If we thought last year's enforced hiatus in our Capital Ring walking project was a long one (there was a more than four month gap, because of lockdown, between the stretch from Eltham to Streatham and the next walk which took us from Streatham to Richmond) it was as nothing compared to the eight month gap that bridged the entire winter of 2020/21 and most of this year's spring.
It was more than eight months since we arrived in Hendon from Greenford before we found ourselves back there and it was, of course, fantastic to be back. Not a thing I thought I'd ever say about slightly careworn and traffic polluted Hendon. I'd been checking the weather forecast all week and it was getting better and better and when my chosen dream team of Shep, Pam (of course - they are the co-collaborators on this project), Ian, Kathy, and Mike all confirmed their attendance it had the makings of a great day before it had even begun.
It didn't disappoint. I took the 63 bus to Blackfriars where I thought I'd be able to take a train straight to Hendon. I couldn't. I crossed the bridge intending to catch the tube but the tube station was closed so I hopped on a train to Kentish Town (which Pam, typically, was already on). We changed there, again at Camden, and arrived in Hendon, having had a good ol' natter en route, half an hour early.
We thought we'd beaten Shep (who is notoriously early for everything) but, of course, he was already there too. We briefly admired the Art Deco tube station which I imagined to be one of Charles Holden's but have since discovered (thanks Wikipedia) is by a man called Stanley Heaps who is also responsible for the tube stations at Kilburn Park, Brent Cross, Edgware, and Osterley.
Wikipedia even claims its style is neo-Georgian rather than Art Deco. I could find less information on the Nuffield Health Centre across the road which also seemed to have some kind of Art Deco facade. Possibly a converted cinema I thought but I can confirm nothing except to say it is the absolute epitome of faded glamour.
Our excitement about this walk had been predicated, somewhat, by the promise of tasty vegetarian, and kosher - this is a big Jewish area - the hats tell you that, in the Hendon Park Cafe but it was closed. Which I soon realised was probably because it was Saturday, the Jewish holy day. It's, maybe, something that should have clicked sooner. Perhaps I need to undergo some diversity training so such mistakes are not made in the future.
Disappointed - but not for long. We crossed back over the busy A41 and took a table and three seats outside the rather pleasant looking (if you can ignore the traffic) CafeGenic. Friendly staff brought me a wild mushroom and feta brunch, Shep a vegan on toast equivalent, and Pam (who generously footed the bill) took a breakfast/lunch combo of asparagus, spinach and goat cheese which marginally, if ultimately, defeated her.
Tasty though it all was. I washed it down with a cappuccino and Ian joined us. Hanging from the night before he downed a can of sugar-free Coke and we set off, for the penultimate time, on the walk they call the Capital Ring. It was good to see those green signs again.
We passed through Hendon Park, a pleasant if unremarkable green space, and a quiet housing estate until we found ourselves crossing the Brent river where our attention was diverted by, in Colin Saunders' words, "two pepperpot gazebos either side of a weir". They are survivors, just, from a time when the gardens either side of the river belonged to the Brent Bridge Hotel which was demolished in 1974.
During the dance hall days of the twenties and thirties the Brent Bridge Hotel was the venue of Pat O'Malley's Romany Band, one of the period's leading combos and one, I must admit, that I had never heard of before. Now the gazebos seem to be used for local youth to drink strong cider - which, in fairness, is probably not that different from their intended original application.
Soon we were on, albeit briefly, "the noisiest road in Britain" - the North Circular, the A406. Six lanes of traffic make it, essentially, a motorway that you can walk along and though Brook Lodge looks like a decent Art Deco pile to call home the traffic, and the noise of the traffic, on this stretch surely makes it far less desirable than it otherwise would have been.
We soon dipped off the A406 into Brent Park and followed a path that ran roughly parallel with the river. Created from an area that had been left undeveloped in case of flooding, it was rather pleasant - even with the roar of traffic in the background. There was a little waterfall, a reasonably cute bridge, and duckweed filled ponds. One called The Decoy where once ducks were lured and captured.
A short walk along Brookside Walk and past a little playground (where talk turned to who the few football fans among us wanted to win that evening's Champions League final - Man City was the general consensus but a kid on the swings who overheard us made a case, a correct one as it happened, quite loudly for Chelsea) brought us to the source of the Brent.
It's formed where the Dollis Brook meets the Mutton Brook and we would be following the less amusingly named of these waterways along the Dollis Valley Greenwalk on tarmac paths, through fields, and under bridges until we reached the Finchley Road junction with the North Circular. On crossing Finchley Road our book told us to look left and on the horizon we should be able to see a sculpture colloquially known as the Naked Lady (actually La Delivrance by Emile Guillame, a commemoration of the alliance of British and French troops at the Battle of the Marne in 1914).
No matter how hard we tried, and we tried hard - you don't see many naked ladies on the North Circular, we couldn't find it. We dipped again into paths alongside busy roads and, at one point, I thought we'd gone the wrong way. We hadn't - but it was good to see a sign again. Directing us into Northway Gardens and past a cafe called Toulous. Named, we discovered, for the fact it was built from converted 'facilities'.
The Dollis Brook here was narrow enough to jump over (and if we were younger I'm sure we could not have resisted temptation to do so) and the stretch was pleasant. It would remain so as we passed through Hampstead Garden Suburb. A part of London I had long intended to visit but never quite got round to.
Until now. It didn't disappoint. Hampstead Garden Suburb is the brainchild of philanthropist and social reformer Henrietta Barnett who, in 1906, set up a trust to acquire land in the area. Partly to extend Hampstead Heath but, more so, to develop an "integrated community where people from all backgrounds can live in pleasant surroundings". A "brave social experiment" that, you will be unsurprised to read, was undermined by commercial imperatives.
Hampstead Garden Suburb is now one of the most affluent parts of London. Though compared to, say, Holland Park or The Bishop's Avenue, it wears its wealth (a little) less ostentatiously. From the 1930s style modernist white blocks with, according to Pam, Crittall windows to the red brick and mock-Tudor framed cottages and semis with elegant and fastidiously trimmed hedgerows, the area is an architecture lover's delight and the fact it's not so far from more 'buzzy' zones means, at least I presume, that that dreaded sense of suburban ennui so often associated with these locales, is less likely to permeate the soul.
Of course, I don't know. It's just how I imagine it feels to live in Hampstead Garden Suburb. It's certainly a contrast to East Finchley on the other, though I'd not say wrong, side of the tracks. We had to pass through East Finchley station which is, undeniably, Art Deco, Streamline Moderne even, and designed by that man - Charles Holden.
Topped by Eric Aumonier's statue of an Archer, East Finchley station is a delight but, for us, The Old White Lion pub proved even more delightful. The sunshine, the beer, and the extraordinarily prompt service (we were asked for our order three times within five minutes of sitting down) made this pit stop one of those where all of life's worries seemed to just disappear. Pam and Shep took an ale and me and Ian, with the sun out, went for lager.
A two pint 'mistake' could have easily happened, and in Ian's case did, but we knew that Kathy and Mike were waiting for us so we passed quickly through Cherry Tree Wood (previously Dirthouse Wood!), along a few more suburban streets in now even brighter sunshine, and up a steep path and into Highgate Wood.
Another that's changed its name (it was one Gravel Pit Wood) and, like Cherry Tree Wood, once part of the Forest of Middlesex that was acquired by the Corporation of London in 19th century with the idea of being maintained in perpetuity for the recreation of Londoners. At a time, like now, when space was at a premium it was an admirable achievement.
We passed a granite drinking fountain and didn't even stop to read the inscription by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Inscription for a fountain on a heath" was penned by him in 1802 apparently, and crossed Muswell Hill Road into Queen's Wood where we met Kathy and Mike (nursing a can of ginger beer) sat outside the closed Queen's Wood Cafe. It's a hilly ol' area is Queen's Wood but it made for a pleasant stretch into Highgate where Kathy's research had found that both The Woodman and The Boogaloo pub (I met Shane MacGowan there once, did I ever tell you?) were both fully booked.
Undeterred, we ambled on, leaving the borough of Brent for that of Haringey, and making our way to the Parkland Walk (a journey that TADS closed their season, quite memorably, off with back in 2018).
It's an interesting stretch. Sometimes it feels quite wild and yet, as the graffiti attests, it can feel very urban in places. The wide, gracefully curving, path follows the track of the former Edgware, Highgate & London Railway line to Finsbury Park for about three miles. It wasn't very successful as a railway line and when, in the 1930s, attempts to electrify the track and make it part of the Northern Line were abandoned due to the outbreak of World War II it closed.
Until 1984 it stayed closed. But for nearly forty years now it has been London's longest linear park and a nature reserve to boot. As you walk along it there are some old railway station platforms and bridges still intact and there is, most famously of all, a 'spriggan'. A supposedly fearful creature from local folklore sculpted by Marilyn Collins and the supposed inspiration for the Stephen King short story Crouch End. 'Supposed' because the story was released four years before the spriggan appeared. Although urban myths about a ghostly "goat-man" along this stretch were already circulating at that point, so it's possible that both King and Collins were equally inspired by this, rather than each other.
Elsewhere there is graffiti of mushrooms, stoned looking felines, and colourful tags and though it's a long stretch it's an easy one. Pleasant, flat, always something to look at. You're in Finsbury Park before you know it and with the sun now blaring, Finsbury Park was busy, vibrant, and rather lovely. Though having seen gigs there by Madness, The Cult, The Pogues, and many others there over the years the park has always had a place in my heart.
Developed from the old Hornsey Wood in 1862 as, infamously, a playground for the citizens of Finsbury, several miles away in the City!, we were ushered by our book to the northern sector of the park and the New River where we would pick up, for a while, the route of one of my 2019 London by Foot walks.
Back in 2019, our walk along the New River was enlivened partially by the sight of multiple crayfish but, on Saturday, they were not in evidence and it was the waterfowl who were dominating. Swans, coots, geese (both Egyptian and greylag), mallards, mandarins, and even a solitary heron were all either putting on a display in the water, sleeping, or sunbathing on the New's grassy banks. As Shep remarked the only noticeable absentees were the moorhens.
Some of the nests of the New River Path were pretty impressive too and it was almost as nice to take in the view across the marshes and reservoirs to the skyscrapers of the City as it was to stop for a '99 ice cream. Even if I got vanilla in my moustache when posing for a photo with Ian and his blue Slush Puppy.
I've written in more detail about the New River before (and even unpacked that "it's not new and it's not a river" joke) but a quick recap:- it was completed in 1613 to bring fresh water to London from springs near Ware in Hertfordshire, the engineer responsible was the Welshman Sir Hugh Myddelton - various roads are named after him on the New's route, and nowadays these reservoirs are where it officially ends though there are minor flows, barely more than ditches, as you continue south.
As the New River snakes towards its end it is flanked both by, mostly empty, glass and steel new builds and Woodberry Down, Britain's largest council housing estate which comprises over fifty blocks of flats. In that it is very typical of both what makes London so fascinating but also what makes it so unequal. The kids from the council blocks at least get to make use of the playgrounds due to the fact that many of the properties in the new development are intentionally left empty like real estate trading chips. Pricing locals out of the area and risking leaving it a ghost town. Thank goodness for the Woodberry Down kids.
The area was not short of life, either human or aquatic and avian. The Castle pumping station was built in 1855 with turrets and battlements to disguise its true purpose, the Victorians were not only shy about their own bodies but the body of the city and it wasn't just table legs they covered up but municipal buildings deemed by their sensibilities infra dig. Now it's a climbing centre and Mike informed me of a rumour, an almost certainly untrue one, that on climbing the highest tower there is a secret bar at the top!
We stopped for more drinks in The Brownswood pub on Green Lanes and they went down agreeably enough that this time we did indulge in seconds (although, it is noted for the record that Pam had a Coke!) before heading into the "under-rated", according to Ian but I concur, Clissold Park. Beautiful green grass, beautiful blue sky, and, in this weather it always feels this way to me, beautiful people making the most, at long last, of their bank holiday weekend.
Clissold Park is named for the Reverend Augustus Clissold, a local parson in the 19c whose beloved Eliza Crawshay had a father who hated parsons. They wed on her father's death and renamed his home Clissold House (it had been Paradise House) and that would later extend to the park. The skyline in this area is dominated by the spire of Stoke Newington's St Mary's Church. Built in a Gothic Revival style, in 1856, by George Gilbert Scott - an architect more famed for the St Pancras railway station and the Albert Memorial (as well as the Christ Church in Ottershaw, a sight on last year's Woking to West Byfleet TADS walk).
In Stoke Newington, an area I've always been fond of and one full of interesting bars, good restaurants, and boutiques - at least if you stay on Church Street and don't venture to the High Street, I spotted the former home of author Daniel Defoe before the six of us dipped into Rasa N16, a pink (or is it purple?) South Indian veggie joint of no little repute.
Cobra beers were ordered, starters of poppadoms, pappadavadai, banana chips, murukku ("octopus things" - Mike), and achappam were consumed, and I had nadan paripu as a main course. That's a Keralan lentil curry not too dissimilar to tarka daal which looked messy but tasted delicious, not least with a chapatti on the side, but did lack a little kick.
A second round of Cobras was ordered and conversation turned to bizarre television shows of our youth. Murun Buchstansangur, Gideon, Ludwig, and What's Up Doc? were all discussed and much laughter was had before Pam set off home and the rest of us retreated to The Auld Shillelagh's beer garden for lasties.
I was having such a nice time I didn't want to go home when the pub closed but as we thought nothing else was open we parted ways and I walked down to Dalston Junction. Of course I passed about ten or more bars still open but a solo mission felt a stupid idea so I saw sense, quit when I was ahead, and arrived at Dalston Junction, only to find the station closed.
I took a bus to London Bridge, another to Elephant & Castle, and, finally, the 363 back home. When I arrived home it was nearly 2am. I'd walked 31,503 steps on Saturday (a 2021 record - so far) and I had even notched up over 4,000 towards Sunday's tally before I went to bed. Tired but very happy that I had just had possibly my best day out of the year so far.
Next time, and this feels remarkable considering all the lockdowns, we are on the final stretch. From Stoke Newington back to Woolwich where it all began. We'll sort a date out for it soon but I can hardly wait to do it, to finish it, and then to start the next walking project. From now on, I will appreciate these walks, which were always appreciated anyway, just that little bit more.
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