Between the stations

Some railway stations in London are charming even grandiose, others are of the utmost dullness. As I approach the end of this walking challenge,a  walk between them gave a review of previous walks  in the city and reflected all its amazing variety.

I got off the train at Rotherhithe. Having previously walked past the Brunel Museum I took a welcome opportunity to visit it. This was the first ever tunnel through soft mud under a river like the Thames

Brunel's engine house

Marc Brunel, father of Isambard Kingdom Brunel was the engineer on this project. It was unsuccessful financially as no road approaches were built which would have enabled the projected freight traffic.

The chimney on Brunel's boiler house

His talented son nearly lost his life when he was working on the project. I learnt much about Isambard Kingdom Brunel and was pleased to see that I had seen many of his great works including the Maidenhead Bridge, when I was walking the Thames Path.

Here the river is relatively narrow, which is why Marc Brunel chose Rotherhithe for the site of  his tunnel.

The warehouses lining the river may once have stored timber, hemp, iron, tar or corn.

The bridges were for the speedier transport of goods.

Jacob’s Island was the scene for the sensational death of the villain Bill Sykes in Oliver Twist. At the time of that novel’s publication it was the home of a foul ‘rookery’, a very densely populated settlement. Later the ditches were filled in and the warehouses built

Vogan's mill

I noted with sorrow that the striking statue, entitled ‘Dr Salter’s Daydream’ commemorating a man who had benefitted the community, had been stolen. I had photographed it when I had walked the Thames Path

After almost two miles I reached London Bridge, in its present state as a building site, an unprepossessing and confusing station.

London Bridge railway station serves Kent and Surrey

It’s completely dominated by ‘The Shard’

I was surprised how near together the London stations are, as it always seems to take an age between them by bus or tube, especially when encumbered by luggage. Another mile took me to a cluster of stations in the City

View from London Bridge

In the Square Mile, with its imposing and grandiose buildings, I passed what my grandson calls ‘The ornament to the Fire of London’

The Monument

When I first moved to Hertfordshire in 1980, Liverpool Street Station was being rebuilt.

The adjoining Broad Street station was ‘redeveloped’. It’s the busiest of all British stations and frequently the lines are congested. The trains run to Hertfordshire, Essex and a long way round to Cambridge. The Stanstead Express costs more than many of the tickets for the airlines which use the airport and is very snazzy. The lines to Hertford East and Enfield Town are woefully shabby.

Fenchurch Street Station is charming. I took the trains from here when I walked those parts of the Loop which are in Essex.

The startlingly shiny Cannon Street was closed on this Bank Holiday.

I headed now for another cluster of stations on the Euston Road and so made my way over the Holborn Viaduct.These ruins show what a near miss St Paul’s had in the Blitz.

The buildings here are less showy than in the City. This is the legal district and Justice can be seen overlooking the area holding aloft her scales.

She is my Christmas toast and in her I put my hope for the  New Year.

Among numerous very ancient churches that I passed is St Saviour without Newgate.

As befits the more learned character of the district, Holborn viaduct is adorned with allegorical figures. Here is Fine Art and a winged lion.

Sir William Walworth, twice Mayor of London stands guard in a niche in this ornate building. He killed Wat Tyler.

Kings Cross is where we used to take the train to visit my grandfather in Harrogate

A utilitarian building, it nevertheless serves the entire East Coast of Britain.

My grandmother told me that we had ancestors who came ‘down south’ as they were master craftsmen and worked on the building of St Pancras.

The most magnificent of stations; the name Betjeman is preserved in a waiting room as tribute to the poet laureate, who did much to save this most worthy Eurostar terminal.

Euston was not so lucky and the Euston Arch was lost

I remember the rebuilding of this too in the sixties. This is the station where I boarded a train home and I can never go there without a pang of remembrance for my parents. There’s a beautiful song by Davey Arthur, called Euston Station, a tape of which I inherited from Charlotte. It portrays the longing for home of the expatriate Irish in London ‘If you long to be somewhere then go while you can’ Kings Cross and Euston are the two stations which lead to the North, and as such are the most difficult for me to walk past without acute pangs of nostalgia.

Two entrance lodges to Euston station were saved.Inscribed on them are names of towns served by the railway, including Stockport, where I first boarded a train for London en route for my first trip to France.

                                                                                                                                                    Walking along the Euston Rd and then the Marylebone Road, the architecture becomes Regency. St Marylebone Church is where Elizabeth Barrat secretly married Robert Browning.

I had never visited Marylebone station.( For fashionistas it’s where you take a train to the designer outlet centre at Bicester.) I found it a charming homely station.

Continuing westward, I came to the much grander Paddington Station, which I was better able to appreciate, having watched a film, earlier in the day at Rotherhithe on the life of it’s great designer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel.I admired the great roof above the platforms and the craftsmanship evident on the concourse in the distinctive style of the Great Western

Railway.

I now made my way to Charing Cross via Piccadilly and a festive Trafalgar Square

Not every station has a work of art outside it but that is what the Charing Cross Station has. It’s a replacement for the original thirteenth century cross commissioned by Edward the First in memory of his queen, Eleanor.

This marks the centre of London. I ended the walk here on December 28th, the eleventh anniversary of Charlotte’s death.  It was the revised date for the completion of this walk but there are still 20.5 miles remaining to complete the second four hundred miles.

From Sydenham to St Paul’s cathedral and back

I took the road from Sydenham up Kirkdale and up Sydenham Hill, from where there is a fine view of The City

After Lordship Lane, Dulwich I came to Peckham . This building is now a nightclub but looks as though it may once have had another use: a bank perhaps?er

On the other side of the road, a white plaque on this building declares it to be the site of the Old Hanover Chapel, made famous under the ministry of Dr WB Collyer 1801-1852. He was an evangelical dissenting preacher who got on well with Royalty. He also had scandalous accusations made against him. I don’t know whether it was in the ‘News of the World.’

View from Southwark Bridge with 'The Shard' (as yet unfinished)

The pub name ‘Kentish Drovers’ suggests this was the way the cattlemen brought their produce to market.

From there it is a short way to the Old Kent Road and then on into Southwark and the river.

From here it is not far to St Paul’s

One can only be glad that the weather is so mild, given that some people are camping outside St Paul’s as part of a worldwide ‘Occupy’ protest

This banner presumably objects to capitalism’s tendency to bankrupt some, while accumulating  wealth in the hands of others, particularly those who hold Mayfair and Park Lane.

This banner presumably implies criticism of those who trade in economic fantasy.

As the great great grand-daughter of a founder member of the Co-operative movement in Yorkshire, I was pleased to see this plea for co-0peratives . Not everyone is in favour of central planning. However, I think maximum wages proved tricky in the seventies.

I assume from this banner that the occupiers of the tents have nice warm houses which they have made over to homeless refugees.

Looking at the placard on the floor, I looked up the slogan and a short film has been uploaded to Youtube ,in which an American, a somebody Mulligan from Freedomain Radio ,reminds us that we are owned by the ‘banksters’ because we borrowed money over many years and didn’t pay it back. He advises us to ‘stop asking for shit for free from governments’  The corollary of this however is that there will have to be an increase in mutual assistance and charitable giving to make up for the cuts in welfare to the vulnerable, as well as a concerted effort to rebalance and revitalise  the economy.

Now here’s a precise campaign. So I looked it up on wikipedia and it seems that vegetarianism, which enables you to plan a diet containing enough B12 without adding a supplement, in general helps you live longer.It is healthier than meat eating or veganism.  Also interesting, particularly for someone like myself with poor eyesight,  is that more meat eating is associated with greater risk of cataract. So, I should give vegetarianism another go, having given it up after a holiday in Perigord some years ago.

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RBS is being singled out because of the bonuses and the fact that it has swallowed a lot of taxpayers’ money.

This banner merges support for the environment with the anti capitalist theme. The point of composting is that it provides nutrition for the soil. Can one hope that new ideas will emerge from the rotting of the old?

Another precise call for action, in this very disparate group of protesters, is this call for the release of Abdullah Ocelan,  activist of the PKK,   a revolutionary Kurdish party. The longstanding and bloody conflict between the Kurds and the Turkish government has caused many Kurds to flee their homeland. Very many have come to London.

I was courteously offered a sheet giving information about the camp and kindly told I could take as many photos as I liked, which I certainly appreciate.  I wonder though on what basis, as I saw on one placard, they can claim to be the only  ’true democrats’. Whereas our current voting system is flawed and in no way reflects all groups within society(especially the ones that don’t vote), is camping in a tent outside St Paul’s more democratic than serving on the council, pressing for more and better recycling of rubbish or being a member of a parliamentary committee questioning phone hackers, or appearing before one such committee pleading for greater freedom of speech and the curbing of  super injunctions?

I am also disturbed, whenever I hear it, by assertions that the deficit doesn’t exist. I understand the implication is that this is  a fiction put about by the government to justify the cuts in welfare currently being made. I do not believe this to be so.

A parting glimpse of St Paul's cathedral from Southwark Bridge

I set off home.

That day’s walk had contributed a useful 14.2 miles to the total.

Canterbury to Patrixbourne on the North Downs Way

Leaving the city the trail goes past the abbey of St Augustine, who converted the Jutes to Christianity.

The route then takes the pilgrims way and what a wonderful path it proves to be!

The forecast had been for stormy weather but after an early morning torrential downpour, giving welcome rain to this region,  it was another fine and mild December day.

An oast house where the hops for beer were dried.

The village of Patrixbourne has a wealth of picturesque ancient houses

However I didn’t find any place of refreshment.

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St. Mary’s Church dates from the twelfth century. I had no desire to be caught in the predicted rain so turned round and came back the way I had come.

House in Patrixbourne

From the Pilgrim’s Way the cathedral can be seen and dominates the skyline as one approaches the city.

The walk had added 6.4 miles to the total but it still didn’t rain that day.

Canterbury

I took a short walk by the river Stour in Canterbury

Then my tour of the city started at the imposing sixteenth century entry to the cathedral, Christ Curch Gate

Along Burgate through the part of the city bombed in 1942, I passed the tower of St Mary Magdalene Church.

The Zoar chapel occupies the site of a bastion of the medieval walls, which in turn occupy the line of defence works built by the Romans.

You can walk a section of these walls today

A section of Canterbuy's medieval wall walk.

After crossing Watling Street, the Roman Road from the City of London, you have a view of Dane John (possibly a corruption of donjon or dungeon) Gardens with a Regency terrace

There’s a fine view from an earthen mound, which was an Iron Age burial site now bearing the monument to Alderman Simmons , who reshaped the mound and laid out the Gardens  in the late eighteenth century. 

Leaving the walls near to a crossing to Canterbury East station I walked to Canterbury Castle, begun in 11oo

The castle was captured by the French Dauphin in 1216 and by Wat Tyler’s rebels in 1381 and suffered from its subsequent use as a coke store

I passed many historic buildings in Church Lane and Stour St. and came to the hospital for poor pilgrims

By the river are some impressive Old Weavers Houses reminding us that Canterbury had been home to Huguenot Refugees in the sixteenth century and they had established silk weaving and other industries.

Nearby, in front of the theatre that bears his name, there is a monument to Christopher Marlowe, who was born in Canterbury.

The former Blackfriars monastery once spanned the river

Not far from here is the Old Synagogue.

In King Street is Sir John Boy’s house with a leaning door

This is the gateway to the old palace.

Further along Palace street is Conquest House and The Tudor House

Nearly back at the cathedral is the Sun Hotel, where Dickens stayed.

I had walked about four miles that winter afternoon and gained a picture of this compact city’s diverse history.

Sydenham circular

St Bartholomew’s church was painted by Pissarro, when he was living in Norwood after the 1870 Franco-Prussian war.

St Bartholomew's church Sydenham

I used Walkit.com to plot a circular route of 10.1 miles, setting off from my front door.  Here’s a fine bit of winter planting in Crystal  Palace Park

This time last year the lake in Crystal Palace Park was frozen solid

It’s the dinosaurs that give this park its special character.

This house in the aptly named Belvedere road, Crystal Palace always impresses me.

I made my way to Upper Norwood Park, where we had gathered blackberries next to the children’s swings in those fine warm days of September.

The lake in this park used to serve as a reservoir for the Croydon Canal, the bed of which later became the railway line to West Croydon.

I then walked into Croydon and round again through suburban streets, guided by Walkit.com until I reached the South Norwood Country Park , which has a visitor centre.

Through various back streets and via Penge I made my way home. In November Christmas lights were already in evidence

Crossing Paris East to West : Bois de Boulogne to Austerlitz

A walk through a variety of green spaces  and past iconic buildings is the first one in the guide book ‘Paris a Pied’ .On Sunday morning  the Bois de Boulogne was  well frequented by joggers and families dispelling any fears I had of being a lone female walking through Parisian parks. It’s also, of course, very beautiful.

I felt blessed to be enjoying a fine autumn day in this wood, first opened up to Parisians by Napoleon the Third. The park lies on the outskirts of the city. The ring road, which you cross on the route, now traces the line of fortifications ,completed in 1845, which enclosed suburbs officially added to Paris in 1859. The Porte Dauphine where this walk starts was one of the gates to the city.

I followed the directions through the Bois de Boulogne and into the Jardin du  Ranelagh. This was named after an Irish Lord who had created an open air ball in London. This garden had been used for the same purpose.

I walked through the former village of Passy, past the red brick station of Boulainvilliers and down the narrow street where the writer, Honore de Balzac, lived from 1841 to 1847. He had his post delivered to the widow next door for fear of creditors. His noble series of novels, ‘La Comedie Humaine’ , attempted to show a whole society, chronicling greed, corruption and heroism.The twenty first century reader may well reflect that not only is debt still a problem for many, but justice too has made scant progress. In ‘La Duchesse de Langeais’ he declares ‘ Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.’ His analysis of how  society works, with its emphasis on the role of money, as well as an array of fascinating characters, make his stories an enduring good read.

Outside is a boundary mark dating from 1731 denoting the borders of the lordships of Auteuil and Passy.

Balzac's house now a museum dedicated to the writer

Descending through another garden ‘le parc des eaux’ , once the site of springs but now surrounded on all sides by blocks of flats, one comes to the Passy viaduct which carries the metro above the road

and then in grand style across the river, using the bridge of Bir Hakeim (formerly the viaduc de Passy), named after one of the victories of the Free French in North Africa at the end of the Second World War.

Turn of the century hope for a new industrial future depicted on ‘Le pont de Bir Hakeim’

View of 'Le pont de Bir Hakeim' from the allee des Cygnes on 'Swan Island'

As I crossed I had a fine view of Paris’s most famous monument. 

The forces, rallied by De Gaulle from London have their monument on the bank nearby.

Having passed from the sixteenth into the fifteenth arrondissement, the route now enters the part of the city ‘intra muros’ which formed the original Paris before 1860. Here there had been a barrier to enable duties to be extracted from citizens entering the city : not popular at the time.

I made my way along the riverside Quai Branly and , fortified with chicken in mustard sauce, round the Tower and down the garden, Champ de Mars, the site of the first Parisian horse races.

Grotto at the foot of the Eiffel Tower: behind it is the remains of a chimney belonging to the steam engine which powered the first lift up the Tower

As here, many Parisian parks have well equipped  children’s outdoor play areas but I felt these cars were rather special

Looking back down the Champ de Mars at the Eiffel Tower

This park contains the Peace Monument which commemorates the holocaust and  is inspired by the Wailing Wall

Monument de la Paix

in Jerusalem. That is probably why a group of Syrians chose a nearby spot to protest about human rights abuses in their country. They were serving Syrian food: mainly it seemed to each other.

At the end of the Champ de Mars, or Martian field is that temple to the God of War, the Ecole Militaire or Military College

Now, moving away from the river, began a stretch through elegant eighteenth century streets observing the many interesting decorations on the porticoes of the grand houses along the route

La, la, la,la,la : Un homme, une femme---

I turned down the Avenue de Tourville and past the magnificent ‘Les Invalides’ the hospital for the war wounded and last resting place of the illustrious, including Napoleon Bonaparte.

Les Invalides

A view of the Tour Montparnasse

This house dates from 1739

Having gone down the rue du Regard and the rue Cherche Midi and across the Boulevard Raspail, one comes to the Jardin du Luxembourg, in which the Palais du Luxembourg houses the French Upper House (so you can still have a beautiful building even in a Republic.Having said that, however, I was shocked by the nonchalance and lack of ceremonial of the guards outside.)

The first royal park open to the public,  there is an abundance of children’s playgrounds, a puppet theatre, toilets and kiosks serving food and drink.

Pavillon Davioud

Just after the entrance are twenty beehives

Among the statutary is this bust of the Parnassian poet Jose-Maria de Heredia .

and this modern one

The walk then skirts the palace, created in 1615 by the Queen Marie de Medicis.

Le palais du Luxembourg

A number of statues of Queens of France adorn the gardens

I appreciated the way that Paris is decorated with chrysanthemums at this season. For the French this is the flower of death and the holiday of All Saints, when the dead are remembered, had just passed. For me they are the flowers that my grandfather grew for show and honoured me by giving the variety he created (mauve incurving with yellow tips) my name.

The walk then heads towards the Medici Fountain before leaving the park by a square dedicated to the writer of Cyrano de Bergerac , Edmond Rostand.

Across the Boulevard Saint Michel in the student Latin Quarter and up the Mont Sainte Genevieve, a slight hill to the Pantheon via the rue du Cardinal Lemoine where traces of the tenth century fortifications built by King Philippe Auguste can be seen. The neo classical Pantheon is the last resting place of ‘Great Men’, (this does include Marie Curie)

The Roman arena capable of seating fifteen thousand spectators was unearthed in the nineteenth century and is an impressive site. Having walked through this, one comes to the Jardin des Plantes, which belongs to the Natural History Museum and is, as one might expect, full of magnificent trees and plants. It dates from 1635 and includes a museum of Minerology. Shortly afterwards one reaches the Gare d’ Austerlitz. I ended my walk here but there are a further three miles or so to Bercy.

 

Crossing Paris from north to south: Gare du Nord to Cardinal Lemoine

The first of several murals encountered on my walks through Paris

Two hours fifteen minutes from St Pancras is a huge outdoor art gallery called Paris.

The city saw great changes in the nineteenth century prompting Baudelaire, to write ‘(la forme d’une ville

Change plus vite , helas! que le coeur d’un mortel)

‘The shape of a city changes more quickly, alas, than our mortal heart.’

I wonder what hovels and communities were swept away to build the great railway terminuses.This Gare de l’Est was built in 1849 and renovated and expanded in 1885.

are 

Looking down from the road bridge on the Gare de l'Est

Baron Haussman remodelled Paris creating the wide avenues to facilitate the movement of armies from one side of the city to the other: useful in the suppression of protests.(City of London please ignore)

The Canal St Martin was the first point I picked up on the second crossing of Paris described in ‘Paris a Pied’ the guide book to three crossings of the capital.

It was built between 1805 and 1825 and links with the Seine. Much of it is  underground

Another mural

Quai de Jemmapes

Art Deco style

I passed from the tenth to the eleventh arrondissement.

In the boulevard Jules Ferry is a statue of a frequent figure in nineteenth century literature : la grisette : a coquettish seamstress

Winding my way through the streets and across the Boulevard du Temple I passed more street art on the end wall of houses.

Trompe-l'oeil

Approaching the centre you come to older parts of Paris. Here, in the reign of Louis X111, fortifications were built between 1636 and 1641 to protect Paris’s newly settled areas. They were  filled in in the reign of Louis X1V and the first boulevards were created.

Statue of the great general, Turenne, as a child

Now in the third arrondissement, the route goes through the district known as ‘Le Marais’ a distinctive area full of charm that I visited with Charlotte in the late nineties. This district houses the Musee Picasso and the Musee Victor Hugo. The Musee Carnavalet , former home of Madame de Sevigny, has fascinating exhibits on the history of Paris.

Statue in the Square Leopold Achille

Here are many seventeenth century facades, which date from shortly after Le Marais, a marshy district was drained to make it habitable.

On the corner of the rue Payenne

You are now approaching the older districts and consequently more touristy places.

La rue Payenne

This is now the fourth arrondissement.

In square George Cain off rue Payenne

Le square George Cain: showing bronze statue entitled 'Dawn'

The architect, Francois Mansart, who gave his name to the Mansard roof, built the house at number 5, rue Payenne and lived here from 1642 until his death in 1666. It is now the temple of ‘the religion of humanity’

Next comes the rue Pavee with one of the oldest  large houses ‘L’hotel Lamoignon’

Corner of the 'Hotel Lamoignon'

Among the fine Louis Xv doorways is this one

13, rue Pavee: L'Hotel d'Herbouville'

As we get nearer to the oldest parts of Paris there are traces of the ancient walls built by Philippe-Auguste in 1190. By contrast at number 10, rue Pavee is a beautiful synagogue in the ‘modern style’ of 1913

The walk now proceeds through streets which have been here since medieval times.

Until 1622 the archbishopric of Paris was dependent on that of Sens. In 1475 the Archbishop of Sens built the ‘Hotel de Sens’  which survives today in the rue du Fauconnier .

Hotel de Sens

And so to the Seine, with its bouquinistes by the side of the river

Across the river are the facades of the Ile St Louis

View from the Pont Marie

I had forgotten how many islands the original Lucotetia had been built on. There is,of course, Ile de la Cité, and also Ile St Louis. I crossed the bridge on the Monday morning

Le Pont Marie

Here’s the view from the point at the end of the Ile St Louis

I crossed onto the Ile de la Cite,  which was originally the only habitable island in a wide river and marshy island, home to the Parisi who settled it in 250BC.

This willow is in the square leading to the underground memorial to those who died after being deported by the Nazis

I then walked around the streets surrounding Notre Dame before walking around the cathedral itself and admiring its immense structure ,its flying buttresses and rose window.

A Wallace fountain stands outside number 37 rue de la Bûcherie. These were given to Paris by an Englishman, Richard Wallace and can be found at various locations in this, his adopted city. Next to this is a renowned bookshop, Shakespeare and Company, where rare books can be found and which has associations with many writers, contains beds for their lodging and also served as a lending library. The owner died last Wednesday at the age of 98. He had renamed his bookshop after an earlier one run by Sylvia Beach.

From there I wound my way through medieval streets through the Quartier Latin and up the Montagne Sainte Genevieve, a gentle hill and past the Panthéon again until I reached the rue du Cardinal Lemoine.

 

8.2kilometres.

Exploring South London: Sydenham to Brixton

Typical Sydenham high density living.

I simply decided to set off from my front door and walk. Never mind, that unlike Thoreau, who could walk for days without seeing another human, this means walking through town. I was anxious to see how the dots joined up.There is something about walking about an area that makes it one’s own, as if by walking  I am taking possession of my new home.

In the seventeenth century  medicinal springs had been found in what is now Sydenham Wells Park, noteworthy for the maturity of the trees and shrubs

Here I discovered a reserve for the stag beetle, lucanus cervus, Britain’s largest native beetle:  a  loggery constructed in an attempt to halt the decline of these beasts

A tranquil haven for humans and stag beetles

I meandered on to Sydenham Hill, today eschewing the nature reserve, which I described in another post and then past the buildings of Dulwich College, also previously described and photographed. Dulwich Preparatory and Junior School displayed the kind of exuberant architecture mourned by Gavin Stamp in ‘Lost Victorian Britain’.

The pleasant Dulwich Park followed until I came to Lordship Lane heading for East Dulwich. On the corner this building is unmistakably a libraryAt this point my phone battery ran out so I was unable to take any more photos.

Rising to the top of the hill one gets a view of the ubiquitous Shard and Gherkin.

I had come determined to browse. The Karavan Eco shop had baskets, all environtmentally friendly cleaning products and much more. I came away with a hessian sack to put fallen leaves in, in the hope that foxes will not confuse it with rubbish bags, re-usable wrapping paper , and the wherewithal to make a fairly traded paper garland.

There were lots of fascinating independent shops including vintage, street stalls and particularly South London ‘chains’ the Blue Mountain Cafe and the Blackbird Bakery, familiar from Sydenham and Crystal Palace. There was also a branch of the St Christopher’s Hospice charity shop, also present in neighbouring areas. However it yielded nothing. Further down there was a charity shop selling designer goods. I browsed in a shop sporting the name of Mrs Robinson and browsed knitting patterns on a market stall before, fortified with cappucino, continuing down Lordship Lane.

At the junction, instead of continuing on to Peckham, I turned westwards, aiming for Brixton. I can only speculate about the name Dog Kennel Hill, now a double carriage way bordered by a large housing estate. In Denmark Hill is King’s College Hospital. I thought the Salvation Army training college was like a prison or fortress. It was designed by Sir Gilbert Scott, who also did the Bankside power station, now Known as Tate Modern.

Then It’s just straight down Coldharbour Lane to Brixton. With the building of two new bridges spanning the Thames by 1750, South London was developed. The coming of the omnibus enabled people to live a few miles from their place of work in the city . Brixton was such a genteel suburb. Then the coming of the railway enabled people to live further out and blighted areas such as Brixton.

Famously settled by West Indians from the nineteen fifties on,it is now home to a wide range of ethnic groups. The new Brixton market with its multiplicity of food shops and restaurants include, Italian, Colombian, Asian, Nigerian, Thai, and Indian businesses. I enjoyed a roast vegetable  sandwich on a grilled bread  The walk took me past a striking mural ‘Nuclear Dawn’ , by Brian Barnes and Christine Thomas, it is one of a series in Brixton painted after the riots in the eighties.

I had no time that day to continue so took the train home.

Hayes to Selsdon on the London Loop

No riverside today but plenty of woods to walk through.

Warren Wood Close

As soon as I stepped onto the Loop after Hayes station there was the unmistakeable smell of autumn in the air.   From Hayes  a network of paths lead to St John the Baptist church near Wickham Court

Looking towards Spring Park Woods

St John the Baptist Church

Having crossed two fields and a road, I missed the gap in the hedge which would have enabled me to cross playing fields into Spring Park Wood. As it was a game of rugby had been interrupted as a player had been injured and an ambulance had been called. The outcome must have been encouraging as I heard clapping afterI had gone past.  I did manage to pick up the Loop again with the aid of the map in the guidebook. I also had with me the OS Explorer map 161 London Loop.

London Loop marker in Spring Park Wood

The Loop signs were mercifully clear and frequent in this section.

A stone indicating that we are leaving the borough of Bromley and entering Croydon was placed here when this section of the Loop was opened in 1996.

Spring Park Woods

Formerly, along here was the boundary between Kent and Surrey.

Eventually having threaded my way through Three Halfpenny Wood, walked along Shirley Church Road, through Pinewoods and crossed Oaks Road, before turning into more woods, I was able to climb up to the viewing platform on Addington Hills. From here the view north over Croydon is magnificent. The two masts of Crystal Palace are clearly visible 

I found my way, not without having to retrace my steps a couple of times, out of the woods, across the tramline and a road and past the house of Heathfield, where the water level in the pond in front of it seemed somewhat low after this long spell of dry weather.

next, the Loop goes into the London Wildlife Trust’s Bramley Bank. I had to retrace my steps again, as I could not match the instructions in the guide book with anything on the ground.

View from the top of Bramley Bank

Having, therefore, missed some of Littleheath Wood, I did eventually find Selsdon Park Road and took the bus into Croydon. I had walked six miles, not counting the extra steps looking for the way.

From Bexley to Petts Wood on the London Loop

The final day of an extraordinary period of hot and sunny weather. I knew that this was the last time this year I would feel the sun on my shoulders. There’s always a poignancy about such autumn days because you know that wind and rain is to follow and it will be March before we have a chance of such pleasant weather again. It’s also confusing as the leaves are beginning to turn brown and it’s dark at half past six and yet the temperature had soared to the eighties.

So it was that I set off from Bexley station. Along the Cray valley the signs are relatively easy to follow, almost certainly because the Loop shares a path with the Cray Valley River Walk, I cannot help feeling,  in a somewhat parasitic fashion, given what happens later on, but then the Loop’s work is to join a number of disparate local paths.

a land filled former gravel pit

The path is soon crossing a former gravel pit used as a landfilled site and now grassed over. I passed a fine crop of sunflowers.

 

Not long afterwards The Loop meets the Cray again.

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There follows an extremely agreeable river walk, much frequented by dogs enjoying a dip. The weather was so warm that when one dog, fresh from the river, leapt up, to the consternation of its owners, and planted a wet kiss on my mouth, my clothes soon dried out from the splashing.

A slight breeze kept conditions comfortable for walking. The eighteenth century Five Arch Bridge and its lake was once a landscape feature in the park of  Foots Cray  Place an elegant Palladian mansion, destroyed by fire in 1949.

Among the swans, mallards and other waterfowl, parakeets can be heard above

I was struck by how clear the water was, as it flowed over its bed of gravel.

Climbing up from the Cray Valley, the footpath passes Sidcup Place, now an inn.

Having woven a path under then over and under again the A20 and the A222, the Loop emerges into  a wooded Nature Reserve, Scadbury Park

I tramped through this happily enough.

Then the Loop signs sent me in an unexpected direction. I failed to find features indicated in the guide book (The London Loop by David Sharp) and having clearly indicated one direction all signs of the Loop completely disappeared. Again. The fifth time that has happened to me on the Loop. The only footpath where I have got lost while walking for Charlotte. Eventually I came out of the wood and on to a road. With the aid of a lollipop lady I found the direction I was supposed to be walking in and came to Petts Wood by road. Petts Wood borders the road for some of the way and I would have loved to have walked through it but, although I hoped that signs for the Loop would re-appear, they did not. When I finally arrived at Petts Wood station I had  added 7.75 miles to the total.