“Come friendly bombs” wrote John Betjeman, and although Slough has definitely changed since his day, I’m not sure a walk through the town centre would convince anyone it was for the better. Like the rest of the country, industry there has to some extent declined, although there are still things being made in parts of the industrial estate.
A rural aspect on the Slough Arm of the Grand Union Canal
I went there on a Bank Holiday (the silly May one that isn’t May Day) along with Linda and Sam to walk along the Slough Arm of the Grand Union Canal, for a long more or less disused. Despite Betjeman’s ” There isn’t grass to graze a cow” it was surprisingly rural, where you weren’t walking past factories, many of which were disused.
The first couple of miles of canal were pretty empty, although there were a few people enjoying the fine weather (and some fishermen, although I thought this was the close season.) Most of the people we met were talking Polish.
The Slough branch of the canal is a five mile long dead end, but we didn’t walk all the way to the junction with the main line at Cowley Peachey, instead diverting past the sewage works to Iver to take a look at the church (covered in scaffolding) and buy chocolate and ice cream. Iver also has several pubs. We then came back over the canal and took the ‘Beeches Way’ to West Drayton where Linda and I caught a bus home and Sam a train on the first part of his journey to Milton Keynes – another 40 or so miles up the canal.
The last half of the walk was through the Colne Valley, a curiously remote area on the edge of London, traversed by many rivers – there are two aqueducts carrying the canal over the Colne and the Colne Brook. Also passing through it is the M25, and, just a little south of where we were, the M4. Much of the area is covered by the lakes left from mineral workings, along with other derelict industrial sites.