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.