Sorry for posting this daylog and tomorrow's a little late. The reason will
become apparent.
Today was the day of the Big Walk. My family are all keen walkers, and we
decided a good long while ago to explore what long walks were possible in the
area around
us. One idea which occurred to us was the prospect of
taking the train into central
London and then walking all the way home - about
20 miles, through some interesting areas. Family illness and bad weather had
conspired to stop us carrying out this plan until today.
We set out a little later, and took
Thameslink and the
Circle Line to
Temple station, on the banks of the River
Thames It was nearly 11:00 when we
set off in a generally north-westerly direction, and the weather was
(fortunately) fine. We skirted the
Aldwych and headed up
Drury Lane, and
then decided on a whim to go through the
Great Court of the
British Museum.
This was a pleasant interlude, and also avoided our having to walk up the dusty
street running parallel. Then we crossed the
Tottenham Court Road and headed
up
Cleveland Street past
Telecom Tower to the
Euston Road. There, we
crossed into
Regent's Park and headed northward up
Broad Walk, stopping on
the way for a cup of tea. Then we pressed on, past the south side of
London
Zoo. Looking over the zoo fence, I saw a
reindeer. When in
Sweden (around
Umeå) at New Year this year, the only reindeer I saw were stuffed
or cooked, so seeing a live one in the middle of London struck me as
amusing.
Leaving the zoo behind, we crossed from the park onto
Primrose Hill, the first
of many hills to be climbed during the day. There were primroses blooming here,
presumably placed there after popular demand, but very pleasant. Then we headed
down into the smart streets south of
Swiss Cottage, up
Avenue Road, past the
Swiss Cottage itself, and up
College Crescent, away from the dusty
Finchley
Road. This route took us up
Fitzjohn's Avenue, past a hospital with a statue
of
Sigmund Freud outside, towards
Hampstead Heath. As we climed the hill,
the houses again became smarter, until every one seemed to be a mansion. At the
top, we turned a sharp corner and found ourselves in the main street of
Hampstead village, next to the
London Underground's deepest station. Despite
having been engulfed by London, Hampstead strongly retains its village feeling,
perched on top of its steep hill. Also up here were many restaurants, almost all
of them expensive. One was offering unlimited
dim sum for £13.50. There was
also a
J D Wetherspoon pub, but we didn't feel terribly hungry at that point.
A little further on we broke out onto the open Heath, and followed the road
along its edge to the pub called
Jack Straw's Castle - nothing to do with
Jack Straw, by the way. There we began the descent from the Heath, down
towards
Golder's Green. At the bottom of the hill we passed
The Old Bull and
Bush, and stopped to review blisters and the like.
Having rested, we turned the corner at the bottom of the hill and came upon the
entrance to
Golder's Hill Park, where we stopped for lunch at a very popular
Italian restaurant. I had what was described as a 'Golder's Green Bagel' -
smoked salmon, cream cheese and cucumber.
Not very Italian, perhaps,
but delicious. Then, having drunk tea and eaten well, we moved on before our
muscles decided to seize up. We headed along back streets along the extreme
northern edge of Hampstead Heath, between Golder's Green and
Hampstead Garden
Village. Yet more mansions. Single houses as large as the (well-appointed)
terrace of five in which I live. Eventually we came down to the junction of the
North Circular Road and the
Finchley Road at
Henlys Corner, but did not
cross the North Circular, rather turning right onto a path called the
Brookside
Walk, which follows the
Mutton Brook and the
Dollis Brook, small rivers
which flow through North London's suburbia. This path took us under the North
Circular, and the
Great North Way and
Hendon Lane, and eventually deposited
us outside
Hendon cemetery. We should really have followed the riverside walk
a little further, since it could have saved us a lot of trouble, but we didn't
know that.
We had to skirt right around the cemetery, since there didn't appear to be a
path through it. Then, having got to the far side by the long route, I rashly
decided we could cut across what was marked on the map as '
Arrandene Open
Space'. It wasn't very open, and in fact consisted of a large tract of jumbled,
muddy countryside with a lot of trees and virtually no exit. We ended up walking
about a mile to end up a hundred yards from where we started, and got our shoes
and boots covered in mud into the bargain. Then we carried on slogging up the
hill, and discovered that the area my 'short cut' had been designed to avoid was
the totally unsignposted old village of
Mill Hill. I'd always thought of Mill
Hill in terms of
Mill Hill Broadway, where the Thameslink railway station is.
This was a much more exclusive area, on the edge of the countryside and home to
two
public schools. Unfortunately, it was so exclusive that there wasn't
anywhere to buy the afternoon tea we badly wanted. Moreover, if we'd carried on
along the Brookside Walk, and from there gone the far side of a
roundabout
we'd passed in
Hendon, we'd have been there a lot sooner. We'll know next
time.
Old Mill Hill has plenty of place names to suggest that there really was a mill
there once. From there we headed onward, through the outlying parts of Mill Hill
and eastern Edgware, now with genuine open country on our right, until we came
to the point where we left the urbanisation behind altogether. We headed for
Moat Mount Open Space, an area of public countryside which would lead us into
Hertfordshire. Still no afternoon tea. Moat Mount was approached along the edge
of the most exclusive housing we'd seen yet - '
Mote Mount', consisting of a
few green-roofed villas in their own private estates, with rare ducks in
elegantly landscaped ponds - and past a riding stable. Then we crossed the Open
Space itself, which is where the Dollis Brook rises. (It flows into
Barnet and
out again before coming to where we'd seen it before.) The fields were very
damp, as though the river were rising out of the path itself. We glimpsed the
M1 away to the left before reaching the far side of Moat Mount. Then we had to
follow a busy A-road, and cross the
A1 at
Stirling Corner, which was
probably the worst bit of the whole journey. Then we headed onward into
Borehamwood, which is very dull, but entirely free of mansions, and where we
finally got something to eat - sandwiches and cartons of milk from a branch of
Iceland.
Then we headed onward through boring Borehamwood, and into the
Hertfordshire
countryside. More mansions appeared as we got to
Radlett, where we joined the
Roman road,
Watling Street, which leads directly to
St Albans. The sun was
setting, and as we headed up the hill out of Radlett, it began to get pretty
chilly. We crossed the
M25 on a bridge, and went through the villages of
Frogmore and
Park Street before finally limping home to St Albans at 8:00pm,
after walking a total distance of about 22 miles (35 km). We were extremely glad
to be greeted by a hot dinner and good wine provided by family members who'd
stayed at home. And then the pain started. My thighs felt appalling for the next
twelve hours or so, and I was lucky to be the only walker who hadn't picked up
blisters. So I only logged on for the briefest time, and then crashed into bed.
And then...