6th February
February arrived with slightly longer days and the promise of drier weather so I decided it was time to get back onto the London Loop. A couple of hours on the train saw me at Erith station to begin Section 1 with about eight and a half miles walk to Bexley station. The first part of which would be along the banks of the River Thames although not quite the first part since Erith Riverside Gardens was all fenced off for re-landscaping. I diverted around it and joined the riverside near Erith Deep Wharf.
Shortly after which the route turned inland and then along the industrial Manor Road before turning left back towards the river and Erith Yacht Club where it along with the Thames Path, Cray Riverway, and King Charles III England Coast Path headed east along the top of the embankment that separates the Thames from Erith Marshes.
There’s some good views from the top of this embankment including to the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge at Dartford but believe me it was a lot fresher in the wind than it looks in that photo.
At Crayford Ness by the radio towers I paused for a picnic lunch, watching a tug pass upstream drawing two refuse barges heading, presumably empty, for London. Across the river lay Rainham Marshes with distant traffic on the A23 and the occasional high speed train passing over the Aveley Viaduct to or from the Channel Tunnel. Behind me however was an industrial estate with multiple scrap metal recyclers because this is classic London Edgelands, the liminal space between the rural and the urban, home to necessary if unsightly businesses.
Past Crayford Ness the confluence with the Thames of the River Darent, here also called the Dartford Creek, impedes further eastwards progress. Now the path turns south and follows the deep, muddy, twisting channel of the Darent past the Dartford Creek Tidal Flood Barrier. This tall structure is part of the same scheme as the huge barrier that stretches across the Thames near Silvertown to protect London from inundation by the North Sea.
About a mile and a half after turning south away from the Thames, past Crayford Marshes, I turned again to follow the route beside the River Cray. From here on the section is never far from the River Cray although the river is not always visible. Mind you where it is visible it’s not always particularly attractive. By a moored residential barge the route leaves the river to pass by more recycling businesses, ducks under the North Kent railway line, through another edgelands industrial estate and emerges at the busy A206 Thames Road close to a large roundabout. I circumnavigated the roundabout via several Pelican Crossings and crossed over the River Cray on the road bridge then turned right to follow the river towards Barnes Cray with a large area of scrubland on my left beyond which lay the Stanham River and the border between Greater London and Kent. It’s not a particularly scenic stretch of the Cray and wasn’t helped by the sunshine now being replaced by increasing amounts of cloud.
I followed the River Cray to Crayford, swapping banks via the road bridge at Maiden Lane, until reaching the Waterside Gardens in the town centre. Here I paused to rest on a bench and get out my Thermos because it was definitely time for more Bovril. When walking in the winter months it’s always time for Bovril :-)
Around the one-way system and a climb up the London Road and Bourne Road before thankfully the route took a left and headed across some slightly slippery playing fields back to the River Cray.
Just before Hall Place Gardens I crossed the river again and walked along the hedge with the miniature railway on the other side, sadly only operating in the summer, crossed the flood channel and skirted two sides of the woodland to reach the ramp and steps up to the bridge that carries the thundering A2 dual carriageway and the London Loop over the Dartford Loop railway line.
A short way up a slope beside the A2 above I turned right through a gap in the fence next to a superfluous broken stile and entered Churchfield Wood. This gently upward sloping path with the woods on one side and on the other fields and a quarry was a bit of a slog to be honest but had I bothered to check the map I’d have realised that there wasn’t far to go. A right turn down a tarmac path and I was passing the graveyard, which is always better than stopping in it, before emerging opposite St. Mary the Virgin church, Bexley.
I finished off the Bovril on a seat by the Lychgate before the short walk through Old Bexley to the station where I’d arrived last October, this time to depart on the first of three trains home.
Section 1 ✅
A Flickr Album from the day is here.
