Exploring linear parks in South London

In our previous weekly long walk my walk buddy and I did a loop north of the Thames from Embankment to Waterloo vis, amongst other places, Hyde Park, Paddington, Regent's Canal, Clerkenwell, City and South Bank. Buoyed by the success of that walk I proposed that we try something similar south of the river and so we joined the 8:57 Barriers Club and caught the tube to Westminster intending to visit a few of the green spaces shown on the map.

The first part of the journey was an uneventful trek along roads apart from the discovery of Arment Pie, Mash & Eel House somewhere around Walworth, possibly.

Soon after we were in Burgess Park and the walk really began. I had been there before, I quickly realised, but previously I had been going east to west and things always look different in an interesting way when you walk in a different direction. We also wandered off the main path a little to take in a wildflower garden so it was like walking in the park for the first time.

The yomp through Peckham had to be done and at least there was the mix of cultures to study along the way.

From there it was a succession of parks with a couple of steep hills to spice things up.

Here is a checklist of the places we visited, where I remembered to check in on Swarm, in reverse order because that is how the app works:

• Russia Dock Woodland
• Lower Pepys Park
• Upper Pepys Park
• The Dog & Bell (beer break)
• Broadway Fields
• Brookmill Park
• Ladywell Fields
• Ravensbourne Park Gardens
• Blythe Hill Fields
• One Tree Hill
• The Peckham Round (coffee and cake)
• Peckham Rye Park
• Peckham Rye Common
• Burgess Park

This was a slight change from our vaguely planned route which would have taken us into Greenwich Park as on entering Ladywell Fields in Catford we saw signs for Waterlink Way that explained that we were about half way along the 12 km route and we decided to follow the rest of it towards the Thames because it looked pretty and we like to explore new places.

The Thames from Deptford to Rotherhithe is one of my favourite sections because it reeks of maritime history and has managed to resist much of modern London so we took the scenic route up to Canada Water where we had an easy route home.

The statistics of the walk were 22 km in a respectable 4.5 hours.

It was not planned as such but this proved to be a day of long linear parks created either where water used to be, in disused canals or docks, or alongside still running water. That would have been a great plan if only I had thought of it beforehand.