Capital Ring – Section 5

Stratham Common to Wimbledon Park

This section is different to the last as it has suburban roads as well as parks and some beautiful and interesting building along the route. We leave Streatham Common at the Northwest corner and walk down residential streets until we get to the railway line near Streatham Common station. We pass under the tracks, through a couple of colorful alleyways, probably less intimidating during the day than at night to be fair.

Soon we come to Conyer Road, a street of smart late Victorian detached houses and the surprisingly attractive Streatham Pumping Station.

This was built in 1894. It is on the site of an earlier well that was covered by tin shed, which was apparently and eyesore, so it was a planning condition that the new building have an ornamental aspect in its design. This resulted in the Grade II* listed building with a Moorish design. Originally it was accompanied by a tall tower to the side, but this was taken down during WWII, because of the fear of aerial bombing. In 1903 it contained two steam driven engines that could each deliver 1,500,000 gallons of water a day to South London. I’m told that it is equally spectacular inside, but it is only open to the public on special occasions like Open House weekend.

More smart residential streets lead us to Tooting Common and we enter the Common by the Tooting Bec Lido. This is another interesting piece of London lore. It is the largest freshwater swimming pool in the UK, it holds a million gallons of water. It was built in 1906 as a project to provide work for local unemployed men. It is open all year round, although only to the general public from late May until late September. You have to be a member (with a strong constitution!) to swim in this open-air, unheated pool during the rest of the year.

Tooting Common is surprisingly large at over 200 acres. It has a couple of pretty lakes with waterfowl, and it is a site of metropolitan importance because it holds some rare areas of “acid grassland”. I don’t think I saw them, although I guess it’s possible that I did and just didn’t recognize them. There is also a pretty cafe, sheltered by old trees. It was busy on the day I went in, with many chatting Mums and pushchairs inside and walkers on the outdoor benches. The coffee was good.

After leaving the common we arrive in Balham and another remarkable building. Du Cane Court was built in 1937. It is a huge Art Deco block of flats that was very modern when it was first built, every apartment came with its own built-in radio. It contains 676 units which makes it, still today, the largest privately owned block of flats in Europe. It survived the bombing of WWII and this was supposedly because Adolph Hitler wanted it as the Nazi Headquarters in London on completion of the British invasion. I can’t find where any evidence for this might have come from, but there are articles in The Times and The Mail, among others about it.

Soon after we arrive in Wandsworth Common, another huge South London Park – 170 acres. This is a posher part of London and the houses on west side are large Victorian and detached, with many notable previous residents including prime ministers and authors. The cafe in this park is smart too, called “The Skylark”. It is in pretty surroundings, near the duck pond with tennis courts to one side. It is also licensed and does more substantial meals as well as coffee and cakes.

Just after leaving the common, we come to Wandsworth Prison. It was built in 1851 and the outside of the building has a kind of austere, stolid attraction. It is one of Britain’s largest prisons and has held many notorious prisoners. It was also the site of 135 executions, right up to the 1960s and its gallows was kept in full working order until 1993 and even tested every six months. It is the prison form which Ronnie Biggs, of Great Train Robbery notoriety, escaped before absconding to Brazil. The exterior was used in “A Clockwork Orange” and the gates are those shown on the titles to the TV series Porridge.

After passing the prison we head downhill on Magdalen Road and the path goes through Wandsworth cemetery which runs alongside it. This is large and well kept, it contains the remains of 592 servicemen and women, who died in WWI and WWII. They are buried in different place through the cemetery, and their names are listed on a screen wall of a military plot. Leaving the ground, we cross Earlsfield High Street and follow the river Wandle, a tributary of the Thames, through residential streets until we reach Wimbledon Park tube station which marks the end of section 5.

Section 5 consists of park and residential streets, and the walk contains a good mixture of nature, architecture and history.

Advertisement

Capital Ring – Section 4

Crystal Palace to Streatham Common

Section 3 goes from Crystal Palace Station to Streatham Common, it is pretty short at 6.5km and has some spectacular long views at various point through the walk. Definitely one to choose on a clear day. On leaving the station and Crystal Palace Park, you cross over Anerley Hill Road and go up a steep hill to Palace Square, which has an interesting juxtaposition of posh 19th Century houses on one side and a 1960s council housing estate on the other. Continuing uphill, we soon reach Belvedere Road, which just has posh houses, one of which has a blue plaque marking the residence of Benjamin Waterhouse-Hawkins, the designer of the dinosaurs in Crystal Palace Park.

Belvedere Road, posh houses with a nice view.

Nest we go downhill through Westow Park which is a small park with a children’s playground, apparently this was the grounds of a young gentlemen’s school in the 19th Century, which is probably why the road when you exit the park is named College Green. From here you can see Norwood Recreation Park which we cross. Uphill after leaving we arrive at Beulah Hill, a busy road, but with some spectacular long-range views into central London.

London from Beulah Hill.

Next, we go down Biggin Hill, which has views southward, and a pathway between two houses leads us into Biggin Wood, another small remnant of the Great North Wood.

Norwood Grove is uphill once again. It is the grounds of Norwood Grove House a Grade II listed mansion with a beautiful Cedar tree and more southward views, this time towards Croydon, the number of cranes indicating that this skyline will get more crowded in the coming years.

Norwood Grove is joined to Streatham Common, the first part you reach is The Rookery, just to the left of the Capital Ring and this is a Grade II listed Historic Garden. It is certainly worth strolling through, it has ornamental ponds, beautiful old trees and attractive herbaceous borders. It was on this site that the “Streatham Springs” were discovered, and The Rookery was originally the grounds of a now demolished spa hotel. The grounds were bought by public subscription after the demolition of the house, in order to prevent them from being developed for new housing. The waters from Streatham Springs were said to be “beneficial in Bilious and Liver complaints, headaches, jaundice and digestion”. Just outside is “The Rookery Cafe” which serves teas, coffees, sandwiches and other dishes. It also has a vibrant community notice board.

From here Streatham Common slopes gently downhill towards the London Road, giving nice long views to the west. It also looks attractive from the road, its slope displaying the families out enjoying the sun during the summer. The Common has an annual kite day, regular fairs, a firework display in autumn and a large open-air nativity scene at Christmas. London is lucky to have so many, well maintained, green spaces for such a large city and Streatham Common is a fine example of this.

Capital Ring Section 3

Grove Park to Crystal Palace – section 3 – is the longest on the Capital Ring. Starting at Grove Park Station we soon reach Railway Children Walk which commemorates the fact that the author E. Nesbitt lived nearby. There was very successful British film of the book in 1970, starring Jenny Agutter, and there have been many other adaptations since it was first serialized in “The London Magazine” in 1905.

14.8km Station to Station

Soon after this we arrive at Downham Woodland Walk, a narrow strip of woodland, which was once part of the Great North Wood. This itself was once part of the prehistoric forest that covered most of England, so many of the trees here are direct descendants of that forest. It does actually feel like a very old forest as you walk through it, although I guess that could be because I read about it before the walk.

Great North Wood

Just before you leave the wood there is a marker to let you know that you are crossing the Greenwich meridian line. Soon after, we come to Beckenham Place Park, crossing the Ravensbourne River by means of a humpbacked bridge. Legend has it that the river got its name because Roman soldiers were led to the spring at its source by a raven. This is a large park; we walk alongside a golf course and cross a railway track before we come to Beckenham Place Park Lake, which appears to be a popular spot for wild swimming.

Swimmers in Beckenham Place Park Lake

Up the hill from the lake is Beckenham Place Mansion. It was a fine house in its day, it is grade II listed. Now it belongs to Lewisham Council, who appear to be renovating it, although I have to say that it seems to be going on for years with little change. I have a similar picture from the 2010 walk, and it looks very much the same except that the scaffolding is in a different place on the building.

Beckenham Place Mansion

There is a section of residential streets before you reach a small but pretty park, Cator Park. It has two small rivers running through it, The Chaffinch and The Beck, tributaries of the Ravensbourne. It has a busy cafe, a playing field and nicely tended flower beds.

Fir trees Cator Park

The final section of the walk is through Crystal Palace Park. This is packed full of interest. It was built to hold The Crystal Palace, of the Great Exhibition of 1851, when it needed to be moved from Hyde Park. When it was built it was London’s most spectacular pleasure garden. It hosted firework displays, circuses, concerts and shows. It had fountains, cascades, statues, a maze and a miniature railway. The Crystal Palace itself was destroyed by fire in 1936 and was never replaced. Now it has a National Sports Centre with first class athletics and swimming facilities.

Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

The Dinosaur Court was built in 1854 and contained the first ever dinosaur sculptures in the world. Having spent most of the 20th Century out of favour, in 1973 they were made Grade II listed and following renovation early in the 21st Century they became Grade I listed in 2007, putting them in an exalted list with St. Paul’s Cathedral, Monument, The Bank of England and others. One of E. Nesbitt’s books, written in 1907, has a storyline where the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs come to life.

Brown and Green café

The Park has two very nice cafés too, both called Brown and Green, one at the Penge end of the park and one at the entrance to Crystal Palace railway station. The one at the lower end of the park was very busy with parents and children in buggies on the day I was there, but the one in the station had plenty of space and quick service. Crystal Palace station is the end of a long but satisfying walk full of interesting sights.

Mural on the wall of the Park Tavern Pub near Penge East Station

Streatham Common, London, SW16

 

Streatham Common is an attractive green space in South London. The grass on the Northern and Western section is maintained and dotted with trees. It looks very pretty sloping upwards towards the rookery from the A23. On summer weekends it is quite busy with people, flying kites, having picnics or just chilling out. This area of the park often has events running when the weather is warm. An interesting one booked for September is “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” performed by the world first cycling theatre company!

 

The eastern side is left in a more natural state. It has been designated a local nature reserve and it has many oak trees and some beautiful old cedars. Where the western part meets the east there is beautiful formal garden called The Rookery. A mineral spring was discovered here in the 1650s and was visited by royalty to take the waters. Streatham was a very fashionable out of town location in the 19th century and the Rookery Gardens are kept as they would have been in those days. There is a rockery with a pond, lovely herbaceous borders, and it has an ornamental stream running through it.

The Rookery Café is outside the wall of The Rookery just on the border between the maintained and more natural parts of the common. It is a well run café, serving hot and cold food. There are seats outside with big views to the west and south.

 

The Common is surprisingly large – over two kilometres along the perimeter from its northwestern corner to the northeastern one. As you head farther east, the park becomes part of the borough of Croydon and is known as Norwood Grove, although historically, it has always been part of the Great Streatham Common. There is a nice 19th century house here, inside the park, Norwood Grove House, although it is known locally as the White House. This also has nicely laid out gardens and pretty, if urban, views out over Croydon.

Streatham Common is a well used park, surrounded on all sides by houses. There are joggers, dog walkers, parents with buggies, yet it is big enough to avoid feeling crowded.   It is on the Capital Ring, which is a 120 kilometre walk around London, broken up into 15 smaller sections. This is a surprisingly green and traffic light walk for such a large metropolis. The park itself is a varied and interesting area with lots of different types of scenery, I would say that it is certainly worth a visit if you are in South London on a sunny day.

 

Hyde Park Corner, London W1.

Hyde Park Corner has a lot going on, for what is, ultimately, the central reservation of the busiest traffic roundabout in London.

There is Wellington Arch in the centre, which used to house the second smallest police station in Britain until 1992, it is now a museum and open to the public.  It is called the Wellington Arch because the top of it used to be crowned by a 40 ton Statue of the Duke of Wellington – the largest statue of a man on a horse that has ever been made. It was moved to Aldershot in 1912 and the arch now has a statue of a winged charioteer driving four horses on it top. This is the largest bronze statue in Europe.

The grassed over island also has the Australian war memorial in the South Western corner and the New Zealand war memorial on the North Eastern corner. These are 21st century memorials built in 2003 and 2006 respectively and commemorating antipodean deaths in the two world wars. They are both moving pieces of public art.

It also contains the Machine Gun Corps Memorial and the Royal Artillery Memorial, two more pieces commemorating casualties of the World Wars. These are both interesting in their own ways. I’m not sure why the Machine Gun Corps is commemorated by a statue of a young man with one hand on his hip and the other on a large sword, but it is beautiful, nonetheless. The Royal Artillery Memorial has more of a Great War atmosphere, it resembles soldiers guarding a tomb, with a cannon on its top.

There is also a statue of Lord Byron and a large bronze of The 1st Duke of Wellington sitting on a horse. The equestrian duke statue is a smaller copy of the one that used to be atop the Wellington Arch. The best way to reach the central reservation avoiding the traffic is by one of many underground passageways. These are bright and well kept and have tiled depictions of the history of the area. I can’t believe that I am recommending  visiting the underground pathways to a traffic island, but these are quite interesting in themselves and definitely deserve a view if you have an interest in the history of the area.

Not only is the junction itself full of interest but, there are many places very close by. There is Apsley House, the home of the Dukes of Wellington, and Hyde Park itself to the north. The wall across the road on the southern edge is Buckingham Palace garden. Green Park is on the east, and the Old St Georges hospital, now the Lanesborough Hotel, reputedly the most expensive in London, is to the west. Plus, of course underneath all this is Hyde Park Corner tube station.

In short, if you are to visit any traffic island in central London, then this should be the one!

St James’s Park, London

St James’s Park is the most tourist friendly park in London. It is relatively small, 1Km at its longest edge. It is a pretty, tranquil, well maintained green area joining many of the most viewed attractions in London.

It has Buckingham Palace as the western side, the north border is  the Mall, containing St James’s Palace and Clarence House, with Trafalgar Square on the North East corner. Horse Guards Parade is on the Eastern edge, where you can see the Changing of the Guard and the Trooping of the Colour. The South East corner has Westminster Square with the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Cathedral.

The park itself is beautiful too,  with plenty of shade from sycamore trees lining Birdcage Walk, which used to be where James the first kept his exotic bird collection. The park still has pelicans which are descended from the ones given by Russia to Charles the second in 1664. You can watch them being fed every day at 2.30pm.  There is plenty of other wildlife and you will need to protect your picnic from both squirrels and pigeons, who have become used to being fed by visitors to the park.

There is a beautiful ornamental lake, with two small islands. The lake can be crossed by a bridge. The Blue Bridge is its official name, but it is sometimes called by the more romantic name Bridge of Spies,  the views from this bride are small but spectacular. Buckingham Palace is framed by trees looking west. Looking east, The London Eye is flanked by the turrets of the Old Admiralty building and could be mistaken for a scene from a Disney movie.

The gardens are always well maintained and the flower beds are full of flowers in season whatever time of year you visit, though they are at their most colourful in spring and summer. Pall Mall the wide road on the northern edge of the park gets its name from, Paille Maille, an early form of croquet, as it was originally laid as a lawn on which to play.

If you want to combine a day of iconic London attractions with a day in the park, St James’s Park is the one to choose!

Skylark Café, Wandsworth Common, London

The Skylark Café is in a lovely old fashioned building in the middle of Wandsworth Common. It has been decorated in a more up to date fashion once you are inside, with a built in banquette into the bay window and child friendly furnishings in the back room. There is floor space for the children to run around here too. If you prefer a less boisterous area, there is a room at the front which had a more adult clientele on the day we were there. There are also seats outside. The views are pretty, Wandsworth Common is well maintained, and there is a pond nearby where you can bring your kids to feed the ducks.

It has a good community notice board although you have to go into the toilet area to read it. It also has a blackboard listing different events that it hosts during the month. In April, for example, it has music days and popup shops. If you would like to see what to expect before you go, it has a particularly well designed website.

The food offering is good. It does soup, sandwiches, and a wide variety of cakes and muffins. There was even healthy snacking food for the ducks! It was busy with parents and children on the weekday early afternoon that we were there, so it is obviously popular with local people. The service was attentive, helpful, and friendly.

It is about halfway along section 5 of the Capital Ring, so it is the perfect point at which to stop for refreshment, if you are doing that walk around London. A very pleasant place, and just what a park café should be.

 

 

The Design Museum, Kensington High Street, London

 

1970s Olivetti Advertisement at the Design Museum

 

The Design Museum has a new building on Kensington High Street. The setting is lovely, right on the edge of Holland Park. The building itself is, as you would expect, beautifully designed. The interior is bright and spacious, filled with indirect light, the curves of the roof are attractive, the stairs and levels of the building are cleverly arranged to describe a pleasing combination of form and function, the atrium widening as it rises, with built in seating among the stairs on the lower levels and along the walls, further up.

I like the way, that even now, when it is open and in use, it still has the look and feel of the architect design drawings that would have been put on show at its conception. It will be very interesting to see how the building ages, I have great hopes that the clean lines of the wood, marble and glass will hold the elegance that it has now.

The free exhibition on the third floor is good too, larger and more interactive than it was in the old museum. It is still packed with examples of outstanding design and has many of the pieces that were on display in its old home on the South Bank. The exhibits include the design development of many common household items, for example clocks, phones and headphones from their earliest designs to current iterations.

It will also hold paid for exhibits, currently these are Love and Fear, and Imagine Moscow. However, the permanent exhibition is worth the trip even if you choose not to visit the chargeable offering.  If you go on a fine day, Holland Park is a very pretty park to walk through too, it is well maintained and has nice ordered gardens.

The new Design Museum with regard to its building, setting and free exhibits has to be regarded as a complete success.

The Rookery Café, Streatham Common, London.

The Rookery is an ornamental garden on Streatham Common. It is on the site of an old guest house, now gone,  where Queen Victoria used to visit, to take the water, from the three springs, on Streatham Spa. It is still a very pretty, well maintained garden with long views over South London and the South Downs.

The Rookery Café is a nice, old style, park café, with indoor and outdoor seating. There are  pleasant views from the outdoor tables. It is child and dog friendly. It has bowls for water and dog treats in a jar on the counter.

It has a good selection of hot and cold food. It has vegan, vegetarian and gluten free choices. It has a well maintained community noticeboard offering everything from local plays to invitations to join a brass band.

It is on the Capital Ring, near the end of Section 5, a very pleasant place to stop for refreshment, if you are doing that walk.

Springfield Park Café, Capital Ring, Section 13, London.

Springfield Park is a pretty park with lovely views over Hackney Marshes. The Café is just inside the main entrance to the park on Springfield Road. It is in North London, not far from Stamford Hill.  Its a lovely old fashioned park café with plenty of seats inside and out. The view from the outside seats is very pretty; over the Lea River and the canal boat marina.

The café has a great choice of both hot and cold food, with the menu hand written in chalk on blackboards behind the counter. I loved the, industrial sized, vintage orange press that freshly squeezes your juice while you wait. It looks like it comes from the early 1970s. There is a big community notice board in the hallway, crammed with flyers for events in the area. It has everything from flats to rent, through mindfulness meetings to trombone tuition!

 

View from the tables outside.

 

The park itself is on the Capital Ring, a long distance walk around London. Although the café is  a bit nearer the start of section 13 than the end, it is definitely the nicest place to stop for a break, if you need one.

A lovely café in a very pretty park.