Along the Ravensbourne to meet a Tzar.

9th January 2023

I started my first urban ramble of the new year at Catford Bridge railway station, a three train ride away from home. Leaving the station on the wrong side I crossed the tracks on the Catford Road bridge and turned right into Adenmore Road past the disused station building and left under the railway to my first sight of the River Ravensbourne in its concrete sided channel at the footbridge into Ladywell Fields. 

 

 

 

I followed the path through Ladywell Fields back across the river and back under the railway into the northern part of Ladywell Fields where the Ravensbourne is less constrained in its course and out along Malyons Road, a long straight South London residential street developed in the early 20th century, One right were large two storey terraced houses and on the left similar but with some being maisonettes, the giveaway being the two front doors set back under the arched porches.

 

I had plotted a route on the map before leaving home but at the top of the road realised that I was more or less following the Waterlink Way and since this is well way marked from here on I followed the signposts and pavement roundels. These led me through local streets away from the inaccessible river to meet it again albeit briefly in Cornmill Gardens before it disappeared beneath Lewisham town centre.

 

 

 

Following the WW signs round the end of Lewisham Bus Station and through the tunnel under the railway I next saw the Ravensbourne over a brick wall where it runs parallel to the DLR past Elverson Road station and then into Brookmill Park.

 

 

 

Brookmill Park held the welcome prospect of a Public Convenience but this is Britain in the 21st century so despite being shown on the map at the park entrance these proved to be locked up and to all appearances permanently closed. Still the lake was nice, it’s probably much busier in summer than January, the only person I encountered being the council street-sweeper who was taking pictures of the fallen tree across the path that prevented him getting his machine through.

 

 

 

From the top of Brookmill Park the way leads to Broadway Fields, across the Ravensbourne and beneath the elevated DLR into Deptford town centre. At Deptford Bridge you can see the Ravensbourne heading under the DLR but need to walk via local streets for some distance before rejoining it at Deptford Creek, north of Creek Road. We’re close to the confluence with the Thames here but public access to the waterside at Deptford Creek itself is very limited.

 

 

 

At the point where the Deptford Creek/River Ravensbourne meets the Thames there has been much new development. Handily this includes a Waitrose so I popped in and got a picnic lunch to eat by the riverside. The great writer and film maker John Rogers whose youtube videos partly inspire my urban walks would point out that the confluence of two rivers is a sacred place. He’d traditionally grab a can of Stella and a vegetable samosa for lunch but I’m not a fan of the former and Waitrose hadn’t any of the latter so I settled for a fancy veggie wrap and a diet coke. Eaten on a bench near the Oystercatcher bar outside which the landlady was walking a cat on a lead.

 

 

 

This was followed by a stop for coffee in Costa in no way prompted by the desperate need to use their loo. Refreshed and relieved I resumed my walk west along the Deptford river front but had to wait for the pedestrian swing bridge across the entrance of the creek to be swung back into place. The bridge had been opened to allow the exit into the Thames of the aggregate carrier Bert Prior, built in 1961 in the Netherlands and still plying the North Sea and Thames Estuary 62 years later.

 

 

 

On the west side of Deptford Creek there’s a monument to someone that you might not immediately associate with Deptford. A memorial to the Russian Tsar Peter the Great was erected in London in 2000 to commemorate the tercentenary of his visit to England in 1698. During his stay he met members of William II's court in England, and visited the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, the Royal Mint, the Royal Society, the University of Oxford, and various shipyards and munitions factories, including Deptford. Peter travelled with a huge entourage and for much of his visit resided at John Evelyn’s house Sayes Court near Deptford Dockyard. Evelyn had leased the house to a naval officer John Benbow who sublet it to the Tsar. Unfortunately during the stay Peter and his entourage trashed the place, damaging all parts of the property, the floors, walls, and doors, breaking furniture and windows and destroying soft furnishings, bed linen and the garden. Hundreds of pounds worth of damage was done, the equivalent of tens of thousands today. There must have been an awkward conversation between Benbow and his landlord! Although Evelyn sought and was granted compensation from the government.

 

 

 

(The statue of Peter the Great depicts him with a very small head. Maybe he was the original man in the joke involving a mermaid granting a wish that you’re going to have to search for because I’m not repeating it here ;-)  )

 

Sayes Court House has long gone along with most of its gardens but as I followed the Thames Path west through Sayes Court Park, the remains of the gardens, I passed the ancient Mulberry tree some have said was planted or gifted by Tzar Peter the Great. I’m not sure that idea ties in with his other reported behaviour. The tree is in poor condition but reportedly still bears fruit.

 

 

 

 My feet weren’t ready to stop walking so I carried on along the Thames Path to Rotherhithe where as the daylight waned I caught a bus back to Waterloo Station but that’s beyond this tale.