An exploration of a circular walk around London that passes through some of London’s finest scenery

BY SARAH JENNER

I have always used walking as a way to explore and discover my surroundings, so when I moved to London just over a year ago, one of the first things I purchased was an official guide to walking the Capital Ring.

Officially opened in 2005, the Capital Ring forms a 78-mile circle around inner London, within ten miles of Big Ben. Originally set up by the London Walking Forum and later part of Transport for London’s ‘Strategic Walk Network’, it promises to take the walker through a series of green corridors or islands, which link up the various boroughs through which it passes.

And so it was that I found myself one mildly sunny Saturday morning, emerging from Crystal Palace station and stepping out into my very own exploration of London. While Crystal Palace is not the official starting point (that can be found in Woolwich), the walk can really be done in any order with 15 well signposted sections each averaging just over five miles. All start and finish points are easily reached from train stations or regularly frequented bus stops and centred mainly in Zones 3 and 4 of the London Underground map. As someone who has an impressively bad sense of direction, the clear and frequent signage was much appreciated, and the two small diversions that I encountered along the route were clearly marked and easy to follow.

And so, I walked. From Crystal Palace to Streatham, through Wimbledon, Greenford, Hendon, Highgate and Stoke Newington, finally finishing back where I had started several months before. Along the way I would see the impressive Thames Barrier, Eltham Palace, and the former Olympic Stadium. I would encounter deer roaming in Richmond Park, enjoy beautiful roses in the gardens of Norwood Grove and walk along the former Edgware, Highgate and London Railway line, now transformed into a nature reserve.

I would mistake former pumping stations for churches, tricked by their ornate exteriors, and see Hackney’s very own Stonehenge, an artwork created with the granite blocks that once provided foundations for an engine house. On Tooting Bec Common I would watch two very excited chihuahuas jump out of a duffel bag, having been safely delivered to a patch of green for their daily exercise. I would receive directions from a friendly runner on Putney Heath, chat about dahlias with a proud allotment gardener in Wandsworth and provide directions to a very lost group of tourists outside East Finchley station.

One of my favourite sections, amongst many, was the four mile stretch from Richmond to Osterley Lock. Starting beside the Thames in Richmond, on a sunny day full of happy people walking hand-in-hand by the river, the route took me past the site of the Palace of Richmond, a favourite haunt of Elizabeth I, now almost completely disappeared after many years of neglect. Crossing the river on the cast iron footbridge at Richmond Lock and Weir, I walked past Isleworth Ait, a four-hectare island in the middle of the river that provides a sanctuary for birds, marvelling at the low tide which had left only a trickle of water through a narrow channel in the mud. From there it was onward through the parkland of Syon House, formerly the site of a convent and now the London home of the Dukes of Northumberland. The surrounding parkland, complete with a field of grazing sheep, had been designed by the famous Capability Brown, but despite its very rural charm I couldn’t help but feel it was slightly out of place in the modern London landscape.

I needn’t have worried. A few minutes later and I was standing slightly bewildered by a set of traffic lights on the A315, surrounded by traffic and noise, pavements full of hassled looking shoppers and restless children. Several small corner shops and a Holiday Inn brought me crashing back to modern, urban reality. A short walk alongside the main road and I was able to escape the noise at the basin of the Grand Union Canal in Brentford, a very fashionable area complete with expensive-looking glass apartments and a selection of restaurants.

The canal led the way past huge modern office buildings and Allan Jones’ colourful steel sculpture Athlete. With the traffic of the M4 thundering past, the path slowly emerged into quieter, greener spaces. I studied the features of the moored canal boats that I passed, picking my favourite things from each; a tub of red geraniums perched precariously on a rooftop, window frames painted in the colours of the rainbow, bicycles ingeniously stored upright in a wheelhouse. I passed ‘Clitheroe’s Lock’, named after a family who once lived nearby, and the ominously named ‘Gallows Bridge’, an iron crossover bridge from 1820. That marked the official end of the section, a couple of hundred yards from Osterley Lock.

I must also mention the gothic eeriness that is Abney Park Cemetery, one of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ garden cemeteries of London, passed through on the Highgate to Stoke Newington section of the Capital Ring. I was there on a particularly hot day and the coolness of the trees in what is now a nature reserve was a welcome relief from the heat that had been radiating through the soles of my trainers on the pavement outside. The cemetery was laid out in 1840 and provided a burial ground for a hugely varied and eclectic group of individuals, open to all regardless of their religious conviction.

I have always found cemeteries to be very peaceful places at their heart, and the sense of managed chaos that pervaded here, due to the cemetery’s abandonment in the 1970’s, has given it a truly unique atmosphere. There is deep green foliage everywhere, framing the numerous headstones and monuments to those since passed, making the whole place seem other-worldly in the best possible sense. Leaving the cemetery you are once again thrown back into reality, with the busy A10 straight ahead of you. A short walk to the junction with Cazenove Street marks the end of this section.

Perhaps it is this constant contrast, the moving from quiet green spaces to noisy concrete junctions, from ancient landscapes to modern creations, that is the essence of the walk, and maybe even of London, itself. You are never far away from the traffic, noise, and dirt of any large city, and I think the walk is all the better for it. This is London as it really is, a fabulous mashup of old and new, ever changing and yet always rooted in the past.
Whether you are new to London or have lived here for years, why not try a stretch or two of the Capital Ring for yourself? You never know what you might discover.

Further information: tfl.gov.uk/modes/walking/capital-ring