Author: RB

The one with the eyots

The last day, and the second day all along the Thames. I began in Richmond in Surrey and crossed its lovely Georgian bridge begin where I finished last time. As before, much is on the Thames Path, and so I started.

South of the bridge, the path runs on a pleasant riverside path under an arch of trees – early rowers exercising on the water, the town across on the Surrey bank. A little, unnamed eyot in the stream and soon I came to the grounds of Marble Hill House, followed by Twickenham, with Eel Pie Island opposite.

There is a long tramp down the ain road through Twickenham and Strawberry Hill. The Thames Path departs there to cross the river at Teddington Lock – the Thames’s tidal limit – but I was set on the Middlesex Border and stayed pounding the road, all down to Hampton Wick, which is more than an old Carry-On joke, but the bridgehead village opposite Kingston-upon-Thames. Here I rejoined the Thames Path and the riverside, through the parkland between the river and the high wall of Hampton Court Park.

Heading due south, the path describes a long loop along the loop of the river in which Hampton Court sits, opposite the unbroken suburb of Kingston, Surbiton and Thames Ditton, but I was in none of that, but the green parkland until looping up to by Hampton Court Palace itself, on a busy spot of the river, heaving with the more cultivated tourists.

Once again the Thames Path heads off across the bridge to the other bank, leaving me with the roads – all the houses that can, have gardens down to the river, so there is no walkable riverbank for, oh, just a few hundred yards as it happens; still on the road but overlooking the water. On then past Ash Island, Tag’s Island, then Garrick’s Ait – I came off the road here, in Hampton, to walk though a tiny park – Garrick’s garden, opposite where David Garrick himself lived, and in which he built a riverside folly – ‘Garrick’s Temple to Shakespeare’. They are very proud here of a player from Lichfield.

I should stop listing the river islands, the eyots, because they come thick and fast – some just green strips in the stream, and some covered in houses as private fiefdoms. There is also a passenger ferry across the river in Hampton, oddly marked “Sunbury Ferry”, manned by cheerful, chatty volunteers.

The walk turned ugly after Hampton – not figuratively but literally, as I entered the realm of the waterworks and sewage farms. Head down and tramp on to Sunbury.

Lower Sunbury, by the river, has a remote-coastal-village feel in places, and that was to intensify further upstream. I did step onto one eyot beyond this, Rivermead Island, which is a green park with one bridge on and off it. And another off the route to see the inhabited islands. Shortly after this the road departed from the riverside and got a bit messy. I came off it to go back to the river by a marina, and another remote-looking new village place, through it and out at Lower Halliford and Walton Bridge. All this stretch, all day, is shaped by the river. The grand houses built to enjoy the river view, the industrial landscape pumping the water, the retirement-cottage type of house down by the riverside and otherwise appearing as remote as if on the coast of Cornwall, and marinas, jetties, and of course the house-laden islands.

The Thames Path rejoins at Walton Bridge and heads upstream, on quiet roads or paths. At a lock at a tight meander, I crossed over one island and onto Hamhaugh Island – the southernmost point of Middlesex. The point itself is inaccessible – this is a private island with its houses behind a gate, their gardens running down to the river. (There is no way to get a car onto the island: presumably all their deliveries are by water.)

Back onto the mainland, the path hugs the river delightfully all the way to the end – heading north to Chertsey Bridge, then on to Laleham, and soon to the townscape of Sunbury. Here the path is a well-made path beside the river, all the way to Staines Bridge.

At Staines Bridge, I finished where I had started.

See also

• Middlesex Border Walk – Staines to Hatch End
• Middlesex Border Walk – Hatch End to New Southgate
• Middlesex Border Walk – Southgate to Potters Bar
• Middlesex Border Walk – Potters Bar to Tottenham Hale
• Middlesex Border Walk – Tottenham Hale to the Tower
• Middlesex Border Walk – Tower Bridge to Richmond Bridge

The route: map

The one with the bridges

The day was all along the Thames, but that provides surprising variety.

Beginning where I finished the last leg (which was before a few slight interruptions, to climb in Yorkshire and to go exploring Galloway), I arrived at Tower Bridge and headed west. This leg was essentially along the Thames Path. (The plotted route on this page is the Thames Path on the north bank, without all the diversions I needed to do in fact: when I walked it, there were roadworks everywhere, with paths closed and diversions into backstreets. I will omit those from the narrative.)

Past the Tower of London, its ancient towers clad in sunshine and tourists, I entered the City of London. Its streets may glitter with finance, but the riverside is a jumble, as the old docks were here and wharves still operate: here are riverside restaurants, wharves, Old Billingsgate, and London Bridge and Canon Street Bridge and Southwark Bridge, Queenhithe Dock, the view across the The Globe, then the Wobbly Bridge, piers of a variety of styles, and on until the Blackfriars Bridges. It is a good, broad riverside walkway that the Corporation have built all along their domain on the river.

Emerging onto the Embankment by the Inner Temple and then Westminster, the path is broad beside a busy road, where Victorian London showed itself off. Egyptian motifs on the cast iron benches presage the rearing up of Cleopatra’s needle, while ahead is the Palace of Westminster. It is a pity that the ugly block of the National Theatre stares from across the river.

Westminster Bridge, then around the Palace of Westminster, and off to Victoria Tower Gardens. Across the gardens and it is back to the river, opposite Lambeth Palace and to Lambeth Bridge. Crashing on down the river nothing is quite ordinary here – much is old but more is being rebuilt. Over Chelsea Creek (on a very odd-looking bridge) in a modern apartment tower development, and all after that is full of new towers for luxury living-in-a-small-box living. The traditional, leafy Chelsea reasserts itself – the Royal Hospital, best known for the Chelsea Flower Show, is along here.

(I have stopped noting bridges – they become too frequent – Chelsea Bridge, then Battersea Bridge then Albert Bridge are famous or infamous enough.)

I kept along the river as I could, or diverted inland to a street. Eventually the Hurlingham Club blocked the riverside and sends the path on a long diversion round it, through a public park and to the edge of Fulham. I stopped for lunch in Fulham Palace Gardens by Putney Bridge. All this unbroken townscape is unsettling for the country mind. Towns should stop and give way to fields, but here even where there are parks these are a concession in a great bulk of building, where towns merge and are indistinguishable.

A gentler part of the urban river followed. The path runs over the balcony of Craven Cottage Stadium (Fulham FC apparently: I prefer a good walk), and then north to Hammersmith. That is a fine place, by the bridge, with boats and swells, out in the summer heat, with fine houses. It is at the top end of loop of the Thames, and beyond is Old Chiswick. Chiswick Mall is genteel. The grand houses here have tall steps and flood barriers. (Flooding is frequent at the spring tide: In AP Herbert’s Misleading Cases in the Common Law, a rowing boat collides with a car and the rower successfully claims that Chiswick Mall when flooded is part of the High Seas and so under admiralty rules vessels must pass port to port.)

In the river’s southern loop are Duke’s Meadows, with long steps for observing the Boat Race. Then at Chiswick Bridge the path is sent inland along Chiswick’s suburban roads, until the famed Strand-on-the-Green, and from there to Kew Bridge.

Brentford is not my favourite place. Around and over the docks at the mouth of the Brent and the Grand Union Canal the route is thoroughly puzzling. Eventually though it emerges from the tangle, pops along th main road, and enters Syon Park. Cattle grazing to my right and kites flying and bicycles flying by – until Isleworth. When I reached the riverside, it was low tide and the channel between there and Isleworth Ait was practically dry: no longe the mighty Thames but a trickle, where great boats lay wallowing in mud.

It is not far from Isleworth to Richmond, all along the river, by a lock, a footbridge, under a road and a railway bridge, and finsihing the day at Richmond Bridge. Not a bad day at all.

See also

• Middlesex Border Walk – Staines to Hatch End
• Middlesex Border Walk – Hatch End to New Southgate
• Middlesex Border Walk – Southgate to Potters Bar
• Middlesex Border Walk – Potters Bar to Tottenham Hale
• Middlesex Border Walk – Tottenham Hale to the Tower
• Middlesex Border Walk – Tower Bridge to Richmond Bridge
• Middlesex Border Walk – Richmond Bridge to Staines

The route: map

June: it must have been the hottest day of a scalding summer, but off I set on the next leg.

I will not call this my favourite leg, but there is always something to see. The previous leg from Potters Bar had concluded with a long walk down the towpath of the concrete-bound canalised River Lea, becoming bleaker towards the end, and I started the walk in much the same frame. Tottenham Hale itself is actually quite a polite urban village these days. The industrialised river is merely functional. That was just the start though.

The river mellows. There are boats and parks and little riverside café, and houses and industry. The path led me with no need for navigation, except to count the bridges to tell where I was to take my first diversion; which was after the Lea Bridge, an unmissable viaduct.

Here the stream splits in two, with the canal section taking a shortcut but the county border following the old, natural course of the Lea. Between them are the Hackney Marshes, where I headed. I crossed a foot-bridge.

It is not actually a marsh – it is a great, green gulf, of acres of park and playing fields edged with woodland. The Lea is a gentle, country river here – quite the contrast from the start of the morning.

In the distance, far across the grass, weird towers rose up. This was Stratford – the new Stratford which was built in the wake of the Olympic Games. (The old Stratford is still there, but that was beyond my expedition.)

By the time I reached the tangle of new, concrete bridges at Stratford, I was so dry I could have finished my water bottle in a single swallow and be left with no more for later, so I ventured over into the Olympic modernity to see what wonders were there. (The county border sweeps by the Olympic Stadium – the stadium and the new town are all on the Essex side, so I made a dash in and out – the impression it gave is unworldly, commercially thrilling, and quite another topic; off my route.

Back to the shimmering cladding of the Olympic Stadium, I skirted round the side, back in Middlesex (though it took a careful study of the map to tell where the ancient border lies in this modernity, and though a miniature park – all artificial, but with pleasant shade under the trees), and across the road to another green space. The old railway line is now a footpath, which crosses the canalised River Lea. A passer-by, to whom I explained my quest had a solemn “Go ye not there, soul!” warning about continuing the walk through Old Ford (which seems a bit unfair) but with an assurance that the canal would soon reach a bridge, so I took that route.

It is a grim canal – they have gentrified some of the waterways here, but this is the practical, abandoned-industrial part. The bridge was not there, or rather not accessible, until I came to the Bow Flyover, where a footbridge allows escape from the befouled concrete trough the canal has become.

I followed down to the Three Mills, and was forced thenn to the main road: an unrelenting main road in the heat. In time, the Limehouse Cut provides a direct route to the Thames in the East End, and the Lea Valley Walk goes this way, but I was following the county border, so I trudged on down the road until I could cut across south-eastwards. The plan was to ge to the end of Lanrick Road, by the river, and walk under the massive A31 viaduct. However there is no way under it, so I took a long trudge to the roundabout and a series of pelican crossings, to a path back to the riverside.

Did I mention it was scorchingly hot? And that I had neglected to bring a sunhat? I had lunch on a bench, overlooking the mud of Bow Creek, where the Lea performs a tight, squashed-S meander as its final act. They used to launch ships here: it must have been exacting timing to be ready as the tide was high enough, for at low tide the river is just mud, with a trickle in the middle.

The next stage took me on a loop around a thin finger of land in the river’s loop – developed in the last fe years into an exclusive development called “London City Island”. The Royal Festival Ballet have a centre here, emerging from the ‘island’ almost where I entered it, and off round to Leamouth. Where the Lea meets the Thames, Leamouth is the easternmost point of Middlesex, and a part of the old docklands. Boats are moored here, some practical and some as heritage vessels. There is a café, even a lighthouse (no longer used) and a retro-styled function room which at the time was hosting a wedding reception. Having reached the actual easternmost point, I turned west, and after this I left the River Lea and was following the Thames upriver.

The plan had been to reach Westminster. However the weather had taken a toll and my boots even more so – I had taken the wrong ones and by now it was like walking on sandpaper. Still, I pressed on, now on the (partly signposted) Thames Walk, to the Isle of Dogs. The riverside of the Isle of Dogs has been heavily developed for plush and no-so plush apartments, with the path forced back and forth from the riverbank, not always easy to follow. It was just a case of bashing on, enjoying the riverside views and seeing what I could see ahead. Opposite Greenwich, close to the southernmost point of the Isle, are Island Gardens, with a welcome lawn to doze on for a moment, and an ice-cream stall. There is a foot tunnel here under the Thames to Greenwich, which I have used before. For me though, the path lay on, around the Isle, up to Canary Wharf.

Past Canary Wharf, the riverside becomes more rooted in the East End dockside history and more like real places – through Poplar, Radcliff, Shadwell, Wapping, with old churches, old streets and modern developments, until I came eventually to St Katherine Docks, at the edge of the City of London.

I walked to Tower Bridge and the walls of the Tower of London, and called an end, until the next leg.

See also

• Middlesex Border Walk – Staines to Hatch End
• Middlesex Border Walk – Hatch End to New Southgate
• Middlesex Border Walk – Southgate to Potters Bar
• Middlesex Border Walk – Potters Bar to Tottenham Hale
• …
• Middlesex Border Walk – Tower Bridge to Richmond Bridge

The route: map

The contrasts of this leg – woodland and wasteland and fine-living-town were striking. It could seem like dipping in and out of different worlds, all in the same county.

Resuming where I finished the last leg, in Potters Bar, I soon realised that my backpack was too small to carry my jacket and the day was far too hot to consider wearing it. A few adaptations later, it was firmly strapped outside the backpack.

Potters Bar is not a massive town; just the right size to do its job as a northern sentinel of Middlesex. Its northernmost streets graze the border of Hertfordshire and, as it merges into Little Heath, trespass across it. Off the main road then, I turned down Quakers Lane, a narrow, straight residential road which emerges on the Great North Road, the A1000. (A few yards north of this point, at the county border, is a neglected coal post sitting against a fence.)

Opposite is a small park, Morven, owned by the National Trust, which I crossed, ignored by the brown cow and her calf grazing there. Then onto the B156 eastward and Coopers Lane Road, which leaves the town eastward. Soon the lane follows the county border. There is a bridleway on the south side of the road, running parallel to it for a long way. Here I had a poignant time as I fell into conversation with an elderly man with a subtle German accent walking the same way. He told gently his life story, starting with his escape from Germany in the Kindertransport. There are today few living threads linking us so directly to that unimaginably horrible time, and I feel privileged to meet one first-hand.

Out of the woods and onto the pavementless road, I turned on to Cattlegate Road, that leads into Crews Hill, a place of garden centres and little, odd shed-based shops, and round the corner onto Whitewebbs Road. South of Whitewebbs Road is Whitewebbs Wood, where I hoped to walk on a parallel path, but it petred out. If you can find the way through, do. I found another after a bit of roadwalking. (Also on the road I came across the ‘Whitewebbs Museum of Transport’, that I had never heard of. It looked intriguing; built in a building that once served the New river Company, though quite a way from the New River.)

At its end, the road comes to the new Tottenham Hotspur training centre which was besieged by Korean schoolchildren (I am told that is a common sight) at Bulls Cross.

I entered the conurbation; the last of the Middlesex countryside behind me, or so I assumed. At the New River the urban sprawl suddenly hits. The path was closed, but would not have got me anywhere had it been open. The A10 shortly after can only be crossed at a subway. I then walked up to the M25 (which happens to run along the county border here) but there was no way though to the east, so back the A road. I managed to find a sports field for a quick lunch. Then I looked at the map. The M25 goes underground, but I could not see what is on top, so i went to look, and was delighted to find the Holmesdale Tunnel Open Space – a long, linear park made simply of the space above the motorway. I could walk on top of the M25, and the county border, as far as the A1010; then back onto roads.

The A1055 is not an inspiring road; just a bare utilitarian thing stuck between the motorway, the marsh and an industrial estate. The I spotted, opposite an entrance to te estate, a gate opening onto Rammey Marsh. The Marsh is the last of Middlesex on the Middlesex Greenway, which I walked in 2017, so I crossed into a hidden wild corner of the county, eventually emerging at the River Lee Navigation, and the county’s border with Essex.

I followed south, on the towpath (and the Middlesex Greenway) to Enfield Lock. Opposite, on the Essex bank, was once the Royal Small Arms Factory, where Lee-Enfield rifles and Bren guns and Sten guns and much more were made. Today it is a modern development – Enfield Island Village. Between the channels of the canal and the river is a terrace of Victorian houses, Government Row, so I went along it. The back onto the canal towpath.

To the east is a string of large reservoirs, all along the Lea Valley, with the Essex border winding through them on the old course of the Lea. It is a long path. One foot in front of the other, and on you go. Though deep in the urban sprawl, this is a green haven. There are glimpses of parks. The canalside itself though a concrete creation of industrial will, has been recolonised by nature so you might almost imagine you are by the river in places.

Then I came to a horror: in the near distance high towers of grey concrete rising out of the ground. As I drew closer I could see the whole landscape had been taken over by some horrible development: it looked as if someone had scattered concrete seeds, that had sprung up ugly stumps. Eventually it took over both sides of the canal and both sides of the North Circular Road, and I found a sign giving an explanation: this is a new heat-and-power plant for London. From what I understand, it is a vast scheme, that aims to take unused taxpayers’ money and recycle it into consultants’ wages.

Leaving that behind me I forged on. I saw a family standing on a bridge looking back at the blasted landscape and cooing at how charming it is. Puzzled, I climbed on the bridge, and saw a family of ducks; nine tiny ducklings trying to climb on their mother’s back. Nature can overwhelm any effort of man’s.

Continuing south along the canal I came to Tottenham Hale, now repackaging itself as ‘Hale Village’ and coming upmarket. Here I stopped for the day and found the station.

See also

• Middlesex Border Walk – Staines to Hatch End
• Middlesex Border Walk – Hatch End to New Southgate
• Middlesex Border Walk – Southgate to Potters Bar

The route: map