Salis Populi Suprema Lex Pt.I

Salis populi suprema lex.

It means "the health of the people is the supreme law" and it's the motto of the London Borough of Lewisham. The borough I live in and the borough that just happens to be London borough of culture for 2022. 

Not that you'd know it. It's not been widely publicised and the borough is not exactly heaving with cultural events - or at least no more than normal. At least the roundels at Honor Oak Park station have got with the programme. Many of my walkers didn't. For the first time ever in TADS/LbF/London LOOP/Capital Ring/Thames Path history, neither Shep or Pam were to join me for Saturday's walk.

Which felt a bit weird but Mo and Roxanne made for more than able replacements - which is just as well as I had a couple of late drop outs and I was starting to fear the walk may be something of a solo mission. It certainly began that way as I took the Overground from Honor Oak Park to New Cross Gate and walked along New Cross Road to Deptford.

I could hardly fail to be reminded that the area has, historically, been one that has seen more than its fair share of racial tension (a plaque commemorates the death/murder of fourteen young people in the New Cross fire of 1981) as well as a centre for the fight against racism (another plaque marks the spot of 1977's Battle of Lewisham and some modern graffiti simply reminds us to "LOVE MUSIC, HATE RACISM".

The latter two examples are one of the reasons I've come to love the borough and have now lived in it for twenty-six years. But I also love its neighbouring boroughs (Southwark, Bromley, and Greenwich) and if the walk should stray into any of them, which it did, that would simply be an example of neighbourliness. I was joined at the lively Jenny's Cafe by Mo (representing Croydon) and Roxanne (Southwark) and as I got there early I had both a can of Coke and a cup of tea to wash down my chips, beans, egg, and toast. Mo had something meaty and Roxanne had already eaten.

We passed down Deptford High Street, tempting though the Starburst themed outfit was I managed to decline, and commented on how lively a parade it is. It was once known as the Oxford Street of South London but now, small patches of gentrification and mock-rustic Antic pubs aside, it's a little more careworn. 

The Nightingale Pharmacy was painted up as if it was in Latin America but more typical of Deptford High Street is the Bao Long Vietnamese and oriental supermarket at the junction with Evelyn Street which we crossed into New King Street before making our way to Sayes Court Park. We'd be doubling up, briefly, on a recently, January, walked stretch of the Thames Path.

Deptford is named for a ford on the river Ravensbourne and is the former site of the Deptford Dockyard, the first of the Royal Dockyards. It's home to musical legends Dire Straits, Squeeze, and Mark Perry of Alternative TV as well as Danny Baker (which caused a heated debate as to who is worse, him or Piers Morgan. Answer:Piers Morgan by far) and is where Francis Drake was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I and where Peter the Great of Russia came to study shipbuilding as a lad.

The tree in Sayes Court Park, below, was planted by Peter in 1698 in what was then the garden of the diarist John Evelyn. A man whose work, in recent decades, has been overshadowed by that of his contemporary Samuel Pepys.

As if to rub it in, the next two parks are Lower Pepys Park and Pepys Park. Neither of them have a tree planted by a tsar in them though. Although they do lead us to the banks of the Thames and a view over to the Isle of Dogs and its skyscrapers (borough:Tower Hamlets, fact fans).

As an aside, the borough of Lewisham's population is just over 305,000 so if it was a town/city in its own right it would rank between Doncaster and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Which means its pretty busy. There are 32 boroughs, plus the City, in London so imagine 32 Newcastle's shoved up together and you get an idea of just how vast our capital city is. 

We stopped to read a plaque about Francis Drake (the day's pace was steadier than normal, that's for sure) and to admire, or at least inspect, Martin Bond's Wall of Ancestors. At the foot of the Aragon Tower there are masks of Deptford people - both famous and local. Among them, and they're not all that easy to make out, you can see Peter the Great, Sir Francis Drake, Queen Elizabeth I, anti-slavery campaigner Olaudah Equiano, and the wood caver Grinling Gibbons.

As well as the professional clown Dr Burnhart Gloss! It's near where Christopher Marlowe is said to have been murdered in 1593 but there's no plaque to mark that. There is, in the Thames itself, a permanent sculpture by Chris Marshall called Circumsphere. We were distracted by the rather unusual sight of a large cruise ship pulling up near the Cutty Sark in Greenwich. I saw a seal from a pub window in Greenwich once but this was, if anything, an even more unusual spot.

Wrong turn? Who knows? Just before South Dock we turned away from the river for an unremarkable stretch that was livened up by a gaily painted former pub that had been converted into some kind of religious 'center' (their spelling, not mine).

A path led us by the imposing South East London Heat & Power centre (makes a change to the Tate & Lyle refinery) and Millwall's football stadium, The Den. Not generally considered to be one of the friendliest stadiums in the country although I've been twice (supporting Reading) and received nothing worse than a few hundred wanker signs.

After that we crossed Surrey Canal Road and passed through what must be rated as one of London's least used, and emptiest, green spaces. Bridgehouse Meadows is actually quite pleasant, with commanding views if you fancy an uphill trek, so it's something of a mystery why so few people make use of it.

From there you carry on down Avonley Road to the former Montague Arms. My friends Mark and Natalie used to be frequent visitors and would regale me with tales of locals performing Elvis karaoke while wheezing through asthma inhalers. I'm sorry to have missed out. I wonder if the peculiar fizzogs daubed on its former windows are those performing patrons.

On the other side of the road there's an impressive ex-fire station with a plaque to a certain George A Roberts (1890-1970). It describes him as a "First World War soldier, Second World War Leading Fireman, and a West Indian Community Leader". He'd worked at the station from 1939 and, by the sounds of it, was an all round good egg.

As was, quite clearly, Olaudah Equiano who we were to meet again in the impressively manicured Telegraph Hill Park (Lower Park). We took time to both admire him and his work and the graceful gardens but we also had to concede we had left the south London flood plains and were now reaching the hills. There wouldn't be much walking on the flat from now on.

Telegraph Hill Upper Park, abandoned office chair and all, was hillier still and once we'd strolled along the rather prosaic, somewhat suburban, Avignon Road, Friendsbury Road, and St Norbert Road we'd be turning, via Brenchley Gardens, into One Tree Hill. The hill part of its name doesn't lie but there's a lot more than one single tree there.

The 'one tree' in question, now a replant - what a swizz, is believed to be where Queen Elizabeth I took cover when 'maying' back in 1602 and near the gun placement at the top of the hill, it is said that Dick Turpin would look down on the city and decide who to rob next. A story that seems highly unlikely as people have a tendency not to stand in one place and wait for highwaymen to divest them of all their worldly goods. Even dandy highwaymen.

What I can vouch for, as regards to One Tree Hill, is that I once buried a pet rat, Chester, there in a shoe box. He was a good rat.

Once we'd descended One Tree Hill, it was a short walk to what is my local pub. The rather pleasant Watson's General Telegraph. It was formerly the Forest Hill Tavern (giant St George's cross with MILLWALL emblazoned on it in the window) and then The Rose (blasting out techno at 3am) but seems to have found its way since it's been the WGT.

I've been there countless times, the bar staff know me, and I normally drink beer there but, as with my Wednesday evening night out with Vicki, I stuck to blackcurrant and lemonade. I got Mo to take a picture so I could send it to Shep who, remarkably, wasn't even horrified at this potential breach of etiquette.

Mo, as ever, had a lime'n'soda and Roxanne took her one alcoholic drink of the day - a Timothy Taylor Landlord. Without the likes of Shep and Neil Bacchus, it's safe to say that Saturday's walk was a lot less boozy than normal.

We left the pub and passed through Camberwell Old Cemetery (a lockdown favourite of mine), up Langton Rise, along Wood Vale, and through the very pretty Horniman Gardens with its great views, lovely bandstand, and bizarre concrete football pitch (in a park full of grass they intentionally made a concrete football pitch).

There seemed to be a wedding or two going on which reminded me of when, nearly ten years ago now, I had the great fortune to attend my friend's Dan and Misa's nuptials. I pointed out the totem pole, talked a bit about the museum, and we passed across the A205/London Road into the less populated, understandably - though it does have a good play area for kids, Horniman Play Park.

From there it's a steep climb up Sydenham Hill (if you look back you get another great view of the London skyline(s)) and on the top of that we took a path into Dulwich Woods and Sydenham Hill Wood.

I love it there and it's surprisingly large. I've never once been in there and not got a tiny bit lost but I've always come out more or less at the intended point and so it was to prove again. We stopped briefly to admire the folly and read about the history of the woods. It was once heavily populated with large country houses and, indeed, follies for people who wanted to be near Crystal Palace.

Now it's a spot for joggers, dog walkers, curious locals, and I would imagine a fair amount of wildlife. You come out on a path that leads steeply downhill to Sydenham Hill train station and one of London's only working toll roads. Or steeply up to the Dulwich Wood House pub. See if you can guess which way we went.

The Dulwich Wood House is a lovely pub. A huge garden with lots of covered seating which, as it was starting to rain, was soon nabbed. I had an Estrella, Mo a lime'n'soda, and Roxanne went drinkless before saying goodbye. Mo and I chatted about office chairs and cheap meal deals and soon made haste, the Crystal Palace Tower that had been on the horizon much of the day now looming close, along the flat part of Sydenham Hill to Crystal Palace itself.

The pubs, and the triangle, were busy but Timur Indian and Nepali restaurant wasn't too busy and, anyway, it's never too hard to get a table for two. The Kuwa beer (a brand I'd never heard of before) had sold out so I took a Cobra (my second and final beer of the day) to wash down my Kashmiri Dum Aloo, Dal Makhani, and naan bread. Mo reported that her lamb tandoori and pilau rice was good and we both enjoyed some poppadoms before heading back to Sydenham Hill to catch our respective buses home

I think it's the first ever time I've got back from one of these walks before it got dark and it's probably the least I've ever drunk on one of them too (I did buy some beers from a local offy on the way home but fell asleep before I even cracked the first one open) but it was still a bloody lovely day with top company (thanks to Mo for the maps below and to both her and Roxanne for making the walk happen) and I look forward, in August, to completing the second, and final, stage of the Lewisham borough boundary walk. Before that, however, TADS are heading down to Portsmouth for another motto themed trek. Be good to see you there. Salus populi suprema lex.