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If you thought Brexit uncertainty was bad, welcome to coronavirus confusion. The day before yesterday's planned Capital Ring walk I checked with my two co-conspirators in this project, Shep and Pam, to see if we should postpone or if we should plough on with our intended plans. Government policy seems to be both to try avoid catching coronavirus and to try and catch it so we can create 'herd immunity'. The second of those seems a pretty dangerous gamble as it is but when you're operating both policies at once you're creating mass confusion and, potentially, vastly increasing the eventual death toll.
But, hey, people voted in a government they knew was immoral and lied - so it's probably a bit late to start looking for serious advice from them. Elsewhere there seems to be the kind of panic and confusion that results in people stupidly, greedily, and damagingly stockpiling toilet rolls, hand sanitiser, and pasta (anyone stockpiling loo roll should be forced to wipe their neighbour's bums for them - with their hands if they value bogroll so much) or the kind of delusional thinking that suggests it's all a hoax or a conspiracy.
So to find a sane path between these two extremes is difficult. Some friends on social media seem to be demanding others stay in (many from busy outdoor locations, hypocritically) while others seem to be going about business pretty much as usual. Our considered choice, and one we have no idea if it's right or not, was to go for a walk. The basic thing seems to be no large gatherings in enclosed spaces and a walk for three/four people in mostly large open spaces seemed quite the opposite to that. I ended up walking 35,492 steps (more even than last Saturday, and a 2020 record) which is probably about the same distance I'll need to cover to find some toilet roll soon.
So yesterday at 10am I was on the 122 bus from Brockley Rise to (near) Eltham. We were starting at Eltham because last time we finished our walking there. The Park Tavern had been too inviting and it had got too dark to see Eltham Palace (which I, personally, wanted to see) so we'd hopped in an Uber to Grove Park to continue our day's fun. The plan had always been to walk from Eltham to Grove Park before adding the two stretches from Grove Park to Crystal Palace and from Crystal Palace to Streatham.
We knew it would be a long one. It certainly felt it. It was one I nearly didn't make but more of that later. I met both Shep and Pam in the Top Chef Cafe in Eltham. A perfectly serviceable greasy spoon with a Turkish slant and a couple of unusual meaty dishes called ENRICH YOUR IRON and BODY BUILDER as well as the mysterious breakfast stick, whatever that is.
I had a cup of tea and mistakenly ordered cheese on toast instead of scrambled egg on toast. It turned out to be a lucky accident, it was delicious and it set me up for a long stretch before we'd convene again. Pam's veggie breakfast was huge so she must have felt the same.
We passed into the centre of Eltham, past a church, the shops, and The Park Tavern which proved our undoing last time, and then we picked up the route of the Capital Ring on North Park which soon crossed into the wonderfully named Tilt Yard Approach and down towards Eltham Palace. A place I'd visited over a decade back but didn't have a very clear memory of.
It was certainly more impressive than I'd recalled. It's not changed. I have. It's hard to believe you're only a few minutes away from Eltham's bustling, and somewhat ordinary, high street here. A mustard and chocolate timber framed building from the 16th century (which was once the Chancellor's Lodgings where occasional visitors included Sir Thomas More and Cardinal Wolsey) looks across a road and a moat to the palace itself. It makes for a fantastic architectural set piece.
Eltham Palace was the principal country residence of the English monarchy for nearly two hundred and fifty years, from the early 14c to the mid 16c, and was surrounded by a huge deer park used, of course, for hunting. The hammerbeam roof of The Great Hall was added in 1470 but under the reign of Henry VIII the palace fell out of favour and activities were transferred to Greenwich and Hampton Court.
Even so, Elizabeth I still stayed at Eltham and during the Civil War both palace and gardens were ransacked by Cromwell's troops. In the 1930s the palace was acquired by the textile famous Courtauld family and they built a flamboyant art deco mansion (that's definitely worth a visit - we really didn't have the time). They moved out during WWII and the hall was used as a military college until, in 1992, English Heritage restored the whole complex since when it's stood as a popular, if somewhat off the beaten track, tourist attraction.
From the palace we headed down King John's Walk (a road thought to be named after the French king Jean II who exercised there while held captive in the 14c). Gates are adorned with the white rose of the House of York whose kings reigned 1461-1485. A sticker of a bear had been added and, nearby, somebody had fashioned an apple holder bird feeder from lolly sticks which hung from a tree, full of peck holes.
Views across rustic and rural fields of horses went as far as the skylines of the City and Docklands and on a grey day they looked incredibly distant, and incredibly different to where we were. The road descended downhill and crossed a railway line and the A20 Sidcup Road before cutting through a snicket and depositing us out on to Mottingham Road.
Some nice houses on this stretch even if we managed to miss W.G.Grace's former abode and Mottingham Farm - which, our trusty tome told us, was once the home of a character named Farmer Brown who adopted the typical garb of smock and tall hat and lived to the ripe age of 103 on a diet of whisky, ale, steak, and cigars.
We passed down an alley on the edge of Eltham College whose former students include Eric Liddell (who won the 400 metres at the 1924 Paris Olympics, a story later told in the film Chariots of Fire) and Gormenghast author Mervyn Peake. Soon we reach the culverted channel of the Quaggy, a tributary of the Ravensbourne. That took us to Marvels Road which led us up to the cute little Grove Park library and the end of part II/start of part III, of the Capital Ring. Wow, we'd only just got started.
After crossing another railway line (which was once the site of an accident that resulted in 49 deaths) we found ourselves on Railway Children Walk (named after the famous book by E.Nesbitt/Mrs Edith Bland who lived nearby) and Hither Green Cemetery came into view as the drizzle continued to fall, gently and refreshingly, from the sky.
A brief zig-zag section, and another great view down a suburban street to the skyscrapers of the city (thanks to Pam for photos, as ever), took us through some broad suburban avenues and on to Downham Woodland Walk. When we reached it the sun started to show its face. Downham Woodland Walk was lovely. A Z shaped and tree lined track through a large residential estate that seems as pleasant to walk as it would be to cycle or roller skate. A fellow walker, coming in the opposite direction, told us we might be able to hear woodpeckers soon but we couldn't. Much less see them.
We did see some little wooden seats fashioned to look like tea cups and a tree carved with patterns that looked like a wizard's pyjamas though, and when we finally come out on to busy roads again Shep was pleased to find he was on Oakridge Road. The same name as the road he lives on in Basingstoke. He even posed for a rare photograph.
We were only on the busy streets of Downham for a couple of minutes before we entered into the huge Beckenham Place Park, like most of the land in this area once part of the Great North Wood that stretched from Croydon to Deptford. I'd never been to Beckenham Place Park despite it not being far from where I live. It looks big on the map but it seems huge when you're in it.
Once the private estate of Beckenham Place it's now given over to dog-walkers, kids in playgrounds, discarded monkey toys, mysterious mounds, and a surprisingly large statue of a squirrel as well as lakes and forested areas. It could be a walk in its own right one day.
We crossed the Ravensbourne river and another train track before looping round a fenced off lake and then heading uphill towards the ramshackle looking Beckenham Place itself. Once John Cator's 18c mansion, it now looks in need of repair yet stands an elegant relic atop the hill surveying all around it. Balconies that would have looked more correct in a coastal location and doors with broken glass hid a small cafe and even a craft ale bar but we'd arranged to meet Kathy at New Beckenham station and were already starting to run late so we needed to make tracks.
Cator, a wealthy timber mechant, acquired the park and an earlier building in 1773 before rebuilding Beckenham Place using parts of his former home, Wricklemarsh Park in Blackheath. As with Eltham Palace, it's a place one day I'd like to return to and explore in more detail.
Exiting the park we took a wrong turn past some very expensive and grand looking parkside dwellings before correcting ourselves and making our way towards New Beckenham station where, at roughly 3pm, Kathy joined us.
The next stage to Crystal Palace is not far as the crow flies but our book took us on a somewhat circuitous route, presumably so we could stay in parks and away from busy roads as much as possible. The Crystal Palace Tower would appear on the horizon regularly and was now, finally, starting to look reasonably close. Even if the path kept taking us away from it!
Dipping between houses into Cator Park we crossed two more culverted streams. Both The Beck and the Chaffinch Brook being further tributaries of the Pool River (a tributary of the Ravensbourne which becomes Deptford Creek and empties into the Thames between Deptford and Greenwich). This area, Kent House, marks the point where once London became Kent. There was no signifier of such a historical place that we could find, however.
We contented ourselves by singing Mr Woodbastwick to the tune of Shaggy's Boom Bas Tic before passing through Alexandra Recreation Ground (named for the wife of King Edward VII), considering what an appropriate penalty for unlicensed tricycling would be these days, and admiring a discarded mattress (as on the first stage of the ring) and a mural of a robin and a bee.
We were now in Penge and, having crossed a bridge over Penge East station to prove it, we stopped to admire some graffiti/art. One that could, maybe, have been a Banksy, one of a lovely and overly idyllic image of Penge and the Crystal Palace Tower, one of a naughty fox and a tin of Campbell's soup, and one of a policeman handing Mario a mushroom back (or is it Trump's dismembered cock?) and ticking him off.
What could it all mean? We weren't stopping to find out. A quick nose through the gates at an old, and impressive, and surprisingly not in our book, military school and we made our way to The Bridge House. Our first pub stop of the day and one we had most certainly earned. But would it be completely empty? Were people, those not in Beckenham Place Park, taking this self-isolation really seriously. Shep had reported that Waterloo station was virtually empty.
It was rammed - mostly with children too! I don't think I've ever seen so many children in one pub. It was almost as if they were celebrating, gloating about even, their increased immunity to coronavirus. We found the one spare table in the place, I had an Estrella, Shep and Pam a Beavertown Neck Oil, and Kathy an expensive lime'n'soda and a bowl of chips. The staff were polite. We left and passed under the railway bridge and in to Crystal Palace Park, site of the start of last year's last TADS walk but one worth visiting on numerous occasions.
Waterfowl, dinosaur sculptures, Guy the Gorilla, a bench with a placard saying it's for Capital Ring walkers to rest, and a drawing of dinosaurs riding a train. I've written in detail about Crystal Palace Park recently but, again, it didn't disappoint and soon we were climbing the hill, a little off route, towards the Crystal Palace triangle before stopping again in another pub.
The White Hart was rammed. One table full of very noisy, if totally harmless, men of a certain age. Our theory was they'd usually be at the football but as most of that was called off they'd gone to the pub instead and, a little bored, their day had developed into a pretty serious booze up. We had one quick drink and headed on. We were now on the final stretch of the day and my legs were not about to let me forget that either.
The twilit dusky skies looked radiant and even somewhat sad as we passed through the slightly careworn Westow Park and failed to spot the Greek Orthodox Church of Saints Constantine and Helen. Past large Victorian houses we walked along the edge, and even on, the Upper Norwood Recreation Ground with the South Norwood transmitter, Crystal Palace's not so little brother, standing proudly erect on the horizon.
Soon we crossed the recreation ground and climbed up towards Beulah Hill. We followed this road for a while before turning left into Dickens Hill Wood (where Dickens once stayed and set the scene where David Copperfield meets Dora Spenlow). The road descends quite sharply and my legs were twinging. It didn't help that we overshot the next turning and had to climb back up for about one hundred yards. Shep, who famously once took a roll in the mud in Happy Valley in Coulsdon, was pleased to see Croydon's entire skyline displayed in a dramatic panorama in front of him though.
We crossed Biggin Wood and when it reached a road on the other end the gate was so rusted up we had to squeeze through a hole in it. Luckily we all got through. The next section was due to take us through Norwood Grove and Streatham Common but as it was dark and further gates were closed we stuck to the road. We can come back next time and see what we missed. It won't be as large an extra section as we'd already done. We're making headway.
It wasn't a long stretch to Streatham proper but my foot was starting to swell up now and I was slowing down. Pam walked with me as Shep and Kathy took up the lead. We soon reached The Mere Scribbler pub where it was a relief to take the weight off my feet and enjoy a local Inkspot Streatham lager while we discussed our plans and listened to some of the most uninspiring indie rock imaginable (Kings of Leon).
Kathy decided to head home and we got the bus (mainly due to my foot getting worse rather than better) to the Taj Mahal further along Streatham's epic, longest in Europe, high street. I limped on to, and off, the bus but Shep got me a packet of Nurofen and the Taj Mahal had Bangla so things weren't so bad.
Paneer shashlik was taken with poppadums and, of course - be rude not to, another Bangla before, after my idea that Abu Hamza could release a Xmas single (a cover of Sex on Fire - you had to be there I suspect), and the news that Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV's Genesis P-Orridge had died, and a quick chat about the possibilities of finding a pub, we decided to go our separate ways. Shep stocked up on train booze, Pam (who only lives down the road) ordered me an Uber (for which I will be eternally grateful), and we all said goodbye.
The Uber ride was quick and quiet (the driver had a scarf over his mouth the whole way) and I was in bed by midnight, the UK death toll for coronavirus had doubled in one day and future walks now look seriously threatened, but I was glad I'd gone out. It'd been a tonic, but it looks like the country is gonna need more than a bracing walk, a Nurofen, and a couple of Banglas now. The next stage/two stages will take us from Streatham all the way to Richmond but when we embark on that is, for now, a complete mystery - and far far from the largest one facing us all. What strange and uncertain times we live in.
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