The Ramblers’ Dead End for Walking? campaign was launched recently, to warn of the risks to public paths from threatened cuts in local authority spending, and to highlight 19 local authorities where there are proposed budget cuts or backlogs in clearing paths. On the day of the launch, I walked two footpaths with Graham Ronan and Jack Burling – the chair and footpath secretary of Cornwall Ramblers respectively – and council rights of way staff, and I was stunned by what I saw. On one in St Issey (which wasn’t signposted) we found our way obstructed by dumped rubbish, over which we had to clamber, and we encountered several clear attempts to unofficially divert or block the footpath. Any casual walker would have given up in the first five minutes.

The other, selected at random in St Ervan, was even worse: there was no route through at all. Barbed wire and thicket had to be hacked through with scythes and secateurs. It’s such a shame that Cornish paths are in this state. We were walking through some of the most beautiful countryside in Britain, but on some of the worst footpaths. I was so impressed with the council staff I met that day, and there’s some great co-operation taking place between the council and the Ramblers. But without more resources, they are fighting a losing battle.

I’ve written to all Cornish councillors telling them about my experience, and I’ve booked a return visit in February to walk the same paths. I hope to see big improvements. In the meantime, the Ramblers will be campaigning up and down the country to try to save our precious path network.

Trumpeting so-called ‘people power’ and the reduction of unnecessary bureaucracy and waste, the Coalition has ordered local councils to make huge savings in order to dig us out of debt. But politicians need some joined-up thinking to ensure that the axe doesn’t fall on our footpath network. As a nation, we’ve definitely got a bit porky over the last decade. The millions spent by the previous government on health education ads and internet campaigns will go under the Coalition – but I’m not that bothered. The best way to get people to change their behaviour isn’t by nagging or nannying, but by gentle peer persuasion. That’s why starting to walk by joining a group like the Ramblers is a good way to meet people and gradually increase your stamina.

But walkers need footpaths, and local authorities are being forced to reduce staff and slash funding for repairs and maintenance to rights of way. Sorting out the paperwork relating to disputes will now take longer than ever – up to 10 years in some places! The Ramblers’ Dead End for Walkers? campaign highlights 19 councils that are the worst offenders, including North Yorkshire. It has 10,000 rights of way issues outstanding, and no plans to increase the funding to sort them out. And Cornwall plans budget cuts of 10% over the next four years, despite neglecting half the paths in the county.

I can vouch for the appalling state of footpaths in Cornwall. Once you leave the coastal path and try to cross the peninsula between St Ives and Newlyn, you can easily get lost. I ended up with horrendous scratches from gorse the other year, and had anybody else been brave enough to walk the route, they’d have heard me cursing. In North Yorkshire, where I own a home, there are a plethora of signs in some areas and absolutely none in others. It’s almost as if the council wants you to stick to the popular, long-distance routes. Gloucestershire has cut half its Highway Authority staff, Surrey’s rights of way maintenance budget has been slashed by a fifth, a hundred bridges need replacing in Wiltshire… the list is endless. Of course, you could argue that it’s more important to protect services for the elderly, schools and hospitals – and I agree, some difficult choices have to be made. But at the same time, if councils promoted walking our overall health would improve and hospitals and clinics wouldn’t be packed with fatties suffering from heart disease.

Our footpaths are part of our national heritage. They’re of such social and historical significance that I want to see them listed like ancient monuments and architecturally important buildings. Instead, unless they are within a national park or part of a recognised long-distance route, they are treated like second-class amenities. The recession means that progress on England’s long-awaited coastal path will slow down too – work is continuing in the five pilot areas, but there are concerns about the long-term budget. We have one of the most varied and historic coastlines in the world. It’s a national treasure, right up there with the Tower of London and Stonehenge. This path will not only benefit Brits, it will attract tourists from all over the world and bring much needed revenue to remote areas.

In our new ‘Age of Austerity’, walking ticks all the right boxes. But it has to be easy. With more of us staying home for holidays, what better way to explore the countryside or our historic cities? Walking around London can be confusing, which is why the Ramblers’ Putting London on the Map campaign is a great idea. The plan is to record every inner London footpath on a legally-binding map, which is the case in every other town and city in the UK. I’ve seen how developers totally ignore rights of way: time after time, I’ve tried to follow a route down the Thames, for example, only to find locked gates or building sites blocking the path. It’s just a shame the map won’t be complete in time for the 2012 Olympics. Wouldn’t it have been great to offer all visitors a definite walking guide to our wonderful capital city?

Janet Street-Porter is Ramblers vice president and Editor at Large of The Independent on Sunday

My 10-year-old self lay back on the turf of Bulbarrow Hill in the shade of a beech spinney, book in hand, all alone in deepest Dorset. And I’ll never forget the cold pang of terror when I looked up from my book to see an evil little face, with goat-like eyes and the most cynical of smiles, staring out at me from among the tree trunks.

The hallucination (if that’s what it was) certainly had a lot to do with the story I was reading: The Music on the Hill by Saki, a Gothic fantasy in which a woman destroys an offering to Pan in the woods, and is herself gored to death by a stag driven wild by mysterious piping from a copse. I was a fanciful boy (and how the child has proved father to the man!), with a capacity for wild flights of imagination – easy prey for Saki’s baroque whimsies. I can remember running off, not daring to look back, in dread of eerie music and the hot breath of a stag on my neck.

Now, when I’m out walking and the path takes me deep into tanglewood, I’m occasionally conscious of a something or a someone there – a presence neither benign nor malign, but watchful and quietly amused. I think of it as a manifestation of whatever it was in the medieval psyche that gave rise to the Green Man, that enigmatic carved face sprouting leaves and fruit from its nostrils which we see in so many of our country churches. I’ve never again experienced anything like my childhood terror of the wildwood. But even if it isn’t the sort of thing a proper grown-up admits to, I’m quite pleased, if truth be told, that the Green Man hasn’t vanished from those psychic thickets quite yet.

Sound and vision (8 August 2010)

If you’ve never been to Dungeness nothing can really prepare you for the landscape. As far as I can work out the name derives from the Old Norse where ‘nes’ means nose, with, in this case, the nose attached to Denge Marsh. Others say it’s a derivation of the French for dangerous nose. Wherever the name comes from, Dungeness is a cuspate foreland – one of the largest expanses of shingle in the world – on the coast of Kent. This headland shelters the low lying land of Romney Marsh and is a haven for diverse wildlife and rare plants. Oh yeah and it’s got a nuclear power station as well.

It’s just under 100 miles away from London and this makes its bleak and desolate landscape seem all the more bleak and desolate. (Trees are a distinct rarity down here.) But that’s OK ‘cos I quite like bleak and desolate landscapes and I’m very fond of Dungeness. As well as the shingle, rare plants, exotic wildlife and power station there’s a functioning 15 gauge railway line that runs from Hythe to Dungeness. Completed in 1928 the nearly 14 miles of track owed much to the vision of two men; Captain J. E. P. Howey — a sometimes racing driver, millionaire land owner, former Army Officer and miniature railway afficionado along with Count Louis Zborowski — a well-known racing driver of his day (famous for owning and racing the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Mercedes) and considerably richer, even, than Howey. I’m fairly indifferent to this sort of thing but the steam and transport buffs I know get very excited about it and consider it one of the railway wonders of the world.

The RSPB has a bird sanctuary nearby and every year thousands of bird watchers flock (see what I did there) to record sightings of the different birds that live here or who are stopping over while they migrate. In May this year a pair of purple herons nested in the UK for the first time ever at Dungeness and successfully reared two chicks. Purple herons are high up on the list of birds that the RSPB expect to see setting up home in southern Britain as the changing climate pushes them further north. I’m certainly not indifferent to this sort of thing at all and I think the reserve is a great place to spend a coupla hours even if you know nothing about birds.

In the later years of his life Derek Jarman had a cottage here, which is remembered for his famous shingle cottage-garden. The house was built in tarred timber and has a raised wooden text on the side of the cottage quoting the first stanza and the last five lines of the final stanza of John Donne’s poem, The Sun Rising. The cottage’s beach garden was made using local materials and has been the subject of several books. But despite taking a look at all this what we are really here to do today is to take a guided tour of the Sound Mirrors at Lade.

These other worldy concrete structures are the remains of part of an acoustic early warning system that was designed to detect engine sounds from approaching aircraft. ‘Staccato signals of constant information‘  as Paul Simon sings from another time. The ones here and just up the coast at Hythe were part of an intended chain defending the south east. The Romney Marsh Countryside Partnership along with the author of Echoes in the Sky, Dr Richard Scarth, have been leading free, non-booking, guided walks out to the Sound Mirrors for over 11 years now. And bloody good they are too. On the site, owned by CEMEX, there is a 20 foot mirror, a 30 foot mirror and a 200 foot wall. Despite being constructed between 1928 and 1930 all are on the Scheduled Ancient Monuments list.
wall

The walk we were on was extremely popular – I stopped estimating at 150 – and extremely well led. (Our guide was featured on the BBC’s Secret Britain series when they covered the medicinal leeches of Dungeness. See I told you the wildlife was exotic). The advent of radar, in 1934, cast this experiment onto the quirky historical scrapheap fairly rapidly and as far as I can work out they were only used in the Air Defence of Great Britain Exercises in the 1930’s. They’re well worth preserving though and fit in very well with all the other outlandish sights to be seen at Dungeness.

More information:
Romney Marsh Countryside Partnership http://www.rmcp.co.uk/

Useful links:
o The Ramblers     http://www.ramblers.org.uk/
o The RSPB    http://www.rspb.org.uk/
o Dungeness    http://www.dungeness.org.uk/
o Cuspate Foreland   http://www.answers.com/topic/cuspate-foreland
o Derek Jarman    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Jarman
o John Donne    http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/donnebib.htm
o Echoes in the Sky   http://tinyurl.com/3ahu88q
o CEMEX     http://www.cemex.co.uk/
o Scheduled Ancient Monuments http://tinyurl.com/34sh9va
o Secret Britain    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00thlx9

Listen to:
David Bowie – Sound And Vision
The Albion Band – Bird-watching
Paul Simon – The Boy In The Bubble – Remastered Album Version
Sound Affairs Band – 32 Cryptograms For Derek Jarman
The Magnetic Fields – Smoke And Mirrors
Stavo Craft – The Sound Mirror (Reprise)

Eight months ago, on a chilly January Sunday morning on Portsmouth’s seafront, I set out to walk the entire mainland UK coastline, including any bridge-connected islands, for charity. It’s roughly a 6,500-mile journey, further than London to Beijing, that I guessed would take me 11 months. I would be walking clockwise to ensure Scotland was walked in the summer.

I had done most of the England’s long distance footpaths on family holidays, so had done long distance walking before. However, during three years at university I had done very little and this time I would be walking for longer than a week – more like 44 continuous weeks! There was also the factor that I would not have the benefit of a warm cottage and a car to take me to supermarkets. I would be camping out as much as possible and buying my food as and when I came to a shop along the coastline.

Preparation, you may think, would be crucial. I have to admit, I did very little beyond setting up a website and doing a couple of 15-mile hikes with tins in my rucksack to get used to the weight of a full pack. Kit wise, I was similarly lacking in foresight, purchasing a £28 one-man tent and only the very basics of camp gear to keep the weight I had to carry down.

Considering this lack of preparation, I haven’t done too badly. I have hit the UK’s most southern, western, and northern points, and walked around 4,500 miles in five weeks less than I had scheduled. Yes, my feet have hurt as the blisters grew to epic proportions,  and there have been times when I have wondered why I am doing it, but a friendly face, an offer of kindness or an amazing sight always brings me round.

I walk around 25 miles a day and still have my original boots on, though they are nearly worn through and will be swapped next week, which will be rather a sad moment. I hug the coast as far as possible, though as you will learn from future blogs, this is easier said than done! It has been an incredible experience so far and hopefully will continue to be so. I have met some amazing people and seen some amazing sights and I look forward to sharing regular updates with you as I trek back down the UK from my position currently near Inverness, particularly on the state of the paths considering the plans for the official UK coastpath. My next three entries for Walkmag.co.uk will give an overview of the English, Welsh and Scottish coastpaths in turn, and from then on I will be giving regular progress updates.

You can read an full interview with Nat from the Autumn issue of Walk Magazine here, and follow his trek on his Twitter feed (@nomads_land) and via his website http://natsevs.wordpress.com.

Walking the Wall (28 July 2010)

One of the first things you notice about Berlin is how flat it is and this makes it a great city for walking. It also makes it a great city for cycling. Like lots of continental Europe it seems to have had one of those bike hire schemes for ages – why did it take London so long to embrace the idea? – yet you rarely seem to see anyone biking wearing a cycle helmet. What’s all that about? It’s also got a great public transport system. All in all Berlin is a great city to explore.
 

We were staying in the former East Berlin, on Landsberger Allee, Friedrichshain. Lonely Planet describes the area as ‘fluid in identity and defiant of all standard labels’. Whatever, we were right near an S-Bahn station, a velodrome (them socialists knew what the people needed) and a Pfennigland Lagerverkauf (whereas your market economy has got it really nailed). We weren’t far from Karl Marx Allee and chose to stroll into the city down this impressive boulevard one morning. We were, however, keen to walk some of the route of the Berlin Wall, not least because last time I was here the Wall was very much still up and functional. (And without it I continually mixed up by my ‘east’ and ‘west’ – ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ indeed.)

With the weather bright and sunny we headed towards Treptower Park and started walking alongside the Spree.  Right away you can’t fail to spot the Jonathan Borofsky’s impressive Molecule Man sculptures. They’re not far from where the Wall actually crossed the river. Bits of the Wall survive dotted around the city but for obvious reasons most of the locals couldn’t wait to tear it down and remove all memory of it. As a tourist, though, the chance sightings of random remaining sections are especially interesting. Not least because they all seem to act as local canvasses for the ever present Berlin graffiti. Everywhere blues, reds, and greens creep upwards like a bright giant lichen.

Some portions have been deliberately preserved though and crossing over the baroque Oberbaumbrucke we’re at the East Side Gallery – a 1.3 km open air gallery on the longest surviving stretch of the Wall that offers over 100 paintings commemorating and celebrating freedom. Then it’s back over the Spree via the Schillingbrucke, you then follow some old canals (now pretty rose gardens) going past the old Heinrich-Heine-Strasse border crossing to the Sebastianstrasse/Stallschreiberstrasse residential area. Here you can see what the Wall meant to locals. It was thrown up (and enlarged over the years) down the middle of the street. Friends and families were separated and display boards tell heart-wrenching stories of failed escape attempts where ‘oosties’ tried to tunnel under the Wall to their erstwhile neighbours and freedom.

You can continue the walk but we decided to stop at the iconic Checkpoint Charlie border crossing located at Zimmerstrasse. I’d recommend a visit to Museum Haus that can be found nearby.  The day before we left we made the short trip to Bernauerstrasse to visit the park, observation tower and museum found here – again well worthwhile. The Berlin Wall was a 155 km barrier enclosing West Berlin and in turn isolating it within the German Democratic Republic. Construction began on 13 August 1961 and it was regularly enlarged up until its fall on 9 November 1989. Between 1961 and 1989 136 lost their lives at the Wall – most fatally shot – but these are just the tip of the iceberg when one considers all the suffering created by this monstrous construction.

More information:
Berlin Wall     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall
Walk the Wall     http://www.mauerguide.com/  

Useful links:
o The Ramblers     http://www.ramblers.org.uk/
o Barclays Cycle Hire   http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/cycling/14808.aspx
o Berlin     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin
o Lonely Planet    http://www.lonelyplanet.com/uk
o Jonathan Borofsky   http://www.borofsky.com/
o Checkpoint Charlie   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkpoint_Charlie
o German Democratic Republic  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Germany

Listen to:
Berlin – Take My Breath Away – Love Theme From “Top Gun”
Lou Reed – Berlin
Roger Waters – Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2) – Live Version
Highway 61 Revisited – Bob Dylan – All Along The Watchtower
Leonard Cohen – First We Take Manhattan
Nena – 99 Luftballons

“At 7am the valley was full of milk white mist, with just a few hills poking up their tops like islands in the sea. I might have been looking at a stage setting for Swan Lake with smoke being pumped on from the wings. A chapel with a tall tower looked like a fairy castle. La Penne is built on a series of terraces. Below the auberge steps led down to the village square, a small platform for the mairie and the miniature thirteenth century Romanesque church. On the church wall I noticed a war memorial from World War One with twelve names, two of which were Italian. Although it is over one hundred and forty years since France absorbed Nice and its hinterland there are still quite a few local people with Italian origins.

I descended through the pine forests to the Var at Touet, pronounced Touette in the Provencal dialect. The old village rose above me under a sheer rock face and the houses seemed to cling to the cliff. Each one had an open attic on the roof which used to be employed for drying figs. The path wound up a narrow crack in the face with a few tufts of vegetation, not a place to look down. I crossed a dried up waterfall on an open ledge, making sure I did not slip three steps to the right! The church tower was immediately underneath.

Brilliant red butterflies flitted around my feet. Tinted smoke bushes lined the way to a rocky promontory and the remains of St. Elizabeth’s chapel. Further along I came across the ruined walls of cottages standing on terraces scattered across the hillside among unpruned fruit trees. I looked at the Var below and wondered how long this village had been deserted. Perhaps the struggle to maintain a few terraces was too much once the road and railway came to provide an easy escape.

Massoins occupied a ridge pointing at the Var. At the far end were the remains of a castle and Penitents’ chapel. The buildings made an ensemble of shapes which would have fascinated Cezanne. An unguarded path along a cliff led to a pocket sized stone bridge over a narrow chasm. The Ullion gorge turned out to be one of the most dramatic walks in the area, a paved mule track winding 500 metres up a precipitous face for six kilometres. At one point the path was reduced to two metres’ width and the side wall disappeared. The rock looked unstable, serrated fangs plunging downwards like forked lightning.”

Northern Man (12 July 2010)

From the sublime to the ridiculous – not only am I not in London for this blog I’m nearly as far away as you can be and still be in England. I’m 320 miles up north within sight of Hadrian’s Wall outside the hostel at Once Brewed. I’ve journeyed up here to walk a stretch of the Pennine Way – 11k (about 7 miles) from Once Brewed to Greenhead – with the poet Simon Armitage. The 429 kilometre (268 miles) Pennine Way National Trail chases the Pennine Mountain tops along the rugged backbone of England. Its route includes the Peak District through the Yorkshire Dales and over Hadrian’s Wall to the Cheviots and is amongst the finest upland walking in England.
 

The day started with a poetry reading in the visitor centre but me and Simon had spent the time before chatting about the previous evening’s World Cup Final (he’s a season ticket holder at Manchester United). We were both outraged at the Dutch conduct – total football to total thuggery if you ask me – and fairly happy that this approach didn’t reap any reward. I’ve no idea whether the reading was well attended – Simon seemed happy enough – cos I’ve never been to one before. The weather was great, nice ‘n’ sunny without being too hot but I was fooled into not applying any sun screen and so finished more than a bit ruddy faced in the afternoon.

We were joined by a local – Marjorie – for the first coupla miles. Simon had been saying that he’d seen very few other walkers so far on his journey but today while not teeming with people we saw enough to keep up a fairly regular ‘hi ya’ greeting along the Wall. Right at this point I can hear the more experienced of you walkers out there muttering ‘but he’s walking the thing in the wrong direction’. Well firstly that’d be reason enough for me but he’s doing it from top to bottom  – finishing in Edale – because he lives near there and he likes the idea of walking home. (The existing guidebooks suggest that to keep the weather at your back you should go south to north – aah that would account for my red face then.)

Simon and I have a mutual friend – The Wedding Present’s David Gedge – and although I’m not very familiar with the poetry I’ve read Gig. As a result when we’ve exhausted the football conversation – there’s really only so much a Man U and a Chelsea can agree on – we start on music. With its mile forts, funnily enough every mile, Hadrian’s Wall counts you handily along the route. Just outside Greenhead we finally get round to talking about walking (see what I did there – poetry huh?). Just why he chose the Pennine Way for his wandering minstrel begging act? Why walking is important to him and much more. All this will appear in a future edition of walk magazine. Here though in homage to Simon’s interviewing technique is the list of ‘or’ questions along with his answers (underlined) I asked:
 
Walker or Rambler
Right of Way or Right to Roam
Mountain or Moor
Lady Gaga or Madonna
Goal line technology or No Goal line technology
Shelley or Keats
iPhone or Blackberry
Serena or Venus
Beer or Lager
Town or Country
George Formby or David Gedge 

He entered properly into the spirit of this only enhancing his answers twice – he was adamant that town did not include city and that Lady Gaga was chosen for his daughter.

All in all it was a great day and I end by wishing Simon well for the rest of the walk especially as the weather forecast for the next few days isn’t as favourable as today. I blag a lift back to Once Brewed and begin the long drive south.

More information:
Pennine Way National Trail http://www.ramblers.org.uk/info/paths/name/p/pennine 

Useful links:
o The Ramblers     http://www.ramblers.org.uk/
o Simon Armitage   http://www.simonarmitage.com/
o Hadrian’s Wall    http://www.hadrians-wall.org/
o Once Brewed    http://tinyurl.com/3a4tag2
o 2010 FIFA World Cup   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_FIFA_World_Cup
o Manchester United FC   http://www.manutd.com
o The Wedding Present   http://www.scopitones.co.uk/
o David Gedge    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gedge
o Gig     http://tinyurl.com/34dqh56
o Greenhead    http://www.hadrianswallvillages.org.uk/

Listen to:
Detroit Social Club – Northern Man
Laura Marling – Rambling Man
Morrissey – Sister I’m A Poet
The Wedding Present – Corduroy – Single Version
The Fall – British People In Hot Weather

Broadly speaking, there are two types of meteor. Sporadic meteors can appear at any time and anywhere in the sky. However, the appearance of shower meteors is much more predictable. These are associated with comets, and the particles that give rise to the meteors we see originate in material which has been thrown off by the parent comet as it passes through the inner solar system. This material initially goes to form the coma and tail of the comet. However, because the gravitational pull of the comet is very weak, the particles break away and eventually become spread out all along the orbital path of the comet.

The Earth’s orbit around the Sun carries it across the orbital paths of numerous comets at different times of the year. When this happens, and because the cometary orbit is littered with particles, a larger than average number are drawn into our planet’s atmosphere, which in turn results in relatively high numbers of meteors. Many meteor showers are fairly weak and produce only a small rise in meteor activity. However, the Perseid shower, produced during July and August when the Earth crosses the orbital path of Comet Swift-Tuttle, is the most famous and by far the most active of all.

Because the particles associated with comets travel around the Sun in parallel paths, the meteors they produce will all appear to emerge from the same point in the sky, an effect similar to that seen with railway lines which are also parallel but which seem to merge in the distance. This point is known as the radiant and the meteor shower is usually named after the area of sky in which the radiant lies. For example, the Perseid radiant lies in the constellation Perseus as shown on the chart below.

WATCHING THE PERSEIDS
Meteor watching is fairly straightforward and involves nothing more than laying under a starry sky making sure that (in spite of it being summer) you’re wrapped up warmly. The night of maximum activity for the Perseids is 12th August at which time the Earth is passing through the densest part of the cometary particle swarm. On that night anything up to 50 or more naked-eye shooting stars may be seen per hour. This year, the Moon will have set by early evening and so, assuming the sky is cloud-free, conditions for watching the Perseids are quite favourable.

If you spot a Perseid meteor it will first appear some distance from the actual radiant. Any meteor you do see can be confirmed as a Perseid by tracing its path back. Perseids will be seen to radiate from a point in the sky to the top (north) end of the constellation Perseus which, during evenings in early August, will be visible in the north eastern sky, a little way below the prominent W-shaped Cassiopeia and above the bright star Capella. The Perseid radiant is shown on the chart and it is from this point that the Perseids will seem to emanate. Those meteors whose paths don’t trace back to this point are sporadic meteors and not from the Perseid shower.

So, if you happen to be out walking on the night of 12th August – or indeed between now and then – keep an eye out for the Perseids… happy meteor-hunting!

Hotter than July (30 June & 13 July 2010)

‘All I see turns to brown
As the sun burns the ground’

Well it ain’t that often you’ll see Led Zeppelin lyrics quoted here (Kashmir in case you’re asking) but summer is definitely here and definitely hot. Before I get on talking about the 2 evening strolls this blog is about I s’pose I ought to say sorry that we’re still in London but like people say a lot these days, ‘We are where we are’, and I do live here.
 

The first stroll is more like stroll+ because it’s a 12k Richmond circular – down to the river, up to the park via Ham Common and then back for a few beers at the White Cross. All very standard stuff but no less enjoyable for all that and 28 other people obviously thought so too. Metropolitan Walkers are trying out new ideas to make their already incredibly successful evening strolls programme appeal to yet more London walkers.

The Thames is always a delight to walk beside but as we pass by Twickenham on the far bank I’m reminded that Alexander Pope made his home there from 1719, where he created his famous grotto and gardens. (They must be famous because there’s a pub, Popes Grotto, commemorating them.) Pope’s entire life was affected by the penal law in force at the time upholding the status of the established Church of England, which banned Catholics from teaching, attending a university, voting, holding public office or living closer than 10 miles from the centre of London on pain of perpetual imprisonment. (Those were indeed harsh times.) Pope decorated the grotto with alabaster, marbles, and ores such as mundic and crystals. He also used Cornish diamonds, stalactites, spars, snakestones and spongestone. Here and there in the grotto he placed mirrors that were very expensive embellishments for those times. A camera obscura was installed to delight his visitors, of whom there were many. The serendipitous discovery of a spring during its excavations enabled the subterranean retreat to be filled with the relaxing sound of trickling water, which would quietly echo around the chambers. Although the house and gardens have long since been demolished, much of this grotto still survives and now lies beneath St James Independent School for boys, open to the public once a year.

We return leaving Richmond Park and take time to admire the view from Richmond Hill down to the Thames. In spite of the words introducing this blog the scene is still remarkably verdant. The front markers had set a cracking pace and we polished off the 12k in two and a half hours leaving me plenty of time to enjoy some welcome Staropramen in the pub. 

A coupla weeks later, with the ceaseless sun giving way to some light drizzle, (not enough for my garden I fear) I’m waiting outside Norbiton station just before 7 pm.  Clare’s leading this stroll as well and this time the invitation has been extended to the other London Rambler groups so we’ve got some representatives from South Bank, Hammersmith and Hampstead there as well. As we enter Richmond Park using the Kingston Gate we are welcomed by the gleeful cacophony of a flock of ring necked parakeets. These colourful birds thrive round here lighting up the skies with flashes of luminous green while dominating the dawn and dusk choruses with their airborne shrieks. There are estimated to be at least 6,000 Rose-ringed Parakeets (Psitticula kraneri) – often referred to as the Twickenham or Kingston Parakeets – flying wild in the South London suburbs. Their specific origins are unknown, but most likely they originated from a single pair of breeding parakeets which escaped or were released in the mid-1990s. Other origins, however, have been attributed to them: the most popular theory is that they escaped from Ealing Studios, during the filming of The African Queen (which was actually made in the Isleworth Studios) in 1951; they may have escaped from an aviary during the 1987 hurricane; and it has even been suggested that the pair released by Jimi Hendrix in Carnaby Street in the 1960s is to blame. (I really want the Hendrix urban legend to be true and vow to propagate it at every available opportunity!)

We exit the park at Ladderstile gate and cross the road to the Coombe estate. Coombe is one of the more affluent private estates in south west London and is home to television personality Jimmy Tarbuck, tennis player Annabel Croft, while Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood also lives in an estate on Kingston Hill, located opposite to the entrance of Coombe Park. One of Saddam Hussein’s daughters had a house in Golf Club Drive for a number of years, and Elisabeth Murdoch also lived here for several years. Dwight D. Eisenhower, when Supreme Allied Commander during WWII, lived at “Telegraph Cottage” in Coombe, which was adjacent to the golf course which he used at weekends. We finish the walk back at the station and then a good few of us repair to The Albert for some well earned London Gold.

View the routes:
Richmond Circular
http://www.mapmyrun.com/view_route?r=266127911585125559
Norbiton Circular
http://www.mapmyrun.com/view_route?r=104127911628073221

More information:
A similar version of the Richmond Circular (along with 40 other walks in London and the South East) can be found here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Walkers-London-South-East-Cards/dp/1903301564

Useful links:
o The Ramblers     http://www.ramblers.org.uk/
o Inner London Ramblers  http://www.innerlondonramblers.org.uk/index.html
o Metropolitan Walkers   http://www.metropolitan-walkers.org.uk/
o Capital Walkers   http://www.capitalwalkers.org/
o White Cross    http://www.youngs.co.uk/pub-detail.asp?PubID=460
o Alexander Pope   http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/apope.htm
o The Alexander Pope   http://www.alexanderpope.co.uk/
o St James Independent School  http://www.stjamesschools.co.uk/ 
o Richmond Park    http://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/richmond_park/
o Ring-necked parakeets  http://www.garden-birds.co.uk/birds/ring-necked_parakeet.htm
o Ealing Studios    http://www.ealingstudios.co.uk/
o The Afican Queen   http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043265/
o Isleworth Studios   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isleworth_Studios
o Jimi Hendrix    http://www.jimihendrix.com/uk/home
o Coombe    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coombe,_Kingston_upon_Thames
o The Albert    http://www.thealbertkingston.co.uk/history.htm
o London Gold    http://www.youngs.co.uk/beer-londongold.asp

Listen to:

Stevie Wonder – Hotter Than July
Led Zeppelin – Kashmir
The Faces – Richmond
The Isley Brothers – Summer Breeze
Seals and Crofts – Summer Breeze
Jimi Hendrix Experience – Little Wing
Camera Obscura – Tougher Than The Rest