7 New Beckenham to Balham

Wednesday July 22, 2009
Once again, the day wears a fair face. The wind is crisp and determined, bringing energy and coolness to our walk. I hobble gingerly along beside my companion, willing my knees to stand up to the rigours of the day.

At New Beckenham we turn onto Leonard Road. The road is lined by very nice houses. Despite being the school holidays, the streets are fairly quiet.

Swollen by recent rain and ripened by the intermittent sun, the plums are ready to eat. They hang temptingly from pleasant and neat front gardens. We stop under a particularly laden tree. My companion plucks a yellow plum, the size of a grape. I munch on it appreciatively, and lick plum juice from my lips with relish.


We slip between the houses. My companion peers enviously through the fences into long gardens. She comments disappointedly on their dullness. We discuss what we would do if we had gardens that big.

Behind them is a piece of scrubby wasteland and beyond that, Cator Park, a rather plain suburban space which boasts two brooks (the Bec and the Chaffinch which lead into the Pool River, a tributary of the Ravensbourne.

Here we encounter a cheerful pink toed dog owner and prancing chiwarwar puppy. The pup dances about his owner’s pretty feet and attempts to round us up. We exchange greetings, admire the dog and walk on.

The trees wave vigorously in the wind as we leave the park between two more houses and back onto Leonard Road again. Here the houses are pebble-dashed but still a decent size. Crossing a busy road, we slip between two more houses into a school playing field. Here talkative crows cawed at each other and opposite them, a group of grey and white seagulls frolicked, escapees from the strong winds out at sea perhaps.

Most streets offer one or two more plum opportunities. Many are out of reach or firmly dangling on the wrong side of a garden wall. We walk down an unmade road in the Borough of Bromley and enter Alexandra Recreation Ground where we sink gratefully down onto a sunny bench and stoke up on nuts and raisins.


Penge East is one of those places it is fashionable to curl ones lip at. It is quiet enough. We climb over the railway bridge and encounter a cheerfully disobedient Labrador style dog called Princess and her owner who is not quite in control of the situation. An old man painting his front garden path red offers to paint the dog. Captured at last, Princess is marched off by her owner. We continue to walk down the street of variously pastel painted brick terraces and onto Penge High Street.

The Venice Café, cheerful, warm and noisy has a make shift garden restaurant in which we stop for an early lunch. We feast on huge cheese omelettes and a ton of chips whilst my companion admires the décor, a series of random pictures hung up on the garden walls all around us.

Replete, indeed positively stuffed, we waddle out onto the High street and head for the gates of Crystal Palace Park and the beginnings of the part of the Capital Ring that constitute some of my old stamping grounds.

We walk through the café and up towards the dinosaurs. I remember the pop concert and the spotty youth who was my consort that day. In my memory, the park will forever be a green grey blur and said youth, a sandy brown and tangerine vision in cords and tie dye.

We skirt the dinosaur lake, my companion waxing lyrical about their glories as we walk. I remember hearing a radio programme where some lucky souls prepared and ate a Victorian feast from a chamber inside the belly of the greatest worm on the island. Now ducks play happily amongst the huge claws and recumbent bodies of these glorious creatures.

“It’s a geological theme park”, I say as we round a dinosaur rump and come nose to nose with a slice of earth, showing strata of ages, like a huge piece of layered cake. My companion (a geography major) reels of the different eras with fluency and aplomb. I am suitably impressed and am fleetingly reminded of family holidays with my mother (a science teacher) which were really field trips in disguise.

We walk on round the park, past the old railway station and dicing with death, place our feet firmly on the lower slopes of the first of two rather fierce hills we must climb today. But I need to sit down now and subside onto a convenient garden wall in Playdel Avenue.

A dog tows its owner down the hill. A second dog hurtles past, followed at some considerable distance by the protesting voice of its owner, then its owner’s son and finally the owner herself.

“He’s frightened of a big machine outback” she pants, sounding worried, as she runs past “He never goes out normally”. She pelts after the pooch who has shot round a corner and is lost to sight. I am reminded of Herne the hunter and his dogs hurtling over the hills of South London. Perhaps the dog has gone to join Herne, I muse and hope that this thought will keep the dog safe.

We set off up the hill and wind our way between rather smart houses, across a little high street and to Westow Park, a rather feminine and curvaceous little area. The paths roll up and down, mature trees stand shaking in the wind, and we sit down on a bench and appreciate the quiet. Opposite us is a long red brick wall, formerly part of the Royal Normal College for the Blind, a dreadful institution which has since been renamed and removed to the West Country. I am tempted to lie in a sunny patch amongst the clover but resist and rise to my feet and stagger on.

This is a bit of a park crawl – crawl being the operative word as I hobble slowly along. Still determined to make the course, I stagger after my companion across another road and into yet another green space, this one a neat green park edged by charming 30s houses. We pass well-kept tennis courts, clusters of people picnicking in the sun and swathes of rather nice soft green clover covered lawn. Out on the street, we walk along Beulah Hill which is disapointingly dull with its busy road and big snooty houses set back from the road as though in distain. Beulah Hill seems to go on for ever!

We’re not finished with hills yet. Going up is a tough call but “going down is a real bugger; especially when you’ve got *knees*”, I complain to my companion. We turn into Biggin Hill and my joints start to shriek. We’re going down hill and soon I am in need of a rest on another convenient wall.

Here, the land falls away beyond the houses to the North Downs in the distance. I’m getting a bit tired of streets. But a treat is just around the corner, or so I am promised by my companion.

We make it down the “north face of the Igor” an turned past yet more tennis courts and a kick about area well fenced off from passers by. Now we are in a lovely little wood with inviting paths leading off to the left and right. This is Biggin Wood, a part of the ancient North Wood that we encountered in our last walk on the Capital ring. It is cool, shady and sheltered. The trees sing to us with their rustling leaves. I speculate about who meets in the woods to work magic, for these feel like the kind of wood to circle in.


Reluctantly, we leave the woods and turn through a 30s housing estate down another hill and into Norwood Grove Park. There’s a dog free area which we head for. We sink happily down on a comfortable bench to survey the rolling landscape and eat cherries. Below us, beyond the grey conurbation of Croydon, the North Downs roll hazily. In the foreground, a robin and a squirrel play companionably and then disappear together into a bush and are never seen again. Above us in the trees, green parakeets hoot.

There is a large white house which my companion has been fascinated by for some time. WE get up and peer into the windows. The tables are set for tea. A sign reveals rather dully that this is the premises of a bowls club. We walk on.

The book says we should pass a stand of 400 year old oaks and a little stream. Neither are in evidence as we enter the eastern edge of Streatham Common and make our way to the café in Rockery Gardens for a well-deserved cuppa.

I tell my companion about my first home, in a prefab on Streatham Common. AS we walk along the south side past some tall houses, I remember my misspent youth and an attic never climbed into and a virtue thus not at that time lost! The grass is short and rough as we march diagonally across it to the A23.

I’m still up for more walking, so we decide to continue on to Balham. WE walk down a road skirting one of many railway lines and through a subway to equally unremarkable streets on the other side.

We pass a fine Victorian building built by the water authorities. Like the one in Beckton, this one is cupullared and gloriously Moorish in design. Amongst slightly dull houses, we find a painted lady modern stain glass window as we walk slowly Northwards and Westwards towards tooting Bec Common.

The common is more varied than I remember it. There is grass and tall trees. There is still a football pitch, surely the one on which the Broadwater Junior Mixed school football team thrashed the daylights out of the punier Smallwood School team. With Jamey Stanard in goal and my twin brother on the wing, victory was a forgone conclusion.

Now the common is divided by a path shared by cycles and pedestrians. A small ancient looking wooded area is fenced off for its own protection. The grass and trees give way to a wilder common look, with rough tussock grass. Briefly I speculate about the fine necklace of common land that lies across the breast of South London.

We turn down a path between houses and begin to wend our way towards Balham station, via a network of backstreets, lined with rather pleasant tall houses, many of these divided up into flats. A man nods to us from his first floor window as I rest briefly on his garden wall. In Elmfield Road, an enterprising window sill gardener has propagated runner beans and a very fine caugette. Vines of red tomatoes hanging in a kitchen window gleam in the evening sun. The smell of Balham High Road comes to us in the aroma of spicy curry sacheting along on the evening breeze. Our destination is just around the corner. Step by step we tread on and soon, we are there.

6 Falconwood to New Beckenham

Tuesday July 14, 2009:


“It’s a perfect day for a walk” my companion optimistically enthuses. Dosed with Nurofen, I walk carefully beside her, as yet not sure how my knees will stand up to the rigours of the day. Somewhat to my surprise, we have the streets of Finsbury Park to ourselves this early weekday morning.

The story is very different as we squeeze ourselves onto the Southbound Victoria line train. Only the occasional damp coughing and sniffing weaves its way between the surly silence and the rustle of newspapers as comatosed commuters try to pretend it isn’t a Tuesday morning.

Victoria station is bedlam. My companion has also lost her travel pass en route. Eventually, we climb aboard the slowest train south and head back to Falconwood.

Solid single drops of rain fall ponderously onto us as we alight onto the platform. So much for the perfect day, I grumble as I struggle into a waterproof jacket. We skirt the woods beside the A2 and enter Avery Park via the road bridge.

Avery Park is nothing to write home about. It is square and grassy with several rows of mature trees marching sturdily across it. The rain is determined to make its presence felt. My so called waterproof is rapidly proving to have more siv like properties. It is time to take shelter.

The only place to hide is under the spreading arms of a great Chestnut tree. Summer foliage not withstanding, we huddle beneath it dodging the drips that force their way through its leafy canopy and down our warm necks.

All across the park, other trees also have their cowering damp human sentinels, most with a canine companion. We are the only pair.

The sky is low. Thunder rumbles insistently against the roar of the A2 and the pelting rain. I speculate about starting up some form of communicating with the other shelterees. At this distance, it will have to be semaphore or yodelling. I briefly fantasise about a Busby Barkley style dance routine sans umbrellas before the rain slows and we venture out, splashing through the puddles.

According to the book, our way is via a lot of suburban streets. The one we’re on now is rather pleasant with its variety of villas with neat gardens. We cross a main road and enter the incongruously named Butterfly Lane, which is in fact a hedge lined concrete path running between a field and a housing estate. In the distance, one or two horses can be seen. The sun comes out and I throw back my hood and sniff the air.

We turn into a narrower bridal path between high hedges leading to another main road. We cross this and walk down some more suburban streets lined with council houses and then others which seem to be privately owned. I stop to admire some small but perfectly formed plums dangling pendulously over the footpath. My mouth waters, but alas SAID plums are not yet ripe. Reluctantly, I leave them be.


Skirting Eltham Palace, we encounter a cheerful little robin sitting on a wall, before crossing to briefly quack at the ducks in the moat before turning down a lane leading past some stables.

“This is definitely ‘Horsyculture’” says my companion who, being a bit of a horse fancier is walking into her idea of heaven. The warm comforting smell of horse comes to us on the wind. We pass a sleek strawberry roan and proud owner before stopping to rest beside a horse trough.

Half a dozen or so horses come ambling across the field. But they’ve not come to see us. They have come to drink peacefully from the horse trough.

I pull out a bag of cherries and am just popping the first into my mouth when I feel something warm and hairy brushing against my arm. I blow through loose lips. The horse withdraws his head to the fence post and has a good scratch instead, as though that was his initial intention and nothing to do with the cherries at all. I muse on horsy cupboard love and spit cherry pips into the grass verge.


“Maybe this will be a small cherry grove in years to come”, I say to my companion as we make ready to walk on between high hawthorn and beech hedges. The sun dances in and out of the clouds, the wind brings the high shrieks of children’s voices at play, to ride on the back of the roaring A20.

We’ve been looking for somewhere to sit for some time now. My companion notices that we have passed several benches on the other side of the hedge – which is some kind of playing field or park. Eventually, we find our way over and sit down contentedly in the sun to eat our healthy nibbles which serve in lieu of a proper lunch. I fantasise about cups of tea and chase sandwiches and raise my face to the warm sun.

From time to time, hooves clatter on the lane beyond the hedge. Seagulls wheel, their peons mingling with the call of the children further away.

My companion describes the view. On the horizon the O2, Canary Warf, the Gherkin and Crystal palace lie like a necklace of landmarks before us. The river can’t be seen but I imagine it curving down below beyond the trees and the buildings, making its stately way towards the sea.

We walk on down a steep hill between more hawthorn hedges and out into suburban streets again. The houses here are large and varied. We pass one called “The Five Witches” and speculate whether it is a residential home or a pagan commune.

Eltham College stands in spreading grounds. WE turn up a lane running between them and a paddock full of placid horses. Branches reach out to remind us of their presence. They tug at my hair and roughly stroke my warm cheeks. My companion, horse-like manoeuvres her way underneath them unscathed. Perhaps she is a horse and not just a horse fancier after all, I speculate, disentangling myself from yet another encroaching brier. She snickers with laughter and we trot on.

Small unknown butterflies dance in the spaces left by the fluttering hedgerow. The velvety green playing fields roll softly away under the shade of mature trees. The path turns and we skirt the City of London sports and social club and stop to admire a gurgling stream which is the infant Quaggy, a tributary of the Ravensbourne as it makes its way towards Lewisham and Deptford.

“One day I’m going to walk the rivers of London”, I say to my companion as we leave the cheerfully gurgling streamlet behind. The path continues around playing fields. The traffic is but a muffled hum in the far distance. We could be out in the countryside, so quiet and green it is. We turn onto a street near the old Grove Park Hospital, and the end of this leg of the walk.

Despite my tender knees, I’m not yet walked out. We decide to walk on aiming perhaps to go as far as Ravensbourne or possibly even Beckenham.
We are back on suburban streets again. Edith Bland, better known as E Nesbit once lived here. We turn down Railway Children’s Walk and make our way between the houses.

To our right, a small wood (Hither Green nature reserve) spreads out along the railway line. WE sink down gratefully to rest on a bench made of railway sleepers dedicated to the memory of the author and breathe.
We sit and sniff the air. We listen to the sounds around us. Crows caw and the wind moves through the little wood. The trees rustle invitingly. I long to explore their dappled coolness, but we’re going another way. In the distance a siren howls reminding us that we are very much still in the city. We get up and walk on.

We climb the steps onto the bridge spanning a complex pattern of railway lines. They hum and shiver as another train thunders by, its rhythmical clattering bouncing off the walls of the houses that line the track. We walk down another leafy path, past a children’s play area and onto the Downham Estate.

Possibly one of the biggest post war estates in London, the Downham Estate spreads across a great swathe of south east London. At first encounter, the houses seem pleasant, many with individual features. But this is an area with no transport and hardly any amenities. I prepare for a very urban walk.

But we climb up onto a wooded bank which runs through the estate and saunter in dappled shade under great spreading oaks. All is quiet. Even a scattering of what seemed to be brown toad stalls seem equally as fitting when revealed by the probing shoed toe of my companion to be dried dog poo!

Crossing a road, we enter a belt of trees. Again, we walk under mature oats between quite pleasant semi detached houses, terraces and little cottages. According to the book, we are walking amongst the remains of North Wood, once an ancient forest now almost totally gone. Apparently, we will meet the wood again a little further on round the ring. I am suddenly reminded of “Norwood” and “Norbury”, obviously sites of the old wood now greenly suburban.


It is now school chucking out time. The quiet wooded path is suddenly full of scolding parents and whining children. Obeying the walker’s etiquette, we smile as we pass them but get nothing back. WE walk on.

Several roads intersect the strip of woodland. From time to time, comfortable looking benches are dotted about. The tarmac path is broken and bashed. The woods are quietly watchful as we pass. I imagine myself walking through an ancient forest and feel myself relax.


We must have walked on for a couple of miles before the woods end and we cross the A21 and seek rest in the Gold Café, a neat little greasy spoon in a parade of down-at-heal shops. Fortified by cheese rolls and tea, we walk on through another part of the Downham Estate and into Beckenham Place Park.

At first glance, the park is municipal. We walk past a collection of grey doves sitting on a neat lawn. I “droo-droo-droo” at them quietly and they fly off!

Now we are walking between trees. The copse is clearly ornamental rather than natural, although native trees have been planted. There are dappled glades and peaceful looking people sitting quietly in them.

The path through the woods skirts the edge of the golf course and runs upwards and out onto a ridge. We walk along until we find a brace of benches, one occupied by a cheerful if slightly muddy small waggy-tailed terrier and its owners, and the other, sunlit and empty and ready for our bottoms.

The sun is low now. The park is peaceful. It undulates gently to reveal the white pillared mansion that is the original house. Nonchalantly, the waggy tailed terrier pees on his bench then leads his owners away. We get up and follow. The path runs down across a ditch cluttered with beer cans. Rising steeply, it leads us close to the house which is indeed a magnificent specimen. My companion extols its beauties and I am pleased to learn that there is a carving of an owl a-top the family crest.

We stop to discuss our route. We can take a long detour to Beckenham Junction or walk on along the Capital ring till it passes New Beckenham station. I am tired but still up for more. It is nearly four miles to Crystal Palace. I marvel at how far I’ve walked to day as we turn out of the park and make our way along more quiet streets, past Kent County Cricket club, some rather horrid new builds, down a torturous unmade road, along some more residential streets and to the station and home.

5 North Woolwich to Falcon wood

Wednesday July 1, 2009:

The day is already hot. We’re in the middle of a summer heat wave. The sky is cloudy this morning, but it will only be a matter of time before the hot sun burns it off.
As we climb the steps from the DLR, the sun breaks through. Roz’s café is surprisingly cool and peaceful despite being quite busy. We wolf down truly delicious scrambled eggs on toast and head off to catch the ferry.

It’s a peaceful way to cross the river. The ferry slides gracefully across the still water. We lean against the rail and breathe great lungful of river breeze, slightly greasy, a bit pondy but quite fresh never the less.

The Capital Ring directs us westwards along the river. The world is concrete but not unpleasant. We lose our way for the first of several times amongst the blocks and have to double back.

We dice with death on the Woolwich road and enter Marion Park. It is really very hot. I’m sweating like a pig. WE flop down onto a seat near the tennis courts where enthusiastic players are energetically wacking balls all over the place. On the breeze the smell of a nearby dog toilet makes its presence felt. WE stagger to our feet and trudge on.

It is sports day. A teacher tries to herd the wayward little ones via a megaphone. The children squeal excitedly and break free. A group of mothers with buggies shelter and chatter together under a magnificent flowering unknown ornamental tree. I remember past sports day humiliations and shiver.

Back on the streets, we edge past a certain amount of clutter on the pavements before entering Marion Wilson Park. This park is pleasantly landscaped. A pet’s corner reveals huge happy hens, quarrelling mallards and other water fowl dabbling away in a dusty puddle. I stand by the fence and quack and cluck. The fowl ignore me.

At the foot of a rather steep hill, two child minders puff along behind large buggies and a flock of toddling children. We march briskly up, noting the “stream” (a little damp ditch to one side of the path), as we follow the sound of the traffic on the road ahead.

We cross another main road and enter Charlton Park. A group of Nigerian boys are playing football. We sink down on a sunny bench and eat apples. I pull off my socks and shoes and wriggle my toes in the sunshine. The breeze is cool and soothing. I inspect my feet for signs of blisters. There are none. I contemplate a bit of bare foot walking on the grass, remember the dogs and think better of it.

We walk down a shady lime avenue, cut across a bit of grass and exit by an overgrown hedge. The air is perfumed with the sweetest of fragrance. Perhaps it’s the roses but it smells more like a hedgerow flower, privet perhaps? It follows us across another main road and into Horn Fair Park.

Flat and dull, neat and quiet, this park is deserted. Horn Fair Park is named after a fair which was banned in the 18th century due to libidinousness! I speculate as to its relationship to Herne the hunter, an ancient fertility god strongly associated with this part of South East London.

Across more roads, we enter Woolwich Common. Long grass waves in the breeze. There are patches of wild peas in pink and purple and the thistles are in flower.
A blue tit sings from the hedge. A blackbird calls back. WE pass a wren toottling away and another unknown bird whose song is a short six note phrase, repeated over and over again. Standing in the middle of the common, the traffic is a distant hum and only the rattle of a train can be heard some way off.

We march up Shooter’s Hill past the nick and flop down on the edge of the woods to rest and eat cereal bars. A miasma of small flies rapidly become interested in the large sweating creature that is me lying prone in the long grass. I swot them away and mutter darkly.
A spry old man strides past us, exchanging pleasantries. He too is walking the Capital Ring. He is the first walker we have come across so far. Our day has been only minimally populated by small children, a few sporty types and childminders. Rolling over, I get up stiffly and we march on.

Beneath the trees it is cool. I’m rather in need of a pee and make a temporary diversion up a secluded path. The ground rises and we edge our way past oaks, holly, ivy and bramble. We stride on through the woods.

The path is now tarmacked and leads us past the most extraordinary mini castle style folly. There is a small neat rose garden. The Capital ring book talks of an alternative route to the ten million steps we have to negotiate otherwise and we turn off hopefully.

Another path leads steeply down beside trees and we pass two older women with nap sacs cheerfully striding along. We walk on. From out of the woods, comes the beautiful song of the blackbird. Magpies rattle like football rattles. We pass a tree in which the low distinctive droo-droo of a stock dove can be heard. I droo=-droo back at him, which seems to annoy him for he shuts up.

From out of the thicket the sharper rasp of another bird comes. Perhaps that’s a jay, but he’s hiding so we don’t know. We walk on.

My companion is uncertain of our way. Mysteriously, all signs denoting the path’s relationship with the Capital Ring or Green Chain are absent and my companion fears we have gone the wrong way. Composing grumpy letters in our heads to the authorities about the lack of signage on the step free route, we walk on.

A grumpy chap with dog directs us up a flight of stairs which lead back to the original rose garden we visited some thirty minutes earlier. Now we are grumpy too! Optimistically we turn again down another path and march hopefully along.

The woods are quiet, save for the occasional call of a bird high up in the trees. We are still skirting the trees rather than walking through them. We ascend a steep path and follow the sounds of a jack hammer (pneumatic drill) and magpie dieting uncertainly. At the bottom we encounter a cheerful chap plus dog who seems to know the woods and who offers new and different directions.

We have to go up. We take a path and begin to climb through the woods. Tired now, I stop and lean against a handy young oak tree. I sniff the air, and breathe deeply. All is quiet bar the banging of the drill and the magpies. We have the woods again to ourselves.

I push away from the tree and stagger on. Up and up we climb until the path levels out. Uncertain still, my companion looks around vainly for someone to ask. Alas, the path is deserted and we plod on, this time going steeply down.

My knees are not enjoying this encounter with what feels like the almost perpendicular but is in fact just rather a steep path. I am tired. The tarmac is cracked. Mid sentence about what I do when I fall over, I suddenly take a nose dive forward and lurch down the path. I fall heavily on my knees and sliding down hill, I scrape my elbows as I tumble.

The air is blue with my language as I lie on my back swearing. Everything hurts. I roll over and sit up, giving way to frustration and tears.

“Ow!” I yelp and swear a bit more. My companion hands me water and I search for the arnica and rescue remedy. In time, I am ready to go on. I stagger to my feet, amidst much grumbling an swearing and we trudge on.

At last, the pavilion café is in sight. I sink down in the shade on a bench and examine my wounds. A stiff black coffee and piece of chocolate cake, chased by two Neuraphen Plus go some way to lessening the pain and I sit quietly as my companion describes the view.

Over the heads of the trees are meadows, then more trees and in the far distance, the North Downs, rolling southwards. The A2 Rochester Way Relief Road rumbles on in the distance. A dog barks merrily and children shriek at each other.

The café worker is talking loudly about her life, her colleagues, the owner and bingo. We listen in fascinated silence as she shares details of her life and her opinions with a sympathetic customer.

“One day, I’m going to do a guide to the cafes of London’s Park and green spaces” says my companion. “It’ll be fun doing the research!”

There’s still a way to go before we’re done today. We walk down more steep paths, this time, treading carefully in case of further trips. Past a four trunked tree we turn and are met by watt my companion at first takes to be a small bouncy brown bear but which turns out to be a lovely soft and friendly Portuguese water dog. Clearly aware of how handsome he is, he sits obligingly to be stroked and admired.

On through the trees we walk until we emerge onto the Rochester Way relief road itself. Somehow we have to get across but the traffic is streaming insistently on without a break. We decide to dice with death, hold our breath and march out. Fortunately someone stops!

Safely on the other side, the path plunges into the woods again. We are in cool dappled shade with the low sun slanting through the trees. The path opens out into a meadow edged with a long pond. A moorhen and her still fluffy chick sit by the water and three charming mallards perch in a row alongside. The roar of the road is louder here across the wide meadow. The long grass rustles and dances in the early evening breeze as we walk towards Falconwood station.