No long trip this month due to other commitments, so to get my hiking fix I’ve turned to the Thames Path, a national trail on my doorstep, or at least one end is. It runs for 185 miles from the Woolwich Foot Tunnel to the river’s source in the Cotswolds.
It’s also a good opportunity to break in my new Meindl Guffert hiking boots — high ankle, leather, wide fitting — a little more heavy duty than my Meindl Terlan boots in preparation for Scotland. I now buy all my boots from Whalley Warm & Dry and a big shout out to them for giving me credit for one of my Terlan pairs which split at the sides after 600 miles of tough use.
I start at the Royal Arsenal. Once covering 1,300 acres and employing 80,000 people to produce the arms and ammunition for the First World War, pockets of history survive among the sprawling riverside apartment blocks.
A shipwreck appears, listing on the mudflat, next to a private yard. How to get closer? An unlocked gate leads to slimy stone steps down to the water. Slipping and dropping my water bottle in the mud, I cling to the handrail and ease myself onto the foreshore. The MV Royal Iris, one of the most famous Mersey ferries, hosted several 60s bands including The Beatles and Gerry & The Pacemakers, inspiring the classic song by the latter. Serendipity, given my last coast walk.
A pair of Egyptian Geese, with their distinctive black eye patches, shadow me for a while before passing through the impressive Thames Barrier.
Canary Wharf is framed by conveyer belts transferring marine-dredged sand and gravel to be transformed into building materials. A new perspective on somewhere I worked for almost 20 years.
The path winds in and out of wharves, revealing something new at every turn. The Greenwich Yacht Club clubhouse is amazing, perched on stilts in the middle of the Thames. Of course, I have to walk down the nearby slipway and take a look from below.
Every available jetty is put to use on the Greenwich Peninsula, home to Damien Hirst in the late 1980s when the area was little more than a wasteland, perfect for film shoots such as Kubrik’s Full Metal Jacket, including those dodgy-looking palm trees. Locked gates prevent me from enjoying a closer look at his sculpture.
The London cable car, amusingly christened “the Dangleway”, opened in 2012. Hard to believe that I’ve not seen it up close before. I must take a ride someday.
The greening wooden jetties on the south side of the river contrast beautifully with the high-rise developments on the far bank.
The day ends with Greenwich’s most famous resident. I lived in nearby Lewisham for several years when I first moved to London and have fond memories of this place. My department at KPMG held an annual rounders day in the park, to which I’m still invited after my retirement. Fun in the park and beers afterwards in the village, a perfect day.
Walk distance: 6 miles.
Total distance: 6 miles.
Hi Tony,
I love the Thames Path and have done both sides, where possible.
However the path seems to have grown in length since the first time I walked it.
Walking on the Isle of Grain we saw signs for it and it now seems to be 215 miles in length. As you are also walking around the coast, no doubt you will or already have encountered the extension.
Hi Margaret. Yes, I noticed that. There is a different sign for the extension as I discovered when I started walking east instead of west, to try and find the start. It has a barge rather than an acorn. It’s nice that they have linked it up with the English Coast Path. I have just stuck with the definition on the National Trails website.
I did not know that about Kubrik’s Full Metal Jacket
There was something about importing plastic trees. Still a good movie.
The Thames path is very enjoyable. I walked it in sections about 15 years ago now and later the extension. The section you have done is probably the most variable some grotty old industrial areas, at least when I walked it, a lot of it is probably flats now. Then and ending in Greenwich which is a lovely place. Like you I used to work in London on an office near the Thames at London Bridge on the south side, for about 8 years. My usual lunch time walk was the stretch of the Thames path between London Bridge and Tower Bridge, I used to do a circular using the path on both sides and crossing both bridges. Sometimes to mix it up I went west to the Millennium bridge to do a circular walk that way instead.
Are you planning to do all the National Trails? I’ve done a fair few now.
I’m not sure I have enough time to do them all, but who knows? I’d like to venture overseas as much as possible.
Some great scenery from that urban environment. There seem to be more statues around since I went that way about 10 years ago.
I think the developers on the Greenwich Peninsula stumped up a fair bit of cash to bring in the sculptures as part of the deal.
I like all the sculptures. A very different walk from your recent Welsh trips but attractive in a post-industrial sort of way. I was interested to see the remnants of Woolwich Arsenal. Many of my forebears worked there, before moving up to the West of Scotland when the Torpedo Factory opened in Greenock before the First World War. This included my great-grandparents, and some of their children, including my grandfather.
Interesting connections. I’ll enjoy the gradual transformation on leaving London for the countryside. I’d planned to walk today but the rail strikes put an end to that.