Walk | >Re-PHOTO

Before the Olympics – A walk in 2005

I published this post seventeen years ago on My London Diary, following an organised walk around the Olympic Site by locals while London was making its unfortunately successful bid to host the 2012 games. I’ve corrected the capitalisation but otherwise it remains as written. Going around the area some ten years after the games there is nothing I would want to change in the piece, though the legacy has turned out even worse than we feared back then, with so many broken promises.

Olympic site? – Stratford and Temple Mills, 23 Jan, 2005

Before the Olympics — *Carpenters Road lock, Old River Lea, London*

I first got to know the lower Lea (or Lee) valley around twenty-five years ago, when many of the traditional industries, many based around the Lea Navigation, had or were just ending. Parts of it were almost a dark continent, with the Bow Back Rivers machete country. Secateurs became an essential photo accessory, and together with a heavy duty tripod swung with abandon hacked a path alongside streams overgrown with bramble, nettles and bushes.

Since then, things have changed, with proper paths, nature trails, signposts and more, although it remains an area of relative peace and quiet. All this could soon change. You can hardly move in or around London without the almost continuous reminder of the 2012 Olympic bid. Large sums are being spent to convince us it is a good thing, despite concurrent claims that over 70% of Londoners already support it.

For this particular area of London it will mean dramatic changes, and whatever the good intentions of the developers (and I’ve read them) these will probably be environmentally disastrous. Development on this scale almost always is. Even the proponents acknowledge short-term problems, while local environmentalists point out the massaging and misrepresentation in parts of their planning, as well as the failure to ensure a proper post-games future for the area. While some of the proposals make sense for the area, the short-term priorities of the games will result in many that do not.

I’m not against the Olympics as such; in some ways they could be a good thing for the country, although the whole movement has been allowed to get seriously out of hand. I’m cynical enough to know that much of the enthusiasm for London 2012 comes from companies who are already making serious money from the promotion and will make even more should they happen, and realistic enough to know that any local opposition to them can only enforce very minor changes to their impact. Such local views are likely to carry far more weight on developments in the area should the London bid fail.

*Allotments on ridge between Old River Lea and Channelsea River, Stratford.*

Sunday I cycled from Stratford to Temple Mills to join a walk around the northern part of the site, organised by No To London 2012, a coalition of East London community groups and social justice campaigners. A group of just over twenty of us spent an enjoyable couple of hours looking at the area and the impact the Olympic developments would have. it was an opportunity that IOC delegates are not likely to have, with their view of these particular areas expected to be with a pair of binoculars from a distant tower block.

We stood first of all on a part of Hackney Marshes, watching the local footballers play on an area marked for a vast coach park, wondering how long it would take for it to be returned to recreational use, before making our way south across the A12 to the Eastway Cycle Circuit, now a well-used recreational area which will also be dramatically changed, becoming in the long term part of a larger Velopark, and on to the recently established Bully Point Nature Reserve at the southwest of the site between the Channelsea River and the River Lea, a viewpoint over the major land-forming currently taking place as a part of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link works and the future development of Stratford City.

Returning to Eastway, we climbed over a barrier onto Arena Field. Until a few years back this was a cricket ground, but travellers occupied it and the pavilion was burnt down. It was then used as a landfill site, raising the overall ground level around twenty feet. On the other side of Eastway we walked through Wick Field, site of massive tree-planting by Hackney. The new path we walked through, designed and made by one of those on the walk, was pleasant if muddy.

*Canary Wharf towers from Eastway Cycle Circuit*

At the end of the walk I went back to the bench in Wick Field, in the centre of a fine row of plane trees running parallel to the Lea Navigation and sat down to eat my lunch. In front of me a grassy fire-break path stretched into the distance, marred only slightly by dimly seen lorries at its end on the elevated roadway. As I sat there, the unmistakable low-slung red-brown shape of a fox strode slowly across the path a hundred yards away.

*London 2012 Olympic advertising at Stratford Station*

I made my way back to Stratford by Leyton, returning to look at some of my memories – St Josephs Cemetery and the nearby crossroads on Langthorne Road, the stump of Claremont Road and then a few pictures around the centre of Stratford itself.

You can see more pictures from the walk and my cycle rides from and to Stratford Station before and after the walk http://mylondondiary.co.uk/2005/01/jan3.htm with the original posting. All pictures were made with a Nikon D70, with some of the panoramas stitched together from several images.

You can see these and more pictures from the area on my Lea Valley web site, Some are also in my book Before The Olympics, first published in 2010, ISBN: 978-1-909363-00-7 still available from Blurb both as an expensive paperback or as a PDF.

Brandt and Battersea – 2023

Last Tuesday – 10th January 2023 – I went for a walk with a couple of friends, both photographers. The pictures here were all taken by me on our walk. We met at Tate Britain where the exhibition on Bill Brandt was entering its last few days – it finishes tomorrow, 15th January. We hadn’t bothered to go before as all three of us were very familiar with Brandt’s work – and had seen previous and larger and better exhibitions. I think both the others had heard him talking about his work, we had all watched him on film and all owned several of his books, had in various ways studied his work and taught about it. I’d also published some short pieces about him when I wrote about photography for a living. We didn’t really feel a need to go to another show, but it was free and it fitted in with a couple of other things we wanted to do.

While its good that the Tate was honouring one of Britain’s finest photographers, we all found the show disappointing, both for the rather odd selection of works and prints and for some of the writing on the wall. Much of Brandt’s best work was missing, and it was hard to see why some images were included, and some prints also seemed to be of rather poor quality. Possibly this show reflects the failure of almost all British museums in the past to take collecting photography seriously – or perhaps a lack of real appreciation of photography by the Tate.

Brandt began his work in an era when photographs were seldom put on walls for anything other than illustrative purposes – there was no art market in photography. His work was largely produced for book projects and for magazine commissions, and he made prints largely for the platemakers who would prepare the plates for printing. To see the real object of his work you have to look not at the ‘original prints’ but at their reproduction in books and magazines. The strongest point in this show was the glass cases in which some of these were situated. But while we were there few of the other visitors to the show paid them more than a passing glance, instead filing reverently around the spaced out prints on the wall, pausing to pay homage at each of them before moving to the next.

I found it a disappointing show, and if you missed it you didn’t miss much. Far better to spend your time on his 1977 book, Shadow of Light for an overall view of his work, still available second-hand at reasonable prices. And should you want to know more about the man and his influences (neither of which the Tate show concerned itself with) Paul Delany’s Bill Brandt – A Life provides more information than anyone could ever want.

We left the gallery, crossing Atterbury Road to examine Henry Moore’s Two Piece Reclining Figure No. 1 in a small courtyard of Chelsea College Of Art and Design before proceeding to pay a courtesy visit to the Morpeth Arms which proved more to our taste than the Tate Show.

Refreshed we made our way across the river to Vauxhall to meet the Thames Path, following this upriver to Battersea Power Station. Much building work is still going on, including the construction of the Thames ‘Super Sewer’ and there is a lack of signs to show the way in the area close to the power station, but soon we found a side entrance to the recently opened interior.

I’d visited and photographed the interior years ago when it was derelict and was interested to see what the architects had done with it. Basically it is now an upmarket shopping mall full of shops selling goods and services that might appeal to the idle rich and wealthy tourists. It also has a cinema, an expensive lift up one chimney to a viewing platform from which we have already seen countless similar views, and, perhaps the only useful thing so far as I was concerned, toilets.

The architects have retained the huge scale of the two turbine halls, but the higher areas of them are now cluttered with huge hanging mock strings of giant fairy lamps and baubles, which failed to appeal to me. It was only at one that an uncluttered wall of windows really took me back to the atmosphere of the original.

The earlier of the two turbine halls was remarkable for its art deco decorative details – the later hall plain and utilitarian. Although at least some of the deco detail has been retained (or recreated) it no longer seems to have the impact it had formerly, perhaps because do the much higher lighting levels, perhaps because of the hanging distractors. But it remains an impressive building.

I’d left my two younger but less active companions to rush around and see the whole building, going up as high as I could while they stayed lower down. By the time we found each other again they had seen enough and were fed up with the place, and we left to the riverside terrace, walking along to catch a bus on Queenstown Road. It was dusk on a dull and damp day and we made our way to a cheap meal at a rather cosy pub in Battersea for a glass or two of wine and a remarkably cheap meal before walking to Clapham Junction for our three different trains home.

School, Meeting House, Houses & Shops – Peckham

The previous post on this walk on Sunday 12th February 1989 was A Market, Chapel & More Houses – Peckham

*Highshore School, Bellenden Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-45*

You will look in vain for this school on Bellenden Road now. The school, a special school, moved to a shared site with Archbishop Michael Ramsey School,Camberwell in 2013 leaving the building empty. It was demolished in 2015 and replaced by Cherry Garden special school, which moved out of Bermondsey to here.

I’m unsure as to the date of this school, though it was clearly postwar, possibly dating from the 1960s. Perhaps surprisingly it was not mentioned by Cherry and Pevsner in their London 2: South volume though it seemed to me to be clearly of architectural interest. Southwark Council described it as “a distinctive post-war school” but wanted to knock it down so went on to say “it is not of sufficient quality of construction nor is it sufficiently unique to warrant the particular protection given by listing“. I can’t comment on the structural soundness from the four pictures I took but can’t think where you can find a similar building. It gets a rather deprecating comment in the Holly Grove Conservation Area Appraisal, “Highshore School, immediately adjacent to the conservation area, was built using standardised lightweight constructional systems and open site-planning principles which undermine the established morphology of street frontages“, not fitting in neatly with the Georgian housing in the area.

House, Highshore Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-33 — *House, Highshore Rd, Elm Grove, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-33*

This house is on the corner of Higshore Road and Elm Grove and I think its address is 64 Elm Grove. It is certainly a very impressive and substantial late Victorian house with a quirkiness I found appealing enough to take a second frame.

*House, Highshore Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-34*

*Post Office Depot, Highshore Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-35*

I didn’t photograph the listed houses in Highshore Road, perhaps suffering from a surfeit of rather standard Georgian or early Victorian houses in the area. Fine though they are I didn’t feel a need to photograph all of them.

The Post Office Depot is rather less usual and carries a ‘Historic Southwark’ board as well as being Grade II listed. This is possibly the earliest building in what was then known as Hanover Street, built in 1816 as the Friends Meeting House, apparently on the site of a pond. It was considerably enlarged in 1843.

*Shops, Rye Lane, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-21*

These buildings are stll there at the north end of Rye Lane, though now with different shops, but almost all the buildings visible on Peckham High Street in the picture have gone. There is still a bank at 65 Peckham High Street the extreme corner of which can just be seen but the rest of the buildings including the Midland Bank have gone, with a walkway here now leading to the Peckham Pulse Leisure Centre built in 1998.

*Shops, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-22*

I took another picture of these shops from a slightly different viewpoint to one I had made a month earlier which I wrote about aat some length in a post on that earlier walk. The building housing ‘Stiletto Ecpresso’ has been replaced since 1989 by a taller and rather less interesting structure but the rest still look much the same, though with different uses.

*Canal Head, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-23*

Had I been aware of the changes that were soon to take place in this area I would have made more than this picture at Canal Head. This was the start of the walk along the route of the Peckham Branch of the Surrey Canal, at the back of what is now the The Drovers Arms, roughly at the south-east corner of the more recent Leisure Centre.

*Doorway, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-24*

The Drovers Arms has the address 71-79 Peckham High St and tucked away down a short driveway at its read is this building at 71, now a dental surgery, Peckham Dental Care. The building at right with a bricked up and painted over doorway is the pub, which has a rather grander and more useful entrance on the High Street, opened in 2000.

The main building at 73-79 was built around the end of the 19th century, according to Historic England by architects J & J W Edmeston, for the London and South Western Bank. The Edmestons were a family of architects working in London, of whom the best known was probably James Edmeston Jr (1823-98). I think 71 may be a little earlier.

This walk will continue in a later post. The first post on this walk was Aged Pilgrims, Sceaux, Houses & Lettsom.

Thames Path – Pangbourne to Cholsey

I grew up not far from the Thames, though rather more of my young days were spent playing in and around one of its tributaries, the River Crane both in the wilder areas of Hounslow Heath and to the north and in the rather tamer Crane Park, where I caught tiddlers, sticklebacks which were destined to die in jam jars, and learnt that small boys on bicycles were faster than irate whistle-blowing park keepers.

But the river was there, a formidable barrier protecting us in Middlesex from the wilds of Surrey, though we occasionally crossed it on bridges and ferries, perhaps to go to Kew Gardens in search of plant specimens. This was before the days of garden centres, and my father, a keen gardener carried scissors in his waistcoat pocket and would occasionally take a small cutting from gardens as we walked past or visited, or find seeds. Gardeners where we lived didn’t buy seeds – they saved them and swapped them with others.

And the Thames was the river where I learnt to swim, if only badly, with a paddling pool and a swimming area with a springboard in the riverside park, The Lammas. Later I learnt to row at Isleworth, in a heavyweight Sea Scout boat – and we swam there too, despite the filthy oily state of the mud and water.

Older and wiser I kept to the riverside paths, walking them both in Middlesex and Surrey and also out to the east of London, sometimes taking my family with me, but also on walks with other photographers and on my own. And when plans were being made in the 1980s for a Thames Walk I made a few suggestions on the proposed path of what in 1989 became the Thames Path.

Far more of the river in London is now accessible to the public than back in the 1970s and 80s when much of the riverside was still a working area, though many of the wharves were derelict. But as I found when I joined a small group led by a Tower Hamlets official with responsibility for footpaths, parts of the path on the north bank were still not always easy to access, with developers and residents erecting gates and barriers and making some parts appear private. Some years later The Guardian in 2015 published Privatised London: the Thames Path walk that resembles a prison corridor which showed that little had changed.

But like many others, my family has now walked the Thames Path, from the Thames Barrier at Charlton to the source in Gloucestershire, as well as some way to the east along both shores. Most of the path proper is readily accessible by public transport and can be done as a series of one-day walks, travelling and returning from from our home in Staines or from London. But for the final three days of walking we had to spend a couple of nights in hotels on the route.

*At Streatley the path goes through a small lake*

At the start of 2010, we spent both New Years Day and January 2nd walking two short sections of the walk, from Reading to Pangbourne on Friday 1st and returning to Pangbourne on the Saturday to walk to Cholsey. Both Cholsey and Pangbourne have stations with trains to Reading, so access was easy, although Cholsey station is over a mile from the Thames Path.

The pictures here are all from Saturday 2nd January, on what is perhaps the most scenic stretch of the Thames Path. It was a bitterly cold day, which was perhaps as well, as the parts of this section would have been very muddy and a little flooded. But the mud was frozen and most of the ice on the flooded parts was thick enough to take our weight. It was more pleasant walking across the ice than it would have been wading through the few inches of mud and freezing water, almost certainly just deep enough to overtop my walking boots.

At the start of the walk from Pangbourne, after crossing the river the path climbs a little up a ridge, with occasional views through the trees across the valley. It then goes down to the riverside again, passing under one of Brunel’s fine brick bridges for the GWR to the Goring Gap, where the Thames runs between wooded hills. Goring itself is the kind of place I like to avoid, though I’m sure it has its charms, but I’ve always seen it as a kind of playground for the self-satisfied rich. We crossed the river to Streatley on the south side, a village owned by Oxford Brewery owners the Morrell family until they sold it in in 1938. They had protected it from development.

It was here that we found the worst flooding on the path, and almost took one look at a gate leading on to a lake and turned round – we could have ended our walk here and returned to Reading from Goring station. But eventually we decided the water couldn’t be too deep and perhaps the ice might hold our weight and we went on. I think we all got wet feet.

There were more icy bits on the rest of the walk, but nothing quite so bad, and we continued our walk along the Thames Path. Unfortunately at Moulsford the path leaves the river – the towpath switches to the opposite bank, and although this is a Ferry Lane, the ferries are long gone. Moulsford would be a pleasant enough village were it not on the A329, and the one kilometre trek along this relatively busy road was tedious, though we did make a short diversion to see the parish church.

Our walk along the Thames Path ended when this left the road to return to the river, but we had further to go before turning off onto a footpath on our way to Cholsey station, adding another mile to our walk.

More on My London Diary at Thames Path including our walk on the previous day from Reading to Pangbourne.

Sudbury to Brentford – 31st December 2016

Six years ago on New Year’s Eve we walked with a couple of family members from Sudbury to Brentford. This year because of rail and health problems none of our family are staying with us and “South Western Railway services between 18 December and 8 January are subject to change and may not operate”, so if the weather is fine we will probably do a rather shorter walk from home.

The trip in 2016 to Sudbury Hill station was reasonably fast; a short train journey then a bus and a couple of short hops on the Piccadilly line got us there in a little under an hour and a half, and within a few minutes we were walking along suburban streets to Horsenden Wood, where we walked to the top of the hill.

Unfortunately it was a dull and damp day, and we could only see the extensive views this part of the walk would have given us had the air been clear dully through the murk, but the path up through the wood was enhanced by the slight mist. We walked down the hill to cross the Grand Union Canal.

Soon we reached the highpoint of the walk for some of us, the 1930s trading estate leading to the Art Deco Tesco on Western Avenue, designed by Wallis, Gilbert and Partners and built in 1933 for Hoover, along with the 1930s moderne canteen, now an Asian restaurant. We chose the Tesco both for a tiny bit of shopping and the toilets, then walked west to the footbridge to cross the busy road.

Almost immediately on the path the other side of Western Avenue we came to St Mary the Virgin Perivale, now used for concerts, with just an occasional service.

This Grade I listed redundant church dates in part from the 13th century and was the smallest church in Middlesex (outside London.) We explored its graveyard and sat down on a rather damp seat there to eat our sandwiches in what was either heavy drizzle or light rain.

The next section of the walk took us beside the River Brent, another of London’s minor rivers and like the rest of our walk going to Brentford, though we had to make some deviations to follow roads and footpaths. This was a relatively quiet and sometimes boring section of the walk, though its always good to walk beside the river, and there was a rather dumpy viaduct for a doomed railway, a council estate and a long foot path to a Cuckoo Lane where no cuckoos were to be heard except for our ludicrous imitations.

Things got more interesting again when we reached Hanworth Church, and early work of George Gilbert Scott who later called it ‘a mass of horrors’ and Brent Lodge Park, where I ignored the pleas of some of my cfo-walkers and led us firmly away from a tea-room – we were already and hour or so behind schedule if we were to finish the walk during daylight.

Brunel really knew how to build a viaduct, and here was the first major engineering work on the new Great Western Railway in 1836-7, with 8 semi-elliptical arches each of 70 ft span and rising 19 ft supported on hollow brick piers – the first time these were used in a railway viaduct. 886 ft long, the height to the parapet is 81 ft, and when built it was 30 ft wide to carry two broad gauge lines. Later it was widened to 55ft with a third pier added to each existing pair, and it could then take four standard gauge tracks, which were laid in 1892. We walked under this impressive structure beside the River Brent to the south side which is the earlier part and carries the arms of Lord Wharncliffe, chair of the committee that gave permission for the GWR.

We continued by the Brent to join the Grand Union Canal, another earlier great engineering acheivement along with the rest of the canal system, at the Hanwell flight of locks. Our route now ran along the towpath, so navigation was simple, all the way to the Great West Road.

There was still just enough light to take a few photographs, but my companions were flagging and our walk was getting slower and slower.

By the time we reached the road for the short walk to Brentford Station it was truly dark and they had slowed to a snails pace, and despite my urging them to catch the next train we arrived there to see it just departing, for once dead on time, though we were an hour and a minute later then planned. It had been a good walk but would have been better without the 29 minutes wait there for the next train.

You can see many more pictures from the walk on My London Diary at New Years Eve Walk.

Matlock & Matlock Bath

Monday 30th December 2019 seems so long ago now, part of BC – before Covid – and it comes as some surprise to work out that it was only three years ago that we were staying in Matlock and going for a walk with my younger son and his family.

Matlock Bath is the tourist centre of the area, just around a mile and a half down the A6 from Matlock where we were staying, but that would be a rather boring walk. Instead we took a route along a well-signposted footpath up the steep east side of the valley taking us to High Tor, coming down to Matlock. The actual horizontal distance was perhaps twice as far, but the vertical aspect was considerably greater, with some splendid views perhaps compensating for the life-threatening exertion. I’m just not used to hills.

The path around the face of High Tor was described by one sensationalist article in a tabloid excuse for a newspaper as the “most dangerous footpath in England” but in fact is rather safe, even having a handrail to hold as it narrows around the cliff face. It’s a path I would avoid in high winds, event though there is a one way system which most walkers adhere to on this short section as passing people could be just a little tricky.

But there are far more dangerous paths than this, which is safer than many coastal cliff walks. Not of course a walk to take your hard to control young children on, and the article appeared to have been triggered by the complaint of one mother who had done so. Public footpaths date from before we had much concern for health and safety.

There were a few people like us making this popular walk, but coming down to the main road with its long row of fish and chip shops was entering tourist central, crowded enough to make it hard to keep walking at a sensible speed. It’s always like a little bit of a popular seaside resort strangely landed in the centre of the country about as far from the sea as you can get. It was quite a shock when I first saw it, coming up the A6 on my way to another term at Manchester University in the 1960s – though we soon found there were better routesif less scenic.

At one of the pubs we met other family and friends including the younger and less controllable who had arrived by train – one short stop down the line – rather than make our more hazardous journey. We walked out to admire the fish swimming in their pool while waiting for the food to arrive and afterwards left to visit the mining museum.

The mining museum is worth a visit, though it really needs several visits to see it all, and hits a balance between a museum proper and a visitor experience mainly for children, though some of its fake mine passages are tricky for overisize adults.

We left the mining museum and divided into two parties again. My son and I decided to walk back to Matlock over the hills to the west of the main road while the others went to the station to catch the train.

The steps up the steep hillside past the entrance to Gulliver’s Kingdom were a little daunting to a flat earth dweller whose heart has seen better days, but past them it was a pleasant walk with few sections with good views across the valley as the light faded at the end of the day.

More pictures and story at Matlock & Matlock Bath. This year we will be at home today and our walk will be rather flatter.

Boxing Day Walks (and Rides)

Our Boxing Days here have followed a similar pattern for a few years now, at least in those years where we’ve stayed at home rather than visiting family elsewhere. We get up, have breakfast and then get ready to go out for a walk. We walk from our home to a mid-day meal with my sister and other family members, in recent years at a pub close to where she lives. Then a leisurely wander to her house for tea. And rather later going home, though so far we’ve not had to walk back.

Partly we walk because there is little if any public transport on Boxing Day. We could cycle, but the roads are more rather more dangerous than usual thanks to motorists with a higher than usual alcohol level, and also because I like to have a glass or two myself with my boxing day lunch, though it would be easy to do the journey almost entirely off-road. Perhaps this year we will cycle, the weather forecast isn’t too bad.

The walk is at least five miles. In the past we used to often take longer and sometimes hillier routes to give us a little more exercise. Now we sometimes stop on the way for coffee at one of the few cafés that are open. The walk helps to get up an appetite for another large meal after our minor over-indulgences the previous day. Years ago we often went out for another walk before our late afternoon tea, but others in the family are now too old for this.

Of course I take a camera with me, and take pictures on the way, as well as sometimes some family pictures during the meal and after, though these I seldom share outside the family as they have very little interest for others.

So earlier I spent some time looking for my pictures from boxing day walks in earlier years to post today. These pictures come from a rather longer journey on 26th December 2005, when we cycled a few miles further along the River Thames than necessary before turning back for our lunch.

I first posted some pictures from this walk on My London Diary in 2005. Although that post describes it as a walk, from the distances involved and the EXIF times we must have been on our bikes. And had a very late lunch.

This is a slightly different collection; all pictures were made with a Nikon D200 DX format DSLR.

Stanford-le-Hope and Mucking

December 2004 was not a great month for weather and it shows in the pictures than I took along the Thames estuary in Essex on Saturday 4th December. But perhaps they are appropriate for the landscape although were I to go back to the RAW files I took – using the Nikon D100 and mainly the then groundbreaking Sigma 12-24mm wideangle zoom – and reprocess them with more recent conversion software they might be a little less drab.

I took my folding Brompton with me on the train, although much of the route I took was on footpaths. Bromptons are not great off-road bikes and I was probably wheeling it quite a lot of the time, but it carried the weight of my gear in its front bag and let me go quickly along some of the less interesting parts of my route.

I’m not sure if it was on this ride or on another in this part of Essex where the chain came off thanks to an excessive amount of mud and became somehow locked out of place between the frame and some other part, locking the rear wheel completely. I struggled for perhaps 10 minutes to free it without success and had almost become resigned to having to carry it some miles to the nearest station, a rather daunting prospect as together with cameras etc it was a rather unwieldy 40lbs or so.

Fortunately I was saved by a stranger who came along the path and rather stronger than me managed to pull the trapped link free – though getting his hands covered in oil and mud to do so. I was extremely grateful, thankful and rather embarrassed at the mess he was in, though handing him my oily bike rag to wipe the worst off. It’s great that some people at least will go out of they way to come to the aid of others.

As well as some of the pictures as I posted them at the time, I’ll also put on the text I wrote then on My London Diary, where you can see more pictures. I’ve edited the text slightly, mainly to restore normal capitalisation which makes it rather easier to read.

December started a drab month, with little light, but the forecast for Saturday 4th suggested the mist and cloud would clear, so I set off for Stanford-le-Hope. Single or return asked the ticket seller, I wouldn’t want to stay there I told him.

From the station I turned left and then south towards Mucking and the river. Disappointingly the church in Mucking is now a private house, and the churchyard only open by arrangement. The footpath led through a nature reserve, the largest bog of its type in England, and then turned past a large complex of unfilled gravel pits towards Mucking Creek.

Names on maps can have a fascination, and Mucking Marshes, Mucking Flats, Mucking and Mucking Creek were places I needed to see. In good light they would have been great, but on a dull grey day they lacked sparkle.

The footpath led along the riverside towards Corringham and Shell, but disappointingly the bridge across a small creek had disappeared. There was an unmarked detour along the goods line, but not the same. I returned to Stanford-le-Hope splashing through huge puddles in the rutted lane. One of its few claims to fame is as the home of writer Joseph Conrad, but the cottage in which he lived is surrounded by a high fence and there is little to see.

My London Diary – December 2004

Kew, Brentford, Syon & Isleworth Walk

Part 2 Syon and Isleworth

A public footpath, now also on the Thames Path, leads from Brentford across Syon Park to Isleworth. Its a longish stroll with parkland on one side and at times just a high wall on the other, but does pass several historic buildings, though you would need to pay the entrance fee to the gardens and great conservatory to see most of them well. The estate is still privately owned and permission is needed for any filming and photography within the park.

Entry is free to the garden centre, and we went in to look at some of the buildings inside as well as to use the toilets. They also have a cafe and restaurant but we didn’t stop. Much of the garden centre was once the Riding School.

I wasn’t feeling well as we walked though here – still perhaps suffering from the virus which I’d had a couple of weeks earlier. So I didn’t feel much like taking pictures as we walked though. But I hadn’t found much I thought worth photographing on previous walks through here, expect for the view of Zion House. This is on the flight path into Heathrow, and there is an aircraft in my picture coming in to land there.

In my teens I was a Sea Scout in Isleworth, or rather a Senior Scout, and we theoretically went boating in the Thames here, though I think rather rarely. But this was also another route into Kew Gardens, with Church Ferry going across the names from by the corner of Parke Street and Church St. I also remember coming here to paddle and possibly even swim in the river, though it was pretty polluted back in the 1950s.

Isleworth was also the place where I drank my first pint of beer, which I think cost 1s/5d or around 7p. Not at the London Apprentice, which we thought of as a rather snooty place for the nobs, but at a small pub further down Church Street which had few problems with serving under-age drinkers. It’s no longer there.

We made it into the London Apprentice, sitting outside by the river for a drink, though still feeling ill I stuck to tonic. One of my colleagues found an excellent real ale, which I looked at longingly. It was a very pleasant place with a good atmosphere and friendly bar staff, so we stayed for another, and then thought the menu seemed fine and had a meal.

Finally we made it out of the pub and continued along Church St to the Duke of Northumberland’s River, perviously known as the Isleworth Mill Stream. There were several mills which relied on the stream, including one close to here said in 1845 (by which time there were also a couple of steam engines on site) to be the largest flour mill in England, Kidd’s Mill. This section of the river was built in the late 15th century for Syon Abbey, before the Northumberland’s built their house on the abbey site, and brought water from the River Crane at Whitton to augment a small stream which ran into the Thames at Isleworth.

But the River Crane couldn’t provide a sufficient and reliable supply of water, and in 1530 a new section of the river was dug from Longford to take water from the River Colne. This merges with the Crane close to Baber Bridge on the edge of Feltham, though there are then separate channels across Hounslow Heath and through Crane Park before the eastern section of the river diverges. I played around, paddled and fished in much of this as a boy.

The walkway beside this small river on its last few yards into the Thames was closed, but a nearby alley took us to to the riverside opposite Isleworth Ait. At Swan Street we made a brief detour to admire the Grade II listed Old Blue School built in 1842 and now converted into expensive flats, before returning to the riverside. The tide was low and there was almost no water in places here, and we watched as a man left work at the boatyard and walked across the mud to his works van parked by the river.

We continued through a small park area, once part of the grounds of the Catholic Convent Nazareth House, until the Thames Path we had been following took us out onto Richmond Road. Here we left the Path, turning right onto Richmond Road and then going down Queen’s Terrace to Kings Terrace, walking north to turn down Byfield Road.

Where this turns to the left we stopped to admire the small 1885 Elizabeth Butler almshouses, almost missing behind us the finely decorated May Villas from a similar era before taking the alley to Twickenham Road. Here next to the bus stop where our walk ended was the house with its blue plaque informing us ‘VINCENT VAN GOGH the famous painter lived here in 1876.” The bus came before I had time to make a photograph. It will still be there the next time I’m in Isleworth.

Pepys Road and Nunhead Cemetery

The previous post on this walk I made on 18th December 1988 was New Cross – Shops, Closed Pubs & Baths.

Pepys rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12d-64_2400 — Pepys Rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12d-64_2400

Pepys Road and Nunhead Cemetery

Pepys Road is a part of the large Telegraph Hill conservation area designated a couple of years after I made this picture. It is a late Victorian planned residential estate in what was then known as Hatcham and mostly consists of rather similar houses built by two local builders on a fairly steep hillside owned by the Haberdashers’ Company between 1870 and 1899. I don’t think there is any particular connection between Samuel Pepys and Pepys Road, but certainly he was frequently in the area both for his work as Secretary to the Admiralty very much involved in Deptford’s Royal Dockyard and visiting John Evelyn at Sayes Court. The semaphore telegraph at the top of the hill which gives the area its name arrived later in 1795.

These two houses, Silverdale and Thornhill are on the west side of the street at 62 and 64, and are part of a long succession of more or less identical properties on both sides of the street. But these were the only pair with an ice-cream van outside when I made this picture.

Probably because of its uniformity I took few pictures on my long walk up the hill on Pepys Rd, just a couple of pictures at the top of the hill of Hatcham College, one of which (not digitised) includes the statue of Robert Aske, one of only five listed buildings in the conservation area, the others all being telephone kiosks!

Nunhead Cemetery, Nunhead, Southwark, 1988 88-12d-36-Edit_2400 — *Stearns Mausoleum, Nunhead Cemetery, Nunhead, Southwark, 1988 88-12d-36*

I was on my way to Nunhead Cemetery, one of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ great cemeteries set up around the then outskirts of London as its population was growing rapidly and the small parish cemeteries in the city were becoming dangerously overcrowded.

Nunhead Cemetery, Nunhead, Southwark, 1988 88-12d-16-Edit_2400 — *Anglican Chapel and monuments, Nunhead Cemetery, Nunhead, Southwark, 1988 88-12d-16*

Parliament passed an act promoting the establishment of private cemeteries outside central London in 1832 and in the following decade seven were established – in date order Kensal Green, West Norwood, Highgate (West), Abney Park, Brompton, Nunhead and Tower Hamlets.

Nunhead Cemetery, Nunhead, Southwark, 1988 88-12d-22-Edit_2400 — *Allen tomb, Nunhead Cemetery, Nunhead, Southwark, 1988 88-12d-22*

Nunhead, originally known as All Saints’ Cemetery, was established by the London Cemetery Company in 1840 and is one of the least well known of the seven though it is the second largest at 52 acres.

Nunhead Cemetery, Nunhead, Southwark, 1988 88-12d-24-Edit_2400 — *Figgins tomb, Nunhead Cemetery, Nunhead, Southwark, 1988 88-12d-24*

Financial difficulties caused its closure in 1969 and it was bought for £1 by Southwark Borough in 1975. In 1981 the Friends of Nunhead Cemetery was formed and together with the council began the restoration of the cemetery which was reopened to the public in 2001.

*Nunhead Cemetery, Nunhead, Southwark, 198888-12d-26-Edit_2400*

I think my pictures were taken on a Sunday afternoon tour led by the Friends. The include some of the more notable monuments in the cemetery which you can find out much more about on the Friends web site and they offer regular guided tours, but you can wander freely on your own as the cemetery is open to the public daily and you can find a useful map on the web.

Nunhead Cemetery, Nunhead, Southwark, 1988 88-12e-64-Edit_2400 — *Nunhead Cemetery, Nunhead, Southwark, 1988 88-12e-64*

The Wikipedia entry on Nunhead Cemetery lists a number of notable people whose graves are in the cemetery, but few were familiar names to me. One who very much made an impact on London was Sir George Thomas Livesey (1834 – 1908), engineer, industrialist and philanthropist and chairman of the South Metropolitan Gas Company. Another was Thomas Tilling, who gave London its first double-decker buses and was for many years England’s major bus operator. Allegedly ‘Tom Tilling’ became Cockney rhyming slang for a shilling coin, though I never heard it used.

Brockley Footpath, Nunhead, Southwark, 1988 88-12e-51-Edit_2400 — *Brockley Footpath, Nunhead, Southwark, 1988 88-12e-51*

The Brockley footpath runs along the southwest edge of Nunhead Cemetery and I was able to leave the cemetery and walk down it back towards Nunhead. You can exit the cemetery on Limesford Road and walk along this to the path.

My walk will continue in another post shortly.