October 15, 2003: Banstead to Kingston

The Lees and I chose a sunny midweek Wednesday for our next adventure on the London Outer Orbital Path; in fact we were able to discuss departure details in person for once –since we had all been guests at a reception the night before at the American School.

I wanted us to use a 9:33 train from Victoria and this meant a departure from Maida Vale somewhat too early in the day for my Freedom Pass; never mind, I was almost as happy to get a ride for £2.00 in small change. When I arrived in Victoria I got a few snacks (none of which I touched this day) in W.H. Smith, and spent some time searching the big board for any evidence of our train. Finding no mention whatsoever, I wandered off to the Delice de France kiosk and bought an almond croissant and a cappuccino for the presumptive journey. I found the Lees at another sidewalk cafe and left my pack with them to check on our train again. It was now mentioned on the board – but there would be a slight delay because of a signal failure in Balham and we stood on the concourse for several minutes waiting for a platform. Tosh discovered that she had forgotten her newspapers at the cafe table and rushed off to retrieve them. “This is like someone else forgetting their insulin or their asthma atomizer,” I said to Harold.

We were only about five minutes late pulling out of Victoria, and I wasn’t too worried therefore about our connection in Sutton. Tosh wanted to know where I had gotten my almond croissant – having failed in her own search for its likeness in the huge station and refusing, stubbornly, to accept a substitute. We were aboard the train only for half an hour or so, soon detraining in Sutton – where I brushed the powdered sugar from my blue sweatshirt and we switched platforms for our next train.

I had a small anxiety about the next stage in the journey, since it would take us one stop beyond the limits of the Freedom Pass, but there was no one to buy a ticket from on our next train (only two cleaners who climbed aboard complaining of the chill) and so we rode from Belmont to Banstead for free. Tosh reminded me that we had bought unnecessary platform tickets at Banstead last time – so we were even.

We reached our station at 10:16 and climbed to the street above. Things looked different in the bright morning light but I had soon pointed us in the right direction (no use for the compass today) and we rounded a corner and crossed over to a section of the giant golf course. We passed through a corner of woodland and across a fairway, exchanging greetings with a club-carrying trio who were heading in the opposite direction. Harold and I paused in the bushes beyond for a quiet pee, soon rejoining Tosh up the hill just as the LOOP link came to an end at a crossing path, and, now back on the LOOP itself, we turned north – our dominant direction today.

It was somewhat breezy (I wore a flannel shirt beneath my sweatshirt and my Michigan Film Commission baseball cap today) but there was plenty of sunshine to counter the chilly air and the fall colors made for a beautiful backdrop throughout the day. I had another small anxiety, however, for I now seemed to be suffering from a major gas attack, one that kept things burbling along down below at a number of moments throughout the day.

We followed a line of birch trees between two fairways and emerged at the end of Sandy Lane in Belmont, following its pavement in the first of a number of forays into stockbroker suburbia. I paid close attention to the guidebook in my map case – since every now and then the needed LOOP sign would be missing. After a long stretch on Sandy Lane (where a bearded Sikh was standing in frozen attention over a flowerbed with a pickaxe in his hands) we turned left for a block on Cuddington Way and then north again on Cheyham Way. This brought us up to Northey Avenue, a busy road where we turned left, entering the borough of Epsom & Ewell, and continuing to the west, still on pavement.

Tosh became intrigued by a passing car – which carried a phone number you could use if you wanted extra cash – and she asked its driver what this signified. He said he was delivering catalogues for a firm that paid him £2000 a month. Tosh did not add this to her long list of activities – (she was supposed to be at home studying for an Open University exam) and indeed announced she was taking a sabbatical (at age 70) from course and other work next year  – even the Citizens Advice Bureau, where she volunteers, was shutting down her branch. Near the end of Northey Avenue a second vehicle captured the Lees’ attention; this was a builder’s van with the legend, “The sweetness of getting a low price can never outweigh the bitterness of a job poorly done.” Tosh wrote this Confucian epigram down, intending to send it on to Iowa ­– where it could possibly make an appearance on Tim Lee’s truck.

At a roundabout we turned sharply northeast on the A32 Cheam Road and used a shaded pavement as far as a bus stop. Here we darted across the busy highway and headed north along Bramley Avenue (there were apples beneath a tree here), escaping suburbia by passing through a railway underpass and continuing on to the woodland fringes of Nonsuch Park. Harold disappeared for another pee here – near a spot where a lady was in conversation with an Old English Sheepdog just outgrowing its summer trim ­– “Come on, let’s look for Daddy.”

We did not turn right on the crossing track we had now reached (thereby missing a glimpse of Nonsuch Mansion) but turned left instead and followed paths into woodland. A right turn put us out at the foundation walls of the banqueting hall of Henry VIII’s Nonsuch hunting lodge. The guidebook stated that Henry’s hunters were more likely to snack than banquet here – which led to a discussion on the Tudor version of snacks. Pheasant McNuggets? Here we turned west again and rounded a corner to descend to the busy A24. Fortunately there was a place to cross the whizzing carriageways in two stages and once we had cleared the second we followed Church Lane into Ewell itself, passing several buildings (including a surviving church tower) that did have the charm of antiquity upon them.

Tosh, of course, was already complaining about hunger pangs – though I had advised her to bring a snack – but I didn’t want to stop for lunch until 1:00 or so – and as we crossed Ewell High Street (which did have pubs) Harold stopped at a newsagent to buy a candy bar. Tosh had brought an apple.

Around the next corner was the magnificent ornamental gateway to another disappeared mansion – Bourne Hall. Griffons and a large dog stood guard atop this white structure and we passed beneath their protection to enter Bourne Hall Park. This was a pleasant space with a community center and several ponds – part of the source of the River Hogsmill that would now accompany our wanderings for the rest of the day.

As we exited from the park we crossed a traffic-clogged road and turned left at the algae-covered surface of the infant river, beginning our close association with a body of water that had long been starved of any rain. We crossed several bridges and used a wooden causeway above the river to pass beneath another railway bridge. From time to time the path used bridges to shift from one side of the stream to another in pleasant but rather repetitious countryside and with close-cropped grassy water meadows providing an easy walking surface. This little ribbon of green never let you forget that on either side you were never far from housing estates, playgrounds and schools.

We crossed a road and continued along riverside paths, with many dogs out for their walkies – gradually swinging to the right to come up to the A240 Kingston Road – where traffic signals permitted a crossing of a multi-lane highway. Heading east now, we had the river on our right and Surbiton’s karting track on our left. I reminded the Lees, who were lagging, that we didn’t have long to go before lunch. A wooden barrier, a bridge, and a turn to the right brought us out at a corner where the Hogsmill Tavern could be seen across the street. It was 12:55 and we had covered over six miles.

We entered the rather characterless pub and ordered our pints and food. The Hogsmill had become part of the Beefeater chain and provided a plastic menu with all the clichés of mass catering on offer. I went in search of some relief in the gents and returned to my chicken tikka masala, which was good but rather unsatisfying. Harold, who had remained loyal to his fish and chips, joined me in ordering a chocolate sundae for dessert. Our little table was crowded in by others (and a pram) and we were backed up against the barflies and so it wasn’t an altogether comfortable rest stop.

We left the pub about 2:00 and returned to suburbia as the LOOP took a Worcester Park diversion in order to keep walkers off the pavementless B24. We marched up Cromwell Street – with Tosh taking umbrage at the widespread use of pampas grass in the local front yards. (It did appear a bit misplaced in this climate. The lady pronounced it pompous grass – making an unintentional pun.) We turned left on Grafton Road and climbed our only hill of the day, turning left onto Royal Avenue at the top and gradually descending to the B24 again; by this time it had pavements and we used them to rise to the church of St. John the Baptist in Old Malden (I had read this as St. John the Marxist but then I was only two days away from getting a new pair of specs.)

We dropped down to the still puny Hogsmill again, under another railway underpass and up to the A3, a multi-lane motorway so vast that, after a diversion to some shops on our left, we had to use a pedestrian underpass to get to the other side. We headed back to the river and entered a gate into an adjacent meadow. On the opposite side there were vast playing fields and many contests were in progress (“Come on Blues, lets put some intensity into this!”) I had a pee in some bushes. We were making good time again but I have to confess that if there are empty calories then today’s route provided many empty miles.

At a crossing track I paused to have a close look at Sharp’s guidebook, which called for a left turn here – though none was signaled on the ground. While I was doing this a chap in a maroon sweater came up to ask if I was lost. I told him I knew where I was, but not where I was next to go. By good luck he was the local Neighborhood Environmental Officer (and so it said on his jumper) and he confirmed that the official route did require a turnoff here. He and his wife were delighted that we were using the LOOP and he promised to report the missing sign.

Our turnoff put us back into housing again and, in Berrylands, we walked up Surbiton Hill Park (or so I believe we did – there are many missing street signs in London and its suburbs too) – reaching a roundabout where the large Berrylands pub was beckoning us to use the loos and drink some Diet Coke. As at lunch I took my wet sweatshirt off (the sweat had melted some of the ink on my train time notes in my shirt pocket).

We didn’t stay for long, soon dropping down to an underpass at the Berrylands train station and emerging in an industrial belt (with pampas grass here too) on Lower Marsh Lane. We were getting closer to Kingston by this time and the Lees were obsessing over the question of how they were to get home most expeditiously. They didn’t want to take the train and they couldn’t remember which bus they might use and they charged ahead at a furious pace, leaving me behind among the school kids on their way home.

Another problem was that the route into downtown Kingston, though bedecked with many LOOP signs, no longer corresponded with the guidebook instructions in all particulars – a turnoff into the precincts of an expanding Kingston University (where arts students were sketching and another group were relaxing outside their commons) causing just one of the confusing moments. We escaped from a car park and crossed a blue bridge, the Hogsmill at last looking like a proper river – just a half mile or so from its demise at the Thames. The walk away from the Thames along the Cray, on day one of the LOOP, had been more intriguing. Now I noted that I had just walked my 3600th mile.

I saw the Lees only every now and then; it was not easy keeping up with them and trying to see where I was on the map and keeping Thames Path signs separate from LOOP signs. We reached a major road where both signs were in evidence and Tosh spotted a Richmond bus. “You don’t mind if we take this, do you?” she asked. “We can always walk the rest of the route to Kingston Bridge next time,” Harold added. Before I could get in even a word on why this wasn’t such a good idea they had leapt aboard a bus – and in an instant they were gone.

I thought I knew where I was but I felt abandoned and my mood wasn’t lightened by a return of my rumbling tummy. I found a city map that reconfirmed my position and I slowly made my way past the market place and several huge department stores and down a number of shopping precincts and up to the highway that separated me from the railway line. I had enjoyed the exercise on this day but the scenery had been pretty second rate and I was feeling out of sorts. A set of traffic lights permitted access to Kingston station. It was 4:30 and I had walked eleven and a half miles (deduct half a mile from this total if your last name is Lee).

I found the right platform for the 4:43 to Waterloo and lowered myself onto a bench in the last of the afternoon sunshine. A crowd of workers on their way back to the Smoke crowded the platform at day’s end. When the train arrived I sat opposite a painter’s apprentice with grey streaks in his hair (from today’s color, not premature old age). On my right a refugee wanted to know if this train went to Vauxhall. It did and a lot of other stations too before reaching Waterloo. Here I had a long walk to the Bakerloo line where I got a seat and spent the next few minutes reading a Jane Kramer article about Berlin architecture. I was home shortly before 6:00 – rampant tummy and all.

To continue with the next stage of our walk you need:

Day 8: Kingston to Hatton Cross

Day walks from London:

If you are looking for additional London-based walking opportunities you may want to have a look at our experiences on the following routes:

A Chilterns Hundred

The Chiltern Way

The Green London Way

The Greensand Way

The London Countryway

The London Outer Orbital Path

The North Downs Way

The Ridgeway Path

The Saxon Shore Way

The South Downs Way

The Thames Path

The Vanguard Way

The Wealdway