April 19th
I want to walk the London Outer Orbital Path, usually tautologically referred to as the London Loop. This trail, nearly 150 miles long almost encircles Greater London, split into 24 sections between Erith station and Purfleet. The sections all start/finish close to public transport nodes making it really convenient if you live inside the loop. I don’t live inside the loop so it will be quite inconvenient, especially given the limited public transport options where I do live. I might never actually complete the whole thing but if I don’t start somewhere then I certainly won’t finish it. So what better place to start than the nearest bit, Section 10 from Hatton Cross to Hayes & Harlington. I downloaded the map and guides for Section 10 from the Inner London Ramblers website and picked the following Friday as the day to make a start. Yes of course that turned out to be the only day that week when rain was forecast because Sod’s Law applies. 🙄
Two buses and a tube got me to Hatton Cross Underground station, at which I’d never previously got on or off, so ✔︎. From there it’s a short walk alongside the A30 Great South West Road to the start of Section 10 proper by the bridge over the River Crane.
This is River Crane Park and the path heads north through the woods beside the river and out into an open space and once you are away from the road it almost feels like countryside. On leaving the open space the route runs through suburban semis with double glazed windows to mitigate the sound of the jets on the flightpath overhead, streets not too dissimilar to the one on which I was born. On reaching the A4 Bath Road I crossed and turned left, at which point enough rain arrived that I had to put on my waterproof coat and then crossed back over the River Crane on the road bridge.
Shortly after which the route turned right into the next green bit, Berkeley Meadows, named after the ancient English landowning family whose name also gave us the square in which nightingales sang and the hunt from which we get the rhyming slang, "berk". Exiting the path at the north end and crossing the road carefully it’s into the woods along muddy paths alongside the Crane until reaching the large open field which is Cranford Country Park. Across which the rain was now blowing horizontally from the left 💦
And across which I had to walk diagonally to get to the exit after passing the Ha-Ha which separated the garden of Cranford House, one of the homes of the Earls of Berkeley (now demolished) from the open parkland. A Ha-Ha being a ditch with a vertical wall on the inner side designed to keep deer, livestock, peasants etc. out of the garden without the wall spoiling the view from the house. Ha-ha supposedly being what people said when they saw it. Or fell into it.
I was too wet to laugh at it but by the time I’d crossed the car park the sun had come out and I found a dryish bench under a large Yew in the churchyard of St. Dunstan’s Cranford on which to pause and eat my picnic sandwich. Doesn’t look like it’s right next to the M4 Motorway, does it?
They didn’t build it next to the motorway of course because that wasn’t there when the Saxons built the first church, or in the 15th and 17th centuries when the current building was constructed. The church is locked outside of mass times so I missed seeing the memorial to the comedian Tony Hancock and the memorials to the many berks sorry, Berkeleys that lie within. Picnic consumed I crossed the cobbled (setts) yard and passed under the arch of the old stable block, then under the motorway and turned right into the wonderfully named Dog Kennel Covert, a strip of woodland through which runs the Loop, the Hillingdon Trail, and the River Crane also known here as the Yeading Brook which forms the boundary between the boroughs of Hounslow and Hillingdon. For a bit of urban edgelands it had a pretty good display of Bluebells.
Emerging from the park via Watersplash Lane my eye was drawn to a large art deco factory or office on North Hyde Road, topped by an incongruously large cellsite aerial tower. I can’t find any information about this building, it seems to be outside the area of the former Nestle factory site across North Hyde Gardens. Something to do with the electricity substation to its north maybe? If you know, comment below.
Passing the above building and bearing round to the left and up onto the flyover of The Parkway (A312), across the Grand Union Canal and down a long zig-zag ramp to the canal towpath and a little diversion to Bull’s Bridge Junction where the Paddington Arm joins the main Grand Union, giving London a direct link to the national canal network rather than via the Thames at Brentford. Next to the white painted brick Bull's Bridge is a finger post giving the distances to Brentford 6 miles, Paddington 13½ miles, and Braunston 87½ miles. Or it would do if some twat hadn’t snapped off half the sign pointing to Braunston. Cut off their goolies I say.
Retracing my steps along the canal towards Braunston and under the flyover the end of section 10 was almost in sight. Just a stroll along the towpath underneath the railway bridge carrying the Great Western main line and Crossrail Purple train Elizabeth Line then to Bridge 200, Station Road, the end of Section 10 near Hayes & Harlington Station.
Section 10 ✔︎
I could have got the train home from here but the sun was out, it was only half past one, and I could manage another few miles so I continued on Section 11 to West Drayton. Post about that to follow.
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