Capital Ring Day 2 (24 February 2007)

West Penge to Richmond (“official” Ring sections 4,5 and 6 & a bit of 3)

Distance: 18 miles, plus 0.6 miles of station links
Ascent: 402m
Walkers: Anth & Jim, plus Dave for the second half

Wild species seen - blackbird, black-headed gull, canada goose, coal tit, common gull, coot, crow, great tit, greylag goose, green ring-necked parakeet, heron, magpie, mallard, moorhen, mute swan, pigeon, robin, shoveller, sparrow, squirrel, starling, tufted duck.

How hard is it to walk? Wimbledon Park and Richmond Park were both very muddy in places and contained some steep and uneven paths; the path from Richmond Park to the Thames was also muddy.

Introduction

For the first time in a long time, I was a bit scared of this walk. After the first section of the Ring, my feet and ankles were suffering serious pains – worse than I’d encountered on any walk. My left ankle, in particular, had hurt intermittently ever since. Whilst this may have been partially due to it being my first long walk in four months, the main contributing factor had undoubtedly been the unremitting concrete tarmac and concrete underfoot. It looked like the first two-thirds of today’s trail would be just as bad.

Other people seemed to share the same fear. Cat had even gone as far as to stand on her glasses in order to get out her and Jus out of walking it. However, we were very pleased to hear that, weather permitting, my father-in-law Dave would be joining us for the last third – the first time he’d walked a trail with us since the LOOP, more than 2 years ago.

Once again, we left our car at Dave’s and made cracking time across London – until we reached London Bridge station and discovered that we had a twenty minute wait for a train. Despite already having had porridge, Jim decided that a second breakfast of a delicious chicken and vegetable pasty from the West Cornwall Pasty Company (they gain the WheresThePathTM seal of approval) was in order. Afterwards, we still had a bit of time to spare, and Jim decided to fill it (and himself) with a chocolate twist pastry thing from Costa (less approved – they’re better from La Baguette in Reading)!

(a) West Penge to Crystal Palace

Jim moaned that even the footbridge out of West Penge station was difficult, so replete was he with his substantial second breakfast. My ankle was already giving me a bit of gyp, and so it was with no great urgency that we ambled out of the station and into Crystal Palace Park, a mere hundred or so yards away. I was looking forward to this park, for ‘twas said to be the home of giant concrete dinosaurs and a maze.

Since seeing wild parakeets on the first section of the ring I had also seen them in Broadstairs and Harrow. However, this did not detract from the joy of seeing these alien birds again as we entered the park. It was their raucous cries that alerted us, but we soon spotted their bright green, long-tailed profile in almost every tree, and also swooping gracefully through the air around us. We also heard the rat-a-tat-tat of a woodpecker, but were unable to track it down. Nevertheless, it was a great start to the walk; as we headed anticlockwise around the park, there a spring in our step to match the feeling of spring in the air!

However, there was something fishy going on a little way along the path, and for once it wasn’t my socks. A small pavilion contained the ships bell from the SS Crystal Palace, now held proudly aloft by a couple of fish as an unusual Second World War memorial.

Curling around the northern, more wooded end of the park we passed a heavily-fenced lake whose mirror-calm surface was in contrast to the frantic quacking of many hidden waterfall. Shortly afterwards we came to the entrance to the free maze, where some ridiculously early rhododendron flowers reminded us how mild a winter it had been. The maze is (according to some websites) London’s largest, although I’m sure that Hampton Court is bigger. It seemed very easy to we veterans of Longleat maze, and in five minutes we were done and out again. This current maze dates from just 1988, and is a recreation of the original 19th century maze that had become overgrown and was pulled down in 1961.

Returning to the perimeter path it wasn’t long before we came to the next sight; the astonishing concert stage. The vivid orange colour is from the oxidised steel construction; the giant angled, cantilevered shape needs to be seen to be believed. Fronted by a lake and two narrow speaker stacks, this is a miracle of modern engineering. However, despite being just 10 years old, the deliberate oxidisation makes it appear much older, and it blends in surprisingly well with the park’s other architecture. I can imagine it’s a rather wonderful place to see a concert.

Beyond the concert stage, and in fact running down the entire western side of the park, is probably its most famous feature; the site of the Crystal Palace itself. This grand structure was originally erected in Hyde Park for the 1851 Great Exhibition; afterwards it was re-erected in an expanded form here. After a fire in 1936, all that remains is the terraces with their extensive balustrading; even these are enough to put any manor house to shame. We walked up onto the terraces, and even in their current dilapidated state they convey a sense of grandeur, and are astonishing in their scale. Mostly, though, there is a feeling of sadness, and of something amazing lost forever. The Millennium Dome feels comparable (and, of course, had a comparable purpose). I loved my visit to the Dome – a truly visionary building, and, of course, only the second human construction that could be seen from space. Unfortunately it was lambasted by the Press on the grounds of cost – as far as I could tell, many of the journalists responsible had not even been there. There are times when we need to forget about cost, as there are things that cannot be measured simply by money – national pride for one. If today’s kids could only be given a sense of pride in their country, it would do a great deal to improve society – far more than just a couple of new schools or hospitals. The 2012 Olympics could be another chance for us, but I see the press and rival politicians are already trying to destroy them just as they did the Dome. Perhaps the decaying terraces of the once mighty Crystal Palace are an apposite memorial for the decay in British standards. On top of the terraces is the Crystal Palace transmission mast, at 728ft tall once the tallest structure in London (until Canary Wharf was built) and certainly one of the most prominent. From a distance it looks gracefully, but close up it was a shabby 1960’s monstrosity, a tombstone to the destroyed Palace.

Once I’d finished ranting, we descended from the terraces on the widest set of steps I’ve ever seen and took a wild diversion from the Capital Ring. The Ring continues down the west side of the park to Crystal Palace station, thus missing out the dinosaur park. As we very much wanted to see them, I had devised an appropriate alternative route. As this was longer than the official route, I felt no guilt about taking it. We headed on a high level walkway through the centre of the ugly athletics complex that dominates the centre of the park. Like most 1960’s buildings, it was, in the words of Prince Charles, a monstrous carbuncle on the landscape (I don’t know why he wasted these words on the Louvre’s innovative but misplaced pyramid when there are so many more worthy candidates here in Britain!). It was also, like many of the park buildings, looking very shabby and run-down. The one exception was a colony of white pyramids neatly lined up on a roof. We couldn’t work out if they were heat exchangers for a swimming pool below or something else entirely, but at least they were interesting – this is what sixties architecture should have been like!

We had now returned to the point where we had seen the parakeets, but this time we headed south (clockwise) to reach the lakes where the dinosaur models are located. They were originally erected in 1854, as part of the redevelopment of the area to accommodate the Crystal Palace. The dinosaurs and the surrounding area have been rejuvenated in the last couple of years and, I have to say, it’s now a splendid place for a stroll. We were greeted by what looked like giant moose (mooses? meese?), standing proud above a lake in which paddled an unusual assortment of waterfowl – the tuxedoed tufted duck, the faintly ridiculous shoveller.

A series of islands were linked together by walkways. Apparently each island was meant to represent a different geological epoch – the triassic, jurassic, and so on. The dinosaur models have been widely criticised ever since for being paleontologically fallacious. Jim felt that the main culprit for this reputation was probably what appeared to be a giant gnome in a woolly jumper humping a tree. However, correct or not, the models were an impressive sight, and with the excellent recent re-landscaping of the area this is a wonderful and unusual place to spend some time.

Reluctantly dragging ourselves away we finally left the park, passing a colourful mural of dinosaurs riding a train. Crystal Palace Park had been jammed full of interest, but it was a shadow of its former past. At one point it apparently had over 11,000 fountains, and the dinosaur lake had simulated tides – to say nothing of the Crystal Palace itself. It was a shame that such a national treasure had been allowed to degenerate so much; it was possibly even more of a shame that the 1960’s planners committed the heinous crime of allowing the pig-ugly (sorry, pigs!). At least some work was being done to restore the place – hopefully the work completed on the maze and the dinosaurs will lead to –one day – the whole park being renovated.

(b) Crystal Palace to Wimbledon Park

From the maps, it looked like we’d be road-walking for a considerable length of time. It was just as well; we’d spent a lot of time in Crystal Palace Park and would need to pick up the pace considerably if we were to meet with Dave for the second part of the walk. So it was at a brisk march that we set off through the houses; in Palace Square we took a short cut up a steep and slippery embankment causing my damaged ankle to twist under me and nearly deposit me on my face. Fortunately I was still okay to keep walking, albeit a little gingerly at first.

A couple of turns later and we found that the Capital Ring was, as always, better than it looked from the map. Far from slogging along roads, we were now taken into the narrow Westow Park. The top part was rather pleasant, if you ignored the tower blocks to one side; the bottom half was just a standard municipal recreation ground with playground. I remarked ironically to Jim that the Capital Ring sometimes felt like a grand tour of the slides and swings of London. The secret greenery kept on going as we headed across the bland Upper Norwood Recreation Ground, which according to a planning application nearby was about to be built on by an “education centre” (surely this means a school?). I don’t understand how they can get away with allowing building on any of the limited green space in our cities.

Sadly this was the end of the parks for a kilometre or so, and I’ll skip mentioning the torrid 1 kilometre walk along the A215, save to say that you don’t ever quite get the views that you feel you’re about to. We finally escaped down a side road and turned off on a path round an irritatingly shut toilet block to take our first break of the day on a bench overlooking tennis courts. The two guys playing were rather good, and seemingly not at all put off by their new spectators. One of their friends turned up, and chatted briefly to the players and then to us before going off for a warm-up jog through the woods. Wee soon strode off into the woods after him, on a path that was needlessly and annoyingly tarmac’d over, like so much of the Ring. I mean, what sort of nonce puts tarmac through woodland? We met the friendly jogger on the way back, just in time to see his phone falling out of his pocket. We called him back to retrieve it; the chap was effusively grateful, whilst Jim was a mite despondent, for it was a phone that he had been hankering after.

A short walk along a residential road took us to the next park. A spot near the entrance could have been used for mud wrestling, but beyond that the park grew steadily more pleasant as we ascended gently through a small copse. We emerged to formal raised flowerbeds, attractive even in winter, with a large white house as a backdrop. This was Norwood Grove, after which the park is named, and was built for Arthur Anderson, the founder of P&O. Apparently what remains today is just one wing of the former mansion.

We took a wide fenced path away from Norwood Grove, which headed into woodland. It was impossible to tell the point at which we crossed into Streatham Common, but we eventually arrived at a car park. A large group of elderly folks were evidently about to head off on a guided walk – they were clutching information sheets and being lectured on potential health hazards. We made a special point of marching past at high speed, flashing our GPS and hiking boots as we went. To our right there was an odd, small observatory-shaped building, but we were now up to an enjoyable yomping speed and didn’t want to break our stride. The same went for the supposedly renowned Rookery Gardens to our left. The remainder of the Common was a large, sloping grassy area, blighted by noise from the surrounding roads. It was a shame – simply planting a bounding hedge would improve this area no end.

The pedestrian crossing of the A23 was ridiculously awkward, with cars coming from unexpected directions. Feeling lucky to be alive we tramped down the residential road opposite, where the guidebook highlighted the red-brick Streatham Baptist Church. It was quite attractive, but we were more interested in the Christadelphin church opposite, which had a dial-a-verse service that you could ring up to get a bible reading of the day. We wondered if any churches in Britain were even more up to date and offering texted or e-mailed sermons?

There now followed a mile of dull roadside slog. This was plenty long enough on its own, but we managed to make it longer still by missing the turning into a railway underpass and heading off up a long Victorian terrace-lined street. Rain started to fall with increasing intensity and by the time we realised our mistake, I had taken the skin off my knuckles on a concrete lamppost. I was to leave a trail of dripping blood for the next hour. Things were not going well.

That was the low point of the walk though. As we retraced our footsteps to the underpass, and passed through to the correct side of the railway, the rain started to ease. Here, too, the houses were larger; we’ve noticed that where urban road walking is completely unavoidable, the London trail designers have a preference for posher streets. This is fine on my part, as there tends to be more to look at. Here, for example, lay the Streatham Pumping Station, with it’s dome-topped towers making it look more like a mosque. Nearby one of the big houses had a huge stained-glass window of a boat that would have done any church proud.

We finally left the roads behind as we sprinted across the busy A214 and into Tooting Bec Common, an uneasy mix of semi-wilderness, football pitches and the inevitable playground. At the heart of the common is a small, tree-lined pond rumoured to contain terrapins – we took time out to circumnavigate it and peer into its murky depths, but couldn’t see any of these particularly unintelligent reptiles.

Tooting Bec Common continued on the other side of a road, but this northern section was little more than a boggy strip of grass bounded by a behemoth of a path, and crawling (or maybe hopping) with magpies. In the old rhyme of “one for sorrow, two for joy”, we wondered what 30-odd magpies represented. We entered a long stretch of nondescript residential walking, enlivened only briefly by Jim tripping over a deceptively flat and unimpeding bit of tarmac and reminding me of the time he felt flat on his face in a puddle on Margery Hill, causing me to burst into hysterical laughter. At one point we saw the most brobdingnagian block of flats we’d ever seen; not particularly tall, but covering an enormous area. Apparently Du Cane Court’s 600 flats, when built in 1937, were one of the most desirable blocks in London; even today it remains the largest privately owned block in Europe. Nowadays it’s starting to look a little shabby around the edges. Give it twenty years and it will no doubt descend into some inner-city ghetto of drug dealing and casual violence, before being gentrified and the whole ghastly cycle starting again.

We were glad to move on from this section into Wandsworth Common, where we had to negotiate a small construction site to gain access. As we had not yet heard from Dave, and I’d failed to bring his mobile number with me, I called my mother-in-law Maureen to find out when he’d be arriving. I was surprised to find out he’d left forty minutes before; we were now in a real race against the clock to reach Wimbledon Park station by 2pm to meet Dave. Nevertheless, we found time to wander around the boardwalks around and – surprisingly – across the Wandsworth Common ponds.

What could have been a very long section of roadwalking was broken up by an alternative route through Wandsworth Cemetery. We saw no particularly spectacular gravestones, just endless, sad memorials to lives passed. By the time we emerged from the gate at the bottom (after a worrying moment in which we thought we’d have to retrace our steps all the way back to the top of the graveyard) we were in a sombre yet reflective mood.

However, now the race was on; we route-marched the next couple of kilometres. I don’t think we missed much though; the only points of note were the curiously bifurcated River Wandle and the Wimbledon Mosque, a big square white building that, despite tiny minarets looked less like a mosque than Streatham Pumping Station had done. We’d walked seven miles without a break since watching the tennis game but it had worked. We marched up the hill to Wimbledon Park station just as Dave emerged from it. Perfect timing – the only trouble was, we urgently needed to stop for lunch. Fortunately we immediately walked into Wimbledon Park itself, where there are a plethora of bench options. We chose one overlooking the lake. ... Continued