Wond'ring Aloud: August 2017

Weather: Warm and pleasant
Distance Walked: 22.5km
Distance By Tube:10.77km
Stations Visited: 9
Fantastic Place: St James' Park

It's been a while since I last did a Tube Walk. Since the last one I've found a new job - one that isn't so desk bound as the last. I now spend a lot of time walking from one end of the site to the other, visiting users and often crawling under their desks. The walk to and from work is also far more pleasant, being through very pretty suburban streets of Kew in the leafy borough of Richmond just south of the River Thames. I now do upwards of 10000 steps everyday sometimes reaching the dizzy heights of 16000. On the down side I now work five days a week instead of four which means that the Tracking the Tube project will take a lot longer to complete.

The nine stations on the walk today

Starting back at Canary Wharf I was struck again how much had changed since I worked here back in the last Millennium! In fact there was even change since the last time I walked here a year ago. I walked a slightly different route back through docklands as I headed south, following the west side of Millwall Inner Dock and the east side of Millwall Outer Dock.

These are now surrounded by offices and housing rather than the warehouses and industry that would have been there when the docks were a thriving centre of shipping and trade. Even so there were a large number of narrow boats and other house boats moored in the basins, many brightened up with flowers and vegetables growing in any available space.

On the open water of the outer dock there were small sailing dinghies and wind-surfers making the most of the sun and brisk wind that gets funnelled through the canyons formed by the tall buildings. Because of the mix of housing and office space docklands is still busy and bustling on a Saturday unlike the areas around Chancery Lane and the old financial centre of London which can resemble the setting of a post-apocalyptic wasteland at the weekend.

A little further on near Mudchute (possibly one of the least glamorous names on the DLR network) there was a small housing development, probably late eighties early nineties) built around a set of private moorings. None were in use by boats, however there was a pair of Great Crested Grebe nesting there and on a semi submerged pontoon a family of Canada Geese). Lots of other ducks and sea birds had made their home in this peaceful little haven - which was nice.

Walking under the Thames via the foot tunnel I headed west past the Cutty Sark on the Thames Path soon coming to a very odd statue of Peter the Great. The proportions are really very odd but it makes a striking addition to an area dominated by drab modern apartments.

Continuing along the Thames path which occasionally swings some way inland I passed through a park with a old, gnarled mulberry tree. I'd love to have one of these in my garden at some point. The fruit wasn't ripe but there was a lot on the tree. I wonder if anyone comes to pick it or if it just gets eaten by birds.

Heading inland at a large marina filled with canal boats and sailing craft I left the Thames behind and headed through Rotherhithe to Canada Water station. This station, like most on the relatively new extension, is a striking modern building. This one resembles one of the vehicles that the Sand People in Star Wars travelled around in collecting scrap and selling faulty droids to moisture farmers!

Passing through Southwark Park I soon came to Bermondsey station which was quite restrained in design on a long road lined with shops and cafés. Passing under the bridge carrying the trains out of London Bridge station the smell of a local craft brewery filled the air bringing back memories of living in Cardiff and the Brains brewery that filled the air with malty goodness most days!

This part of London on the run up to London Bridge station has a large number of very nice streets lined with Georgian and Victorian terraces and old schools turned into flats. Very attractive, if small, front gardens added to the ambience. The nearer I got to the station the more hip the area got with lots of small coffee shops, including one called "Fuckoffee." The National Fasion and Textile Museum is here as are a number of small galleries and craft workshops. London Bridge station is rather large and sprawling but is dominated by the glass and steel of ~~Isengard~~ the Shard that towers over it.

After a quick stop at Hotel Chocolat for some 'emergency supplies my path led back to the Thames and a visit to one of my old workplaces on the South Bank opposite St Paul's. A Quick stop for lunch at Eat reinvigorated me for the second half of the walk, briefly along the Thames before turning off by the reconstructed Globe theatre (well worth going to see a performance there) and heading south to Southwark station. The route I took went behind the Tate Modern gallery at Bankside. This opened soon after Liz and I moved to London and was part of the flowering of art and culture in London around the Millennium. London has always had great art spaces but it just seems to have got better and better. The new gallery space at the Tate is housed in a stunning building which sits well beside the old power station.

The area between Southwark, Waterloo and Westminster stations is horrendously busy especially on a sunny Saturday during the summer holidays. It makes walking at a normal pace almost impossible. The area between the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament is particularly bad with tourists sitting on the steps and waving their selfie-sticks around. It was quite a relief therefore to break out of the congestion and walk through the, still busy but more peaceful surroundings, of St James' Park. I don't think I've even spent much time in this large green lung in the centre of London which runs from the political heart of London right up to the gates of Buckingham Palace. At the heart of the park is a long lake surrounded by flower beds and despite the large number of visitors it still has a peaceful air. The lake has lots of wildfowl (a theme of today!) including some pelicans which you are warned not to feed. This may be why!

After waving at the queen I turned north through another of London's large parks, Green Park to the station of the same name. As a geologist I like what the designers have done with the walls of this station. They have used fossiliferous limestone in which you can see the calcified remains of ammonites and other extinct see creatures. The designers have then carved larger stylised versions in the walls.

The last stretch from Green Park to Bond Street station is one that I've walked many, many times with my wife when we visit the Royal Academy of Arts and you pass many swanky shops and galleries before arriving in the throbbing heart of Oxford Street with all it's department stores and other shops.

That was enough for today and I could feel that I hadn't done a long walk for a while in the backs of my legs. It was however one of my favourite tube walks of the project so far. It was a transect through time and space showing the various parts of London. It started in the new heart of financial London, moves through the old dockland and commercial centre, through art and culture, political London, Royal London and finally shopping London. All of these areas have their own flavour and architecture and the route is well worth a walk if you have half a day to spare.