The Thames Path Part I:Thames Barrier to Tower Bridge (Wharves with Dwarves and Squeezers under Skyscrapers).

After completing both the London LOOP and the Capital Ring it was time for a new project and one that seemed very tempting was walking the Thames (from mouth, or as near as) to source in Gloucestershire. Shep had actually done it on his own about five years back but Pam and I hadn't - and we were up for it.

Adam, Bee, and Mo, it turns out, were too - and there was a special guest en route as well which I'll come to later. In fact, as the Thames flows through places like Reading and Oxford it seems highly likely there will be many special guests as this project, a 180 mile one, pans out.

 

But it started in quite inauspicious circumstances. With a cup of tea, a can of Coke, and a plate of beans on toast at The Valley Cafe in Charlton (it's even got views, just, of Charlton FC's mostly hidden stadium). I'd arrived first but soon Shep, Adam, Pam, Bee, and Mo joined us and once fed and watered we made our way down the A206/Woolwich Road, past a demolished old pub full of litter and holes in the floor called The Victoria which carried the graffiti legend #FINDTINA (which later research revealed was about the case of a missing pug), and through Moore Park to the Thames Barrier itself where the walk, proper, would begin.

 

Which meant, of course, a quick team photo, a look over to the Tate & Lyle sugar refinery (an old favourite from previous walks though this time we weren't downwind of its sugary smell), and a chance to consider the river, and the distance, ahead. Logistics will get tricky as this walk develops but it looks, to me, like that it will all be worthwhile.

I've written, before, many times, about the Thames and I'll include history in this blog as and when we pass it, discuss it, or just if I feel inclined to do so but, for now, the main aim was to get walking and, for me, to get to grips with the book, Thames Path in London by Phoebe Clapham, that would be our bible of sorts for the next few walks. Not that we can go too far wrong following the route of a river as large and wide as the Thames. Phoebe's written the book as if walking from source to mouth but because we're going the other way round, and also because there are sometimes north bank and south bank options, it's not always as easy to navigate the book as it is the river.

It's a fine tome though and one I was glad Shep, via Adam, remembered to present to me as soon as they arrived. It informed that the Thames Barrier started operating in 1982 and, at time of publication, had been raised more than 179 times to protect London from flooding. Its nine steel piers point inland while smaller 'keels' behind that look like yellow cranes provide the mechanism for raising the barrier that, when not needed, rests on concrete sills on the riverbed.

In an area that was predominantly, and aesthetically pleasingly, industrial/post-industrial it was a joy to spot a brace of Egyptian geese enjoying the brisk January day by the riverside. Most of us love waterfowl and Egyptian geese are among the finest examples available on these isles. Hopefully they, and other birds, will become a regular feature of these walks.

A rusty old pier festooned with cormorants confirmed these hopes almost immediately and though the Anchor & Hope pub looked quite pleasant it was nowhere near time for a pub stop yet. We do actually like to do some walking on these walks.

 

As we passed the Greenwich Yacht Club, some graffiti that confirmed the rumours that LAUREN BROWN LOVES MILWALL, the river began to curve north into the Greenwich Peninsula with the sight of the O2 and the Emirates Air Line ahead and the view of the river Lee, or Bow Creek, flowing into the Thames. Our first tributary of the trip. The northern trip of the Greenwich peninsula has become something of a destination for all manner of eating, drinking, and nights out now (far from the Millennium Dome's original reputation as a lame duck) and also, we discovered, a bit of an outdoor art park.

It's a far cry from the 17c when it was known as Blackwall Point and regularly could be seen the bodies of executed pirates in cages to deter would be imitators. Among the art there was some kind of bum crack in bronze by Gary Hume called Liberty Grip, something that looked like seamonsters out in the river a bit, and lots of other sculptures. 

 

My two favourite pieces were Richard Wilson's Slice of Reality, one eighth of an old sand dredger and Thomson & Craighead's Here, a sign to Here marked with a distance of 24,859. Which we soon read was the amount of miles it would take to walk round the world and return to, well, here. There's a future walking project for some very ambitious ramblers.

 

Elsewhere there were people climbing over the roof of the O2 (as I had done some years ago with my nephew Dan and his friend Sam) and others taking their energy out on golf balls on a pretty vast shooting range. We continued on in to Greenwich itself. The Cutty Sark pub (a former pub stop on one of our walks and one in which a friend of mine, another Dan, had a very pleasant stag day pint or two nearly ten years ago) looked pretty busy so, after taking in a rather pleasant row of terraced houses and a somewhat contentious monument to "ANIMALS WHO DIED NOT OF FOOT AND MOUTH BUT OF THE CURE FOR FOOT AND MOUTH", we continued on. We knew Greenwich was awash with pubs but we also knew Greenwich gets very busy at the weekend.

Visit midweek (as I have often have to attend Greenwich Skeptics in the Pub events) and it's surprisingly quiet. On the Greenwich riverfront we took in the juxtaposition between the large industrial Greenwich Power Station (it looks dilapidated but is still working, though now powered by gas rather than coal) and the more traditionally picturesque Trinity Hospital almshouse, founded in 1616.

The heart shaped pattern of 'brownery' looked inviting but The Yacht pub less so. I've nothing against standing in a pub screaming at men playing football on television (Man City were playing Chelsea, they beat them 1-0) but it wasn't the day for it. Truth be told, not many of my days now are the day for it. I don't hate football but I'm less interested in it than I have been for a long time.

The Trafalgar Tavern, a pub in which I celebrated (quite heavily) my 40th birthday, looked pretty busy but they didn't have football on and they found us a table. Pam became the first of us to buy a round on this Thames Path project (I had a Red Stripe though I plan to try more local ales as we get further out) and then, as if by magic - like the shopkeeper from Mr Benn, Eamon appeared.

The 'international man of mystery' was dressed as if on his way to a jewel heist but it was really good to see him, for the first time since 2020. On departing the Trafalgar Tavern we bade a fond adieu to Nelson and took in the splendid architectural set piece of the Royal Naval College and Inigo Jones' Queen's House with the Observatory in Greenwich Park standing tall in the background.

A mean time was had (sorry!) when we straddled the international date line and, next, we were admiring, as you must do when you visit Greenwich, the Cutty Sark with Hawksmoor's St Alfege Church standing proud in the distance. The Cutty Sark was built in 1869 to carry tea from China to Britain  and was, in 2007 - you may recall, nearly destroyed by fire.

 

Now restored, we took some snaps and headed off to cross over our second tributary of the walk. The Ravensbourne is carried in to the Thames via a muddy waterway by the name of Deptford Creek. Just as you get to the other side of it, you're treated to the sight of what must be one of London's most peculiar statues.

A statue of Peter the Great with a small head but a big hat. Flanking him are an empty throne and a statue of his favourite court dwarf. Who doesn't have a favourite court dwarf? I found him so strange I've made him the cover image of this blog. The statue was a gift from Russia to mark the tercentenary of the Tsar's time in London. It's an odd gift but it's better than novichok or polonium.

 

We passed through the incongruously, but pleasantly, named Twinkle Park and managed to avoid being sucked into Deptford's delightful Dog & Bell pub. It's something of a real ale mecca and I've enjoyed trips there with my friends Tony, Dan, and Gareth in the past. There were plenty of people outside so one assumes the interior was even busier. It looked a lot like Xmas even though we were halfway into January.

Around about this point Adam realised he'd been enjoying his Beavertown Neck Oil (and our company) so much he'd left his rucksack in the Trafalgar Tavern. We'd walked half an hour from that pub by then but he decided to go back and meet us in whatever the next pub stop turned out to be. It added an hour, and several thousand steps - his least favourite unit of measurement, to his day's walking but at least when he got there his rucksack was on the floor by the table where he'd left it. Phew!

Still away from the river, it not being possible to hew too close to the banks here, and in a part of London I surprised myself by being completely unfamiliar with, we arrived next at Sayes Court Park. Named in honour of the writer John Evelyn who acquired it in 1653. Forty-five years later when our old friend Peter the Great came to London to study shipbuilding and planted the mulberry tree (below) that remains in the park to this day.

 

Peter the Great, then in his mid-twenties, and his entourage were no respecters of other's property. They used Evelyn's oil paintings as dartboards and wrecked the walls and hedges with their drunken shenanigans.

We soon followed a slightly prosaic section of tower blocks, flats, and standard arcades of shops. Livened up, some of us are very puerile, by seeing the below graffiti on a fingerpost. We'll eventually reach Oxford, 110 miles away, but for now we simply crossed from Deptford into Rotherhithe. On the shores of the Thames were the remnants of the once all powerful shipbuilding industry that was based here, on the streets we saw anti-vax bullshit written on signs informing people they must wear face coverings when boarding vessels, and odd sculptures and pretty bridges across the channels that lead to the former docks.

 

On sighting a duckhouse, we remarked upon the days of the expenses scandal and how innocent that all seems in light of our current government's wanton corruption and destruction of the country. Boris Johnson and the crooks and cronies that make up his administration would be enough to drive anyone to drink (they certainly seem to drive each other to drink) and luckily enough The Blacksmiths Arms looked very inviting as darkness began to fall.

It was lovely and toasty in there and though the selection of ales disappointed some, the staff were super friendly and allowed us to sit in the dining area as all the seats in the public bar were taken. We'd only been in there a few minutes when Adam, who must have been moving pretty fast, caught us up. 

 

Some drinks went down so well that a few of the thirsty walkers went back for 'squeezers'. A phrase coined, for the first time, right in this pub that very night but likely to be repeated often. A squeezer is a drink you squeeze in while waiting for someone else to polish off their pint. I'm a slow drinker, well - sometimes, so I am seen as an enabler of the squeezers. At one point the term 'squeezer' was used so much that Mo asked us to stop saying it!

 

On exiting The Blacksmiths Arms it was properly dark and the skyline of the Isle of Dogs, with all its buildings lit up, impressed. It's changed so much in recent years that if I'd simply seen a photo of it I may have assumed it was some large city in China. The most famous building on the Isle of Dogs, Canary Wharf, was hidden behind the 234 metre tall Landmark Pinnacle, London's 4th tallest building.

Oddly enough Canary Wharf, or One Canada Square to give it its real name, is actually two metres taller (making it London's third tallest) but the perspective gives the illusion of the Landmark Pinnacle towering above it.

From here the river straightens itself out and we found ourselves in a part of Rotherhithe I was actually familiar with. A small gathering were enjoying festivities at a low key looking event near The Mayflower pub, a lovely little boozer with decking that sits atop the river itself and sometimes becomes engulfed with choppy Thames brine. The pub was enjoying a spillover of custom, rather than water, when we passed.

It's actually where, or very nearby, the Mayflower sailed from in 1620, taking a cargo of Puritans to the New World. So you can blame them for the American obsession with God. Not long after that, on Bermondsey Wall East, you meet with more curious statues. These are known, collectively, as Dr Salter's Daydream and they're some kind of tribute to Dr Alfred Salter and his wife Ada. Alfred played a major role in increasing conditions in this once notoriously impoverished area in in the early 20th century and Ada, Bermondsey's first female councillor, encouraged women working in local factories to join unions. The Salters sound like good people.

 

Behind the statues, and for the first time all day, Tower Bridge (our end point) came into view. I overheard a passing Italian, on seeing the view, exclaim to his friend "bello" and he wasn't wrong. We passed through the wharves, cobbled streets, and overhead bridges of Shad Thames and its surrounding roads and past where the old Design Museum used to be before it moved to Holland Park. It's an area I've always found both attractive and interesting.

 

On Horsleydown Lane, we stopped for one last drink before food in The Anchor Tap. Surprisingly, a Sam Smith's (they're usually found in the City and Fitzrovia). While I was in the toilet cubicle I heard a group of lads, quite refreshed lads, come in and while urinating discuss the size and odours of each other's 'members'.

 

Toilet etiquette has changed a bit since I was a lad but sadly I took this conversation with me back to the table and soon the differences in male and female public toilets were discussed in what was possibly far too much detail! More importantly, I looked into the local curry houses. Ruling out those that promised 'elegant' dining and, disappointingly, finding the Tower Tandoori booked I made a quick reservation (for six, Adam decided to chip off) at Shad, not far away on Tooley Street.

 

3.6/5 reviews on the Internet were probably a bit harsh as the Cobras were sharp, the poppadums crisp, and my veggie dansak (with cheese nan) a perfect level of spiciness. Staff were friendly, company remained convivial, and when it was all done and everyone else had departed Shep and I had a quick debrief in The Shipwrights Arms where he admired a large Turkish Kangal dog.

We headed back to London Bridge together and I took the train to Honor Oak Park and went home. It had been a good day, an absolute tonic in fact after a week in which I'd felt listless and fed up, and there will be, I'm sure, even better days to come on the Thames Path project as the river reveals its mysteries and secrets to us.

Thanks to Shep, Adam, Pam, Bee, Mo, and Eamon for joining me on this walk (and for some of the photos used in this blog). Next time we'll reconvene at Tower Bridge and aim for Hammersmith. A part of London I've always been fond of and one that just happens to have a rather lovely vegetarian Indian restaurant.