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Sometimes it's about the journey more than it is about the destination. And yesterday's walk to the highest point in all London, Westerham Heights in the borough of Bromley, was most definitely a case of that. There's not a lot to see there. Even less if you get then when it's already dark. There's a garden centre which, obviously, I didn't go in. There's a nearby Indian restaurant which, perhaps more surprisingly, I also didn't go on. And, fifteen minutes away, there's a pub. Which, predictably, I did go in.
Just for one, mind. There's a Wikipedia page devoted to the highest points in all of London and towering above all others you can find Westerham Heights. At 245 metres (804ft) high it's got a good lead on second place Sanderstead Plantation in Croydon (175 metres) and bronze medal winner Stanmore Hill (Harrow, 152 metres) but it doesn't actually feel that high.
I walked from my front door (as planned) and it took five hours and forty seven minutes (not including my brunch stop) but what was remarkable was that at no point did I feel I walked up a steep hill. I mean, I live quite high up as it is but nowhere near as high as Westerham Heights. I must have been walking up gradual inclines almost all day although it rarely even felt like that.
The only building in London higher than Westerham Heights is, at 306 metres, the Shard so there would have been people higher up than me yesterday at teatime but not many and I was certainly the highest up person, ever so briefly, on London land for a few minutes for the first time ever. Was it worth it? Yes, I both enjoyed the day and felt a sense of achievement in reaching a destination that the Internet had informed me was 13.9 miles from my front door.
I left home at 10.42am and almost immediately my mum rang for her regular weekend catch up call (usual subjects:ours, and everybody else's, health concerns) and I ended up speaking to her as I cut behind the Horniman Gardens and into and through Forest Hill. I'd actually planned so make my brunch stop in one of the regular cafes in Forest Hill but as I was chatting thought I'd pick somewhere up later.
I did too - and it was a great discovery. On Perry Vale and still, just, in my home postcode of SE23, I came across the Forest Cafe & Bistro which I'd never noticed before. Perhaps it's new. I don't come down this way often but it's hardly uncharted territory. It looked quite posh but they had a very agreeable menu so I took a very tasty plate of scrambled egg on toast and a cup of tea and read about Sara Cox who, at the age of 50, has just run five marathons to raise over £9,000,000 for Children In Need. Suddenly my walk didn't seem quite so daunting and better still there was still no rain yet.
The forecast hadn't been overly positive but I only got about half an hour of drizzle at the end of the day so I was happy with that. My friend Colin had suggested that I was to give up and seek the solace of a cosy pub nobody would think less of me. First temptation came straight after leaving the cafe when I noticed a new pub in SE23.
The Stuffed Walrus (named for the celebrated marine mammal of the Horniman Museum) is on the site of a former, long closed, pub - The Prince of Wales - and it looked pretty inviting. But I knew if I made a stop that early I'd be making more and probably not reach my destination. I decided I'd only make a pub stop if it absolutely pissed down. There'd be bushes and trees for me to wee up against and a pint could wait until it had been probably earned.
So I continued down into Bell Green and Lower Sydenham and along the Kangley Bridge Road industrial area where there wasn't much happening. A few people were working, driving forklifts, chatting on the phone, but mostly - it being a Saturday - everywhere was closed and quiet.
At the end you come off on to a path that follows, for a while, for the course of the river Pool (a tributary of the Ravensbourne which is itself a tributary of the Thames) and this was a pleasant spot with wildlife left unspoiled so as to hopefully attract bees, butterflies, and invertebrates. People cycled and jogged through the canopy and it wasn't long before I came out on the edge of Cator Park.
I took a photo but I didn't go in. My phone was telling me to take a zig-zag of roads through Beckenham so that's what I did. I'm rather fond of Beckenham and it was good to be back there for the first time since my David Bowie walk in August 2023. There were, of course, some tempting pubs in Beckenham too but my resolve, my steely resolve, held out and I headed down Village Way past the Croydon Road Recreation Ground where Bowie once played the bandstand and later wrote the song Memory Of A Free Festival about it.
This was a pretty suburban stretch, full of large and attractive semi-detached houses, and it continued in the same vein through Eden Park (where I stopped for a Crunchie and a bag of Discos) and into West Wickham and Coney Hall, passing at one point a Capital Ring sign and at another, later, point a London LOOP sign. Reminders of walks long gone now. Lovely memories.
There were even a brace of Egyptian geese, surprisingly far from any river or lake, an impressive church in St Edmund of Canterbury, an Art Deco Odeon cinema, and, most of all, leaves. Leaves, leaves, and more leaves. I enjoyed the feeling of the autumn leaves mulching around my walking boots as I plodded relentlessly to my destination.
Not long after West Wickham, and near its common, I finally entered a part of London I'd never visited before and knew pretty much nothing about. I was probably about halfway and even after 29 years of living in London I am still astonished and just how vast this city is. I walked six hours from my home and was not only still in London, I was still still in south east London.
Incredible. There was one of those twee knitted hats on a postbox and there was a reminder of my mate Colin on Colin Close. There were people walking dogs, there were large poppies (and a few flags) on lamp posts, and there were decorative herons and flamingoes on people's lawns. And then there was ... well, nothing really. I hadn't reached the end of London but it felt very much like it.
A single track lane with passing places and some cars speeding down it, Jackass Lane (and I'd have been a jackass to try that after dark), fields with cows in, and signs pointing down overgrown paths to Keston and the mysterious Nash.
When I turned it to Blackness Lane there was a horse trotting very slowly behind me. I kept expecting it to overtake me but it seemed to be walking even slower than me and I reached the village of Leaves Green before the horse. Leaves Green is a place I'd not even been aware of before but it at least had paths (though nowhere near as many as it had flags) and it had a couple of pubs too which I made a mental note of it just in case. Signs pointed to Darwin's village of Downe and to Cudham but also, for the first time all day, Westerham.
Which was just as well as it was starting to rain (only a bit) and it was also starting to get darker. Leaves Green, and then Biggin Hill, and Aperfield if you wanna chuck that in for good measure, seemed to stretch on for miles. That's because they did stretch on for about three and a half miles but at least there were some nice aeroplanes to look at. As well as what appeared to be decommissioned former military buildings.
Formerly an RAF station, the airport now serves business and private passengers but is not permitted to carry regular fare paying passengers so it's unlikely you or I will ever find ourselves making use of it. There were restaurants, bars, and what looked like hotels there and they all looked a lot warmer and cosier than I was. As was appropriate when outside a former military base, I soldiered on. Not long now.
It was pitch black and the lights of the Aperfield Inn looked inviting but they also meant I was fifteen minutes from the end of my walk and it would have been daft to bail out there so I carried on to what is called Hawley's Corner (stopping to look at some nicely coloured wheelbarrows) and all of a sudden, if you can class a six hour walk as all of a sudden, there I was on the very top of London.
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