Capital Ring Day 5 - (15th July 2007) - Part 2

(c) Thames Path Extension – Woolwich to Erith

The Thames Path national trail runs from the source of the River Thames, down to the end of human control of the river, at the Thames Barrier. However, the estuarine Thames continues for a significant distance beyond. As some walkers would not be content stopping at the barrier, the powers that be have kindly provided a further section of path for those who simply can’t stop walking. This is known as the Thames Path Extension, and runs from the barrier to Crayford Ness. On our first day on the LOOP we’d walked the section between Erith and Crayford Ness; the first section of the Ring had seen us walk from the Woolwich Foot Tunnel to the Thames Barrier. As we had plenty of time left today after completing the Ring, we now planned to walk the remaining 7 miles of the Thames Path Extension, from Woolwich to Erith. In doing so, we would also link together the Ring and LOOP – the first time we’d ever have linked two long distance paths.

We marched off down the concrete embankment, passing the circular southern entrance to the foot tunnel on the way. We soon came to a circular group of benches in an elevated position with great views along the Thames, and I called a halt for lunch. Jim and I knew from our experience of long distance paths that if we scorned a potential lunch bench we would fail to find another and would end up having lunch squatting on an uncomfortable log or worse. As we sat there, a Sikh repeatedly came to glare at us and then walk away again – we wondered if we were sitting in his favourite lunch spot. But then, there was plenty of bench space for him as well if he wanted it.

Some of the buildings of the former Royal Artillery have been converted into the “Firepower” museum of weaponry. The courtyard outside has been considerably spruced up, and is now rather an attractive area. The centrepiece is an arresting piece of modern sculpture, a group of ribbed, cast iron, life-sized human sculptures, with a quarter of each one cut out to reveal a hollow interior – all very symbolic of something or other, no doubt.

Much of the remainder of the Royal Artillery site has been converted into the Thamesmead estate – the “detonator” buildings we’d seen from the Capital Ring earlier formed part of this. Unfortunately we caught up with some hullabaloos – a chav’d-up family sporting a ghetto blaster, the rap “music” from which they generously decided to share with the rest of East London. It remained a discordant accompaniment to our trek along the edge of Thamesmead until we passed over an unusual spiral blue “bridge” structure, which took us over the flood barrier – here the hullabaloos turned off towards some bland modern apartments.

It had been a long time since we walked on anything but concrete and tarmac, and we were relieved when we came to the end of Thamesmead and entered a beautiful buddleia-lined gravel track with the appearance of a disused railway line. We saw the same schooner we’d seen from Docklands earlier, which must have been travelling very slowly.

Unfortunately such tranquillity doesn’t last for long in East London. Passing the red beacon at Tripcock Ness (aka Margaret Ness – it’s very greedily got two names), the Thames suddenly went all industrial on us. Opposite the giant square arch of the Barking flood barrier dominated the skyline, surrounded by pylons, chimneys, warehouses, heaps of rubble, gantries and an odd building looking like a small UFO that had landed on a short spike. On our side the collapse into industrialisation was briefly postponed by a marshy area with a selection of bird hides (all we saw along this stretch of the Thames was about 2 billion black-headed gulls). A bizarre molten-looking steel fence hanging over the edge (and a lot of graffiti) briefly enlivened the concrete flood defences. Another path, the Ridgeway (not the National Trail, but a poor imitator of it) turned off to the right through a blue metal arch.

And then the industry kicked in on our side too, but with something that Jim was very interested in and raved about as we approached it. It was the Crossness Pumping Station, and it did the same job for south London’s sewerage as Abbey Mills Pumping Station did in the north. Whilst featuring similar graceful Victorian brick arches to Abbey Mills, it was nowhere near as attractive a design, and looked even more dirty and run down. What engineer Jim was so excited about though was inside – the poo was pumped up and out into the Thames by means of the four largest remaining rotative beam engines in the world (I don’t know what these are, but Jim could no doubt tell you). These engines were named after members of the royal family – Victoria, Albert Edward, and so on – who I’m sure were much honoured to be compared to poo pumps! The building is now listed, and a conservation group is trying to restore the engines. Unfortunately for Jim (but fortunately for me!) it was not one of the days when the building was open to the public. The signs on the outside of the site had been disgracefully vandalised – the idiots who’ve done this should frankly be fed through a poo pump.

A riverside promenade provide a welcome bit of colour – a short concrete tower with seats give us the opportunity for a water break, and was followed by a walkway decorated with a strange assortment of metal poles. Unfortunately these civic improvements were vandalised and completely deserted. This was not proving to be the nicest bit of London, but worse was to come.

Rounding Cross Ness, and another small navigation beacon, the most godawful smell of sewage hit us – this was far worse than the relatively minor whiff we’d encountered earlier on the NOSE, and came close to making me retch. This was the modern-day Cross Ness sewage works, and the smell would be all pervading for over a mile. As we passed the treatment works itself, we were hit by aural as well as nasal pollution – it sounded like there was a major rave going on in one of the buildings, although heaven knows who would want to party in a place like this. The path was bolted on around the outside of the site, almost suspended above the Thames, and festooned with notices praising Thames Water for allowing the Thames Path Extension to be connected through here. I for one would have been happy if the path was diverted inland away from the pong! A big shiny silver waterworks, all wavy roofs and architectural awards failed to improve the appearance of the area, and we hurried on at some pace.

Finally the stench reduced to a bearable level, and we were able to look around again. What we saw was no real improvement. An Iron Mountain secure data facility was set amidst a post apocalyptic landscape; this whole area had been destroyed by industry, with barely a plant remaining. Despite the increasing humidity and heat as the sun finally made an appearance, we hurried rapidly onwards on the ugly concrete path. We passed dozens of so-decayed-they’re-almost-gone jetties, and ducked beneath the decaying conveyors of a company specialising in bringing sand in by river (different coloured sands hand spilled out from their stockyard and scattered across the path). For some reason these conveyors were home to an enormous colony of rooks, clouds of whom swarmed menacingly above for several minutes afterwards.

We were very glad to round the final corner of the Thames and see the graceful span of the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge ahead, signifying that we were arriving in Erith. The town centre seemed to have been redeveloped since our last visit, and we barely recognised it at first. Eventually, though, we found a LOOP sign on a jetty that we’d first set foot on almost 4 years ago, and knew that our journey was at an end.

It had been very much a journey of two halves – the second half, on the Thames Path Extension, was one of the worst walks I’d ever done – at best it had been dispiriting; at worst, ugly and threatening. I got the impression that Dave had not enjoyed it much either (he kept saying that all he wanted to do was sit down with a nice cold beer!), and I wished that he’d joined us for the first half of the day instead. The first half of the day had certainly not been the best part of the Capital Ring, but it had at least contained all the variety and interest which we’d come to love and respect the Ring for. I felt that in a few years I would come and walk it again, for at the moment it is mainly on a temporary route, and I will be very interested to see what changes the Olympic and Dockland redevelopments eventually wreak on it. But for the moment, we’d like to say a big “Hurrah” for the Capital Ring, and a big “yahboosucks” to the Thames Path Extension. Anyway, job done, the next long distance path beckons...