As regular Daily Constitutional readers will know, on my days off I like to stride out and walk London.
I'm a big fan of the Capital Ring orbital walking route and I love to walk the Thames. Many of the pictures and ideas that end up on this blog and in my tours are born out of my rambles.
Here's a post from the archive, a big hike from East Finchley to North Woolwich with a few snaps, random observations and the odd bit of trivia picked up along the way…
Route: From East Finchley to North Woolwich on the Capital Ring.
Date: Monday 23rd January 2017
Weather: Freezing fog to start, mist & later sunny spells. High Temp 1 degree C
Distance: 21 miles
I've been walking the Capital Ring for more than10 years now. Every time I walk it, there's something different to see depending on the season.
It's a 78-mile orbital walking route around London broken up into 15 easy chunks…
The Capital Ring website is here: tfl.gov.uk/modes/walking/capital-ring.
Last week I set out to walk Section 12 to Section 15 - from my front door in East Finchley to North Woolwich by the Thames in the bleak midwinter.
The Capital Ring over these four sections encompasses several different walking routes: The Capital Ring, The Parkland Walk (South), the New River path, the Lea Valley Walk, the Jubilee Greenway and the Thames Path. Here are the signs you'll know them by…
Not that signs were easy to see early on the 23rd of January. Freezing fog…
… as I headed for Highgate Wood, where I found a dramatic obelisk…
It's actually the old drinking fountain (but everything looks more dramatic in the fog, as you'll see later). Over to Samuel Taylor Coleridge…
Highgate Wood and then Queen's Wood…
Highgate Wood, owned and managed by the City of London Corporation, and Queen's Wood, said to have once been a plague pit renamed in honor of Queen Victoria in 1898, were once part of the ancient Forest of Middlesex mentioned in the Domesday Book.
A spot of advice at Highgate…
Then it's on to hook up with the Parkland Walk (South) toward Finsbury Park…
(Shop for your own copy (hours of browsing fun!) at the A-Z website www.az.co.uk)
And here's the obligatory Smug Tweet: 10,000 steps before 9 o'clock…
… to which some kind soul at Fitbit offered this nugget of encouragement…
Ta!
Some more advice…
The ducks, on the other hand, looked a bit grumpy with each other…
… housed in a former pumping station built by the New River Company following the Metropolis Water Act of 1852 banning the drinking of Thames below Teddington in the west. It looks rather well in the mist, I think.
On to Clissold Park and a damned fine cup o' coffee in the former home of Jonathan Hoare, an 18th century merchant and anti-slavery campaigner…
Painted clues of a Stoke Newington past…
More on London Cemeteries in the London Walks Halloween Podcast 2016…
Cedra Court…
On to the Lea Valley, by Walthamstow Marshes and another Wind in the Willows reference (see Toad, above)…
And a sudden splash of colour…
Smoke on the water way out east…
Fierce beasts, too…
My first time round on the Capital Ring it looked like this…
The sundial on the Greenway…
The page above is from my nerdy collection of old A-Z's…
The Abbey Mills Pumping Station…
It also provides a handy visiting spot if you are a music fan unfamiliar with London and have ended up at the WRONG Abbey Road via the DLR station nearby – also the subject of an earlier post as well as a London Walks Podcast…
The dead center of West Ham…
The Romans. What did they ever do for us…?
… nicknamed for the huge spoil heaps from the old Beckton Product Works and the production of gas, sulphur, coal tar and ammonia by-products. In its heyday, Beckton was home to the largest such works in the world. It closed in 1970.
And on that note, a spot of lunch…
I love this pic…
Where we would now find, among other things, City Airport…
… and rather a lot of dull, Minecraft-inspired architecture…
And down to the water's edge for the obligatory shopping trolley…
Is this the most modest church in all of the capital…?
Suddenly it's spring (ish)…
A relic from the industrial past…
And one of my very favorite London things…
And it really is FREE - the crew don't hassle you for cash tips all through the journey! Free means free!
And on to the foot tunnel…
… where I'll pick up the Capital Ring again on another day.
A final view from the DLR window - hard-working old London with 21st century London looming as the sun gives up to the mist again…
Here's the map…
My Public Scheduled Tours for January 2020
30th January 2020 – Old Kensington – 2pm High Street Kensington Tube
30th January 2020 – Jack The Ripper – 7.30pm Tower Hill Tube (by the tram)
SOLD OUT
31st January 2020 – Rock'n'Roll London – 2pm Tottenham Court Road Tube (exit 1)
My Public Scheduled Tours for February 2020
1st February 2020 – London Horror Story – 7.30pm St Paul's Tube
2nd February 2020 – Beatlemania! The Beatles In London 1961-65 – 10am Embankment tube
13th February 2020 – Inside Covent Garden – 10am Covent Garden Tube
13th February 2020 – Old Kensington – 2pm High Street Kensington Tube
13th February 2020 – Jack The Ripper – 7.30pm Tower Hill Tube (by the tram)
14th February 2020 – Beatlemania! The Beatles In London 1961-65 – 10am Embankment tube
14th February 2020 – Rock'n'Roll London – 2pm Tottenham Court Road Tube (exit 1)
SOLD OUT
15th February 2020 – Old Kensington – 2pm High Street Kensington Tube
27th February 2020 – London Horror Story – 7.30pm St Paul's Tube
27th February 2020 – Old Kensington – 2pm High Street Kensington Tube
27th February 2020 – Jack The Ripper – 7.30pm Tower Hill Tube (by the tram)
28th February 2020 – Beatlemania! The Beatles In London 1961-65 – 10am Embankment tube
28th February 2020 – Rock'n'Roll London – 2pm Tottenham Court Road Tube (exit 1)
29th February 2020 – The Beatles + The Rolling Stones in 1960s London – 10.30am Leicester Sq Tube (exit 1)
29th February 2020 – London Horror Story – 7.30pm St Paul's Tube