Livestream walk from Trafalgar Square down the Mall to Horseguards Parade then through St James’s Park and along St James’s.
Walk 3 – Crystal Palace to Beckenham Place Park
About twenty years ago I collected the whole set of free Capital Ring leaflets from Thornhill Square Library in Islington. We used to go there for the ‘Stay and Play’ sessions in the basement and to use the Children’s Library. But as these things often transpire I didn’t actually use the maps until early March 2020 when I walked from Richmond Bridge to Horsenden Hill (Walks 7, 8 and part of 9). It was a great walk. I didn’t go back onto the Capital Ring until February 2023 when I did the glorious stroll from Crystal Palace to Streatham Common (Walk 4). So the other Sunday, with a light rain moistening the golden leaf-fall, seemed like the perfect time to make a run to London’s inner orbital walking trail.
The Capital Ring is the kid sibling of the London Loop – 78 miles compared to the Loop’s 150 miles divided into 15 sections rather than 24. And a key point is that they’re much closer to Central London making each section much more accessible. The season seemed to beckon me back to Crystal Palace but to walk in the opposite direction towards Grove Park (Walk 3). With the leaflet as my guide I circuited Crystal Palace Park, paid homage to the dinosaurs before heading out along Penge High Street. I could barely have chosen a more perfect suburban autumn perambulation as the route drew me across Alexandra Park, down Old Farm Lane, traversing Cator Park where the Chaffinch Brook and the River Beck flow, before I ended my Capital Ring excursion on the heights of Beckenham Place Park with its grand manor house and views out over Kent and Surrey.
How long will it be before I return to the Capital Ring, I have no idea. I still have a short section of the London Loop to complete, but there’s no hurry. The Thornhill Square leaflets on top of my bookshelf aren’t going anywhere and will wait patiently till I’m stuck for an idea for a walk and remember they’re up there looking down at me.
Last Thursday, 24th October, saw the launch of my text, The Black Path, as part of the London Adventures series at The Broadway Bookshop published by Three Imposters. It was a perfect place for the launch sat right on the course of the Black Path in Broadway Market, Hackney. I’d walked this ancient drovers path back in January for a YouTube video, and writing this publication gave me an opportunity to dig deeper in the rich history of this storied thoroughfare that runs from Walthamstow to Shoreditch, and then along Old Street to Smithfield.
You can buy The Black Path here directly from Three Imposters
Islington the Watershed
It feels apt to be posting the blog on the day of the launch of my text, The Black Path, in the London Adventure series published by The Three Imposters. Walking the Philley Brook (Filly Brook, Fillebrook) with the brilliant Compilerzone in August that sound artist Brigitte Hart put me in touch with a friend who had pushed his cheese barrow along the length of the Black Path. What a great story. The conversation with Berto the Cheese Merchant turned to the matter of the Angel, and Berto mentioned Stephen Myers book, Walking on Water, which maps one source of the Walbrook rising in Islington and roughly following the course of City Road before making its confluence with the eastern branch of the Walbrook around Curtain Road. Berto placed the source outside the public toilets in White Conduit Street. Wow! This blog has its origins, twenty years ago, in that very terrain when I lived opposite the site of White Conduit House and became obsessed with the pleasure gardens of the area and their associated springs and wells. I had never come across any references to the Walbrook rising at the Angel, despite walking the City of London’s principal lost river twice. I had to explore further.
This walk follows the first section of the walk in Chapter 1 of my book This Other London which starts at the majestic Gunnersbury Park in West London. The Park was originally the grounds of Gunnersbury House, a Georgian mansion built for King George III’s aunt Princess Amelia. Today it’s home to Gunnersbury Museum and the house is open to the public.
We then walk along the ‘Golden Mile’ – a strip of the A4 Great West Road running through Brentford that from the 1920’s became an industrial centre for a number of household names and famous for its Art Deco architecture. Some of the companies based there included Smiths Crisps, Gillette, Currys, Beachams, and Firestone Tyres.
Our walk ends at the Gillette Building on Gillette Corner.
This London walk takes us to the City of London looking for the lost rivers and streams of Roman London on the western edge of the old Roman City. A number of channels were excavated at 7-10 Old Bailey that indicated this area was a major tributary valley of the River Fleet. Our Roman London walk starts at the top of Ludgate Hill near St Paul’s Cathedral then turns into Old Bailey, from here we go across Limeburner Lane into Old Seacoal Lane and along Farringdon Street. We turn into Bear Alley and then return to follow the course of the tributary back to its source just to the north of Newgate Street. From Greyfriars Churchyard we then follow the ‘western stream’ down across Paternoster Square to its confluence with the Thames near Puddle Dock.
Source: London Archaeologist Summer 2014
The Perfect London Day-trip
Once one of the medieval Cinque Ports and an important harbour, changes to the coastline and the course of the River Rother altered not just the landscape but the town’s fortunes and it became a haunt of smugglers. Many of the buildings in the town centre date from the 15th and 16th Century, including the charming Mermaid Inn which was rebuilt in 1420. The video includes Mermaid Street, Rye Castle and Ypres Tower, the River Brede, Romney Marsh, the River Rother, Martello Towers, WW2 pill boxes, and Rye Harbour and Beach.
