London Loop Section 8

Ewell to Kingston Bridge

This fairly level 8 mile stretch mostly follows the Hogsmill River except where that isn’t possible in Old Malden and again between Berrylands and Kingston. I started outside Ewell West station at about 11:25 in the morning having travelled there by train.

The section proper starts in Bourne Hall Park which is access through an arch in a brick wall in Chessington Rd. By the pond, which was crowded with Canada Geese I turned right and shortly afterwards re-read the directions and retraced my steps because I should have turned left to leave the park, crossing Chessington Rd. and then turning left into the woods and shortly after joining the Hogsmill River (hereafter to be referred to as the Hogsmill for short) by the white clad building which was formerly the Upper Mill which was in production until 1953. Actually the building you see now was mostly pulled down and rebuilt as offices in 1984.

I followed the Hogsmill to the site of Lower Mill (burnt down 1938) where a boardwalk – more of a bridge really – runs above the river and through the tunnel carrying the Raynes Park to Epsom railway line thus avoiding the Loop having a lengthy detour away from the Hogsmill.

The next bit involved following the river through the partly wooded Hogsmill Open Space, swapping from one bank to the other via a bridge and then back again after passing the playing fields, crossing Ruxley Lane and eventually coming to the unwelcome intrusion that is the A240 Kingston Road. This required a short diversion to the traffic lights to get across the busy dual carriageway. I went through the gap in the fence to find the Hogsmill again and followed it as it paralleled Worcester Park Road. The river here forms the boundary between Greater London and Surrey with the path on the London side. An information board here says that The Worcester Park gunpowder mills were along this part of the river and on several occasions blew up. In 1851 it was the door of one of the derelict gunpowder huts near here which pre-Raphaelite artist William Holman Hunt used in his picture "The Light of the World". 

 And having learnt that nugget of information I shall evermore think of that painting as “Jesus and the Abandoned Bomb Factory” :-)

I’d now reached the point where the route leaves the Hogsmill, there being no continuous path ahead and for road safety reasons takes to suburban roads heading first SE then ENE and curving around to head NNW and what the directions omit to mention is that this is a long uphill slog just to avoid the footway-less Old Malden Lane which would be considerably shorter. At the highest point the path heads down through the woods to meet Church Road. Here I had a choice of turning right on the main route past the church of St. John the Baptist or left to cut down through the woods on the Alternative route via Six Acre Meadow. I chose left.

I reckon this was the better choice, Six Acre Meadow was a good place to eat my picnic lunch, it now being just after 1 p.m. and there being a handy bench. Next to the bench was another information board introducing a second artistic encounter. Sir John Everett Millais painted the background to his work “Ophelia” along this stretch of the Hogsmill in 1851. “Ophelia” herself was added afterwards afterwards in 1852, modelled by 19 year old Elizabeth Siddall lying fully clothed in a full bathtub. Probably a wise move looking the river water if she’d laid down in that she might have spent a long time afterwards sitting on the loo.

After Six Acre Meadow I rejoined the main route to reach the A3 Malden Way / Kingston bypass road which was audible long before it was visible. It’s a bit of a schlep up the road, through the subway, and back down again to reach the far side of the road and they’ve put a high fence along the central reservation to thwart anyone tempted to take a shortcut. Having rejoined the Hogsmill it soon got a bit quieter and the next half mile or so followed the river through Elmbridge Meadows Nature Reserve, popular with the local dog walkers.

At Berrylands I left the river again, passing under the South Western Main railway line at the station and plodding down Lower Marsh Lane between the Hogsmill Waste Water Treatment Works and Surbiton Cemetery, turning right along Villiers Road to cross the Hogsmill by the Spiritualist Church and left down Swan Walk to rejoin the river by Hogsmill Community Gardens, busy with green-fingered types.

From here it was all through Kingston town centre, the route following the Hogsmill where it could, past Kingston Town Hall to Clattern Bridge. A nice cast plaque on the bridge says “Clattern Bridge, which crosses the Hogsmill River, is one of the oldest bridges in Surrey and is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. The earliest known reference is in a deed of 1293 and the medieval name, "Clateryngbrugge”, is thought to have been descriptive of the sound of horses crossing the bridge. The stone arches on the downstream side are the oldest parts of the bridge which until the mid nineteenth century was only 8 feet wide.” You can only really see the old bit from the downstream side.

From Clattern Bridge I followed the Hogsmill past the trendy eateries on Charter Quay to its confluence with the Thames, thereby completing another London River walk since the source of the Hogsmill is way back in Bourne Hall Park, and then along the Thames to complete Loop Section 8 at Kingston Bridge. It was ten to three. Good, time to go and have a pint in the Druids Head before getting the bus back to Ewell West Station just in time to catch the trains home.

I’ve added some more pink highlighter to my Urban Good London National Park City map and can tell that for whichever section I do next the logistics of getting to and from it are going to become more involved and the journeys longer.

Here's a Flickr Album of 26 photos I took along Section 8.