Weather: Blooming Scorching!
Distance Walked: 17.85 km
Distance By Tube: 11.4 km
Stations Visited: 7
Fantastic Place: Woodberry Wetlands
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| Only 7 stations so I've added the old H&I station for fun. |
My tube walks are sadly becoming annual events rather than monthly as they used to be. I need to take time out to do more a year, perhaps shorter legs rather than the long ones I've done in the past.
Today saw the completion of the Victoria Line and I was pleasantly surprised by what I found on this hot sunny summer day. Those of you paying attention may have notice that this year has been one of the hottest and driest on record (a week or so ago we hit 40c which was rather too warm for my tastes!). So the 27c temperature and clear blue skies were not a surprise, I was thankful for the modern water fountains installed by our current London mayor so I could top up my water bottle at regular intervals. Patches of grass on roadsides and parks were a uniform khaki colour and trees, especially horse chestnuts, were already shedding leaves.
The walk started in Walthamstow, former home of William Morris, there is still a museum dedicated to him near the start of the walk. One striking feature of the area are bollards.Most of them seem to have been dressed in woolly jumpers to protect them from the cold - they must have been sweltering in the heat!
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| Bollards keeping warm |
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| Walthamstow - proud of its heritage |
Just past Blackhorse Road station, where there are a lot of new residential tower blocks being built the route continues along a level, straight causeway between two large reservoirs, part of the Lee Valley Reservoir chain. These provide drinking water for London and are also now a important site for water birds such as cormorants. I could see there were footpaths leading around the edges of the water which may make for an interesting visit for the future. On the west side of the reservoirs is the Walthamstow Wetlands. Even from the side of the road I could see that this would be a great place to visit if you like wetlands and wildlife (also a nice looking waterside pub!).
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| Heron on guard duty |
More building and development could be seen near Tottenham Hale station and much light industrial. At this point I should mention that the stations on this leg are nothing to write home about architecturally - the 60's eh!
The next leg along Seven Sisters Road was fairly grim, I may have gained a kilo from all the pollution I breathed in so I was quite glad to turn off the road and go rural for a bit . In fact the next section was one of the best bits of any of my tube walks so far. The Woodberry Wetlands is a little lung in this polluted and overcrowded part of London. Two large reservoirs and waterways with birds and plants providing a welcome respite. It also provided lunch at the Coal House Cafe. I had a very nice cup of coffee and a cheese and fig chutney toastie that set me up nicely for the rest of the walk. The cafe and the wetlands are well worth a visit and are only a short walk from Manor House station (Piccadilly Line - hmm perhaps I will pop in again when I do that line!)
The wetlands have been built in conjunction with a housing development, lots of flats with balconies overlooking the water and a rather nice water feature.
It was back to the Seven Sisters Road for the next station Finsbury Park and the more suburbia before a detour to one of the temples of football the old Arsenal football ground at Highbury (the other is of course the magnificence that is Fratton Park home of the mighty Pompey). Now converted to flats the listed stands still tower above the streets. Down the hill the new Emirates stadium can be glimpsed awaiting a future walk.
The path continues through Highbury Fields, very nice open space but looking very scorched and brown in the sun at the moment. I then got rather twizzled around at Highbury and Islington station, the heat getting to me at last! The last few kilometres were a bit of a grind at the end of a long hot walk but I did pass through a very pretty square surrounded by flats, possibly Edwardian in age which had very nice Gothic details around the windows and doors.
So that brings to an end the Victoria Line. Now to decide which of the remaining lines to do next and how to break them up in a sensible way!
