Salis Populi Suprema Lex Pt.II

It wasn't 40C like it was three weeks back but it was still up in the mid-thirties pretty much all day yesterday as I lead the second of two walks, Salus Populi Suprema Lex Pt.II, around the outskirts of my home borough of Lewisham, London's borough of culture for 2022.

 

I don't think the extraordinarily warm weather is entirely to blame but these walks have not been my most well attended LbF walks ever. Back in June I was joined by both Mo and Roxanne. Yesterday it was just Mo and myself and even she pulled out just after the halfway point. Understandable really. She wasn't enjoying the intensity of the heat and these things are supposed to be fun.

I thank her for joining me for the parts she did though. I'd been walking alone a lot over the last ten days (I'd done more than 20,000 steps each day since 2nd August and yesterday I was to eventually rack up 27,387 - moving very close to three million steps for the year - though I am still about seven whole days behind where I need to be if I'm to manage my stated target of five million steps in a calendar year) and it was nice to have somebody to chat to.

I'd risen, and set off, early. Picking up a Guardian at the Woodvale Supermarket and hopping on the 363 bus for a quick ride to the Crystal Palace Parade. Even though I live nearby (and can, and do, walk there) I still get excited when the Crystal Palace Tower looms into view and, because I was early, I had time to have a little wander, check out the sphinxes and the views, and do the crosswords and quizzes in my paper, before Mo arrived.

The plan had been to take brunch in the surprisingly lovely Brown and Green cafe in the station concourse but we were informed that the chef was absent and no food was available. That was a pity but it resulted in a rather pleasant discovery - The Davimar Cafe on Anerley Road:- a friendly and unpretentious Portuguese joint.

It was a bit early to indulge in Sagres, Super Bock, or their extensive wine collection so we both had a can of 7-Up and a sandwich. I had cheese and egg (with some nice crisps chucked in) and Mo went for something meatier.

After we'd finished we returned to Crystal Palace station to see if anyone else would be joining us. They wouldn't. So we headed through Crystal Palace Park. It's a park I've long been fond of and yesterday's visit simply reinforced my love for the place. Alpacas, huge dinosaur statues, a boating lake, a big concrete athletics stadium, a couple of lakes, and a statue of a gorilla. What's not to like?

Possibly the fact that there has been so little rainfall in the last couple of months that the lake t he dinosaurs inhabit had pretty much dried up. We're officially in a drought now but the hosepipe ban that has recently been announced seems too little to late. If this weather is to continue, and it surely is, we'll need to be building more reservoirs up and down the country.

Crystal Palace Park is actually in the borough of Bromley but I like to think of Lewisham, my borough, as a friendly borough and these walks don't stand on ceremony. We exited the park on the edge of Penge but soon took Lawrie Park Road which led us into the borough of Lewisham properly and to Sydenham.

Lawrie Park Road is flanked by a few impressively large houses and one of them had a plaque for the almost legendary cricketer W.G.Grace. Despite the fact I'd included Grace in the spiel I'd prepared for the walk I'd completely forgotten he was a Sydenham local. Other notables with links to Sydenham, an area that grew exponentially in the 19c with the introduction of the Croydon Canal, include John Logie Baird, David Bowie, Ernest Shackleton, Bill Wyman, and, less impressively, Rolf Harris.

Again, Sydenham is a short walk from my flat but I don't tend to visit much. I remember doing a pub crawl here in the late nineties and though none of the pubs were terrible, none really stood out either. The area looks to have improved now. The Greyhound pub looked nice and there was a smart little independent bookshop that seemed like a place which would be as easy to waste an afternoon in as The Greyhound.

We crossed the railway line and turned up Silverdale which took us up to Mayow Park - the borough's second oldest public space (after Blackheath) was opened in 1878. It's a smallish, unremarkable, park but it's nice enough. Nobody was doing much except for lounging around in the sun. As Mo correctly pointed out, we were the only one dedicated, or stupid, enough to be out walking!

After Mayow Park, we continued along the almost deserted De Frene Road and Perry Rise before crossing over Bell Green near the big Sainsbury's, a B&Q, and a Sports Direct. Closes and places were named for Alan Pegg and Ron Stockbridge who, after further investigation, appear to be former council members.

A path here leads you to the Pool river and a riverside walk which wasn't as shaded as perhaps we'd hoped. An alternative would be to continue on to Beckenham Place Park and Grove Park (as passed through on the Capital Ring walk). Both are in the borough of Lewisham but that would simply have added too many miles on to an already challenging walk.

So we followed the Pool (a three mile long river that Boris Johnson once fell in) until it merged with the more dominant Ravensbourne. We followed that until we reached Catford. I'd not planned a stop yet as Catford's pubs have rarely impressed but Mo suggested one and I was very amenable to that idea.

There's a bar in the rather lovely new(ish) Catford Mews cinema so we stopped there. Mo had her regular lime'n'soda and I had a pint of lemonade which, I must admit, went down very very well.

On leaving the air-conditioned cinema bar, the heat felt intense. It reminded me of getting out of a car when on holiday in Spain or something. At the end of Catford Broadway there is the infamous Catford cat sculpture. Nearby some wag has drawn a mouse on the wall insisting "PLEASE DON'T TELL THAT GIANT CAT I'M HERE'. Underneath the cat, a young lady with a megaphone extolled the political system of Cuba.

Hmmm. The name Catford is believed to derive from the belief that it marks the site where cattle once crossed the Ravensbourne but some still insist it is cats, not cattle, who crossed that particular tributary here! Architectural highlights, or lowlights, of Catford include a Brutalist shopping centre designed by Owen Luder (see also The Tricorn Centre in Portsmouth and Trinity Square in Gateshead) and a 1932 Art Deco theatre, The Broadway, built by a firm called Bradshaw Gass & Hope who are also responsible for the Lewisham Town Hall that stands next to it.

Catford notables include Ben Elton, Alexander McQueen, Jacqui McShee, Spike Milligan, Andy McNab, Lucy Mangan, my mate Bugsy's dad - Ron, and the band Japan. I can imagine that the young David Sylvian must have been quite a sight in mid-70s Catford.

We followed Rushey Green and Ringstead Road to Mountsfield Park - seemingly one of the few places in Lewisham to actually acknowledge the culture tenure. I'd only visited Mountsfield Park once before. For a little festival with my friend Paola (who, sadly, I have not spoke to for years now) and it was a lot busier then.

There was a game of football going on but most people were hiding from the sun so we strolled across its expanses of dried and dead grass, taking a couple of wrong turns, but eventually emptying out on to Stainton Road. From there we took George Lane, Hither Green Lane, Beacon Road, Nightingale Grove, and Maythorne Cottages towards Hither Green station. 

We passed under the railway tracks and arrived in Hither Green proper. I'd hoped we'd be able to meet my old friend Richard (who lives locally) for a drink but he was in a traffic jam returning from Middlesbrough. We stopped anyway. Hither Green looked nice. It's got a fish'n'chip shop, a cafe, and a decent pub. That'll do.

The Station, which doubles up as a hotel, is surprisingly large but seemed very laid back. It was time for Mo to have another lime'n'soda and me another lemonade as we chatted about tiramisu of all things. Mo was ready to knock it on the head but Hither Green wasn't the easiest place for her to get home from so she agreed to join me until we reached Blackheath and then head off.

Fair enough. Before planning this walk I'd tried to research a little history about Hither Green but all I'd discovered is that there was an awful rail crash there in 1967 in which 49 people died. We left The Station, the sun still intensely blazing down on us, and followed a few suburban roads until we reached the rather delightful Manor House Gardens (strictly speaking in Lee, rather than Hither Green).

There's a nice lake with a fountain and a graceful swan and the river Quaggy, another Ravensbourne tributary, flows through the Gardens. Lee (or Lee Green, it's your choice) is where Edmond Halley is buried (and there's a particulary grotty looking branch of Wetherspoons named for him there too) and it's also famous for having two large pubs with almost the same name. The Old Tiger's Head and The New Tiger's Head. It's also where, in 1837, a watercolourist died in the first ever parachute accident. Lee notables, beside Halley, include Max Wall, Karl Marx, Manfred Mann, John Mayall, and Jude Law.

We took Lee Park (I noted it sounded like the name of a Korean footballer, Mo - understandably - didn't laugh) up to Blackheath. A long slow climb on a day that, thankfully, was mostly downhill. Lee Park reaches Lee Road right by Blackheath Halls (I saw a brilliant Julian Cope gig there once and have always meant to return) and soon we dipped down to Mo's bus stop where we said her goodbyes and I carried on in to Blackheath proper.

I admired the villagey feel of the place, took a photo of the sign to the Martin House on the spectacularly named Tranquil Vale, and, somewhat predictably, dipped into a pub.

The Crown did look very inviting. I imagine most people were making an afternoon of it - and why not - but I just stayed for one pint of Amstel. I charged my phone up and read the Saturday paper - and I watched the world going by. It was rather enjoyable - even though I was on my own. When I'm in a good mood (and I was) I actually quite like my own company.

There's more Blackheath history in the blog I wrote about our final TADS walk of 2019 but it is worth remarking again that Blackheath is well served by cosy pubs and very very well served by large open spaces. Sometimes green but very much yellow and brown now. I should really come here more often.

As I passed up the aforementioned Tranquil Vale I looked across to the Gothic Revival All Saint's church. Opened in 1858, its architect Benjamin Ferrey built a lot of churches but this must be one of his best. Its spire proudly piercing the sea of blue that is the August sky of London in 2022.

I passed by some of the big houses on Eliot Place, Aberdeen Terrace, and Mounts Pond Road before descending down Eliot Hill and Lewisham Hill to the far more prosaic location of Lewisham itself,

I wasn't to do much Lewisham exploration as just before the railway bridge, I took Silk Mills Path along the side of the Ravensbourne up to, via a rather confusing building site that forced me to take a diversion through a petrol station forecourt, Elverson Bridge and the flat where my friends Dan and Misa used to live. I helped them move in back in 2014.

With the tower blocks of Lewisham now behind me I crossed the DLR line into the pretty little Brookmill Park and followed, for a little longer, the course of the Ravensbourne. Just after another small park, Broadway Gardens, I found myself back on New Cross Road. Where I'd started this perambulation on the perimeter of the borough two months back.

It wasn't long before I was back on Deptford High Street and there I'd pop in to a pub called the Job Centre (I think it is actually the old Job Centre, it seems a typical Antic wheeze as does the bizarre sight of a dressing table in the toilets) for a quick pint of Estrella and to upload some photos to Facebook and read the paper. I was most pleased to see that Brentford were 4-0 against Man Utd in the first half. The scoreline was to stay that way and by the end of the day, and, admittedly, after only two games, Man Utd would be propping up the Premiership.

My mood was certainly good - and that made it better. Better still though was Hullabaloo. A vegan and vegetarian Indian street food joint. I took a seat inside, I was the only customer but others soon arrived, and tucked into absolutely delicious korma tofu, pulao rice, and butter naan. Washed down with a mouth watering and refreshing mango lassi. I certainly plan to visit Hullabloo again.

I left there and though, if Shep and Pam had been there, the temptation to visit Deptford's real ale mecca The Dog and Bell was tempting it wasn't tempting enough. Instead I headed back down the High Street and back down New Cross Road, I hopped on a DLR train at Deptford Bridge and picked up the P4 at Lewisham. I was home in time to watch those Brentford goals on Match of the Day (Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, and Micah Richards actually laughing at how crap Man U are now) and to wonder if I'd manage to sleep on one of the hottest nights of the year.

It didn't matter too much if I did or didn't. What mattered, to me, was having a nice day out walking. Thanks to Mo for joining me. LbF don't roll again until October now, up in the wilds of Becontree, but TADS are back much sooner. In a fortnight's time we'll be up in Llandudno. The weather should be cooler and there will be more people there. I love Llandudno. But I also love Lewisham. Even if not many other people seem to!