Autumn Walk on the Capital Ring

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.

Autumn trees in Beckenham on the Capital Ring

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.

Beckenham Place Park - Capital Ring

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.

Walking Roman Stane Street

Walking Roman London

Stane Street was the Roman road that linked Londinium to Noviomagus Reginorum (Chichester). In use by AD70, It starts its journey at the southern end of London Bridge and ran for 57-miles. I decided to walk the first 10 miles from Borough to Tooting. Stone Street led me through Elephant and Castle, Kennington, Stockwell, Clapham, Clapham Common, Balham, ending at Tooting in the Trafalgar Inn.
A collaboration with the brilliant Young’s Beer.

London Loop Section 2 – Petts Wood to Old Bexley

Continuing my walk on the London Loop

How can it have been two years since I ended Section 3 of the London Loop at Petts Wood? It felt both fantastic and odd to find myself back at Petts Wood station picking up the 150-mile long trail and knocking off the final couple of sections of the London Loop.
I’ve loved all of my London Loop walks, which quite incredibly started with Section 17 in January 2018, and Section 2 did not disappoint, passing largely through woodland for a big chunk of the 8-mile route. I visited Scadbury Moated Manor, Sidcup, crossed the Kyd Brook and most memorably, strolled beside the River Cray as afternoon passed into early evening.

London Loop sign

Exploring Bankside – Bishops, Bards, Bears and Bordellos

A freezing cold night in January I found myself ensconced in the Thameside Inn having stumbled upon the ruins of the Bishop of Winchester’s Palace in the narrow lanes near Borough Market. Supping a pint of Adnam’s Ghost Ship from Southwold, I looked across the river at the City lights reflecting in the Thames and the flashing blue lights on the ferry coming in to dock at London Bridge. I must make a video of this short deeply storied strip of the river between London Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge, I resolved as I lined up the second pint.

A couple of weeks later a friend and former colleague messaged me to say that I had to visit Hopton’s Almshouses just behind Tate Modern, a rare secluded gem hidden amongst the rush and tear of Southwark. This is what gave me the final push to go and shoot the Bankside stroll in this video.

Shakespeare's Globe, Bankside

The Route:
Crossing Blackfriars Bridge we first visit Hopton’s Almhouses built in the 17th Century. Then we pass through Tate Modern and then Cardinal’s Wharf where Sir Christopher Wren stayed during the rebuilding of St Paul’s Cathedral. Next door is Shakespeare’s Globe theatre, a reconstruction of the famous Elizabethan theatre. We pass along Bear Alley the site of a Tudor Bear pit and into Park Street where we find the sites of the Rose Theatre and the original Globe Theatre. Our Bankside amble then passes the notorious Clink Prison and the ruins of the Bishop of Winchester’s Palace before ending at the reconstruction of the Golden Hinde ship famously skippered by Sir Francis Drake on circumnavigations of the globe.

Crystal Palace to Streatham Common on the Capital Ring

I often overlook the Capital Ring. Partly because I’m always encountering those little waymarkers on my walks. I collected a full set of free fold-out maps from Thornhill Square Library about 20 years ago, detailing the 72-mile route broken down into 15 sections. However, I’ve only intentionally set out to walk the Capital Ring on one occasion, in March 2020 when I walked from Richmond to Horsenden Hill.

Capital Ring Walk 4
Capital Ring Walk 4
Capital Ring Walk 4 - Upper Norwood Recreation Ground
Upper Norwood Recreation Ground

So last week, with a false Spring breaking over London, I set off from Crystal Palace Station to walk Section 4 to Streatham Common, and wow what a glorious walk it was. There were spectacular views throughout – looking south towards to the North Downs, and across the Thames Basin to the north with the shimmering towers of the City below. From Biggin Wood we looked across the high-rises of Croydon to distant hills. And at the end of the walk we gazed west over the Wandle Valley. Between we strolled across beautiful open spaces at Westow Park, Upper Norwood Recreation Ground, Norwood Grove and finally Streatham Common. We passed beneath the boughs of one of the remnants of the Great North Wood in Biggin Wood and explored the secret garden at The Rookery on the site of Streatham Wells.

Capital Ring Walk 4
view from Biggin Hill
The Rookery - Streatham
The Rookery

I now can’t wait to get back and continue the Capital Ring to Wimbledon and Richmond.

A meander along the River Shuttle in South London

I’d never heard of the River Shuttle until it was mentioned in the YouTube comments under my video of a walk along the River Quaggy. A crisp, bright, sunny Sunday felt like the perfect time to seek out this suburban watercourse. The River Shuttle rises on Avery Hill and flows through a sequence of parks and patches of woodland before making its confluence with the River Cray beside the A2 Rochester Way. The Shuttle Riverway is a 5.5-mile walking trail that follows the river.

I found the Shuttle running along a narrow concrete culvert just inside the gates of the University of Greenwich Avery Hill campus and next to the Charlton Athletic Training Ground. I remembered that my Uncle Stan had turned down a professional contract to play in goal for Charlton in the 1950s leading me to declare that the deity of the River Shuttle was a former Charlton Athletic goalkeeper. [*note: in Ben Aaronovitch’s brilliant Rivers of London books all of London’s rivers have a living, breathing deity who moves among us]. I followed the river through the campus and across the road, through Parish Wood and connected with the Shuttle Riverway as ran alongside Berwick Crescent, Sidcup. It was here I encountered my first Shuttle Riverway signage – always a great moment to add a new walking trail sign to the memory bank.

Shuttle Riverway sign for the River Shuttle walk
Shuttle Riverway

In Hollyoak Wood Park the Shuttle meets its tributary, the Wyncham Stream which rises in Chislehurst. Just past the confluence of these two rivers an egret elegantly strode along the edge of the water.
The river led me on through Willersley Park and Marlborough Park in magnolious late winter sun.

River Shuttle in Parish Wood
River Shuttle in Parish Wood
confluence of the Wyncham Stream and the River Shuttle in Hollyoak Wood Park
confluence of the Wyncham Stream and the River Shuttle

As the Shuttle crossed Burnt Oak Lane into Sidcup Golf Club I followed the Shuttle Riverway round the streets when later I learnt that a footpath runs around the edge of the golf course emerging near Viewfield Road. However, I’m grateful that my detour took me past the great pylons that straddled the houses and the stink pipe in Albany Road.

pylons in the street in Sidcup / Bexley
pylons in the street in Sidcup / Bexley

The daylight faded as I traced the river across the edge of Bexley Woods and a luminous full moon broke through the clouds. It made me think of Steve Moore’s Somnium, a brilliant weaving of the mythology of the moon goddess Selene into the landscape of Shooters Hill, not far from the source of the River Shuttle. The moon and the river seemed intricately linked. How I connect this to the goalkeeping deity of the Shuttle I haven’t worked out yet.

confluence of the River Shuttle and River Cray
confluence of the River Shuttle and River Cray

Selene guided me down Love Lane in the moonlit night to the Holiday Inn laden with ennui beside the A2 East Rochester Way. The Shuttle shimmered in the headlights of passing cars. The confluence with the River Cray was not far away. A fox slid through the undergrowth along the riverbank. Somebody had left a can of energy drink on the railing as a votive offering. It was a perfect ending. I paid my respects and then headed off into the moonbeams to Bexley Station.

Walking the River Quaggy – South London’s Magic River

The River Quaggy, or Quaggy River as it’s marked on maps for some of its course, has beguiled me since I first heard its name mentioned after a screening about twelve years ago. I encountered it for real in Lewisham Town Centre when doing one of the walks for my book, This Other London, and passed it briefly on a walk tracing the River Beck. So one day in November I set out to walk a section of the Quaggy, starting at Lewisham Station where the Quaggy and the Ravensbourne meet before the conjoined rivers become the Deptford Creek and flow into the Thames. The River Quaggy rises at Locksbottom in the London Borough of Bromley and is known as the Kyd Brook in its lower reaches.

On the first walk, this gentle river led us through Lewisham Town Centre to Manor Park, formerly a pig farm, then to Manor Gardens Park with its fantastic library situated in the 18th Century Manor House. We then returned to a stretch of Lee Road to Lee Green and followed the river into Blackheath where we were thwarted by locked park gates and the black of night ended the first walk.

The Quaggy at Manor Park, Lewisham
The Quaggy at Manor Park, Lewisham
The Quaggy at Sutcliffe Park, Eltham
The Quaggy at Sutcliffe Park, Eltham

I returned just over a week ago to pick up the Quaggy trail in Sutcliffe Park, Eltham where the Quaggy is free of its culvert and allowed the flood parts of the surrounding parkland, before it’s corralled back into a concrete channel to make the journey through the suburban realm. It passes beneath the South Circular Road and once again through sports grounds. We walk beside its waters along Mottingham Lane before it enters the grounds of Capel Manor College. Picking up the river on the other side of the College I arrived at Chinbrook Meadows just after sunset to see the Quaggy running free once more meandering through this charming park. My South London river odyssey ended not long afterwards in the dark on New Street Hill looking across at Sundridge Golf Course, where, somewhere between the bunkers, the name of this magical watercourse changes to the Kyd Brook.

What a fantastic walk, at every turn a wonder, making me more determined than ever to dedicate the coming year to walking London’s rivers.