November 13, 1999: Woolwich Dockyard to Honor Oak
The Thames Barrier
Only six days after completing the seventh stage of our Green London Way quest the Lees and I returned to tackle stage eighth. I had invited three other people – but none of them came. We took the chance of walking in cooler temperatures because we were promised some sun (there was a good deal of this in the first half of the day), light winds (these were in fact pretty brisk on the riverfront) and dry weather (although it looked ominously dark in some sections of the sky as the afternoon wore on).
We met at 9:15 in Charing Cross, where we bought coffee and Danish and waited for the 9:42. The ride was only about twenty-five minutes in duration, long enough for Tosh to read the papers on the subject of Gary Glitter’s kiddieporn scandals and for me to finish my snack. All the passenger cubicles on the Ferris wheel were now in place.
At Woolwich Dockyard I pulled out the first of my xeroxes from the A-Zed and also those from Gilbert’s book; I carried both of these in my hand on this day, with frequent changeovers requiring the lowering of the pack and its subsequent replacement on my back – with Harold’s assistance. My right shoulder had been giving me a lot of trouble recently. Indeed I wasn’t feeling great on this day; I wasn’t exactly light-headed but I did feel rather weary throughout the trek.
I wore my leather jacket and my wool cap all day long, but there was some warmth in the sun as I used the A-Zed to get us back to a junction with the Green London Way on Woodland Terrace. This required some walking on pavements through soulless estates and an ascent of a suburban street –with Green Chain Walk signs soon reminding us that we were nearing our goal. (These soon disappeared and we saw no more of them.)
At the top of the hill we entered Maryon Park on our right and began a descent on some steps, taking a left turnoff half way down to walk above the tennis courts. Antonioni used this very obscure corner of London for some of the exterior shots in Blow-up.
We crossed a bridge over our own rail line and dropped down to the whizzing traffic of the Woolwich Road. A light for pedestrians helped us across and we continued on toward the river along Hardens Manor Way. This was an uninteresting industrial street, with a ribbon of parkland on our right and the buildings of the Thames Barrier ahead of us. We climbed up to the embankment (where there was a sign telling us that it was 180 miles to the source of the river), passed through a tunnel and emerged opposite the silver bullets – which were open on this day. We were able to follow a well-marked riverside route for a mile or so, but on our left the bulldozers were in the process of leveling every feature of a landscape that Gavan and I had walked through almost a decade ago.
As we circled to the north, where the Millennium Dome was in the last stages of construction, we began to get warnings about path diversions and long before I expected to cut across the peninsula we were diverted to the south down Horn Lane. This was dispiriting and unpleasant. Path diversion signs ended as we crossed Bugsby’s Way. We persevered down Horn Lane as I pored over my A-Zed and when we reached the flyover at the southern approach of the Blackwall Tunnel I found a route through the maze (which was not all that congenial to passengers on foot) and got us over to the Woolwich Road – where we turned west.
So, instead of approaching Greenwich amid stirring riverside panoramas, we made our entry in far more pedestrian surroundings – pun intended. There were some interesting glimpses into local life. The Maze Hill Working Man’s Club was next to a sexy lingerie shop. The G.M.T. Cafe was opposite Millennium Pizza. Tosh had to enter the precincts of an antique store and fell in love with a mirror, but when she dragged Harold back to see it (with me standing on a street corner) she changed her mind.
I was looking for a spot where we might return to the river and this proved to be Pelton Street. Before long we had reached the Thames Walk again, not far from the Cutty Sark pub – where Gavan and I had eaten lunch. This time, however, we were aiming for the famous Trafalgar Tavern – which was only a few blocks away. The Lees knew it well. Just as we were about to enter the place a drunk, hearing our voices, began a speech on the scud missile – “but you Americans got it right,” he said, patting me on the shoulder.
We were early – if anything, our long inland detour had saved us time and it was only 11:40. The Lees had some lagers (I drank the first of three Diet Cokes) while we pondered the menu until noon; the placemat contained much information about the illustrious figures who had frequented the spot in days gone by. I had read about Willkie Collins, Thackeray and Dickens, but the placemat added the name of Dr. Crippen. The Lees shared an order of whitebait and a shepherds pie – while I had haddock, the “catch of the day” – deep-fried in the oil of yesterday.
We were sitting next to a window with a fine view of the Isle of Dogs, but it was drafty and we were ready to move on, after the Lees had finished their coffees, at about 1:00. We each visited the loos a last time and then passed in front of the Royal Naval College and took a left at the Cutty Sark onto King William Walk, crossed the high road one last time and made our way up into Greenwich Park.
I was reminded a great deal of climbing up the hillside to the UCLA library by this slope. There were tourists instead of students but the same crisscross of paved paths predominated. At the top, after an especially steep section, we reached the old observatory buildings. The views to the north were magnificent, the Queens House and the College immediately below and the riverside scene stretching for miles.
The sun was still out; I must have looked at it once because for the next few minutes I had a pink spot flashing before my eye. Tosh was reading all the information signs as we made slow progress onto the plateau, tourists off to one side –straddling the meridian. Then we found a row of ancient trees leading off to the west (easy to imagine Conrad’s Stevie tripping over the roots of one of these giants in The Secret Agent) and reached the edge of the park at a little gate beside a building called Macartney House. Here, as I paused to change maps and re-tie my left boot for the hundredth time, I tried to see on the ground where we were to go next – and failing this, pressed forward anyway into an open space where a thin trod in the grass encouraged me to begin a descent to a curving street called Hyde Vale.
Here we turned left and climbed up to Blackheath Hill, skirting a finger of common and continuing downhill, still moving in a westerly direction, on a street called West Grove. After a short bit we found ourselves in an alleyway behind some upmarket suburbia, crossed one more street and proceeded forward up some steps onto a paved path. We were looking for an ascent by steps on a plateau knows as The Point, and I found this without too much difficulty. It provided another magnificent viewpoint.
Then we headed south to reach Blackheath Hill again. Once across we continued forward on a couple of Dartmouths (Row and Hill) to find a lane next to Montague House – where we continued in our southerly direction. Gilbert talks about a turnoff onto a paved viewing area halfway along this lane (halfway implies you know how long the whole is, always a troublesome bit of language) but what I found was padlocked and abandoned. This meant that we could not follow the guidebook at all here, so I lead us to the end of the lane, turned right on Morden Hill and right again on Lewisham Road. Trying to figure out where the old route entered behind us was not easy and I had to guess that we were penetrating the Orchard Estate at the right spot. Two little girls, each with a Scottie, were climbing up the steps as we descended. I was happy to spot Coldbath Street and Ravensbourne Place and we were soon walking over a footbridge (with the filthy Ravensbourne and a railway line for company) and into Brookmill Park.
We paused to look at “the main lake” after Tosh had asked two oriental ladies what they were harvesting (just greens for their rabbit). “The main lake” turned out to be a scummy pond. We turned our back on it to cross Brookmill Road and take Bolden Albyn, and St. John’s Vale up to Lewisham Way. Tosh was cheered mightily to see the warm greeting that a white guy gave to his black neighbor at one of these corners. This, as so many of these communities on our route, was clearly a mixed neighborhood.
I changed maps again on the corner (one could hardly take a step today without squinting at some text or checking the A-Zed) and we crossed the street, turned left for a block, and continued south on Tyrwhitt Road preceded by two boys, one of whom compulsively bopped every standing object with a soft drink bottle for three blocks. At the end of the road we faced a climb up Hilly Fields. There was no one about. I circled the loo building (boarded up) and we made our descent from the hilltop on a steep path heading in a southeasterly direction down to Vicars Hill. This lead us down to the busy Ladywell Road, where we crossed a railway bridge and turned right at the second path to approach the church. Then we re-crossed the Ravensbourne (moving much more swiftly and clearly here) and turned south again. This was a lovely riverside stroll in parkland, but again there was no one about.
The guidebook specifies a re-crossing of the river at the second bridge on our left, but when we did this we lost track of both the river and the railway bridge that we were supposed to use. So we retraced our steps to the river and discovered that we should have used a third bridge, not a second. Soon we were climbing over a spiraling walkway above a railway line and heading south again in well-cared for parkland. There was no one about so Harold and I snuck a last pee behind a railway abutment. We passed near the Catford dog stadium and chose a path through Ladywell Fields.
After crossing Ravensbourne Park Road we were plunged back into suburbia, climbing up Ravensbourne Park Crescent and Montacute Road to reach an entranceway onto Blythe Hill Fields. We sat down for a brief rest on a bench here. I was knackered and so was Harold and I was also quite thirsty – so I had several swigs from my canteen. A black mother was trying to get some cooperation from a recalcitrant toddler here but there was no one else about. The weather was grey and lowering and views not as grand as before but we didn’t really understand the eerie silence until we were beginning our descent – when a muffled distant shout caused us to recall that no one was about because everyone was indoors glued to the box watching the first leg of the England-Scotland Euro 2000 qualifier. England won 2-0.
We turned left when we reached the bottom of our last hill, descended Gladiator Street and emerged suddenly onto a parade of shops on Stondon Park. Then we headed uphill on Honor Oak Park and reached, just at 3:40, the Honor Oak railway station. We had walked nine miles. You could reach London from either side and we went down the one to our right at first – Tosh helping to carry a baby buggy back up –when we realized that we’d have to wait twenty extra minutes and face a much longer journey if we didn’t switch to the other side – where five minutes later we caught a northbound train to London Bridge. Here we waited just a minute, after scurrying around to find the right platform for a Charing Cross train. It was beginning to sprinkle.
I never got a chance to use the mobile, but by 4:15 we were back in London and I was seeking out a Bakerloo Line train. It was pretty well agreed that this had been the last walk of the season – with the Lees soon off on travels anyway – but we were glad we had gotten it in. It was just going 5:00 and dark at last when I got home.
To continue with the next stage of our walk you need: