March 21, 1993: Hanwell to South Kenton
Our group at the Hanwell Viaduct
On the first day of spring in 1993 the Lees, Dorothy and Toby the Schnauzer joined me on the first day of a heretofore unwalked suburban route around London, The Green London Way. I was using Bob Gilbert’s guide book of the same name and I had chosen a relatively short outing because we were all a bit tired, and not quite up to twelve miles in the Chiltern hills – my original plan for getting some of us ready for another assault on the South West Peninsula Coast Path in two weeks time. None of us had been on any day walks since we had completed the Weald Way in June, and I hadn’t been out at all since completing the Two Moors Way in August.
You would think it would be easy enough to get to Hanwell, in west London, but of course this was Sunday and the train station there was closed. Harold and I agreed that we would meet, therefore, at 10:00 at Ealing Broadway, which Dorothy and I could reach on the underground, and then take a cab on to our starting point. However when we entered the Maida Vale tube stop at 9:15 there were notices announcing that trains were not running west of White City today. I had to use some lateral thinking here– finally deciding to use a branch of the District Line to get us to Ealing Broadway.
We changed first at Paddington and marched over to the westbound Circle and District Line platform. It was a grey morning but not too chilly. There was already a large crowd on the platform and no sign of any train. There were plenty of announcements about watching our packages and even the comforting news that trains were running a normal Sunday schedule. Just no train. Finally one came and we hopped aboard, getting off at Earl’s Court to wait for an Ealing Broadway train. A squat blonde in tight jeans was lecturing her boyfriend as they strolled along the platform, “See, silly, if it weren’t for me we’d never have gotten here. Now give us a kiss on the cheek to say you’re sorry.” Two girls on our next train failed to change at Acton and had to rush off at the next stop. The District line has three western termini and, indeed, it can be quite confusing for the novice. We reached our destination at 9:58.
Dorothy stopped off in the station to buy me a sticky bun. I went up the stairs with Toby and we spotted the Lees, just arriving. Both Tosh and Dorothy used the ladies in the station and then we headed across the street to grab the first black cab at the head of a long queue. Soon we were crawling through the back streets of shabby Ealing, although the Lees, in whose borough we were starting our walk, seemed to think that the detached houses here were pretty snazzy. Our driver expressed surprise when he discovered that we had asked him to deliver us to a closed train station – but we explained we had been prepared for this eventuality.
I took my maps out of my knapsack and we set off at 10:30 along Campbell Road, turning left into Golden Manor Road and left again to cross beneath the railway viaduct. I was chomping away on my apple tart as we reached our first puzzle: a guidebook suggestion that we turn right as soon as we had cleared the viaduct. Unfortunately there was a park entrance to the right here – as well as a tarmaced path along the railway line. I chose the latter, and this proved to be right. Toby was unleashed – he was able to run free about two thirds of the time this day – and he was off on a day of snooping and sniffing.
We reached the River Brent and I posed people on a footbridge for some snaps. I had slides in my camera and Dorothy was supposed to be finishing up a roll of prints – but she was not concentrating and eventually I had to handle both cameras.
We entered Brent Lodge Park in the only period of sunlight we were to enjoy on this cool spring day. We passed a pool with exotic waterfowl behind a fence and headed uphill through more birdhouses, including some peach-faced parrots and some elegant cranes. Toby had to go back on lead as we climbed to the top of the hill – where some local citizens were helping themselves to the public daffodils. At the lych gate of the church we turned back to the river on a gravel path and Toby was freed once again.
There was a footbridge over to the west side of the Brent here and we used it to continue in a northerly direction along the flat valley, with views of council towers on our left, and a golf course ahead. Tosh and I were well ahead here, yakking a mile a minute about school gossip (for which we were routinely mocked by Harold and Dorothy) – two people who work literally side by side had both been so busy that we hadn’t had a chance for a good talk in weeks.
There were a quite a few Sunday golfers about and once I had to distract Toby so that he would not see someone’s ball directly on the footpath. Eventually we re-crossed the river and followed the east bank until we reached the Ruislip road, not far from the Greenford Bridge. After crossing the busy street we continued north on Costons Lane and turned right to use a tarmac path through Perivale Park.
The trees were in blossom today and I chose a particularly attractive group on the western side of the park for another group photo. A few minutes later, as I was studying a xeroxed page of Gilbert, a park keeper asked me if I needed help – and we were soon on our way out of the park at Western Avenue. Here we encountered a pedestrian bridge of considerable complexity spanning a major artery. I lead the way past the baby carriages and the bicycles and descended on the other side.
We traveled up suburban Gayton Road and along a fence on the perimeter of a school playing field. Bennetts Avenue (where a wedding reception was in progress) brought us out to busy Greenford Road, where we turned right. Toby had to go on lead on such stretches of course, but after we passed beneath the railway bridge near the Greenford station there was a footpath into a large field. I let him loose but re-hooked him when I spotted a Rottweiler on the horizon. He was heading in another direction so Toby was free to shamble up to the banks of the Grand Union canal, where we turned right.
The ladies in the party had been heckling me about a lunch spot and I had suggested we look for a nice spot on the side of Horsenden Hill – which dominated the scene ahead. It took us another twenty minutes to reach it as we worked our way along the canal towpath, eventually crossing a footbridge (parallel to a road bridge) and beginning a climb up the hillside. Dorothy found a nice spot in some dry grass and we had a nice feed – after I had dashed off to find a quiet place for a pee – not so easy a task in a park full of kids and dogs. We had some very nice ham and cheese baguettes and I ate some tortilla chips and drank some bitter lemon. Dorothy gave Harold an almond Yorkie. It was a bit chilly sitting on the ground, even though Dorothy wore nothing more on this day than her red puffer vest up top and I my blue sweatshirt – so before long we continued uphill.
There was a bit of a scramble to reach the summit plateau and Dorothy had to have some assistance – her back and hips were bothering her today. There was a splendid view of northwestern London from the top of Horsenden Hill and we could see Harrow, our next hill, a mile or so in the distance.
First we headed downhill to a parking lot and on down through some woods to a tarmac path that brought us out to Horsenden Lane North. Here we at found at 1:00 the Ballot Box pub, a huge suburban roadhouse with a parking lot stacked with cars. Naturally dogs were not allowed inside but we located a rickety table in the garden. Tosh had half a lager and the rest of us just drank coffee. The girls, who went inside to fetch our tray and use the loos, denounced the clientele of the Ballot Box as uncouth yobbs. I believe Dorothy, never at a loss for an overgeneralization, added, “and capable of murder, each and every one.” Muzak was piped into the garden and when Georgia was not our mind we heard such edifying messages as, “No. 10 would you please pick up your food order; it’s getting cold.” I too went into the pub to use the loo, dodging the crowds pressed in front of the fruit machines and getting hosed in cigarette smoke as I fought my way to the gents’. A squinting Tosh was looking up at the Ballot Box sign as I returned – “What’s the name of this pub, the Boat House?”
We continued north through suburban Sudbury, following a series of back streets and crossing daffodil-choked Whitten Avenue East, where I again posed our group knee deep in yellow blooms. We climbed Rosehill Gardens and turned left on a metaled path through some parkland and along a railway line, passing over the turf, if the graffiti was to be believed, of “The Hooded Shadows.” Sleazy downtown Sudbury was next; Dorothy failed to dash across the street with the rest of us and got fed up with waiting for another opportunity, returning two blocks to a signal while the rest of us stood outside the garish display of a local florist.
Then we continued forward past a defunct employment agency and left on South Vale. A steep bit of uphill on Green Lanes left me well behind the others but I caught up in time to hook the dog for our return to road walking – this time up to the top of the hill upon which we found Harrow, town and school. Our route, which had been mostly northerly shifted more to the east here as we made a slow walk along the pavements of a quite charming village, the Hampstead of Middlesex. We paused to admire a Chevy from the Forties in someone’s driveway and Harold said he had once had a car like it. Someone with a devilish sense of humor had opened a restaurant called the Old Etonian a block a way from the official clothier of the Harrow lads – none of whom were in evidence today.
Our route took us directly through the campus and past some lovely buildings before we descended quite steeply down Football Lane to the playing fields below the college. There was a gravel track at the bottom and we took a dogleg on it, turning right with an old fence along a line of trees. But here I made the only serious mistake of the day – continuing too far to the south instead of heading due east across a pathless rugby pitch. I knew we had to get over to Watford Lane and I could see cars whizzing along its surface off in the distance –but when we had exhausted the last bit of farm track I sensed that we were too far to the south. There was no sign of the stile needed to make our escape either.
While I was pondering whether the climb a gate I decided to put Toby on lead. He was just about to do a backflip into a pile of cow muck – into which he had approvingly buried his nose. I lead him off amid protests as I headed north along the hedge that separated us from Watford Road – looking for an escape route. Eventually I ran up against a fence at the north end of the field and decided that we would have to climb through the hedge at this point. I waited for the others to catch up and had a go at climbing the fence that separated us from Watford Road. My left foot cracked off a piece of wood but I managed to get through the hedge with only one nasty scratch on my right little finger. Toby was handed to me and the others fought their way through the hedge. As soon as we were deposited on the pavement I saw the stile I wanted – just a few feet to the north. We could not have reached it without a long detour, however.
We crossed over Watford Road and followed the Ducker Pool footpath (though I never saw this walled body of water). We passed along the southern perimeter of Northwick Park Hospital. Then we edged along the margins of a pitch and putt course and turned south into parkland. Tosh mistook the clubhouse for the tube station (wishful thinking) but in fact we did not have far to go. A road left the park but we turned left to walk across the grass to Nathans Road. After a block we turned left to walk beneath the rail line, following some African girls who were afraid of dogs.
A stairway within the underpass brought us up to the South Kenton platform, where I bought tickets for Maida Vale (£2.20 each) and Harold bought tickets for Acton (£1.70 each – you figure it out). South Kenton serves both mainline and Bakerloo line trains and the Lees jumped on the former and headed off for Euston – while Dorothy and I and Toby waited until 4:00 for an underground train that took us straight down to Maida Vale. How odd it felt, at the end of a most relaxing outing, to get off on the “wrong” side of the station.
We had an early night a few hours later but there was a brief sequel. No sooner were the lights out then we were both overcome by the powerful stench of ripe cow manure. It rose from the heap of grey fur we call our dog; he had evidently gotten enough of his nose and feet into the mess after all. There was nothing for it but to get up, drag him into the bathtub, and give him a good rinse before we could all settle down to a well-deserved rest.
To continue with the next stage of our walk you need: