Weather: Warm and Sunny to start, becoming cloudy and windy later
Distance Walked: 18.65km
Distance By Tube: 14.63km
Stations Visited:10
Fantastic Place: Mayesbrook Park
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| This leg's stations |
The walk started by passing through rows of terraced Victorian and Edwardian houses, a theme that would recur through most of the walk, though the quality and size of the properties varied and towards the end the terraces were replaced by larger, semi-detached houses with some interesting details (arched and round windows and brick detailing).
Crossing the very busy North Circular by a footbridge with very awkward shallow steps the next stretch was through a rather unattractive light industrial estate. There were a lot of men hanging around outside Wickes (DIY suppliers) with boxes of tools and occasionally a white van would pull up and a talk to the men and some would get in. I assume that this is a known pick up point for day-labourers. Not much security of income and slightly reminiscent of the way that dock labourers used to be employed.
Barking appears to have been tidied up a bit from when I used to visit on a regular basis with new modern apartments and a vibrant street market with food and shoes being a particular strength of the bit I walked through. Barking station is not attractive, but then none of the stations on this leg were, most being the brick box with flat concrete roof. Barking and Upminster being larger interchange stations were even less attractive than that!
Past Barking Hospital and Upney station the route entered the very attractive Mayesbrook Park. Two large lakes with numerous swans, ducks and geese. It was like a mini Barnes WWT site!
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| Large Lake in Mayesbook Park |
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| Grazing Goose |
Along the long Rugby road to Becontree station I started to notice something I've not seen very much of in London - decorative cement rendering. In the country, if it was done in plaster it would be called pargeting. I used to see a bit of this when I lived in Norwich and it is common in Suffolk and Essex so I shouldn't be surprised to see it on houses on this leg of the walk, it just looks a bit incongruous on a thirties semi!
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| One of many houses with pargeting |
In the same area I saw the fastest sprayer in the east! On his little buggy this guy was spraying the gullies to control weeds. The car tyres of the residents should also be proof against bindweed etc. as he was not too careful as to where his wand was spraying as he zoomed along the pavement!
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| Ernie and he drove the fastest sprayer in the east! |
Dagenham Heathway and Dagenham East followed with much more suburban streets before a very wild section running between high fences. To the south it looked like derelict factories while to the north empty parking lots. I assume these were linked with the Ford motor works that were based in Dagenham. After a while the fences were hidden by damson trees, elderberry, hawthorn, wild roses and blackberries. In a week or two you could come down and make a very handy wild harvest here.
The path led into the Chase Nature Reserve a wild area of hummocks, horse droppings and wild life. I almost got twizzled around in this section but found my way out and rejoined the route to Elm Park station.After stopping for a sandwich as the wind picked up and the clouds gathered I headed along through tree lined streets and larger semi detached properties (and more pargeting) to Hornchurch and Upminster Bridge where the route briefly joined the LOOP.
The last stretch from Upminster Bridge was uphill and I passed Upminster Windmill just before reaching Upminster station and the long journey back to Greenford.
That's the end of the District Line, now for the Northern Line starting at the south end and working my way north.
