but barley was more associated with moneyed interests. It was the rich and powerful London brewers who in 1739 led the campaign to establish a board tasked with improving navigation on the river, which had particularly suffered from the abstraction of drinking water to supplement the New River (crossed in the previous section).<br />
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This campaign eventually resulted in the construction of the River Lee Navigation between 1767 and 1770, using a combination of improvements to the natural course and 18 km of new cuts to create what was essentially London’s first canal. The Navigation runs between Hertford and Bromley-by-Bow, from where the Limehouse Cut dodges the tight meanders of Bow Creek by heading straight to the Thames at Limehouse. Now used primarily for leisure rather than commerce, its management has passed via British Waterways to the Canal & River Trust.<br />
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Development on the Lea’s wide, flat flood plain was restricted by the wet conditions. By the early 20th century, the land use was a mix of water catchment and management, glasshouse nurseries, gravel extraction, remaining fragments of agricultural land, and industry along the lower reaches. The aggregates dug here, deposited in the last glacial period, helped build London, but by the 1940s the supply was nearing exhaustion, leaving an inhospitable landscape behind, and the nurseries and some of the other established industries in the valley were also set to decline.<br />
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A vision of the valley transformed into a giant recreational park for east London appears in Patrick Abercrombie’s utopian <i>Greater London Plan</i> of 1944, but no firm steps were taken to achieve it until the early 1960s when the mayor and town clerk of Hackney began building support for the idea among local authorities and other concerned organisations. This culminated in the creation by an Act of Parliament of the cross-council Lee Valley Regional Park Authority in 1966, funded by a modest additional charge to local ratepayers, with most of the early development of the park proceeding in the early 1970s.<br />
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Since then, the Lee Valley Park has evolved into one of the brightest of London’s green gems, with 4,050 ha of near-continuous green space stretching over 42 km from Ware to East India Dock Basin. It now includes much of the parkland and several of the venues in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, and will expand still further with the completion of the Lea River Park project to create a linked series of new public spaces between Three Mills and the Thames over the next decade or so. It’s no longer London’s only regional park – the Loop has already passed through the Colne Valley Park <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/london-loop-1112-hayes-hillingdon.html">between West Drayton and Harefield</a> – but it’s the only one with statutory backing, and the difference is evident in its quality, prominent identity and sense of ambition.<br />
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The 80 km Lea Valley Walk is the main walking trail through the park, essentially following the Lee Navigation towpath, though it also stretches a considerable distance further upriver, all the way to the river’s source. The southern terminus is a little more complicated thanks to access issues along Bow Creek: previously the most obvious route was along the Limehouse Cut, but ongoing work on the Lea River Park is opening up a new route called the Leaway, creating much more pleasant walks to East India Dock Basin, Trinity Buoy Wharf on the confluence itself, and the Royal Victoria Docks.</div>
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At Enfield Lock, it provides the shortest and most straightforward link between the Loop and the London Countryway at Waltham Town Lock, around 2 km to the north. A more recently-developed parallel route for cyclists and walkers, the Lee Valley Pathway, either runs jointly with the towpath or follows a more easterly course.<br />
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The Loop’s dalliance in the Park is, rather sadly, a brief one, and its time on the Walk is even shorter. Soon you pass a fishing pond, the picturesquely named Swan and Pike Pool, squeezed between the two watercourses, and turn away from the navigation to follow the river Lea itself into grassy wetlands, passing an old bridge that once connected the Royal Small Arms Factory to the rail network.</div>
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The course of the river here was diverted around 1910 to facilitate the construction of the massive 170 ha King George V reservoir, its grand red brick and Portland stone pumping station soon looming ahead. This is the northernmost of 13 reservoirs in the valley dating from the early 20th century, and still making a major contribution to London’s water supply today. The King George, named after the monarch who opened it, and its immediate neighbour to the south, the William Girling reservoir, together form the Chingford Reservoirs Site of Special Scientific Interest due to their popularity with wintering wild fowl, though admission is restricted to permit holders only.<br />
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Just before the reservoir perimeter, the Loop dodges across the Lea on a footbridge and crosses another rough grassy area. There’s something curious about these verdant but still oddly desolate patches, defined by their exclusion from the civil engineering that surrounds them, the reservoir and the various watercourses, like offcuts of cloth. Of course they’re now valued for their wildlife and recreational function, but they retain that slight feeling of being forgotten about. Soon the Loop crosses yet another linked watercourse, the River Lee Flood Relief Channel mentioned above, also known as the Cattlegate Channel. This was commissioned after bad flooding in 1947, although only completed in 1976. The high water levels of recent years have undermined its effectiveness, and still further work will soon be needed in the valley.<br />
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Crossing the Cattlegate Channel, you reach the current boundary of Greater London and enter the Epping Forest district of Essex, the Loop’s last historical county. As the channel deliberately followed the eastern perimeter of the Royal Small Arms Factory, it was the obvious option when the boundary was realigned in the 1990s. I also introduced Essex in some detail when the London Countryway crossed into it at Waltham Abbey. Its name commemorates the fact that in the early middle ages it was the kingdom of the East Saxons, and it was once much larger, including most of what later became Middlesex and Hertfordshire. As mentioned earlier, the boundary along the Lea dates back to the treaty that created the Danelaw in 878, but persisted after the final defeat of the Danes in 991.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The London Loop enters Sewardstone Marsh</td></tr>
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On the other side of the channel is <a href="https://www.visitleevalley.org.uk/en/content/cms/nature/nature-reserve/gunpowder-park/" target="_blank">Sewardstone Marsh</a>, which looks like a good example of the wet, flat meadows that once characterised the valley floor, although it’s been heavily restored. Prior to World War II it was used for grazing, but during the war it was quarried for road construction materials, and then used as a dump for ash and rubble from Brimsdown power station a little further downriver. Acquired by Lee Valley Park in the mid-1980s, it’s now a delightful patchwork of woodland, grassland and grazed flood meadows that provides a home to the rare early marsh orchid. There are many more wonderful sites like this in the park, as you’ll discover along the Lea Valley Path, but the Loop is eager to push on east.</div>
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<h3>
Sewardstone</h3>
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Sewardstone is a straggly hamlet on the old road between Waltham Abbey and Walthamstow. Originally it was a small manor in the south of the parish of Waltham Holy Cross, centred on the powerful abbey to the north, and was once the residence of the abbey’s ‘pittancer’, the person responsible for managing pittances or charitable donations to the abbey. There are still some historic buildings, including Netherhouse Farmhouse, almost opposite as you emerge on the road: although the front wing is 18th century, the rear is certainly earlier, and it forms an attractive group with surrounding barns. The nursery and glasshouse industry in the valley later spilled into Sewardstone and there are still several nurseries along the road to left and right. To the south is the <a href="https://www.visitleevalley.org.uk/en/content/cms/where-to-stay-and-short-breaks/sewardstone-campsite/" target="_blank">Lee Valley Campsite</a>, operated by the park authority, the only official camping site close to the London Loop <br />
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Sewardstone holds another curious distinction: it’s the only place outside Greater London with a London postcode. The anomaly is less puzzling once you understand that postal addresses and postcodes have always served the operational convenience of the Royal Mail above popular or official geographies.</div>
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As mentioned many times here, the development of local government in London lagged a long way behind the physical development of the metropolis. The London Postal District, the area where correct postal addresses end in ‘London’ and a compass point postcode, dates back to 1856, long before the creation of the London County Council (LCC), the first true London-wide authority, in 1889. Back then, the District included substantial rural hinterlands that were serviced from post offices in adjacent urban centres: for example, post to Sewardstone has been delivered from the Chingford office since 1813.<br />
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The LCC area, when it was finally defined, was substantially smaller than the Postal District, so there were once many more places technically outside London that nonetheless had London addresses, from Brent Cross to Wimbledon. The much larger area of Greater London defined in 1965 subsumed practically all of these, and much more, but the Royal Mail stuck rigidly to its policy of ignoring official boundary changes.</div>
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This is why all the London locations we’ve previously passed through on the Loop have addresses and postcodes that refer to other towns: for example, back on the west side of the Lea you’ll find EN postcodes, for Enfield. Some of the ‘post towns’ used in outer London are even outside London itself, so Erith, where the Loop began, has DA postcodes, for Dartford. Except here, where a peninsula of the London Postal District defiantly pokes out beyond the Greater London boundary. As in neighbouring Chingford, which is now within London, the last line of the correct postal address for all the buildings you see begins ‘London E4’. Between here and the river Ching is, incidentally, the only stretch of the Loop within the London Postal District.<br />
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Sadly, Transport for London takes a less inclusive view of Sewardstone. As attested by the infrequent service, this is not currently one of those places just outside the boundary graced with red buses and Oyster readers. The 505 bus, which passes through on its way between Chingford, Waltham Abbey and Harlow, is a commercially-operated route that was almost withdrawn completely in 2015, but instead had its frequency drastically reduced.<br />
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Dark hills rear up on the other side of the valley, topped by a smudge of forest green. These are the Sewardstone Hills, and the Loop now leaves the road to turn directly towards them, crossing fields and climbing Barn Hill on a farm track. Just after the Loop joins the track, it re-crosses the Prime Meridian back into the eastern hemisphere, after entering the western at Coney Hall near Hayes (Bromley).<br />
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Rewarding the climb are the fine views across the Lea Valley that soon appear on the right. As well as admiring the extensive green swathes and the wide blue waters of the Chingford reservoirs offset by the chimneys of Brimsdown power station, you can appreciate from here quite how wide and flat a flood plain the Lea has smoothed for itself. In the distance rise the hillier parts of north London, and off to the north you may be able to work out some of the ridges the Loop has already traversed. Then, reaching the top of the hill, the trail unexpectedly diverts from the farm track at a turning that’s easy to miss, heading for the trees of Epping Forest.<br />
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<h3>
Epping Forest</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Carrolls Farm, Sewardstone, surrounded by Epping Forest, just a few hundred metres from London.</td></tr>
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It seems almost unfair that, by a quirk of geography, two of London’s most extensive and impressive green spaces are so close together. And despite their proximity, the Lee Valley Park and <a href="http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/green-spaces/epping-forest/" target="_blank">Epping Forest</a> are contrasting environments in a variety of ways. The former is a recent innovation in a broad, flat valley, highly accessible and well-interpreted for visitors. The latter is a more rugged place with a much longer history and sections that feel genuinely wild. The management tradition is different too, with a cautiousness about ‘urbanising’ nature that is sometimes off-putting to visitors, although this has softened a little recently. It’s still easy to get lost in Epping Forest, and although the Loop takes a relatively straightforward path through it, there are places where you need to read the directions carefully and look hard for waymarks.<br />
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I discussed the Forest in more detail on the same section of the London Countryway that introduced the Lee Valley Park, so once again I’ll summarise only briefly here. In the 11th century, it was part of the Forest of Essex, a royal hunting forest like the Forest of Middlesex on the other side of the valley, although considerably bigger, covering nearly the entire county. Like other hunting forests it included open areas as well as woodland: it’s been estimated perhaps only 20% was wooded. The forest was split up in the 13th century, with several much smaller successor forests covering more densely wooded areas. One of these was Waltham Forest, which occupied the southwest of the county between the Romford Road (originally the Roman road from London to Colchester, now the A118) in the south, and Harlow in the north.<br />
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By the early 19th century, patchwork inclosure and development had significantly reduced the tree cover and split the forest further into two discontinuous patches, Epping Forest in the west and Hainault Forest in the east. In the early 19th century, the government removed Epping’s royal forest status and sold off the remaining woodland to the lord of the manor of Loughton, whose successors attempted to inclose and develop it. This triggered a campaign of resistance which culminated in the Epping Forest Act of 1878, preserving the 2,476 ha of forest which remains today.<br />
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By then, the City of London had become involved, as the closest thing to an official expression of the public interest of Londoners prior to the creation of the London County Council. The 1878 Act confirmed the City as the official conservator, a position it has held ever since. The legacy of the City’s role in preserving countryside as a public amenity has already been encountered on the Loop, when it crossed parts of the Kent and Surrey Commons (in sections <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/london-loop-3-petts-wood-hayes.html">3</a>, <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/london-loop-4-hayes-west-wickham-common.html">4</a> and <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/london-loop-56-hamsey-green-coulsdon.html">5/6</a>), but Epping Forest is by far the biggest among its portfolio of green spaces, many of which are a long way from the ‘square mile’ itself, including considerable swathes outside the modern boundary of Greater London.<br />
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The little triangular woodland at the top of Daws Hill is only connected to the rest of the historic forest by a thin strip, though the forest lands now extend into the fields and meadows to the north, bought by the City in the 1990s. Then a short stretch along a country lane passes Carolls Farm, where there are two Grade II listed buildings creating an attractive group: a mid-16th century timber-framed and weatherboarded barn, and the farmhouse itself, largely dating from 1767 though with earlier sections. You could follow the lane, Bury Road, all the way to Chingford, but as it’s that rarity on the Loop, a country road without a pavement, you’ll likely be grateful for the U-shaped detour through Gilwell Park and Hawk Wood that shortly follows (also incidentally dipping briefly back into the western hemisphere), though it does miss out the cluster of posh houses at Sewardstonebury.<br />
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Just before this, another trail joins from a track across the golf course on your left, which the Loop follows for a while in reverse. This is the <a href="http://www.greenwichmeridiantrail.co.uk/" target="_blank">Greenwich Meridian Trail</a>, devised by walking writers Hilda and Graham Heap to follow the line of the meridian as closely as possible through England while still providing a pleasant and varied walk. It starts at Peacehaven on the south coast, crosses the South and North Downs, passes through Greenwich and east London, runs close to Cambridge and continues across the Fens and the Lincolnshire Wolds to the Humber Estuary, with a short continuation on the other side from Spurn Head to Tunstall, a total distance of 439 km. This section launched with a self-published guidebook in 2011, and you might spot the occasional waymark installed by volunteers.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7vSBLa0S4me6QZv2pd3jRmtGr9qdYgQQKJm4S8p0CQ507RVPfFpDYKkfMrNnSe5w4pRB6Ciirr16M4haMh7bvpra9Wzu45jKBUbQwSfN0o6aBB8ksft8cUNLQcMOHHGSBwdVlNH5Iohc/s1600/gilwellpark-leopardgate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7vSBLa0S4me6QZv2pd3jRmtGr9qdYgQQKJm4S8p0CQ507RVPfFpDYKkfMrNnSe5w4pRB6Ciirr16M4haMh7bvpra9Wzu45jKBUbQwSfN0o6aBB8ksft8cUNLQcMOHHGSBwdVlNH5Iohc/s640/gilwellpark-leopardgate.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Leopard Gate at Gilwell Park.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://www.scoutadventures.org.uk/centre/gilwell-park" target="_blank">Gilwell Park</a> is known to keen woggle wearers and jamboree attendees throughout the world as the home of the international scouting movement. Back in the early 15th century this was a farm, and later a smart country estate: a handsome mid-18th century farmhouse, the White House, still stands at the heart of the complex. By the early 20th century, the estate had fallen into dilapidation, and in 1919 it was bought by the Scout Association for £7,000, donated by a wealthy Scottish Scout commissioner, William Maclaren, to provide a nearby campsite for members in the East End. It’s since evolved into the Scouts’ main training, conference and events venue, with camping for up to 3,000 and events facilities for up to 10,000 people.<br />
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It houses a museum, a volunteer-run hospital, places of worship for five different faiths, and a collection of monuments and memorabilia, including a buffalo sculpture in honour of the ‘unknown Scout’ who brought Scouting to the USA, a sala containing a 1,000-year old Buddha, and Baden-Powell’s Rolls Royce and caravan. Since 2001 the site has also been the main administrative centre of the Scout Association with several hundred staff based here. It seems like an idyllic place to work, and appropriate given the organisation’s outdoor tradition, though I suspect most employees reach the office by car.<br />
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The Loop doesn’t venture into the site beyond the carved wood Leopard Gate, constructed to mark the main entrance to the site in 1928, but you can catch further glimpses into the park as you circumnavigate it, and if you’re interested, some areas are open to visitors. On the other side of the path is a covered reservoir that takes advantage of the elevated location. After a while the trail turns south, descending Yardley Hill to a valley floor. Crossing a ditch which forms an old field boundary, you walk back into London, this time into the London Borough of Waltham Forest, its name a deliberate echo of the old royal forest.<br />
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The trail climbs again towards Pole Hill and then turns off along a ridge, close to the edge of Hawk Wood. On the right here you’ll glimpse a golf course, the Loop’s first for a while. This is Chingford Golf Course, founded in 1888 as the Royal Epping Forest Golf Club but taken over in 1901 by the City, which still runs it today. Several different clubs share the facilities. For most of its existence, as if typical golfing clothes weren’t loud enough, players were required to wear a red item of clothing so they’d be clearly visible to other Forest users. The rule was only abolished in 2014.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6fYFfS8_Li_2XrBE_G0HxQZEIu9byQ4a_8VlReXYvIpFbeTLW7wyDlqz8nCLu_f1N0Gm7Hn_ZLdGgNUmUGgvMqqDKz4jm6ddOJWh7BORvcRgc_EkYpnqeycDc_OzArK0g3oeepCVItWU/s1600/jubileeretreat-phonemast.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6fYFfS8_Li_2XrBE_G0HxQZEIu9byQ4a_8VlReXYvIpFbeTLW7wyDlqz8nCLu_f1N0Gm7Hn_ZLdGgNUmUGgvMqqDKz4jm6ddOJWh7BORvcRgc_EkYpnqeycDc_OzArK0g3oeepCVItWU/s400/jubileeretreat-phonemast.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The rather odd conifer at Jubilee Retreat.</td></tr>
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Eventually the trail arrives back on Bury Road, briefly crossing back out of London, but now there’s a broad path on the other side, parallel to the road just inside the trees of Bury Wood, which takes it almost immediately back across the boundary. This is also the route of the Holly Trail, one of the official Epping Forest circular walks. Look out on the right for Jubilee Retreat, across the road, now used as a clubhouse but once one of several forest ‘retreats’ – late Victorian temperance tea rooms that aimed to persuaded visitors away from the local pubs. Look closely at what appears at first to be a very tall conifer in a compound next door – it’s actually a mobile phone mast disguised as a tree.<br />
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<h3>
Chingford</h3>
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The trail soon arrives at the wide, undulating grassy expanse of Chingford Plain, the first piece of Forest land immediately to the north of the built-up area, occupying a plateau that forms part of the clay ridge between the Lea and Roding valleys. On a fine day, especially in early summer when the grass is deep green and dotted with flowers, there’s an exhilarating sense of space here. On windy winter days it seems like one of the bleakest places in London.<br />
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The original Anglo-Saxon settlement of Chingford was likely quite a long way from here, to the southwest, by an ancient crossing of the Lea at Cooks Ferry which now carries the North Circular Road. The name is thought to mean ‘ford of the stump dwellers’, the ford referring to the Lea crossing and the stumps the foundations of pile houses built to cope with the marshy ground. The rest of Chingford, away from the river, was then covered in forest, but large parts of this were cleared in the 13th and 14th centuries to create a scattered parish of three manors and various small settlements, with a single parish church on high ground at Chingford Mount.<br />
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Chingford Plain is yet another site on the Loop, after <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/london-loop-78-banstead-ewell-kingston.html">Nonsuch</a>, <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/london-loop-1112-kingston-hatton-cross.html">Bushy Park</a> and <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2016/10/london-loop-17-cockfosters-enfield-lock.html">Forty Hall</a>, that owes something of its current appearance to Henry VIII and his insatiable appetite for hunting. By 1544, Henry controlled two of the local manors, and set about converting parts of these and the adjacent forest into a hunting park to be known as Fairmead Park, appointing Richard Rich, one of his then-favoured cronies, as keeper. Much of the grassland was probably created at this time through woodland clearance, and one of the original ‘standings’, lodges built for hunt spectators, still commands a view of the plain today, as we shall soon see. The project proved short-lived and the site was ‘disparked’ by 1553.<br />
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Rather like the area around Forty Hall, Chingford’s development was restrained by its relative lack of transport access, although a number of upmarket country houses appeared in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Encroachments on Forest land also continued: in the 1860s the local lords of the manor inclosed and ploughed up parts of the plain, but following the Epping Forest Act in 1878, they were ordered to return this land to open space.<br />
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The arrival of the railway in 1873 triggered development around the stations, particularly just to the south of the plain around the terminus close to Chingford Green, one of the original hamlets. By 1894, the area was populated enough to become an urban district. But it only achieved its current near-completely urbanised state between the two world wars, when development sprawled north to link it to Walthamstow, incorporating it decisively into the metropolis. Technically it still remained in Essex, until finally becoming part of the London Borough of Waltham Forest on the expansion of London in 1965.<br />
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You may divert from the Loop here not just if you want to break your walk at Chingford station but also to take advantage of the shops, cafés, pubs and restaurants that line Station Road, linking Chingford Green, the station and Chingford Plain. The official route heads off across a car park just after entering the Plain and then follows the road. But it’s more pleasant just to keep ahead across the springy turf, on a path that doesn’t pass that much further from the station.<br />
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The first station in the locality was opened in 1873 on Kings Road, closer to the Green, as an extension of the Great Eastern Railway’s (GER) branch from Clapton to Walthamstow. In 1878 the line was extended to a grander terminus on the present site, then less convenient for local housing but closer to the Forest, which the GER saw as an important potential stimulus to the growing leisure travel market. The plan was to extend through the Forest to High Beach, already a popular Forest honeypot (visited on the<a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/london-countryway-13-broxbourne-theydon.html"> London Countryway</a>).<br />
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Although this scheme was never realised, Chingford met all expectations as a gateway to the newly-preserved green resource. It was at Chingford in 1882 that Queen Victoria arrived by train to declare the Forest open to the public forever. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, regular fairs on the Plain attracted huge crowds, reaching a peak on Whitsun bank holiday Monday 1920 when over 100,000 people passed through the station. Interwar development increased the railway’s importance as a commuting route and the line was subsequently truncated slightly to make way for the bus station, but the Victorian fabric is largely intact. It’s now part of Transport for London’s London Overground network. Look out for the plastic owl under the canopy of Platform 2, placed there to deter pigeons.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge, with new improved<br />
Tudor monarch-resistant deer.</td></tr>
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Back on the trail, you walk across the Plain right in front of what’s now the most historic building in Chingford, and indeed one of the finest surviving Tudor buildings in London, so it’s worth making a minor diversion for a closer look. This is the old Great Standing constructed for Henry VIII’s Fairmead Park project, now known as <a href="http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/green-spaces/epping-forest/visitor-information/Pages/queen-elizabeths-hunting-lodge.aspx" target="_blank">Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge</a>.<br />
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The Grade II* listed building and scheduled ancient monument with its exposed timber frame and plaster infill has been much restored over the years, including a rather fanciful rebuilding in the late 19th century that resulted in the current window layout. When built, it was the only such structure in England to boast three floors, and would have had open galleries overlooking the Plain. You can imagine what a fine view it commanded from the top of the slope of the bloody entertainment below as deer were driven out of the woods.<br />
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The walls were filled in by 1608, as by then the Manor Court met on the top floor, and by the early 19th century a Forest Keeper lived on the floors below. When the court stopped meeting in 1851, the Keeper and his wife converted the space into a tea room to cater for the growing number of leisure visitors. Between 1895 and 1960, the Essex Field Club used the building as a natural history museum, after which the City of London took it on. A more sympathetic restoration between 1989 and 1993 put right some of the damage done in Victorian times, and the Lodge is now open as a museum again, with exhibitions about life in Tudor times.<br />
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Next door is a smart City of London visitor centre, <a href="http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/green-spaces/epping-forest/visitor-information/Pages/the-view-visitor-centre.aspx" target="_blank">the View</a>, opened in 2012 in a late Victorian building. As its name suggests, this boasts its own spectacular (and more accessible) view of the Forest as well as exhibitions and information on forest life. And next to that is the <a href="http://www.premierinn.com/gb/en/hotels/england/greater-london/chingford/london-chingford.html" target="_blank">Royal Forest</a>, a sprawling early 20th century ‘Brewer’s Tudor’ pub-hotel that now houses a Brewer’s Fayre and Premier Inn, another of the handful of accommodation options along the Loop.<br />
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The trail finally climbs from Chingford Plain beside another celebrated venue, the Butler’s Retreat, a timber-framed, weatherboarded early 19th century building that may once have been a barn. This takes its name from its 1890s proprietor, John Butler, and is the last surviving Forest retreat still open for public refreshment, although it now has an alcohol license. It was restored as part of the same project that created the View and is currently operated by a small upmarket café chain, the Larder.<br />
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Reaching Rangers Road, the Loop meets another trail from the northeast, the Centenary Walk Epping Forest, unsigned but shown on Ordnance Survey maps, which runs for 24 km through the whole length of the Forest from Forest Gate in east London to Epping. It was devised as part of the centenary celebration of the Epping Forest Act in 1978 by the late Fred Matthews, a prominent Ramblers campaigner in Essex and a prolific originator of walking trails.<br />
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It’s still the basis of an annual walking event organised by the <a href="http://www.friendsofeppingforest.org.uk/" target="_blank">Friends of Epping Forest</a> and the Ramblers. It provides another convenient link between the Loop and the London Countryway at High Beach: the latter trail actually shares the alignment of the Centenary Walk from there to Epping. The Greenwich Meridian Trail, which has pursued a slightly different route, again converges with the Loop here, then heads decisively south with the Centenary Walk towards Walthamstow and Wanstead Flats.<br />
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The Loop now keeps eastward on the other side of Rangers Road, through an area known as Hatch Forest, to encounter a pretty stream, the river Ching. This rises at Connaught Water, a lake not far to the north, and flows roughly south between Woodford and Highams Park, then curves east between South Chingford and Walthamstow to meet the river Lea just north of the Banbury reservoir, a distance of about 9 km.<br />
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As you may guess from my previous comments about the origin of the name ‘Chingford’, the river’s name is a ‘back formation’ from the place rather than the other way round: it used to be called the Bourne. Much of the Ching’s course once formed the eastern and southern boundaries of Chingford parish, and here it still represents the edge of London. As confirmed by the county sign beside Rangers Road a few metres away, once across the Ching the Loop is back in Essex, where it stays for the rest of this section. <br />
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<h3>
Buckhurst Hill</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqQtJic84GC38UqGMWU1j0T9j-IbLzBBAKrb6vcimnP0sEKz3PURykbV7HQ-U9rjbOlqEvtqKbL9BfqGHqFES7bE_ryIpsnBKo3P3Dh_c05JQ1iFbOi5cQ83UVpFU43yuP-jDMEKZ9TL8/s1600/buckhursthill-villagesign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqQtJic84GC38UqGMWU1j0T9j-IbLzBBAKrb6vcimnP0sEKz3PURykbV7HQ-U9rjbOlqEvtqKbL9BfqGHqFES7bE_ryIpsnBKo3P3Dh_c05JQ1iFbOi5cQ83UVpFU43yuP-jDMEKZ9TL8/s400/buckhursthill-villagesign.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Folk etymology in picture at Roebuck Green, Buckhurst Hill</td></tr>
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The area of Epping Forest immediately to the east of Chingford is known as the Warren, as by the end of the 18th century there was a large rabbit warren here. The Loop enters it along a broad grassy strip, climbing again to reach Epping New Road, a turnpike driven through what was then deep forest in 1834 as an improvement of the coaching route between London and Newmarket.<br />
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In the 1920s this road was designated part of a major trunk route, the A11 from London to Norwich, but since the opening of the M11 it’s been detrunked and renumbered A104. The pub here, the Warren Wood, was opened shortly after the road, in the 1850s. The house known as the Warren, once one of the Tudor ‘standings’ and now the Forest Keepers’ headquarters, is some distance further up the road to the north.<br />
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The Loop continues on a footpath through another stretch of Forest and alongside a cricket ground to emerge at Roebuck Green, which still preserves some of the atmosphere of a rural hamlet in an airy hilltop location. Since crossing the Ching, you’ve been in the area known as Buckhurst Hill, once a remote and wooded western part of Chigwell parish. It was bisected by the old highway on which you now stand, running roughly north-south from Woodford to Loughton, with only a rough footpath running east-west to connect with the parish church at Chigwell. Remarkably, there wasn’t a proper road between the two until 1890.<br />
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As a buck is a male deer, and a hurst a wooded hill, the place name seems evocatively rural, but it was originally the more prosaic-sounding Bucket Hill, probably ultimately derived from the fact that beech trees grew here. A straggle of houses lay along the road, which increased in importance in the 17th century when it was extended at its northern end to Epping, becoming an important link in the coaching route from London to Newmarket. But the climb up the hill was a cause of frequent delay, and the road was eventually superseded in 1834 by the Epping New Road, which the Loop crossed earlier. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjji735yV9QnPLPQAbVVEAoT-4Ls5pHJTPNOwz35ghu_Uj7b7jDbNwXhbMw2JZ_u2OJi9n4Z9Le_sImMFE8dlX35ngx0bhKBsOOfDzFHV5WKHrdPSwDjgGOCk2WLTuXwjizR_X2U6C09Z4/s1600/buckhursthill-rose.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjji735yV9QnPLPQAbVVEAoT-4Ls5pHJTPNOwz35ghu_Uj7b7jDbNwXhbMw2JZ_u2OJi9n4Z9Le_sImMFE8dlX35ngx0bhKBsOOfDzFHV5WKHrdPSwDjgGOCk2WLTuXwjizR_X2U6C09Z4/s320/buckhursthill-rose.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dog rose at North Farm, Buckhurst Hill</td></tr>
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While the various road improvements stimulated enough development to necessitate the building of a church in 1837, Buckhurst Hill only really became a significant settlement with the opening of the railway in 1856. Much of the building was on inclosed Forest land, with the most expensive and desirable properties up on the ridge, and denser housing further east into the Roding valley, closer to the railway.<br />
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You can still see this pattern today: up here there are big villas overlooking the attractive green, with Victorian semis down the hill around the station, and interwar private and social housing and flats filling in the gaps. Today, the more desirable bits are very desirable indeed: along with Chigwell and Loughton, Buckhurst Hill forms the so-called Golden Triangle of affluent vulgarity featured in ‘reality’ TV show <i>The Only Way is Essex</i>.<br />
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The grass and scattered trees of Roebuck Green are another fragment of Forest Land, as are the fields of North Farm which you pass on a half-hidden path between the houses overlooking the green. Once these fields were covered in a wood known as Plucketts Wood, later inclosed, largely cleared and farmed. After World War II the owner, Charles Linder, allowed local people to use the fields on the right of the path for events, and in 1956 handed their management over to Chigwell Urban District Council, since succeeded by Epping Forest District Council. The 3.6 ha site is now managed as a Local Nature Reserve, with hay meadows that are particularly attractive in early summer, and a few remnant patches of ancient woodland.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It might not be London, but they have the Underground. Crossing the Central Line at Buckhurst Hill.</td></tr>
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The Loop descends through fine green meadows, finally leaving the Forest lands to cross the railway. This was originally opened by the Eastern Counties Railway, predecessor of the Great Eastern, as a branch from Stratford to Loughton, providing through services to Bishopsgate and later Liverpool Street. It was extended in 1865 to Epping and Ongar, and in 1948 electrified and incorporated into the eastern extension of the London Underground Central Line, thus the familiar London Tube trains you’ll see plying the route today.<br />
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The remainder of the Loop through Buckhurst Hill is amid interwar development, though part of it makes good use of the Green Walk, an old footpath retained as a feature of the surrounding housing estates, which crosses close to the shops on Loughton Way. By now you’ve descended from the ridge to the flat flood plain of the next major Thames tributary east, the river Roding, and the Green Walk heads straight for the water, its surroundings soon opening out into Roding Valley Recreational Area.<br />
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<h3>
The Roding Valley</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDIx7BOjM3MiVkeFEJZEX2JP9rxK187ibo46Y_69vxh2OgKB1oNq-ycPv07OAe0Fk9HcBJUWfbIOA6qrM-wI6L8QQdnT90Ogfm1SUaSN_gyRTs9kflTa_n34GqfEOoiTBv5fX9VMmRigg/s1600/riverroding.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDIx7BOjM3MiVkeFEJZEX2JP9rxK187ibo46Y_69vxh2OgKB1oNq-ycPv07OAe0Fk9HcBJUWfbIOA6qrM-wI6L8QQdnT90Ogfm1SUaSN_gyRTs9kflTa_n34GqfEOoiTBv5fX9VMmRigg/s400/riverroding.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The river Roding at Roding Valley Meadows, between Buckhurst Hill and Chigwell</td></tr>
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The river Roding rises near Dunmow and flows for 80 km, initially roughly south through the Essex Rodings, villages which are suffixed with the river’s name. It works its way southeast from Ongar to Redbridge then slightly southwest through Ilford and Barking to join the Thames at Creekmouth – or Barking Riverside, as it’s shortly to be renamed once it’s redeveloped into a massive new residential estate -- as tidal Barking Creek.<br />
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Like the Lea but on a smaller scale, the Roding has a broad, flat valley, which as you’ll by now expect has been kept largely undeveloped for water management reasons. There have been various plans for a Roding Valley walking trail but currently following the river for any distance on foot is a rather disjoined experience.<br />
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Following World War II, the riverside land here, once used for farming, was designated as an open space for the much-expanded settlement and is now known as the Roding Valley Recreational Area (RVRA), an extended swathe of recreation grounds and sports fields which straddles the London boundary. In truth it’s one of those green areas along the Loop which, though undoubtedly valuable, is currently under-utilised, and would benefit from a more varied texture. Potentially it could become almost as attractive as the Lea valley.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4AD_BmSFZB5eeu9DMAJS6Koa_YixKFD90cYtCdcp0jFyFmjqzxqLMA07mC2mXSX3dyjt9wkuqwEXUN4V7-zT1Ok6QG5st23YlvmzwhfWIYPjFKL4wsQoV1TSWyT5jY9v1IIUxG0AcjvY/s1600/rodingvalleylakes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4AD_BmSFZB5eeu9DMAJS6Koa_YixKFD90cYtCdcp0jFyFmjqzxqLMA07mC2mXSX3dyjt9wkuqwEXUN4V7-zT1Ok6QG5st23YlvmzwhfWIYPjFKL4wsQoV1TSWyT5jY9v1IIUxG0AcjvY/s400/rodingvalleylakes.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Roding Valley Lakes, a legacy of the M11</td></tr>
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This section of the RVRA is owned by Epping Forest District Council, but since new parish councils were created in this urbanised area in the late 1990s, the District has been negotiating to transfer its management to them. The Loop bends round the edge of one of the recreational area’s most prominent and attractive features, one of a pair of lakes used for fishing and boating. In another echo of the Lea valley, these were converted from gravel pits used for the construction of the nearby M11 in the late 1970s.<br />
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The trail then crosses the Roding itself and follows it briefly upriver through <a href="http://www.essexwt.org.uk/reserves/roding-valley-meadows" target="_blank">Roding Valley Meadows Local Nature Reserve</a>, the largest remaining area of water meadows in Essex. This ancient landscape with its small meadows divided by traditional hedgerows was preserved into the later part of the 20th century as much of the land was requisitioned as an RAF base, RAF Chigwell, in 1938.<br />
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The base was a centre for barrage balloon operations in the early part of World War II, and part of the nuclear early warning system during the Cold War. Decommissioned in 1964 and largely demolished in 1968, part of the base was buried beneath the M11, while the rest was passed to Essex Wildlife Trust in 1986. It’s particularly noted for wild flowers like the southern marsh orchid, yellow watercress and devil’s bit scabious, as well as butterflies and other invertebrates.<br />
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The trail meets a concrete track of RAF origin, and if you detour left here, you’ll find one of the few substantial remains of the site’s wartime career, a concrete apron equipped with rotundas from which barrage balloons were launched. But the main route winds in the opposite direction out of the site, past a huge private David Lloyd leisure centre that also occupies part of the old base, and along a drive first towards the M11 and then parallel with it. The trees to the north conceal one of the hidden secrets of the motorway, but we’ll shortly enjoy a better view of this.<br />
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On the right, near the end of the drive, is the former Buckhurst Hill County High School, built in 1938 and closed in 1989 when it merged with Roding Valley High School and moved to a different site. The building is now an independent Sikh faith school that goes by the rather cumbersome name Guru Gobind Singh Khalsa College.<br />
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<h3>
On to Chigwell</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The M11, looking north from Roding Lane bridge at Chigwell. Sliproads lead to and from the never-built Chigwell Services.</td></tr>
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The rest of this section is alongside the road into Chigwell, which crosses the M11 motorway, the last of the family of ‘Great North Roads’ the Loop encounters, and so far, the last of the major motorways built out of London. This section opened in 1980, superseding both the A10 and A11 as a through route to Cambridge and East Anglia, and providing a convenient exit northward from east London. It also serves London’s ‘third airport’, Stansted near Bishops Stortford, which was massively expanded in the mid-1980s.<br />
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Look left northwards along the motorway from the bridge and you’ll see unsigned slip roads on both sides. These and the overbridge just visible ahead are the only obvious clues on the ground to a curious instance of unfinished infrastructure hidden behind the trees. Aerial photographs are more revealing, showing that the slip roads loop around two large semi-circular areas of open grassland. As planned in the 1960s, the motorway was intended to extend much deeper into London than its current terminus on the North Circular at South Woodford, continuing through Hackney to Islington as part of the London Ringways plan. The land here was set aside for the motorway service area that would therefore be required, to be known as Chigwell Services.<br />
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But public opinion was turning firmly against such disruptive intrusions into inner cities, and plans for the final section of the motorway were finally cancelled in 1994. This is the reason why the southernmost junction on the M11 today is numbered 4, as junctions 1-3 would have been on the continuation south. A descendant of the scheme, the M11 link road to the Blackwall Tunnel approach via Leytonstone, was belatedly completed in the face of much local opposition as a diversion of the A12 in 1999. So Chigwell Services was now surplus to requirements. The site enjoyed a brief useful life between 2009 and 2012 as an off-site logistics depot during the construction of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, but is now redundant again, as if awaiting a new golden age of motorway building. <br />
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At first, fields on both sides relieve the road walk, but soon, chains of interwar houses snake up Chigwell Rise as the Loop descends into the valley of the Chigwell Brook to a roundabout where the Rise meets Chigwell High Road. Chigwell is another of those hydra-headed suburban villages, where the railway has created a secondary centre. The historic core is up the hill to the north, along the next section of the Loop. But the railway builders preferred the lower ground, so if you’re breaking your walk here, you’ll turn right through an area of more recent development. The High Street here is lined with 1930s shopping parades, now boasting retailers upmarket enough to match the well-heeled locals’ aspirations. Another attraction is the well-kept village green, now a little park with a colourful ‘millennium garden’.<br />
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Chigwell station dates from 1903, when the Great Eastern Railway opened a branch line known as the Fairlop Loop from its main line at Ilford to Woodford on the Epping and Ongar branch, encountered earlier on the Loop. Like the Epping line, this became part of the London Underground in 1948, with a new tunnel from Newbury Park to Leytonstone completing the now-familiar Hainault Loop on the Central Line. The connection to the main line was finally severed in 1956. The original red brick station still sits on the road bridge over the lines, recently refurbished but largely unaltered. With its elegant vaguely Dutch-looking twin gables, it provides a modestly attractive location at which to end this typically varied section of the London Loop.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha7RhCbfBlPT1G-YhnXiT5sKFOXWWcZBt-Fp2uOisx6fI21uwY-fGMSWcBw6ghlnojZeudNeMukGmOd4lafTxflJcL6L_rHn5bwNfDRAGaC53tr6VbvilSIMQ6l-l9q1v8uYf9cO6toQ0/s1600/chigwellstation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha7RhCbfBlPT1G-YhnXiT5sKFOXWWcZBt-Fp2uOisx6fI21uwY-fGMSWcBw6ghlnojZeudNeMukGmOd4lafTxflJcL6L_rHn5bwNfDRAGaC53tr6VbvilSIMQ6l-l9q1v8uYf9cO6toQ0/s640/chigwellstation.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Modestly elegant and decidedly above ground: Chigwell Underground station.</td></tr>
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<ul style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<li><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/ehqae4xqympy3ya/18-19-enfieldlock-chigwell.pdf?dl=0" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Download full route description</a> (PDF)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=ze8MGLx4VZ8Q.kz_iSyKD3QHI&usp=sharing" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">View Google map</a></li>
<li><a href="https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/walking/enfield-lock-to-chingford" target="_blank"><span style="color: #940f04;">Official Transport for London pag</span>e: Enfield Lock to Chingford</a></li>
<li><a href="https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/walking/chingford-to-chigwell" target="_blank">Official Transport for London page: Chingford to Chigwell</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1666872559007076569.post-83884625111463424292016-10-07T03:34:00.000+01:002017-03-19T15:53:08.418+00:00London Loop 17: Cockfosters - Enfield Lock<div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD3i2DQOFV-eH6jLEIhaQoT05zNDfZ8wKpYAuZGVvouGjQON1M0Vx6XHQ1nIq75TFMQmZh7cIiXKYHs3HB7sE7cwvNiOCEBXopvRNabhHOawq_u_owiQ5RqQUlXpJMMc-PxT2rT9My20k/s1600/hillyfieldsturkeybrook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD3i2DQOFV-eH6jLEIhaQoT05zNDfZ8wKpYAuZGVvouGjQON1M0Vx6XHQ1nIq75TFMQmZh7cIiXKYHs3HB7sE7cwvNiOCEBXopvRNabhHOawq_u_owiQ5RqQUlXpJMMc-PxT2rT9My20k/s640/hillyfieldsturkeybrook.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Top London Loop beauty spot: crossing the Turkey Brook in Hilly Fields Park</td></tr>
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<div>
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TRENT PARK, ONE OF THE FINEST PRESERVED COUNTRY ESTATES in London, opens this section of the London Loop in grand style. The trail continues through the fields of the former Enfield Chase alongside the Salmons Brook, then hops to the next river valley north, tracking the Turkey Brook through delightful parks and green spaces and past the site of a vanished Tudor palace. It crosses the New River and the route of Roman Ermine Street through the northern part of Enfield to stop just short of the Lee Valley Park.<br />
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This is a single longish official section of the Loop, though with several opportunities to break at bus stops. There’s an intermediate station right on the route too, but it’s a relatively short distance from the end.<br />
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<div>
<h3>
Trent Park</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9gMq724V0ZDB5BQ1SF-kdhEAvb7uDKSz4ibGislnEhbfA6RJShUCRXlx8Q_DH_szB1GIK-RNxwmSPmaccFXX2NKY4ouyC6if5MtgYGTfK1xxLtdArF7wvRZBcWVHRZ5hHz86mD7jVANw/s1600/trentparkparkland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9gMq724V0ZDB5BQ1SF-kdhEAvb7uDKSz4ibGislnEhbfA6RJShUCRXlx8Q_DH_szB1GIK-RNxwmSPmaccFXX2NKY4ouyC6if5MtgYGTfK1xxLtdArF7wvRZBcWVHRZ5hHz86mD7jVANw/s640/trentparkparkland.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rolling parkland in Trent Park</td></tr>
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<div>
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Trent Park is one of the London Loop’s undisputed gems. This 3.2 km2 site with its swathes of parkland, woodland, lakes and sculpted vistas still reveals layers of ancient forest, mediaeval hunting park, Georgian country seat, post-Jazz Age confection and late 20th century municipal amenity. It has a rich past and rather an uncertain future.</div>
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As mentioned in the previous section, this part of the old Forest of Middlesex evolved into an extensive hunting park. Its boundary was first marked out in 1136 by its then lord, the Earl of Essex, Geoffrey de Mandeville, who once held sway over much of Essex, Hertfordshire and Middlesex. The name Enfield Chase first appears in 1322, and by 1421 it was a royal forest. The future Elizabeth I hunted deer here in 1557, having been escorted on horseback from Hatfield House by 12 ladies in white satin and 120 green-clothed yeomen. But though hunting on the chase was strictly reserved for the royals and their guests, local people, or commoners, were traditionally free to use the land for other purposes, such as grazing and gathering timber.<br />
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The first attempt to break up the Chase was in the 1650s under Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate, when the government began selling off patches of it to cover arrears in the army payroll. This provoked violent resistance from the commoners, and ceased following the restoration of the monarchy. Ultimately, though, it proved impossible to regulate unauthorised use of such a large open area, and by the mid-18th century, the combination of a growing local population that needed feeding, and illegal activities like unauthorised timber cutting and poaching, swayed the argument in favour of inclosure. So in 1777, the area, which then totalled 34 km2, was legally ‘afforested’, with part becoming Monken Hadley Common, crossed in the previous walk.<br />
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As well as a multitude of smaller plots, two large estates were created. One was Beech Hill Park, also mentioned in the previous section. The other, to the east of Cockfosters Road, was intended to remain as a hunting park in miniature. George III gave this to the royal physician, Dr Robert Jebb, in gratitude for successfully treating his younger brother, William Henry, the Duke of Gloucester, for mental illness. It appears poor mental health ran in the family: as is well known, George himself suffered from it, developing dementia at a relatively early age. When Jebb treated him, William Henry was recuperating in what was then the prince-bishopric of Trento or Trient in the Südtirol, now the partly German-speaking region of northern Italy that borders Austria. Thus the new estate became Trent Park.<br />
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It was Jebb that built the first iteration of the mansion, and engaged a landscape gardener, most likely Humphrey Repton, to remodel the grounds. The work included a lake created from three streams, one of which eventually flows into Salmons Brook, which we’ll encounter later. The original house was modest and undistinguished by the standards of the day and the setting, and was progressively extended and remodelled by subsequent owners, including the Bevans, a family of Quaker bankers, who lived here between 1833 and 1908.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgstAd8FlBq9ftoUWgDLJ2qQVHS0-j88LGmL7-TFzL79HPCF7H_ZLp2YeNuknsePvhcnTD4uzkbhm1aW-gcDVd_7OYdsaijyuc3Sj7vs5Q8uYbnRflEeorh1uTZkSlBRxMb4zWRmICp4rY/s1600/trentpark-mansionview.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgstAd8FlBq9ftoUWgDLJ2qQVHS0-j88LGmL7-TFzL79HPCF7H_ZLp2YeNuknsePvhcnTD4uzkbhm1aW-gcDVd_7OYdsaijyuc3Sj7vs5Q8uYbnRflEeorh1uTZkSlBRxMb4zWRmICp4rY/s400/trentpark-mansionview.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trent Park mansion, viewed from the Sassoon obelisk</td></tr>
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The subsequent owner, Edward Sassoon, died in 1912, not long after buying the property, and it was his son, Philip, who was to become its most famous private owner. The Sassoons were a wealthy Jewish trading family, originally from Baghdad via India, and closely related to the Rothschilds. Philip, a cousin of celebrated war poet Siegfried Sassoon, was the epitome of the millionaire playboy, a stylish socialite and aesthete who also happened to be the Conservative MP for Hythe in Kent and held several important government and military offices. He had already remodelled the estate at Port Lympne, in his constituency, as a lavish and decadent playground. In contrast, he reworked Trent Park with the help of architect Philip Tilden in more conservative style, using recycled 18th century red bricks to recreate it as the grand Georgian mansion it perhaps always should have been.<br />
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A keen pilot and sometime government air secretary, Sassoon built a private aerodrome in the grounds to hold his own aircraft collection. He also added a golf course, a Japanese water garden, various statues and monuments and a menagerie of exotic birds for the lake. Trent Park became a social focus for the great and the good of the day, and guests included Charles Chaplin, Winston Churchill, T E Lawrence (of Arabia), George Bernard Shaw and Rex Whistler. Tory politician Robert Boothby recalled:<br />
<blockquote>
The summer weekend parties at Trent were unique, and in the highest degree enjoyable, but theatrical rather than intimate. He [Sassoon] frankly loved success, and you could be sure of finding one or two of the reigning stars of the literary, film or sporting worlds, in addition to a fair sprinkling of politicians and, on occasion, royalty…. I remember one weekend when the guests, who included the present King and Queen, were entertained with an exhibition of ‘stunt’ shots at golf by Joe Kirkwood after lunch, with flights over the grounds in our host’s private aeroplane after tea, with a firework display over the lake after dinner, with songs from Richard Tauber, which we listened to on the terrace by moonlight before going to bed.</blockquote>
Sassoon always remained one of the most eligible bachelors of his day. His response when pressed on this was to say that he would only marry when he found someone as lovely and perfect as his sister Sybil. In reality it’s likely he preferred the young airmen he befriended through his government work and entertained at Port Lympne, although Sybil discreetly destroyed all his papers following his death from influenza at age 50 in 1939, so the exact truth about his private life remains obscure. <br />
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World War II broke out only a few months after Sassoon’s death, and events at Trent Park were about to get even more extraordinary. Most of the site was requisitioned as what appeared to be a prisoner of war camp, but was actually a top secret interrogation centre under the direction of a unit codenamed MI19. Prisoners were assigned large and comfortably furnished rooms with numerous home comforts, and given access to parts of the beautiful gardens and grounds. Some inmates were even treated to days out at the seaside.<br />
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But all the rooms were secretly bugged, and connected to listening and recording equipment, in the hope that the prisoners, most of them high-ranking officers who had been deliberately selected for their likely strategic knowledge, would lose their guard and open up to each other and to staff. Other techniques including circulating fake newspapers with stories intended to provoke potentially divisive or informative discussion, and employing civilian welfare staff who were actually intelligence officers trained to gain the detainees’ trust. By no means all the captured officers were enthusiastic supporters of the Nazi regime, and over time the prison community split into factions, tacitly encouraged by MI19.<br />
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Among the intelligence gained this way was the location of the V2 rocket development site at Peenemünde, prompting a series of Allied bombing raids, and much information about submarine movements. Trent Park was also one of the first places where evidence began to emerge of the looming Holocaust, as the Nazi party moved from persecution of Jewish people and others regarded as ‘degenerate’ to deliberate mass extermination. The activities of MI19 are said to be at least as important to the war effort as the better-known codebreaking work at Bletchley Park, and have provided the subject of both a TV documentary and a radio and stage play written by the son of one of the secret listeners.<br />
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Following the war, the house became a teacher training college, and in 1951 Middlesex County Council compulsorily purchased the whole of the surrounding grounds to preserve as Green Belt. After the estate passed to the Greater London Council in 1965, it was designated as a country park, which opened officially in 1973 and has since been inherited by the London Borough of Enfield. Educational use of the house expanded, and in 1974 it became a campus of Middlesex Polytechnic, which was converted to a university in 1992. So during the 20th century the site has provided not only one of the country’s most beautiful settings for a prison, but one of its most beautiful settings for a university too.<br />
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Today, the country park continues in use, for now at least, as a popular and much-loved public amenity, but a question mark hangs over the house and its immediate surroundings. Middlesex University relocated to a big new building at its Hendon campus in 2012, and the next year a private Malaysian university, Allianze University College of Medical Sciences, bought its old site, but went bankrupt only a year later. The site is now in the hands of developer Berkeley, who are shortly expected to make a planning application for conversion to 262 homes.<br />
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The developer has promised to restore many of the historic features, get rid of the ugly annexe buildings added in the 1960s and 1970s and open part of the mansion as a museum. In response to concerns raised by the local Friends group and others (and perhaps bearing in mind the situation at Bentley Priory <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2016/08/london-loop-15-hatch-end-borehamwood.html">back along the Loop</a>, another country mansion that played a historic wartime role), the plans don’t include gating the residential areas but instead seek to integrate them better into the surrounding country park. So this could be a good outcome for a remarkable site which is currently languishing into dereliction behind fences and hoardings, but time will tell.<br />
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There’s much more history to read: I recommend the pamphlet <i>A Concise History of Trent Park</i> by Alan Mitellas, published by the <a href="http://www.friendsoftrentcountrypark.org.uk/" target="_blank">Friends group</a> and <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjQ7MvqzcfPAhUI04MKHWwdDFoQFggwMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.enfield.gov.uk%2Fdownload%2Fdownloads%2Fid%2F8248%2Fconsice_history_of_trent_country_park.&usg=AFQjCNFNYmRZ5JCnTDeRSTCdrdXf4ycLmA&sig2=1X2BXNF77iEooA3GF7Wu3g" target="_blank">downloadable from Enfield council’s website</a>, which I’ve drawn on extensively here.<br />
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The Loop enters the park immediately on leaving Cockfosters station, along a green strip beside Trent Park Cemetery. This was opened on former farmland attached to the park in 1960 by Islington council as an out-of-borough facility, and is still managed from Islington today. A path then runs through the woodlands of Church Wood and along the side of meadows dotted with mature trees to reach the main drive. If you decided to miss out Cockfosters, you’ll follow this drive all the way from the main road. One of the routes in Enfield council’s work-in-progress <a href="http://cycleenfield.co.uk/route-map/" target="_blank">Greenway</a> cycling and walking route network also runs along the drive, taking an alternative route from Cockfosters Station. The entire remaining part of this section is also designated as part of the Greenway network.<br />
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At the junction where the main drive bends off towards the house along a grand avenue stands one of the park’s three obelisks, two of which are on the Loop (the third, known as the Emma Crewe Pineapple, is at the opposite end of the main drive). None of them is actually native to Trent Park: all three were moved here by Sassoon in 1934 from Wrest Park in Bedfordshire, home of the Grey family, whose members they commemorate.<br />
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This one, a rather dumpy pyramidal structure known as the Duke of Kent obelisk or the Duke’s Pyramid, is dedicated to Henry Grey, who died in 1740: the inscription also refers to the creation of gardens in 1706, but this actually applies to Wrest Park. In the 1970s the GLC proposed to move this and the pineapple back to their original site, but Enfield council successfully argued that, together with the tallest and best-known of the three which we’ll encounter later, they had become an integral and well-known feature of their current home.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-8hVY6Nr5XMrnFIj4Lziit0W9pTrUzB9u270yR-7zx2qRhxLKHrRUr68HkiyQg1Vdhl-VNk-gPu0Yi1aBu13WwQ4D9tv3fzj2yFiIY6m61CdTHixG9Pz3yuh23PgMl1_YbQwhINy7Dhk/s1600/trentparkobelisk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-8hVY6Nr5XMrnFIj4Lziit0W9pTrUzB9u270yR-7zx2qRhxLKHrRUr68HkiyQg1Vdhl-VNk-gPu0Yi1aBu13WwQ4D9tv3fzj2yFiIY6m61CdTHixG9Pz3yuh23PgMl1_YbQwhINy7Dhk/s400/trentparkobelisk.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Sassoon obelisk in timey-wimey Trent Park.</td></tr>
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The Loop doesn’t follow the house drive, but continues towards what’s now the busiest part of the country park, where a car park, a commercial Go Ape ‘treetop adventure’ and a rather good park café attract family crowds on fine days. Beyond this are the rich woodlands of Oak Wood, then the rolling parklands open up as the trail runs parallel to the banks of the lake. Soon, off to the left, you’ll see the tallest obelisk at the top of an open strip cut through the trees, known as the Vista. In the other direction, you should be able to glimpse the house. In Sassoon’s day, pheasants would be driven out of the woods here so that guests could enjoy a little shooting.<br />
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The trail now climbs Camlet Hill, and heads off into the trees of Moat Wood. Both names refer to a Scheduled Ancient Monument, Camlet Moat, just off the path on the right approaching the woodland edge. It’s the site of a mediaeval manor house or lodge, which may have been Geoffrey de Mandeville’s original Enfield manor house, and/or the headquarters of the chief forester, or ‘cock foster’, of the Chase.<br />
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It was demolished in 1439 and its materials sold to raise money for repairs to Hertford Castle, and only the moat and some earthworks are visible today. Though there’s little evidence for this, the name is widely believed to be a corruption of Camelot, prompting all sorts of fanciful speculation about the site’s connection to King Arthur and its supposed location on a ley line. This explains the charms, ribbons and other mystical paraphernalia you might spot on nearby trees.<br />
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Reaching the edge of the wood, a short detour for a close-up view of the obelisk is well worth your time. The ingenuity of the Vista becomes apparent, as the structure is in direct line of sight from the house. The 20 m pillar, known as the Earl of Harold obelisk or Sassoon’s Obelisk, commemorates the birth of George Grey, son and long hoped-for heir of Henry, who died only a few months afterwards, extinguishing the family line.<br />
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Fans of the BBC’s long-running time travelling TV series <i>Doctor Who</i> may find the setting looks familiar. It was used as a principal location in ‘Mawdryn Undead’, one of the key stories in the era of fifth Doctor Peter Davison in 1983. Scenes were filmed not only at the obelisk but around the mansion, which took the role of a fictional public school. Perhaps the mason who engraved the inscription also went through a time warp, as he’s recorded the date of poor baby George’s birth as 1702 when it was actually 1732.<br />
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<h3>
Salmons Brook</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQydkBlp2MnCXIuYUveE5VyZFDxvTMbWK8VR9bCsvLZGufcfTUiUvhsm3Gh3OcoZ4_Xgs6algItMJ_tSFmWHy0Jpe0we7RikUFws4ZZcJaUBYKLX-Bb1SUvDuYpD-XXb7Z14udOshNlCk/s1600/enfieldchaseparkfarms.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQydkBlp2MnCXIuYUveE5VyZFDxvTMbWK8VR9bCsvLZGufcfTUiUvhsm3Gh3OcoZ4_Xgs6algItMJ_tSFmWHy0Jpe0we7RikUFws4ZZcJaUBYKLX-Bb1SUvDuYpD-XXb7Z14udOshNlCk/s400/enfieldchaseparkfarms.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The field paths of Enfield at Park Farms.</td></tr>
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A fine swathe of London’s agricultural countryside lies on the other side of Hadley Roaad, the road which runs around the back of Trent Park. The arable fields of Park Farms, separated by ancient hedgerows dotted with flowers, sweep downhill into the valley of the Salmons Brook. This was one of the Enfield Chase plots assigned as farmland after 1777, now owned by the London Borough of Enfield and leased out commercially. The path the Loop follows through here is known as Jubilee Path, as it was opened in 1977, the year of Elizabeth II’s silver jubilee. Reaching the brook itself, another section of the Greenway network from Hadley Wood will eventually join from the west.<br />
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The brook rises just over the Hertfordshire boundary in Spoilbank Wood, to the northeast of Hadley Wood suburb, and runs roughly southeast via Bush Hill Park and Edmonton to join the Pymmes Brook just south of the North Circular Road near Angel Road, not long before the latter reaches the Lee Navigation at Tottenham Lock. The origin of its name might sound obvious, but it’s actually most likely named after the Salemon family, who were prominent in Edmonton in the 13th century. The Loop turns east to follow it, but you’ll need to look carefully as it’s hidden behind hedgerows for most of this stretch.<br />
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Finally, the path heads up the other side of the valley, climbing Cuckolds Hill and crossing a small and relatively young community woodland, Brooke Wood, planted in 1991 in commemoration of Roger Brooke, a prominent local councillor. Then make sure you admire the view to central London before a stile provides an exit onto the aptly-named Ridgeway, the narrow but rather busy road linking Enfield and Potters Bar. The construction of this highway along the gravelly ridge between the Salmons Brook and the Turkey Brook was stipulated in the 1777 legislation that divided up the Chase. When I last walked this way, the council had already installed a Greenway sign pointing back the way I’d come, optimistically including a cycling symbol, though the path certainly wasn’t suitable for the average cyclist.<br />
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A little along the Ridgeway is one of the few hotels directly on the London Loop, and once again it’s an upmarket one, the Royal Chace Hotel, in a generously-proportioned 1930s mock-Tudor building. The suburban sprawl of Enfield laps at its door, and a little further down, just across the road, are two big hospitals, the private Kings Oak and the NHS Chase Farm, on a site that was originally developed as a municipal children’s home in the 1880s. But the Loop deftly dodges all this to stay within the Green Belt, following the drive of Rectory Farm down into another valley.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK-q2CLCpNuPvQQhI_j4E-RLkm5WdqkjxVmVeN3oWRqVCp9WRDk8f47jrwLTug3FkwSNCy-nz7QyT_QvzY8o3roXq-IBNBlfjV3dyBL2LupnWm5YP0GKSHhK7Wbi1NqIySbwJhY5jXWYw/s1600/chasefarmbarns.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK-q2CLCpNuPvQQhI_j4E-RLkm5WdqkjxVmVeN3oWRqVCp9WRDk8f47jrwLTug3FkwSNCy-nz7QyT_QvzY8o3roXq-IBNBlfjV3dyBL2LupnWm5YP0GKSHhK7Wbi1NqIySbwJhY5jXWYw/s640/chasefarmbarns.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Barns near the Turkey Brook at Rectory Farm</td></tr>
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Past the farm, now a clay shooting school with a rather derelict-looking clump of old barns, the track crosses the Turkey Brook on the valley floor. I’ll say more about this watercourse later, as the trail leaves it behind for now, continuing uphill again. An old red brick bridge then takes you under the Hertford Loop railway line. This was opened in 1910 as an extension of the Great Northern’s branch line from Alexandra Palace to Enfield Chase station. At first it terminated at Cuffley, not much further north, though was later extended via Hertford North to re-join the East Coast Main Line at Stevenage, creating a relief route that avoided the restrictions of the Welwyn Viaduct.<br />
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<h3>
Crews Hill</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgehgEGW8QReHNML-4OdGYdckyCkO9BBRDq9foLI0frSvLmxWSuXUViUyvlbTUd-HyMVXKPjFm_LO8Zut9WqZ1faGNYF3AI9-IdL9_bHew0dhEUYUJiYy62VugIhiJTmGMkqrh5zamEB_c/s1600/crewshill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgehgEGW8QReHNML-4OdGYdckyCkO9BBRDq9foLI0frSvLmxWSuXUViUyvlbTUd-HyMVXKPjFm_LO8Zut9WqZ1faGNYF3AI9-IdL9_bHew0dhEUYUJiYy62VugIhiJTmGMkqrh5zamEB_c/s640/crewshill.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some of the few remaining commercial glasshouses at Crews Hill.</td></tr>
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The cluster of development known as Crews Hill is surely one of the capital’s most curious edgelands. It’s officially the most northerly settlement in Greater London, though completely isolated by the Green Belt from adjacent built-up areas. As it was part of Enfield Chase, and therefore within Enfield parish, it was included in the Municipal Borough of Enfield in the 1850s and passed on to the London Borough of today.<br />
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Once this was a far-flung corner of the open chase, though some of the land was farmed after being annexed to the nearby Theobalds Park estate, just over the Hertfordshire boundary to the north, by James I in 1607. One of the gates to the Chase used to stand just a little further on from where the Loop now turns off into Hilly Fields, where Flash Lane, which marked the eastern boundary, meets Strayfield Road. Following the 1777 inclosure, the rest of the land became cultivated: the name most likely refers to the family that lived here around this time.<br />
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Like parts of the nearby Lea Valley, Crews Hill became a centre for market gardening, and towards the end of the 19th century, glasshouse nurseries began to appear. These developments were further encouraged by the opening of Crews Hill station on the Hertford Loop Line in 1910, and for the first half of the 20th century the neighbourhood was a major supplier of fruit, vegetables and flowers for the London markets. By the 1970s, though, the nurseries were becoming uneconomic, so their owners began to switch to the retail trade, converting them into garden centres catering to a growing leisure market.<br />
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Since then, Crews Hill has grown into something of a gardening phenomenon, claiming the title not only of London’s but the UK’s garden centre golden mile. You won’t see much of this if you stick to the Loop, which just grazes the southern edge, passing some of the few commercial glasshouses left around here, which now grow aquatic plants. But by continuing to the crossroads and turning left up Theobalds Park Road, you’ll soon find yourself on a horticultural promenade of unbroken garden-related businesses. There are plants and flowers, of course, most of which aren’t actually grown here, and gardening tools and materials. But there’s all manner of other stuff, some of it only tangentially related to gardening, including fencing and decking, exotic fish, wood burning stoves, upcycled furniture and even fake grass.<br />
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In the middle of it all stands one solitary residential area, a small estate of bungalows built in the 1930s before further development was halted. Without the Green Belt it’s certain that all the nurseries would ultimately have been redeveloped for housing too. What we’ve ended up with may not be to everyone’s taste, but it’s certainly unique in London.<br />
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At Crews Hill, the Loop encounters another walking trail, shown on Ordnance Survey maps though mainly unsigned on the ground. This is the Hertfordshire Chain Walk, here slightly overstepping the parameters of its name by dipping into London and former Middlesex. Devised by the East Herts Footpath Society in 1987, the trail runs south-north across the largely rural eastern part of Hertfordshire, cheating at its northern end too as it nudges into Cambridgeshire at Ashwell.<br />
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In an ingenious response to the frustrations of those walkers who won’t countenance leaving their cars at home but still want to complete linear long distance trails, it’s designed as a series of linked circular walks, thus ‘chain walk’. The Loop briefly shares the southernmost arc of the southernmost link in the chain. It’s 63 km from Crews Hill station to Ashwell by the most direct route, but much more than double that if you walk every circuit individually. The Chain Walk also provides a couple of options for linking the Loop with the London Countryway at Newgate Street or Broxbourne Woods. <br />
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<h3>
Turkey Brook and Hilly Fields</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bandstand at Hilly Fields, with Turkey Brook beyond.</td></tr>
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In 1908, with the opening of the Hertford Loop railway through Gordon Hill and Crews Hill imminent, there was much local concern about the impact of the intensive development that would inevitably follow. In response, Enfield council bought 25 ha of farmland along the Turkey Brook, between the two projected stations, which opened in 1911 as Hilly Fields Park (not to be confused with several other similarly-named parks, including one in Lewisham). As recounted on the park friends website, this was a controversial move, particularly among eager local builders, and ultimately proceeded only on the basis of a one-vote majority.<br />
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Thankfully the park remains an attractive and well-used space today, and the Loop makes good use of it. The trail descends through a strip of woodland known as Kings Wood to encounter the brook again at a footbridge, a picturesque spot where the river sparkles under a thick, dark canopy of gnarled mature trees.<br />
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The Turkey Brook rises not too far to the northwest, in Pond Wood just over the M25 and the Hertfordshire boundary. From Hilly Fields it runs fairly straightforwardly east towards the River Lee Navigation at Enfield Lock. Like many of London’s rivers, it’s the core of a green corridor left largely undeveloped due to flood risk, and acts as a near-constant companion to the Loop for the rest of this section, which ends just short of its confluence. As with the Salmons Brook, the obvious explanation for the Turkey Brook’s name turns out to be the wrong one, as it has nothing to do with the bird or the country. It’s most likely taken instead from the settlement of Turkey Street, further downstream, which in turn was named after a local family, Toke or Tokey.<br />
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In 2012-13, the riverside path was improved as part of the Enfield Greenways scheme, and for much of the way you’ll be walking on broad and accessible crunchy gravel tracks shared with cyclists, though not too busy and still comfortable to walk on. The Loop is still signed along its original route, though, which climbs a little away from the brook on narrower paths across the grassy hillside. You could take the slightly more direct option of sticking to the greenway here, but the old route has the advantage of wider views over the valley.<br />
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Shortly, a traditional park bandstand appears between the river and the path, dating from the early 1920s. Back then, as many as 5,000 people attended brass band concerts here. But interest in such music gradually dwindled and by 1997 the stand was so badly decayed that the council decided to demolish it. The proposal prompted the formation of the <a href="http://www.hillyfields.info/" target="_blank">Friends of Hilly Fields</a> campaign group, which was ultimately successful not only in resisting demolition but also in securing a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to restore the structure, and since 2001 there’s been a regular programme of summer concerts and other events.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXj1XQt0AcQNr8wm_NYamRGe25lg7TAZJZSTzn7n0KxjsbM8x63Mr5bPqnzvtIC4pv8hRqJ2JujK9SJ0011odlGyBN7biHNhAbMevvA4Z4C10TN7b2RUJpI0D-dlvT-Qvu0_6tm5FMjZY/s1600/fortyhillroseandcrown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXj1XQt0AcQNr8wm_NYamRGe25lg7TAZJZSTzn7n0KxjsbM8x63Mr5bPqnzvtIC4pv8hRqJ2JujK9SJ0011odlGyBN7biHNhAbMevvA4Z4C10TN7b2RUJpI0D-dlvT-Qvu0_6tm5FMjZY/s640/fortyhillroseandcrown.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rose and Crown pub, Clay Hill.</td></tr>
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The park and the surrounding streets now form part of the Clay Hill Conservation Area. The interwar suburban growth of London reaches immediately to the southeast here, but the scene in front of you as you leave the park still almost looks like a country lane. Here, the road known as Clay Hill dips into a hollow, Beggars Hollow, to cross the Turkey Brook, creating a dramatic setting for the Grade II-listed Rose and Crown pub, made from a low-slung and delightfully irregular string of rustic cottages.<br />
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The oldest part, on the left with the dormer windows, is a timber-framed building from the 17th century or earlier, with a 18th century brick front. The taller building was tacked on in the early 19th century. The interior has been altered many times, and for much of the early 21st century the pub was neglected and seemed likely to be lost, but when I last passed by it had been spruced up under new management. Almost opposite is the ornamental Gothic-flavoured early 19th century Clay Hill House Lodge and there are more historic buildings along the road and off the trail to left and right. The character of this area is partly due to its relative remoteness from public transport into the early years of the 20th century, but also to the old Enfield council’s foresight in conserving land like Hilly Fields Park in advance of the post-war Green Belt.<br />
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<h3>
Forty Hall</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijjBpwfWHQ8UFuaHtXxdL7ZGj4VkAHFKlKL8y-AnqgMN_ZXw_TsXbfchtUKxYUtX4JMW1cLezq7VdyK09wyqUv-oG2PouAXEJpx9T0euy3K2TLMmfDmRO9-BmfhgeTo-ldY_aViUrKhp4/s1600/fortyhallelsyngeponds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijjBpwfWHQ8UFuaHtXxdL7ZGj4VkAHFKlKL8y-AnqgMN_ZXw_TsXbfchtUKxYUtX4JMW1cLezq7VdyK09wyqUv-oG2PouAXEJpx9T0euy3K2TLMmfDmRO9-BmfhgeTo-ldY_aViUrKhp4/s640/fortyhallelsyngeponds.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tudor-era ponds adjacent to the site of the lost Elsyng Palace</td></tr>
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On the other side of the road and behind the pub, the Loop enters Forty Hall Park, another fine remnant of a country estate with links to the Tudors and their sporting enthusiasms. Back in the 14th century this was a separate manor on the edge of Enfield Chase known as Elsyng, after the family name of its lords. Among its occupants was Thomas Lovell who in the 1490s held a variety of important posts including Chancellor of the Exchequer and Steward of the Royal Household, and the first Tudor king, Henry VII, was a regular visitor.<br />
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In 1539 Lovell’s successor swapped the estate with Henry’s son, the notorious Henry VIII, who saw it as an ideal base for hunting on the Chase. So the manor house beside the Turkey Brook was expanded into a royal palace known as Elsyng Palace, the third of Henry’s palaces encountered on the Loop (after <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2015/12/london-loop-78-banstead-ewell-kingston.html">Nonsuch</a> and Hampton Court near <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2016/03/london-loop-1112-kingston-hatton-cross.html">Bushy Park</a>). Henry’s daughter Elizabeth, later Elizabeth I, was staying here when she heard the news of her father’s death in 1547. By the end of the 16th century, though, Elsyng had fallen out of favour, with Elizabeth preferring to stay with her close adviser William Cecil at Theobalds House a little to the north. Theobalds itself became a royal palace when James I acquired it, and Elsyng was part-demolished in 1608 to provide materials for it. <br />
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In 1629, a fine new house began to appear on the modest prominence of Forty Hill, a little to the south of Elsyng, on what was originally a separate estate. This was Forty Hall, built for Nicholas Rainton, a wealthy London mercer (textile merchant) who later became Lord Mayor. His nephew and heir expanded the estate by annexing Elsyng sometime in the 1650s, at which point what remained of the palace was demolished and replaced with barns. These had gone too by the early 18th century when the site was re-landscaped as parkland, with a grand avenue of lime trees running down the hill between Forty Hall and the brook. By the 20th century, even the exact site of the palace had been forgotten, until it was rediscovered by archaeologists in the 1960s.<br />
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The estate continued as a country home until 1951. The last in a succession of private owners were the Parker Bowles family, who now have royal connections through Prince Charles’ second wife Camilla. They sold it to the council, completing an extensive swathe of public green space on the London fringe. The house, which is now Grade II listed, became a <a href="http://www.fortyhallestate.co.uk/" target="_blank">museum</a>, a function that has been reinvigorated by a refurbishment completed in 2012. The site of the former Elsyng Palace is now a Scheduled Ancient Monument.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSim7BbBO3xH9ft6UwFnHqRoih_2vAoAUG4_2u-VPbvKEc_IYs5I6UPDUfO0Bn0H1-RlkouZLfzHjUuPcDltQ7jKMbGRiB4APPXl4lw_tuvG8uMPO-vOOi5Y3abtCgEjImAhTSFrxY8ts/s1600/fortyhallnewriver.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSim7BbBO3xH9ft6UwFnHqRoih_2vAoAUG4_2u-VPbvKEc_IYs5I6UPDUfO0Bn0H1-RlkouZLfzHjUuPcDltQ7jKMbGRiB4APPXl4lw_tuvG8uMPO-vOOi5Y3abtCgEjImAhTSFrxY8ts/s400/fortyhallnewriver.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The remains of the original course of the New River at Forty Hall.</td></tr>
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After following the Turkey Brook around a meadow behind the Rose and Crown, the Loop enters the Forty Hall estate at a complex intersection of waterways and ditches, where it crosses the original course of the New River. This is neither new nor a river but an artificial waterway constructed to supply clean water to London in 1613, when the palace was still standing. A signed walking trail, the New River Path, follows the watercourse and, as I plan to cover this in future posts, I won’t say too much about it here.<br />
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The current course starts at Chadwell between Ware and Hertford, and ends at Stoke Newington, although originally it continued to New River Head near Sadlers Wells in Islington. The ditch here was once part of a lengthy loop following the boundaries of Forty Hall Park and neighbouring Whitewebbs Park, along which the New River originally negotiated the valley of the Turkey Brook. It fell out of use in 1859 following the construction of the Docwra Aqueduct, a little further along the trail.<br />
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The trail continues alongside the brook through increasingly attractive surroundings. Soon, it’s running through shady woodlands and then there’s water on both sides as you reach the long and narrow artificial pond, fed by the brook. This is one of the few visible relics of Elsyng Palace, for which it would have provided both a decorative and a practical function as a fishpond. It’s been much remodelled, though, and is now surrounded by a particularly large collection of rhododendrons which burst into colour in summer.<br />
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The artificial island at the far end could date back to Tudor times or earlier. Had you been standing here before 1650, looking across the island to the opposite side of the pond you would have seen the palace looming ahead, as its site is just across the water here. Nothing of it is visible today, but there are extensive buried remains, including foundations of rooms and courtyards, drains and water tanks.<br />
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Beyond the pond, the woods give way to open parkland, and soon the trail passes the end of the double avenue of lime trees which still provides a dramatic viewpoint up to the Hall. As part of the early 18th century landscaping, the brook here was dammed to create a reservoir, and the avenue continued on the other side to create the illusion of trees marching across a large body of water, but today only the southernmost section of the avenue remains.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWdbfDiKzeCQoozXBZsQFK6RcieRjpHIpdUAqa1b-56cKdPLXybNhB8XopUUTKLeatS5XKpgYk2IWC4P2Pymo_NXvwVghkYoYkPtdk4ZZ6cvjq89lWuaGpTVgwqQoE6LsR-cTYSn69vYc/s1600/maidensbridge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWdbfDiKzeCQoozXBZsQFK6RcieRjpHIpdUAqa1b-56cKdPLXybNhB8XopUUTKLeatS5XKpgYk2IWC4P2Pymo_NXvwVghkYoYkPtdk4ZZ6cvjq89lWuaGpTVgwqQoE6LsR-cTYSn69vYc/s640/maidensbridge.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Maidens Bridge near Forty Hall.</td></tr>
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The bridge that carries Bulls Cross road over the brook, just to the left as you leave the park, is one of several places claiming to be the location where Walter Raleigh placed his cloak over a puddle so Elizabeth I could walk over it without getting the royal feet wet. Thomas Fuller has a typically picturesque account in his <i>Worthies of England</i> (1662):
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<blockquote>
Captain Raleigh found the queen walking, till, meeting with a plashy place, she seemed to scruple going thereon. Presently Raleigh cast and spread his new plush cloak on the ground; whereon the queen trod gently, rewarding him afterwards with many suits.</blockquote>
The bridge is known as Maidens Bridge because of its connection to the supposedly virginal queen, and the brook is also sometimes known as Maidens Brook. There’s likely been a bridge at this site since the 11th century, and Elizabeth would certainly have been familiar with this location, but there’s no factual evidence to substantiate the cloak story. The current bridge dates from 1824, though has undergone extensive repairs since. It carries an old Middlesex County Council plaque discouraging its use by heavy vehicles. The road here, incidentally, is part of the same old drove road that runs through northeast London as Green Lanes, now one of the capital’s longest streets.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioKWt3xBajkdscDDGGZ16zsFXPyIWOqguj1K0fM3CRBJF6RtAKlKNmPcfp_HcmRV8nk8DNNfH48u2T9oS-B2nrViYxGBVlOaw2A2lvJ95pAyFnvpUdBBGGlBoJppH3p7XS4zlsC456FzQ/s1600/newriverthedell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioKWt3xBajkdscDDGGZ16zsFXPyIWOqguj1K0fM3CRBJF6RtAKlKNmPcfp_HcmRV8nk8DNNfH48u2T9oS-B2nrViYxGBVlOaw2A2lvJ95pAyFnvpUdBBGGlBoJppH3p7XS4zlsC456FzQ/s400/newriverthedell.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New River Path at the Dell, Enfield.</td></tr>
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The informal green space on the other side of the road is known as the Dell, and has been preserved partly because it accommodates the New River. You’re soon crossing the pipes of the 1859 Docwra Aqueduct, mentioned above, which now conveys the New River across the brook, substantially straightening the formerly convoluted route around Forty Hall Park.<br />
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But more is going on here than just the aqueduct, as you may realise from the sounds of pumping and rushing water often heard here. Although about a third of the water still continues to Stoke Newington, since the 1990s the rest has been diverted at this point through underground pipes to the Walthamstow Reservoirs in the Lee Valley. The New River Path runs alongside the eponymous watercourse here, northwards to Broxbourne and the London Countryway and on to Hertford, southwards to Alexandra Palace and the Capital Ring at Stoke Newington and on to Islington.<br />
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<h3>
Enfield’s highways</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOlBe879xPrEYZrEgStCTBN8nfqdMCwqjWrCi2CUAEIXUaWGnVDMj6WXzwCtBuRWN4Z5J3-hnPUS6nm1qm0Y_PjvARhL9l5RGL0Pb4AmixR-RsLAxgqbjkQXliNHgbo-KQzAPs0f3cd-o/s1600/greatcambridgeoad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOlBe879xPrEYZrEgStCTBN8nfqdMCwqjWrCi2CUAEIXUaWGnVDMj6WXzwCtBuRWN4Z5J3-hnPUS6nm1qm0Y_PjvARhL9l5RGL0Pb4AmixR-RsLAxgqbjkQXliNHgbo-KQzAPs0f3cd-o/s640/greatcambridgeoad.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1920s car-friendly planning: the Great Cambridge Road near Turkey Street.</td></tr>
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In mediaeval times Enfield was the second-largest parish in Middlesex after Harrow, occupying the county’s northeast corner. Besides the Chase, the parish was characterised by three linear features running roughly north-south, one natural and two artificial. The first was the river Lea, which we’ll encounter in the next section: this important tributary of the Thames formed not just the eastern boundary of the parish but of the county too. West of it, just clear of the surrounding marshes, ran the Roman road, Ermine Street, the first of London’s Great North Roads. And west of this, on higher ground, ran the old drove road, the northward continuation of Green Lanes which we’ve already crossed at Maidens Bridge, now variously named as London Road, Silver Street, Baker Street, Forty Hill and Bulls Cross.<br />
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Like several Middlesex parishes, Enfield was rather scattered. The closest thing to a centre was on the higher ground just to the southeast of the Chase, where the drove road crossed the east-west route to Barnet. The parish church stood there since at least 1086, and a market, still held today, began on the green adjacent to the church in 1303. By the 17th century, this area had become a small but dense and busy market town. Its proximity to the Chase attracted wealthy inhabitants to properties like the fine 18th century houses that still stand on Gentlemens Row, which once overlooked open ground.<br />
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But the bulk of the population and of the economic activity were always concentrated further down the Lea Valley to the east, along the old Roman road. Even by the 18th century this part of Enfield was showing signs of ribbon development, as small roadside hamlets gradually expanded and merged into each other, a process accelerated by the arrival of the railways, which also followed the grain of the valley. This continued into the postwar period when large council estates were built adjacent to the road, perpetuating an east-west divide along class lines. As you travel along the main road today, it’s difficult to tell exactly where you pass from Ponders End to Enfield Highway, Enfield Wash, Turkey Street and Freezywater. <br />
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Ermine Street was built between the years 45-75, originally linking London and Lincoln and later extending northwards to York as Roman rule advanced in the same direction. We don’t know how the Romans referred to the road: its modern name dates from Saxon times and refers to the Earningas tribe, who lived around Royston. Though there have been various realignments over the millennia, much of Ermine Street can be followed today: it runs via Bishopsgate, Shoreditch, Dalston and Stoke Newington and once over Stamford Hill begins to track the Lea Valley via Tottenham, Edmonton and Enfield before continuing into Hertfordshire.<br />
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For well over a millennium the road was the main link between London and northern England, but by the 13th century, it was suffering from flooding and erosion. One particular problem was the crossing where the Lea valley curves westwards but the road continues north. Originally Ermine Street deflected slightly west at Cheshunt and bridged the river near Ware Priory, but this bridge was lost prior to the Norman invasion. The <a href="http://desdemoor.blogspot.com/2010/06/london-countryway-12-welham-green.html">London Countryway</a> briefly follows part of this old alignment, now a footpath, at Wormley West End.<br />
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Subsequently the neighbouring towns of Hertford and Ware competed to provide the crossing point, and to secure the lucrative trade associated with it. The competition sometimes became violent: in 1191 a party from Hertford deliberately destroyed a new bridge at Ware. Ultimately these issues prompted the creation in the 13th century of a new Great North Road via Islington and Highgate, crossed at Barnet in the last section of the Loop, which re-joined the original route at Alconbury in Cambridgeshire.<br />
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The old road, now known as the Hertford Road or the Enfield Highway, now took on the slightly lesser role of linking London to Cambridge and Ely. It was turnpiked in 1713 by the Stamford Hill Turnpike Trust, and labelled A10 in the road classification scheme of the 1920s, although by 1923, what was now the congested stretch of high streets from Tottenham to Turnford was superseded as a through route by a lengthy dual carriageway bypass. This runs to the west, between the drove road and Ermine Street, and is known as the Great Cambridge Road. In 1980 this too was superseded when the M11 opened as the main link between London, Stansted Airport and Cambridge, this time further to the east. So you’ll no longer see Cambridge named as a destination on the Great Cambridge Road. The original route, meanwhile, has since been renumbered A1010. <br />
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Approaching from the west, the Loop first crosses the Great Cambridge Road at a substantial footbridge. Elsewhere, interwar semi-detached houses line the road, but the Turkey Brook has kept them at bay here. There’s green space on one side and the substantial Enfield Crematorium, opened in 1938 by the Tottenham and Wood Green Burial Board, on the other. The trail runs along the north site of the crematorium, then passes under the railway known as the Southbury Loop (originally the Churchbury Loop), opened in 1891 between the Great Eastern Railway’s branch line to Enfield Town at Edmonton Green and Cheshunt, on the same company’s line to Cambridge, now known as the West Anglia Main Line.<br />
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Originally the financial returns from this short stretch of railway were lower than expected, as the residential developments the company had hoped for were slow in appearing. Passenger services were withdrawn in 1906, though the line remained open to goods traffic and as a diversionary route, and a service for munitions workers operated during World War I. It was only reopened permanently as a passenger railway in 1960 after much of the former Great Eastern was electrified. Since 2015 it’s been operated as part of Transport for London’s London Overground network.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyveeOJSuVmbgQ4EvB1c9N5s0QnpS6pDOGdbJDq4w9duFhWnojeAEtU1c7V5LuSxWL10fJNOENgzFibAuTtoL9uNB-LAZZ3SwxB_oY4Tc0Y8ayPL-XejwCB6TE1R9V0pCjjUbjwjoF_lo/s1600/turkeystreetguardian.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyveeOJSuVmbgQ4EvB1c9N5s0QnpS6pDOGdbJDq4w9duFhWnojeAEtU1c7V5LuSxWL10fJNOENgzFibAuTtoL9uNB-LAZZ3SwxB_oY4Tc0Y8ayPL-XejwCB6TE1R9V0pCjjUbjwjoF_lo/s400/turkeystreetguardian.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Turkey Brook Guardian with its folk-etymology egg.</td></tr>
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Now the Loop is forced back on to residential streets, emerging onto Turkey Street itself right opposite the station of the same name, originally known as Forty Hill but renamed for the 1960 reopening. The street, like the Loop, roughly parallels the brook between Ermine Street and the area around Forty Hill. It’s of some antiquity, forming the basis of a linear hamlet at least since 1572, when there were ten houses along it.<br />
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The small green area in front of the station, previously known as Waltham Gardens, was refurbished in 2013, and renamed Turkey Street Gateway Open Space. Despite the sort of cumbersome name that could only have been dreamed up by a council planner, the refurbishment is rather pleasing.<br />
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Its most striking feature is the Turkey Brook Guardian sculpture which greets you at the entrance, designed by artist Tim Shutter in collaboration with local schoolchildren. It portrays a mythical creature which combines features of a fish, a bird, a squirrel and a dog, all creatures you’re likely to see in the park, unashamedly embracing folk etymology by sitting atop a giant turkey egg studded with pebbles from the brook.<br />
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The official Loop route simply follows Turkey Street here, but I suggest that instead you brave the Guardian by crossing the brook into the park and walking for a short distance along a pretty riverside path in front of houses. You’ll soon return to Turkey Street anyway for its final stretch to the Hertford Road. The current alignment of the road is likely a little to the east of the original course of Ermine Street, which has been lost beneath subsequent development. The point where the road crosses the Turkey Brook was originally a ford, and the area is still known as Enfield Wash, although a pedestrian bridge existed by 1675, supplemented by a carriage bridge in 1827. Today it’s a fairly uninspiring outer London high street, lined with betting shops, fast food outlets and convenience stores.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF0J0OcYFUZTqxGyumgbzSTc5lI2Hzedl7b8-Hkg8eFgR5MncDC_K0whoJukpHVKlkteavnJzRIVmjvH0xBRfWB9GMaKfX9urbsclPToOKZHlTyfkJg9k0dsCTte8dFDXivs0QlJDAtyw/s1600/hertfordroadenfieldwash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF0J0OcYFUZTqxGyumgbzSTc5lI2Hzedl7b8-Hkg8eFgR5MncDC_K0whoJukpHVKlkteavnJzRIVmjvH0xBRfWB9GMaKfX9urbsclPToOKZHlTyfkJg9k0dsCTte8dFDXivs0QlJDAtyw/s640/hertfordroadenfieldwash.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Hertford Road at Enfield Wash. Roughly the course of Roman Ermine Street.</td></tr>
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<h3>
On to Enfield Lock</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj664U1LckNIwnc_A2TahMIEtHqBeIV3C3vMSRWvL6DeI8QGg-7zGez6yJ6q6ICrQrgZcHyQQ_JCJqzMBZoga6XXCgSgqIWp-uNC_82BbmjRGODJ4o6O9dRB6fqEqm7WsSbe30p2bun14g/s1600/enfieldlockalbanypark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj664U1LckNIwnc_A2TahMIEtHqBeIV3C3vMSRWvL6DeI8QGg-7zGez6yJ6q6ICrQrgZcHyQQ_JCJqzMBZoga6XXCgSgqIWp-uNC_82BbmjRGODJ4o6O9dRB6fqEqm7WsSbe30p2bun14g/s640/enfieldlockalbanypark.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beside the Turkey Brook at Albany Park, Enfield Wash.</td></tr>
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On the other side of the Hertford Road, the Loop heads off-road again on the Prince of Wales Footpath. You’ll once again find yourself beside the Turkey Brook, though it now runs in a concrete culvert and is almost devoid of wildlife. Soon, Albany Park opens up on the right. This is a further fruit of the old Enfield council’s forward-thinking open space policy, opened in 1902 on a site that was previously farmland known as College Farm, belonging to Trinity College Cambridge, but which otherwise would have been built up. It was named after the Duke of Albany, Leopold, Queen Victoria’s youngest son, who died in 1884. The space was subsequently enlarged several times, most recently in 1935 as part of the King George’s Fields initiative.<br />
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Another steep footbridge takes the trail over the West Anglia Main Line, opened in 1840 by the Northern and Eastern Railway, which later became part of the Great Eastern. Originally it was a branch from the Eastern Counties Railway at Stratford, from where it ran along that company’s lines to its first central London terminus at Bishopsgate. Northwards the railway originally initially terminated at Broxbourne but was subsequently extended to Bishops Stortford and Cambridge. In 1872 it was connected by a more direct route to the Great Eastern’s new terminus at Liverpool Street via Clapton and Hackney Downs, though some trains still follow the original route to Stratford.<br />
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This section of the Loop stops just short of the River Lee Navigation and Enfield Lock itself, just over a little humped footbridge across the brook. A short street link from here takes you to Enfield Lock station on the West Anglia Main Line, opened a few years after the railway itself in 1855. Its original name was Ordnance Factory, as it main purpose was to serve the Royal Small Arms Factory close by – but that’s a story for the next walk.<br />
<ul style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<li><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/ljde37clhivtmhx/17-cockfosters-enfieldlock.pdf?dl=0" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Download full route description</a> (PDF)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=ze8MGLx4VZ8Q.kz_iSyKD3QHI&usp=sharing" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">View Google map</a></li>
<li><a href="https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/walking/cockfosters-to-enfield-lock" style="color: #940f04;" target="_blank">Official Transport for London page</a></li>
</ul>
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Des de Moorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08533475300522834830noreply@blogger.com1