Old Bexley to Jubilee Park – 7 ¾ miles – Jubilee Monday 4th June 2012
If you or anyone you know is ever looking for a taste of countryside
proper on your London doorstep then look no further. This is the perfect walk
to meet that need. Seriously, you just jump on a train at London Bridge and in
about 20 minutes you are already en route to getting that slice of pastoral
pie.
Glorious scenery awaits and we don’t even know it yet as I touch the lamp
post with London Loop marker signs at Bexley to herald the start of today’s
walk. Almost immediately we come across loads of pretty pink wild roses and
young boys playing 6-a-side cricket. This country is obsessed with the game and
yes that includes my boyfriend who has joined me again today with the excuse of
taking photos for the blog but I think he might be secretly getting into the
idea of this London Loop lark…
He’s quite taken with the cricket and I fear we will be stuck watching
forever. I also think about the blog and start to feel a little self-conscious.
Last time I was just walking and the writing part came after. Now I know I am
going to be writing about this walk I needily look around for inspiration. This
soon starts to grate, I want to be walking carefree as usual please so I force
myself to try and stay in the moment and think about the ruddy writing when I
get to it!
Bexley Cricket Club behind us we are suddenly up on an open plateau of
green, I read that this seemingly wild patch of land is in fact one huge pile
of landfill! We eventually cross it and come to a red-brick pumping station
with fields growing sweet corn on either side. Number 1, I love the fact that
proper agricultural activity is happening so close to urban life (these fields
are large people!). And then the joy (that would be number 2) of seeing these
super neat rows of seedlings ( yes I can rather expertly confirm the sweet corn
are still in seedling state and about 3 weeks old – thank you google images!).
The zinging acid green lines up and down the fields are gorgeous on the eye and
hard to leave behind us.
We come to the River Cray which we had spent a lot of time walking along on
the first leg of the loop. How long would it be with us today and indeed on
future legs of the walk? The beauty of this walk is not knowing anything about
it beforehand or doing any planning. We just rock up on the day and follow the
signs, can make you feel quite intrepid if you let it!
This is the nicest stretch of the Cray so far, the lush green of English
countryside in June making its impact. Loads of trees to admire, pregnant with splendid
verdant foliage. And the shallow clear water! Looks very inviting, if you are
10 years old and wished you were in Swallows & Amazons…the activities you
could think up if you were that way inclined!
We walk on and come to the elegant Five Arch Bridge built in 1780 with a weir
underneath which creates a pretty lake on one side of the bridge. Very
picturesque and Jane Austen-esque, you can easily imagine a couple of her
characters having a gossip or a snog here. I fall in love with tall yellow
irises dotted in amongst the reeds at the edge of the lake.
Moving on we eventually get to a small urban centre, Foots Cray, and
having quickly passed through it, as we are just on its outskirts once more, we
encounter an elderly chap, in his early seventies perhaps, who decides to join
us for the next 20 minutes of the walk. This is fun as he is full of pizzazz
and has a funny face (you know those faces that you could really picture in the
past? Casting Directors looking for 1st World War trench soldiers
would be thrilled if he showed up to auditions) but I am slightly sad as it
means I pay my book less attention for this section. Reading it afterwards I
see I have missed out looking properly at a football pitch where the Cray
Wanderers play (what a cool name for a team and I have zero interest in the
game); also we pass by more piebald ponies – remember
those shaggy fellows from my last post? They are so close this time we could
have got an excellent photo to illustrate how nutty they look and one in
particular had a hilarious nose (pink and meaty like a pig’s snout,
unbelievable I know) – but our new companion was setting quite a pace and it
felt weird to stop suddenly with this stranger who was full of beans and didn’t
want to stop chatting about the loop. He has done 4 or 5 sections around his
home here and is keen to do more. He also tears us past Sidcup Place, a grand
old building I might have liked to wander around but we obediently fall in line
with our temporary boss and his nattering.
Mr WWI eventually bids us farewell and we have to cross a two-level
junction of busy roads (the A20 and the A222 meet here) – all very well
organised for pedestrians we just have to go up and down stairs and through
tunnels a few times and we are on the other side of these crazy roads, right
where we need to be!
My boyfriend is embarrassed to be walking along an A road (these drivers
must think we’re right wallies, walking along here like lonely geekoids while
the rest of the nation is having 1 big street-party) – so he is well relieved
that we are off the road in seconds. I on the other hand revel in the weird
randomness of being on a road meant for cars, our cut-through from 1 field to
another…
We are now in Scadbury Park, named after the Scathebury family who built
a fancy house and the park around it in the 13th century. Stunning
bucolic scenes here – are we in Somerset or what!? Though I must ‘fess up, there
is often a faint whirr of traffic in the distance on this walk (which detracts
a little from my uber countryside within easy reach of London claim). Oh well,
you just have to get in the zone and blank it out, easy when you live on the A5
(like me) or similar…
It really is lovely here and we decide to stop. Last time on the loop we
just carried water but perhaps inspired by our picnics in the recent heat wave,
we have brought along some tasty leftovers washed down with poncey lemonade (it
has rose and ginger in it) – well it is Jubilee weekend, an excuse to buy all
sorts of nonsense. Except this is delicious stuff and we dream up the perfect
gin cocktail with it, it’s called the Scadbuy Fizz – friends, come over to our
house and we will endeavour to serve it to you!
We walk and walk through woods and woods and come across the
archaeological site of the manor house, very peculiar as you would normally
equate that type of ruin with pompei or similar. It seems strange to see
medieval ruins, you would expect to either see the whole building or nothing at
all. It turns out the building was completely pulled down in the 1730s and
these are 1930s reconstructions of ruins (er…what? why?!)
Onwards through more beautiful woods and we are nearing the end now. We
cross over about 3 sets of railway lines, the last set is a huge tangle of
tracks, quite incredible to behold. I am standing on the bridge as 1 train
comes furiously hurtling towards me. Oh god, oh god, oh god I repeat as my legs
go to jelly, even though I am above the train not in front, it is fun to
pretend and all of a sudden I empathise with adventurous pesky kids, fascinated
by play on the tracks and the thrill and danger as trains approach.
We finally come to an entrance to Jubilee Park (named so in 1977 for the
Queen’s Silver Jubilee), and I touch the loop sign post which marks the end of
our walk today. A fun coincidence that I am randomly at a park of this name on
this Diamond Jubilee weekend, I look forward to coming back.
