The Thames Path Part III:Hammersmith to Teddington (The Arcadia Group).

Arcadia! Not the Duran Duran spin off project that made the top ten in 1985 with their single Election Day and not the retailing conglomerate that includes Topshop, Debenhams, Burton, Top Man, Miss Selfridge, and Dorothy Perkins and has as its chairman the ghastly Philip Green (no need for honorifics here).

No, Arcadia as a slightly nebulous concept that vaguely refers to rural idylls that are more akin to paradise, to Eden, than to Earth itself. When used concerning the Thames, Arcadia tends to mean the stretch around Richmond and to be fair there's good reason. It's an incredibly picturesque area and though to live there would cost a fortune now, to walk through it is still free.

It was something we made the most of. Having woken at 5am on Saturday morning, I'd arrived in Hammersmith nearly an hour before I needed to so I passed under the concrete flyover and took a coffee and a seat outside Truth and did the Guardian crossword.

I was hoping Pam, Bee, or Mo would find me finishing off the crossword and be impressed with my skills but I did it too quickly and by the time Pam arrived the paper was back in my bag. We headed off down Fulham Palace Road to the Half Moon Cafe where we met with Adam, Shep, Bee, Mo, Eamon, and Dave Fogarty. There were to be eight of us walking this part of  the Thames and I was pleased that everyone seemed in good spirits.

I certainly felt quite jolly as I took cheese on toast and a can of Coke but I had to admit those that had gone for veggie breakfasts got a better deal. Mine tasted good but there wasn't much of it. We had a quick chat about The Oh Sees, Kenny Sansom's post-football descent into alcoholism and homelessness, and next weekend's Wide Awake festival and then we passed over Frank Banfield Park and to the side of the Riverside Studios before taking the Hammersmith Bridge to the other side of the river.

We didn't know you were supposed to only walk one way on each side of the bridge and, despite several other people doing the same as us, that got us called 'idiots' by an unhappy lady (not the last unhappy lady of the day). We, some of us, may indeed be idiots but that's not the reason why.

We didn't let it affect us. The weather, and the scenery, was too nice. Sunny but with a gentle breeze. Almost perfect for walking. Hammersmith Bridge (built in 1887 by the engineer Joseph Bazalgette) always looks good in such weather and so did the riverside pubs of Hammersmith even if it was far too early for us to make a pit stop in any of them.

We passed a nature reserve called Leg o'Mutton, and a threadbare looking heron, without so much as breaking a step and soon found ourselves in Barnes. An area of London that, quite remarkably, I had never visited before. That's a mistake that I happily rectified as it was a very pleasant area with blue plaques marking the former homes of the composer Gustav Holst and the ballerina Ninette de Valois (who lived to the ripe old age of 102 and once danced for Diagheliv's Ballets Russes)

Near Barnes Bridge there is a plaque to occultist and alchemist John Dee and there's also a Budweiser brewery, formerly the Watney's brewery. Chiswick Bridge was next and all along the way there were teams of rowers passing us on the river and cyclists enthusiastically ringing their bells as they implored us to clear the path for them as they got their Saturday exercise.

Near Kew Railway Bridge there is a small nature reserve where, if you're very patient, you may be fortunate to see the rare Two Lipped Door Snail and near Kew Bridge proper we repaired to the rather pleasant Cricketers pub where I had a pint of London Pride and received a compliment for my new and colourful, though very cheap, Primark shirt.

In the beer garden we chatted about the following day's Premiership matches (at this point the title could have gone to either Man City or Liverpool), monkeypox, Mark Hughes, and Luther Blissett, Shep and Eamon squeezed in a squeezer, and, as we left the pub, the cricketers on the green outside The Cricketers were celebrating a wicket.

Howzat! A scene more English it would have been hard to find (although read on to find a worthy competitor). Phoebe Clapham's book, our bible for this walk, talks a little about this area and refers to it as 'The Royal Thames'. The Tudors, specifically, built many of their great palaces here. Richmond (Henry VII, approx 1501) being the most prominent but others will crop us as our Thames walk continues. She's also included a diversion around Richmond Park but as that's been included in recent LbF and Capital Ring walks we continued on to Richmond proper.

Which we reached via views in to Kew Gardens and across the river to Syon House, Syon Park, the Brent tributary in Brentford, and the towers of the former Kew Waterworks which now serve as the London Museum of Water and Steam. Later on we looked across to Isleworth Ait, Isleworth, and the old stalwart London Apprentice pub.

The river was as full of swans as Richmond's riverside, and pubs, would be full of people. To say it was heaving would be an understatement but it was heaving in a rather pleasant, lively, bustling way. We came slightly off the river and took another pub break in The White Swan where I sipped a delightful pint of Surrey Hills Shere Drop.

Not long after the pub, Eamon left us to go and look at the record and comic shops of Richmond (he had a big Sunday coming up - a Pet Shop Boys gig at the O2) and we continued following the serpentine contours of the river, stopping occasionally to admire Ham House and Marble Hill House and, for some us with weaker bladders, to go for a wee in the bushes.

With The Star and Garter Home on Richmond Hill keeping vigil over us we curved past Petersham, looked across to Eel Pie Island, and eventually reached Teddington Lock and its pretty brace of footbridges which we crossed into the vast beer garden of The Anglers pub.

The good weather had bought out the amateur drinkers and people were having cocktails so service was none too speedy but we soon had drinks in front of us and just needed to sort out where we'd eat. I'd been trying to ring Prem Indian restaurant as we'd been there before but they weren't answering. Adam got through and they said they couldn't seat eight (my friends Sharon and Jason were due to join us as they live in nearby Surbiton - but they were already nearly an hour late).

The faffing around as regards food (there were two more Indian places in Teddington but one had closed and the other did takeaway only) saw Adam, Dave Fog, and Bee leave us (Pam had already departed at the lock, she had a birthday party to go to in Farringdon) and now with just five of us, Prem were able to seat us.

Although on a table for four which meant we were all a bit more squashed than was ideal. I'd not seen Sharon or Jason for over two years, there's been a pandemic- remember, and though it was lovely to see them I didn't think we'd be getting quite so close! The food was good though, I had Bombay aloo, tarka daal, and garlic nan, and the Banglas went down so smoothly that Shep and I, of course, went back for seconds.

We said goodbye to Sharon and Jason (hopefully they'll join us again next time, hopefully we won't leave it another two years) and Mo, Shep, and myself walked to Teddington station. Shep and I took the train to Clapham Junction (some drunken Harlequins fans engaged us in small talk as they munched McDonalds and a man on the opposite seat vomited all over himself - now that's my England) and had another couple of drinks in the Falcon like the incorrigible boozehounds we are before we finally headed our separate ways, content that it'd been another great day of Thames walking. Next time we'll meet in Teddington and head to Walton-on-Thames. Looking forward to it. Thanks to everyone who joined me in Arcadia on Saturday and everyone who contributed snaps to this blog.