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At the end of the TADS 2016 season, and then again at the end of the 2017 TADS season, I'd declared that we'd had our best year of walking so far and only modesty prevented me from making the same claim for 2018's adventures. If you write and curate the walks yourself you'd look a right pompous old oaf if you announced to the throng that these had been the best walks ever. That's for them to decide.
I'd certainly enjoyed them though. From spring strolls along the Wey in Surrey and the Itchen in Hampshire, a Chiltern challenge that took us from Wendover to Berkhamsted, a historical (and A4 heavy) tour of the dreaming spires of Oxford, autumnal excursions that took us from Newhaven to Lewes and from Gravesend to Rochester, and a fairly lengthy yomp over the South Downs from Hassocks to Hove (and not forgetting our aborted two day trek from Wareham to Swanage and then on to some very windy rocks) we'd certainly seen a variety of different terrains, different weathers, different pubs, and different curry houses.
So it was with a sense of sadness that the season was coming to an end. But also a sense of joy. The sun was shining brightly in the November sky and I'd arrived in Finsbury Park with so much time to spare that I could both enjoy a cream cheese bagel from the Happening Bagel Bakery and witness someone getting arrested.
I lingered outside the Arsenal club store (barely able to recognise any of the players these days) and I was joined by Pam, Shep, Adam, Teresa, Neil, Bee, Eamon, Rachael, Kathy, and new inductee Valia. Kathy and Valia living reasonably locally to the area I was keen that at least some of the sights and stories of the day would be new to them.
Once quorate we wandered out, over Stroud Green Road, on to the wide, grassy, expanses of Finsbury Park as the brown, and fallen, leaves crunched under foot. The boating lake looked autumnal bathed in noon light and I found a spot to address my throng.
Finsbury Park has been the site of gigs by acts as disparate as Jimi Hendrix, The Damned, Madness, The Mission, Bob Dylan,The Sex Pistols, KISS, Pulp, Oasis, New Order (both Kathy & Shep had seen that particular lot at Alexandra Palace the previous evening), Rage Against The Machine, The Stone Roses, Arctic Monkeys, and Queens of the Stone Age.
But its history as one of London's great parks, of course, goes back further. In 1841 the people of Finsbury in the City of London petitioned for their own green space and twenty-eight years later, in 1869, they got one several miles north. So Finsbury Park the area is named after Finsbury Park the park. A park which might have been called Albert Park (the Victorians seemed to name everything either aftse their queen or her husband) and one which appeared carved out of the large expanse of Hornsey Wood. During WWI Finsbury Park was known as a location for pacifist meetings but by the time of WWII it was being used as a military training ground and hosted anti-aircraft guns.
We crossed the train lines and then picked up the linear Parkland Walk which we'd follow for somewhere between two and a half and three miles along the route of the former railway line between Finsbury Park and Alexandra Palace. It's said to be home to 22 species of butterfly, hedgehogs, foxes, bats, muntjacs, and slowworms but we only saw cyclists, joggers, dog walkers, skate ramps, climbing frames, and a disused railway platform.
Oh, and a spriggan. Or at least a sculpture of one made by Marilyn Collins in 1993 based on the legend of the ghastly 'goat-man' who is said to have haunted the walk in the 70s & 80s and who some say Stephen King's short story 'Crouch End' is based on. Some say the spriggan sculpture inspired the story but as the book appeared thirteen years before the spriggan that seems a little fanciful.
Certainly now, the Parkland Walk seems a much safer place without any goat-men and a great idea that other parts of London and the country could learn a lot from. May not be the safest place to walk alone at night, mind!
On reaching the end of the Parkland Walk we come out into Highgate, past the Boogaloo pub (which appears to still serve Harp), where I used to attend wonderful pub quizzes and once met an unsurprisingly sozzled Shane MacGowan, before we continued uphill towards the rather beautiful Highgate Wood.
This stretch, like that of the Parkland Walk, makes up part of the 75 mile circular route they call the Capital Ring (just half the length of the London LOOP), and it was so pleasant that the Capital Ring may become a future walking project.
Highgate Wood, a place I once went 'foraging', was originally part of the Forest of Middlesex which made up much of north London, Essex, and Hertfordshire and also an area where, thanks to charters granted by Henrys I & II in the 12c, 'citizens' could hunt stags, boars, and bulls. Most of it fell into private ownership but some parts remain. As well as Highgate Wood there is the recently visited Harrow Weald Common, Scratchwood, and St.John's Wood whose names reflects its later ownership by the Catholic military order of St John of Jerusalem/the Knights Hospitalier, based variously in Jerusalem, Malta, St Petersburg, and Rhodes. These walks may all be in SE England but they are often truly international.
We saw a couple of squirrels in Highgate Wood but alas none of the 71 species of bird that have been sighted there, nor any of 7 species of bat, the 12 of butterfly, 180 of moth, or 80 of spider. Passing briefly through suburbia our next point of interest was Cherry Tree Wood. Shep and Valia got coffees in as I regaled the troops of how this area was once known as Dirthouse Wood because that's where they'd deposit the horse manure and 'night soil' (that's a euphemism for human manure) that was left on the streets of London. Less ickily Mutton Brook rises here before flowing in to the Brent and at Brentford, obvs, Old Father Thames.
We were now in the borough of Barnet and we stopped briefly to admire the art deco tube station (one of Charles Holden's, you won't be surprised to read) and to take photos of it (the excellent black'n'white one is one of Pam's and both hers and Bee's have contributed to this blog for which I, as ever, thank them).
Less architecturally impressive, but far more moneyed, is The Bishop's Avenue which we'd follow for a mile or so to the edge of Hampstead Heath. These are houses for the very rich - and, for the most part, the very tasteless. They call it Billionaire's Row and it's considered the wealthiest street in London (residents sneer at Buckingham Palace) and one of the most expensive in the world (only streets in Monaco, Hong Kong, and Beverly Hills compare).
There are mansions built in the style of English country houses while others ape Greek, Roman, and Egyptian classical styles. In January 2008 the Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev bought the Toprak Mansion for £50,000,000, the House of Saud sold ten houses on the street for £73,000,000 and Heath Hall was put on the market for a cool £100,000,000.
Former residents include the Sultan of Brunei, Richard Desmond, Poju Zabludowicz, Billy Butlin, Gracie Fields, and Heather Mills but, of course, many of the properties sit empty. A travesty as people starve and freeze in cardboard boxes only a mile or two away. Many, too, are registered to tax havens like Curacao, Panama, the Bahamas, and the British Virgin Islands. Have a look at our bright Brexit future and make your decision. Come to The Bishop's Avenue and put a few windows through or choose your cardboard box.
After a brief bout of Class War we finally reached a pub. The Grade II listed Spaniard's Inn is believed to be haunted by various ghosts and crops up in Bram Stoker's Dracula (Van Helsing and his crew rest here after a hard day's vampire hunting on the nearby heath) and Charles Dickens' The Pickwick Papers. Both Joshua Reynolds and Byron (as well as, according to my friend John Higgins, various Pythons and Pink Floyd members) used to drink in The Spaniard's and Keats wrote Ode to a Nightingale in the garden. I offered to read it but the skies had opened up and we'd decided on a 'two pint mistake', something Adam had 'threatened' earlier to celebrate his new job.
On a clear day, which we were, by now, not enjoying, it's said you can see across to Windsor Castle but The Spaniard's Inn is an impressive enough building in itself. Believed to have been built in 1585 at the entrance of the Bishop of Lanchester's estate with a 1755 boundary stone in the garden and a quaint, yet sturdy, toll house opposite (built 1710 and also listed) which causes the traffic to narrow to one lane.
The rain was not improving, and by all forecasts was not going to improve, so an executive decision was made. We'd had a good day, nobody fancied getting any wetter, and the light was also against us. I ceded control of the walk to Kathy and we cut out the circuit around Hampstead Heath I'd planned (one for another day? Another walk?) and even miss out on The Old Bull & Bush pub which the walk had been named for.
"Come, come, come and make eyes at me down at the Old Bull & Bush. Come, come, have some port wine with me" sang Florrie Forde to holidaying cockneys escaping the smog over a century ago but we wouldn't be drinking port wine in the Old Bull & Bush and nor would we be taking in the views of London from Hampstead Heath, seeing the pergola, or admiring Robert Adam's Kenwood House.
No, we'd be getting wet, slipping over (poor Rachael - I hope she's written the incident up in the TADS accident book) and making haste to the wonderful, and very busy, Holly Bush pub to make like those holidaying cockneys and start drinking like it was already Christmas (most of us anyway, Kathy sensibly abstained - clearly taking her new duties very seriously).
During our first drinks there seemed to be no spot in the pub we could stand where we'd not be in someone's way but, eventually, a table came free and we settled in for what could only be described as a session. A motion was put forward to rename TADS as PTADS (in appreciation of Pam's great achievement of, like Shep and myself, walking every mile of every TADS walk in 2018) and we discussed the best walks, pubs, and curries of the year before the conversation turned to talking absolute bollocks and we headed off to Woodlands for Indian veggie food, bidding a fond adieu to Kathy, Rachael, and Eamon along the way.
Normally I take a photo of the food to complete the blog but such had been the alcohol consumption by this point that I clean forgot. I'd been looking forward to veggie food in this fine establishment which I'd visited before but I can barely comment on what the peshwari naan, tarka daal (shared with Valia), or pilau rice (nicked off Pam) was like as the booze, and assorted 'other nonsense', had ruined my appetite. I can vouch for the fact that the toilets were nice though.
One ruined meal is a small price to pay for a great day out, and a great walk with great friends, though and it was a pleasure to announce that the first TADS walk of 2019 will take us from Gomshall to Dorking via Holmbury St.Mary and will be called, unless I can think of something better, 'Friday Street, I'm In Love'. It'll be in March and it'd be great to see everyone again.
Thanks to all the people who made the 2018 TADS season such fun (that's Shep, Pam, Adam, Teresa, Neil, Eamon, Bee, Kathy, Rachael, and our debutantes Tina, Colin, and Valia. Thanks too to the car lot (or, indeed, the train lot) who popped out to say hi to us along the way or join us for drinks and food. That'd be Darren, Cheryl, Tommy, Rob, Tony, Alex, Grace, Izzie (all twice), and Susannah, Neil W, Bugsy, Carole, Dylan, Naomi, Maya, Zachary, Stephen, and Jhan.
Here's to 2019.
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