May road trip journal, part 3

Day 4, Garlieston, Dumfries and Galloway to Kilchrist Castle, Kintyre, 241 miles.

To get from Garlieston to my holiday cottage in Kintyre required driving a long loop up through Ayrshire to cross the Clyde on the Erskine Bridge, up the west side of Loch Lomond, around the tops of Loch Long and Loch Fyne and south again via Inveraray and Lochgilphead to Tarbert and further south to Campbeltown. With traffic, a fuel stop, occasional pauses to stretch the legs and admire the scenery it took most of the day. Taking it at a fairly relaxed pace made for a quite pleasant journey through nice country. Final stop before reaching my destination was Tesco in Campbeltown to stock up on provisions for the next 4 days.

Late in the afternoon I arrived at Kilchrist Castle Cottages, about 10 minutes drive south of Campbeltown. The cottages are in a separate compound to the rear of the castle accessed down an unsurfaced track and set amongst open fields. The castle itself is a private residence so not open to the public and only glimpsed through the trees surrounding it. MacLeod cottage would be my home for the next few days, a wee detached single storey building with one bedroom, a sitting room with kitchenette, and a rather cramped shower room and toilet. All I’d need for a short stay and conveniently located to explore Kintyre. What was less convenient was finding the handwritten note next to a bottle of cheap plonk offered as an apology for the fridge not working and the suggestion that I could use a fridge in the laundry at the other end of the site. I’d really have appreciated knowing that before I arrived with 3 days worth of breakfast supplies and salad. Even a message in the morning would have allowed me to plan accordingly. Looking back at the previous reviews for the cottage later I saw that the non-working fridge had been reported to the owners by a previous renter in April so it’s not like it had just broken that day. At least the wine was red rather than white.

Other than the fridge issue it was a nice place to stay and when the sun eventually went down proved to have quite a dark sky with many stars visible to the naked eye. Quite a treat for someone from the light polluted south of England.

Day 5, Mull of Kintyre Lighthouse and the southern end of the Kintyre peninsula.

I had scouted out a couple of places on the map to visit. First was Mull of Kintyre Lighthouse. There’s a car park about 1.3 miles from the lighthouse and then you can walk down the private access road to the clifftop lighthouse site with views all the way to Northern Ireland. Getting to that car park is an adventure in itself along about five miles of narrow single track roads with steep hills, tight bends, obstructive sheep, and terrific scenery. Eventually the road ends at a small parking area before a gate with a sign that says “End of Public Road Turn Here”. From here on you’re on foot. The tarmac service road heads steeply down almost the whole way to the lighthouse gate, with several hairpin bends and the lighthouse appearing and disappearing from view. It was a gloriously sunny, hot day and much less windy than I’d expected as I walked down the steep road, all the while with the vague feeling that I was going to regret this idea on the way back up!

The views down to the lighthouse and across to Rathlin Island are very picturesque and occasionally a fishing boat would pass trailing a white wake on the deep blue water. It took around half an hour to get to the bottom, or at least the gate to the lighthouse compound. Apparently you used to be able to get right to the lighthouse itself but these days the gate is firmly locked shut.

I had the place to myself too, at least until I got to the bottom when after about ten minutes I was joined by two Dutch motorcaravanners, an English guy, and their Good Doggos. We had a brief chat and I let them start their ascent while I chilled out for a while. When I could put it off no longer I began my slow way back up the hill. It was still warm and sunny and there’s no shelter to speak of anywhere on the road so I took it steady, counting out 100 paces and stopping for breath, taking a few minutes rest and a swig of water every 300 paces or so until suddenly I was back at the top, a bit warm but not completely knackered. It took about twice as long to get up as it did to go down.

Off the road up on the hillside is a memorial for the RAF Chinook helicopter crash in 1994 which claimed the lives of all 25 passengers and 4 crew and spawned a few conspiracy theories since the passengers were all from the security services. There was also some controversy over the findings of the air accident inquiry, an RAF board of inquiry ruled that it was impossible to establish the exact cause of the accident but this ruling was overturned by two senior reviewing officers, who stated that the pilots were guilty of gross negligence for flying too fast and too low in thick fog. A later Parliamentary inquiry found the previous verdict of gross negligence on the part of the crew to be ‘unjustified’. In 2011, an independent review of the crash cleared the crew of negligence and accepted that the RAF had falsely declared compliance with regulations in relation to the aircraft’s authority to fly.

By complete coincidence when I arrived back at the car I fell into conversation with the occupant of a motorhome which had just parked in the car park who turned out to be an 80 year old former RAF helicopter pilot. Interesting chap with an informed insider’s opinion of the incident described above.

I returned along the road to the lighthouse, inevitably meeting a fuel tanker on the way at an inconvenient spot, and headed for the end of the Kintyre peninsula, the appropriately named Southend but without a long pier. I pulled into a car park by the beach at Carskey Bay and walked the short distance to Keil Caves, St. Columba’s Footsteps, St. Columba’s Well, and his church ruins. The footprints are carved into the top of a rocky outcrop, one parallel to the shore and the other at 90 degrees to it with the year 564 also incised into the rock. The history is a bit confused but likely one footprint dates from the 4th century and became associated with St. Columba who landed here briefly in 563. The second was probably added by a 19th century local mason called Daniel McIlreavie to boost the area’s association with the saint and he also added the (wrong) date.

Around 50 yards away St. Columba’s Well, a rocky bowl carved into the sloping hillside which collects not-entirely-wholesome looking water from a spring. This too may have obtained its association with the saint by way of 19th century tourism. Completing the St. Columba trio is the ruined church set along the landward side of a roughly rectangular graveyard and almost entirely overgrown so that from the footsteps it appears to be just a bunch of small trees.

The history of the caves is a little more matter of fact. Some have names such as the Great Cave, the Piper’s Cave - after the legend of a disappearing homeward bound piper who allegedly haunts the cave, and the Hermit’s Retreat. The caves were occupied on and off since prehistoric times until the late 19th century where the 1881 census records six members of the McFee and McCallum families as residents. If you enter the larger caves today you’ll find that the only residents are panicky pigeons.

From Keil I took the coast road to Southend and then the B842 back to Kilchrist for tea, dinner, and the Friday night Top Of The Pops re-runs on BBC4 with accompanying commentary on Mastodon.

Next time I go to Campbeltown, explore the east side of Kintyre, and find an unexpected castle.

May road trip journal, part 2

 Day Two, Laneshaw Bridge, Lancs. to Garlieston, Dumfries & Galloway. 199 miles.

After a full English at the Alma Inn I checked out, attempted to remove as much sap as possible from the car, and cleaned the dead things off the windscreen. Heading north in the sunshine on local roads through Pendle to pick up the A65 was a breathtakingly scenic drive and I think this area might need to be visited again. What followed once I reached the A65 wasn't so good though. Heavy and stop/start traffic all the way through Ingleton (been there) and Kirby Lonsdale all the way to the M6 motorway junction 36. It turned out that this was because we were following a huge quarry dump truck on a low-loader, escorted by multiple Police cars, and the only place for them to pull in was a layby just before the motorway. Bad timing really. Once I got on the M6 heading north I could finally do more than 20 mph. For the next couple of hours I cruised northwards on the motorway, stopping for a comfort break once I'd crossed the border and then taking the A75 to Dumfries before heading on the A710 towards the Solway Firth coast.

I'd put a couple of waymarks into the sat-nav to make it take this less direct route the first of which was a car park at New Abbey with a convenient public convenience. Which turned out to be beside the ruins of the Abbey of Dulce Cor, better known as Sweetheart Abbey. I guess the clue was in the name of the village but I hadn't expected it. I was a nice break from driving to walk around the outside of the ruins (currently behind a fence because bits keep falling off) and the graveyard. 

Leaving New Abbey I continued along the coast road, unfortunately for some way behind a large Dutch motorhome who felt the need to straddle the centre line of the two-way road and come to a halt every time something came the other way, before I eventually escaped and some way further on turned off to visit Rockcliffe, a wee village with a car park, a loo, a beach, and importantly an ice cream van. It would have been rude not to get a 99 and very good it was too.

I returned to the main coast road and followed it west, passing through Dalbeattie, Auchencairn, and Kirkudbright to reach Newton Stewart where I turned south past Wigtown to the harbour village of Garlieston. Although I've previously driven through this part of Scotland I'd not had the time to stop so I'd booked two nights at The Harbour Inn, Garlieston. That turned out to be an excellent decision. The Harbour Inn sits exactly where you'd expect, right on the waterfront and my larger than expected room looked straight out to sea across the harbour. 

I thoroughly enjoyed my stay here. Excellent food, good beer, a proper bar with a friendly atmosphere and the staff were lovely. No data gathering nonsense on the free Wi-Fi either. I could easily have lingered longer had I known what a nice place it was but I had a cottage in Kintyre to get to. After dinner I took a walk along the shore path to Rigg Bay and on the way back saw a hare in the field in front of Galloway House. I don't recall that last time I saw a hare.

There are limited facilities at Garlieston. There's The Harbour Inn, a cafe, a Public Convenience, a large touring caravan site (which ensures that booking a table at the inn is almost essential) and a garage with a small shop on the edge of the village. This has one pump on the forecourt, dispensing only diesel fuel. Best be prepared if heading here, although the larger settlement of Wigtown is not far away.

Day 3, In and around Garlieston

The next morning after a superb full Scottish breakfast eaten overlooking a sun drenched harbour I decided I should probably try to work some of that off so headed out for a walk around Garlieston Bay and Eggerness Point. During the Second World War Garlieston became part of the secret Mulberry Harbour project in preparation for D-Day. The profile of the beach and sea bed here was similar to that of the proposed harbour sites in Normandy and that coupled with the remote nature of the locality, led to Garlieston and the surrounding area being selected as the development region for the artificial harbours. There are parts of the prototype Mulberry harbours still in the bay and I wanted to take a look at them on my walk. The path around Eggerness Point mostly runs through the woods so finding the harbour remains required popping out of the woods onto the rocky beach a couple of times to locate the right spot.

 

I carried on around the coast through the woods to Innerwell. This Shore Wood Belt contained a fine show of Bluebells and some secluded little beaches just off the path. It also had a lot of blown down trees across the path to negotiate. I'm sure someone will get back up there with a chainsaw and complete the clearing of them that they've started. I didn't fancy clambering back over them though so returned to Garlieston via the roads. I chilled out until dinner time, had a very tasty seafood tagliatelle followed by a couple of beers, then retired to sleep like the proverbial log.

Next morning I rose, breakfasted as per the previous day, and took my leave of Garlieston. I'd definitely like to return.

In part 3 I take a long drive to Kintyre.
 

May road trip journal, part 1

Where to? 

I wanted to visit a bit of Western Scotland I’d never previously been to, Kintyre, the long strip of Argyll & Bute that separates the Firth of Clyde from the Atlantic Ocean. It isn’t blessed with a lot of public transport options, no railways, you can get to the main town of Campeltown by bus and there are a few limited local bus services once you’re there. So practically I was going to need to take the car and it’s a long way from home - about 562 miles in fact. I know some people would happily do that in one go. I’m not one of them, 5-6 hours driving is quite enough else it becomes un-enjoyable and this was intended to be a relaxing holiday. So I broke the trip up into sections and booked accommodation at convenient points which also meant not just pounding up motorways all day.

Day one, Home to Laneshaw Bridge, Lancs. 244 miles. 

I plotted a route that avoided both London and the M25, and Birmingham and the M6, instead heading towards Oxford then Northampton before going north towards Sheffield and Leeds and then north-west across country to Laneshaw Bridge (or Laneshawbridge on some signs) in the Borough of Pendle. The weather was warm and sunny, which is unusual for any time I decide to take a trip, and the journey easy until the last few miles where the closure of a local road near Stanbury resulted in the sat-nav becoming unhelpful and eventually finding a way through that involved driving over the very narrow road on the top of the Ponden Reservoir dam. I’m still not sure that was the official diversion route or whether there even was an official diversion route. Signs? What signs? Once I’d passed that obstacle finding my way to the Alma Inn at Laneshaw Bridge where I’d booked a one night stay was a comparative doddle.

 

The Alma Inn sits on a hill above the village, surrounded mostly by fields and sheep. The room was comfortable with a nice rural view. The food was good, the beer was good, the decor in the bar and restaurant very much in the modern corporate pub style so almost entirely devoid of any atmosphere, and the free Wi-Fi was free in the sense of requiring all your personal and device data, presumably to sell on to third parties (there’s no other reason they’d need it) so it was good that there was 4G data coverage. After dinner I decided to have a little stroll in the evening sunshine, which turned into a slightly longer stroll down to the village and then up alongside High Laith Beck and across the fields back to the inn. I slept well after that.

 

 Top tip: Don’t park under the tree in the inn’s car park, it drops sticky sap all over your car which is a bugger to remove.

In part 2 I get to South West Scotland.

 

London Loop Section 16: Elstree to Cockfosters.

24th April

 

 

Section 16 is the longest single section of the London Loop at 11 miles. There are limited points at which to shorten the walk so when I left Elstree & Borehamwood station at just after 11 a.m. I initially intended to go as far as High Barnet where I could escape onto the Northern Line, then make a decision about the remaining three and a half miles.

 

It’s a long steady climb from the station to Barnet Lane whether you take the official route via the Deacon’s Hill Road as I did or the alternative unofficial diversion via Woodcock Hill Village Green. Whichever route you take passes above the Midland Main Line far below in the Elstree Tunnel, the towers for the ventilation shafts of which are visible from the road.

 

 

 

I had a bit of trouble locating the path off Barnet Lane because the house next door had the builders in and they’d parked their trucks and vans across it, eventually I had to climb over the drawbar of a plant trailer to get to the footpath. The slightly muddy path led down to an old oak woodland, Scrachwood Open Space. Walking through these bluebell woods is classic London Loop territory, i.e. you wouldn’t think you were in London. Emerging from the woods at the A1 dual carriageway, requiring an 1100 yard diversion to the nearest subway to cross it reminds you that you are.

 

 

 

 Eleven hundred yards of rushing traffic, litter, abandoned tyres, and plastic bottles of lorry drivers’ piss later I turned right into Moat Mount Open Space. It could only get more pleasant from here on and thankfully it did. The loop here joins the Dollis Valley Greenwalk and passes a small pond that is the source of the Dollis Brook. A small pond that I failed to spot. Unless this is it but I’m not sure.

 

 

 

I walked on through a mix of shady woodland and open fields until I reached Hendon Wood Lane, a little way along which I turned into Totteridge Fields. That’s a figure of speech obviously, I didn’t literally suddenly become a nature reserve. I carried on down through the nature reserve then through a sports field and into a section where the path runs through open fields managed under the Countryside Stewardship Scheme by a tenant farmer. That means signs pointing out that it’s private land, stay on the path and nowhere to sit lest you linger rather than pass directly through. Which was a shame because it was really time for my picnic lunch. Eventually I crossed the Dollis Brook over a metal bridge, awarding myself 2 points for spotting the adjacent stinkpipe, and paused on a convenient concrete block at the edge of an open grassy field for lunch.

 

 

 

 As you can see above the forecast cloudy skies and 20% chance of rain were so far staying away. Fortified by my traditional picnic of salmon paste sarnies and prawn cocktail flavour shells I set off east again through wide grassy areas with the Dollis Brook now to my right but mostly hidden and the houses of southern Chipping Barnet to my left, a residential  area that Open Street Map says is called Duck Island despite not being an island and I didn’t spot any ducks, only a pair of self-propelled council lawnmowers. Beyond the houses lay a steep upward climb on a narrow tarmac path followed of course by coming back down again to Barnet Lane, not the same Barnet Lane as earlier. Crossing the road and entering the sports centre, past the football pitches behind high metal fences with “no unauthorised use or ball games” signs and suddenly there were people about, more people than I had seen since leaving Elstree. I was now in deepest residential Barnet, heading for the Great North Road. To get there I walked up Fairfield Way, a street so patriotic that many of the houses proudly flew Union Flags in their front gardens, albeit defaced with the legend “VE Day” in gold lettering. Many of those same houses had drives in which were parked German cars. Draw your own conclusions.

 

 

 

Where the Northern Line crosses over the Great North Road I sat on a wall and tried to decide whether to turn left to High Barnet or right to carry on to the end of Section 16 at Cockfosters. It was 14:37, the sun was shining, plenty of daylight left, no walking back from the station at the end of a long day since my car was at Hounslow West. I convinced myself by a narrow margin to turn right. As it turned out the last three and a half miles happened to be some of the nicest parts of the section.

 

 

 

 Not the very first bit though because having gone under the bridge above and crossed the road at a light controlled pedestrian crossing that only grudgingly allowed pedestrian to interrupt the flow of traffic I turned left up Potters Lane. And I mean up. Save for a short set of steps down a bank off the road and into a meadow it carried on going up. Past the back of High Barnet station glimpsed between the trees, levelling up for a bit along some residential streets before a long climb up through King George’s Fields with a good view if you turned around. I could really have done with that bench being unoccupied.

 

 

 

Fortunately there were other benches and then I reached Hadley Green Road, with the open, tree studded green to the left and old houses facing it on the right, including the large red brick Hadley House with its stable block and near the end of the row Livingstone Cottage, former home of the missionary and explorer. He of “Dr. Livingstone I presume?” fame. Although calling it a cottage is a bit of a misnomer given the size of the place and according to the rather grand plaque on the front bearing his likeness he lived there in 1857. Only 1857?

 

 

 

Beyond Hadley green it gets seriously villagey as you pass a row of almshouses into the centre of Monken Hadley. At eleven miles north-west  of Charing Cross we’re close to the limits of Greater London in what was once  a parish of Middlesex that stuck out into Hertfordshire. It has lots of old buildings, a  late 15th. century church with another set of almshouses next to it, and white wooden gates across the roads into and out of it. You can see why the writers Kingsley Amis and Elizabeth Jane Howard chose to live here, poet Cecil Day Lewis who stayed with them died here, and for nearly thirty years Spike Milligan lived in the village as well, although that wasn’t so good for one local teenager who strayed into his garden.

 

 

 

 I was safe from being shot since a: the London Loop passes Spike's former home on the other side of the road in the trees on Hadley Common and b: he’s dead. The path continued through the woods and through a lot of tree roots requiring some care to avoid tripping over until I reached a small car park in Bakers Lane with some information boards and two burnt out mopeds to reinforce the idea that this is still London. Then I continued to the bridge over the East Coast Main Line just north of New Barnet station, the bridge’s elevated position being good for photographing passing trains between King’s Cross and The North, if you are tall enough to see over the brick parapet that is.

 

 

 

 From the railway bridge I walked (somewhat slower now) through the beech woods disturbed only by birdsong and the incredibly loud public address system at New Barnet station. I climbed a steep set of steps for a quick look at Jack’s Lake with its afternoon anglers - does sweeping a massive net back and forth in the water count as angling? - before returning to the main path.

 

 

 

I carried on along the track passing occasional Loop way marks before reaching houses and a pub which reminded me of the following joke:

 

Three guys were visiting England and were told they had to go to a great old pub called The Cock Inn. Each of them went off in different directions and planned to meet at the pub at five o'clock.Two of them arrived on time, but there was no sign of Edward.  Finally, at five thirty, he showed up with the his shirt torn at the collar and two black eyes.
Shocked by his appearance, the other two asked Edward what had happened to him."Well I was walking down the road," Edward explained, "I noticed a man and woman behind a bush. So I stopped and asked, 'How far is The Cock Inn?’” 

And that’s when the trouble started 

 

 

 

 After that you’ll be glad to know that my walk was close to its end and therefore so is this blog post 😀

 

A last few streets and I passed Christ Church and arrived opposite Cockfosters tube station at four minutes to five, four hours fifty minutes since leaving Elstree & Borehamwood Station including 20 minutes break for lunch and a couple of other brief rest stops. I’ll take that. I’m glad I decided to do the whole section in one go, although I’m feeling it today. The last part was picturesque in the afternoon sunshine, the rain never happened, and it will make starting the next section much simpler whenever I do that. 

 

 

 

Many more lovely pictures to be found in this Flickr Album.

 

 

 

 

 

A Long Weekend In Chester

 

13th to 17th March 2025

Chester looked like an interesting place to visit and somewhere I’d never previously been so I booked a hotel and bought a fistful of advanced singles and set off for a long weekend in the North West of England.

Advanced singles meant some careful planning so that things didn’t go pear shaped at the first hurdle due to our infrequent and unreliable local service so I got an early train to Reading and had plenty of time to wander into town and get breakfast. From Reading I had to travel with Cross Country to Stafford. This is only bearable in First Class, Standard Class being so cramped that I have to sit sideways. Thank goodness for split-ticketing and a railcard. On the plus side you get complementary tea and coffee and excellent Chicken+BLT sandwiches. Avanti West Coast took me from Stafford to Chester and I was pleasantly surprised to find that their complementary tea came in china rather than the usual cardboard.

I stayed at the Queen Hotel opposite Chester Railway Station, very comfortable, convenient for the station obviously, and not too far to walk to the city centre. It isn’t the quietest location mind you because of the above. (Also they cocked up and charged me twice for my booking but at least refunded me promptly once I’d pointed that out to them.) I went out for a brief walk to the city centre, some night photography, and food.

 

On Friday I went out to explore Chester, starting with a full circuit of the City Walls, impressive in themselves and a good way to get the lie of the land.

 

Chester is packed with interesting and curious architecture, a good example of the latter being the Rows, two storey medieval shopping streets.

I also seem to have timed my visit on graduation day at the university so the city centre was busy with smiling faces, dressed up to the nines and/or in gowns and mortar boards. All posing for photos with qualifications in hand.

 

The River Dee runs through the city so with a bit of time to spare I took a short afternoon sightseeing boat trip for which unfortunately the skies clouded over but it did make a nice sitting down interlude.

On Saturday I went further afield. Chester sits at one end of the Merseyrail network based on Liverpool. A day Rover ticket cost only £6.40 so I went for a ride on a shiny yellow and black Class 777. They have really big windows, don't they? I had no particular itinerary in mind so first stop was Liverpool for a walk along the waterfront. 

 

Back in 2017 I had a very enjoyable short break in Liverpool but back in 2017 I was even worse at getting around to blogging than I am now so I didn’t write about it. There are photos though. I did the proper touristy things then, waterfront, museums, Cavern Club, Port Sunlight, New Brighton, etc. So this time after a walk along the waterfront I decided to head to a previously un-visited seaside and hopped back on a train to visit Southport. Which as it turned out was gloriously sunny. Coffee was drunk, ice cream was eaten, the prom was promenaded on. Southport has a very long pier. They should maybe consider opening it to the public, I’m sure it would be popular. (It has been closed since 2022 and unless someone has a spare £13m kicking about its future doesn’t look hopeful.

 

It was such a nice day that I walked all the way along the coast to Birkdale and caught a train back to Liverpool from there. In Liverpool I decided that four o’clock was too early to head back to Chester, where else could my Day Rover ticket take me? I wondered what was at West Kirby. Sometimes random decisions have the most agreeable results. I had no idea what to expect when I arrived at West Kirby railway station at about a quarter to six that evening and wandered down towards the beach. It wasn’t being able to walk out into the Dee estuary on a narrow causeway around the large Marine Lake though with a glorious sunset over the estuary and offshore islands. Proper serendipity.

 

On Sunday I took advantage of being within easy reach by Merseyrail of Ellesmere Port and visited the National Waterways Museum there.

The museum is housed in a conservation area with 19 Grade II listed buildings where you can walk outdoors around the locks, docks with many historic boats moored and warehouses. This was once was a busy working area though thankfully on my visit was relatively quiet. 

 

There is also the forge, stables, workers cottages and the main exhibition area in the Island Warehouse with boats both full size and scale models, plus a lot of waterways paraphernalia. I took another short boat trip. I went inside the Porters Row workers cottages, each decorated in the style of a different era and boy did the 1952 living room remind me of my grandparents’ houses. 

 

I had a cup of tea in the cafe, couldn’t find anything in the gift shop that I liked that would have fitted in my backpack to take home, and headed back to Chester.

Monday’s trip home was unremarkable save that all the trains ran to time and I scored the last Chicken+BLT sandwich for lunch.

As befits a long weekend there are a lot of photos in this Flickr Album.

 

London Loop Section 4: Hayes to Hamsey Green.

24th March 2025 

West Wickham Common to Hamsey Green 

Nearly a month has passed since I was here last and I’m alighting from a train at Hayes (Kent) railway station to tackle the next section of the London Loop. Section 4 starts officially at the edge of West Wickham Common near Coney Hall so the walk starts with a three-quarter mile link up and down along Pole Cat Alley to reach the junction of Croydon Road and Gates Green Road.

The guide says of Section 4, This well wooded section has a fair amount of climbing, rewarded by some splendid views. It isn’t wrong, especially about the climbing.

From here a path goes between the houses, past a car park, along Church Drive and into Coney Hall Recreation Ground, a large area of playing fields with a children’s nursery in the middle. Before you reach the nursery you cross the Greenwich Meridian from the Eastern Hemisphere and into the Western Hemisphere and there’s a small stone marking the line of the meridian.

Leaving the recreation ground across a road I headed for St. John’s church, turning right in front of the building through the churchyard then down across an open field and across the busy A2022 to reach Sparrows Den, home of the Beccehamian Rugby Club. There’s two routes across Sparrows Den. Left along the roadside edge then diagonally across or straight on towards the cafe and toilets then beside the Pitch and Putt course. Ah, toilets, I’ll go that way then. Yes of course they were closed and padlocked because this is England.  🙄

Fortunately the next part of the route was through Spring Park Woods.

Although it was still cloudy overhead the temperature had now risen enough for me to take off my quilted gilet. Part of Spring Park Woods is called Cheyne Wood and an information board gives some of its history. Originally the grounds of a private lodge that became a children’s heart hospital which was damaged by a V1 flying bomb in 1944, becoming a children’s convalescent hospital until 1989. Inevitably the former hospital site was redeveloped for housing in 2003 but fortunately you can’t see that part from the Loop. The information board also tells of the Ancient Order of FrothBlowers, a charitable organisation from 1924-1931 who partially funded the children’s hospital.

I emerged from the woods into the open area of Shirley Heath, popular with dog walkers and with a convenient bench on which to sit and eat a picnic lunch of sausage sarnies washed down with some Bovril from a flask because although it’s officially Spring it’s still Bovril weather. Once refuelled I carried on through Kennel Wood following the Loop markers, the posts for some of which had rotted off at the base and were propped against trees or lying on the ground. There’s a lot of that on Section 4 meaning that in places confirming the right way using the map on my phone was needed. The other things on the ground were a lot of small white Wood Anemones - also confirmed as such using my phone 😀 

After Kennel Wood came a half mile or so of walking alongside the busy Shirley Church Road but at least there was a lot of spring flowers on the wide verge. Also the sun had now come out and stayed that way for the rest of the day.

A footpath left off Shirley Church Road took me around the grounds of Shirley High School Performing Arts College (which just made me think of “Fame!”) and then climbed steadily into Pinewoods. From this point on there would be a lot more climbing. On reaching Upper Shirley Road I chose to make the detour down the road a short way to Shirley Windmill, a tower mill built in 1854 to replace an earlier mill that burnt down and now oddly located in the middle of a small modern housing estate. The mill stopped working in about 1890, but most of the original machinery, including its millstones, is still in place, and has been restored. On some days it is open to the public, today wasn’t one of them so I retraced my steps to rejoin the Loop.

Along Oaks Road I turned off into the woods and having worked out which of the several paths was the correct one headed into the Addington Hills. The path went up. Then it went up some more. Then it came out from under the trees and turned into some shingly steps that went up even more. Being a fat old bloke I didn’t get to the top without pausing for breath.

I was really glad to reach the viewing platform at the top firstly for the far reaching views of Croydon’s towers and south London. The Crystal Palace transmitter tower was visible in the haze to the North. Secondly the viewing platform incorporates some seats. The Bovril flask came out again and I took a 10 minute break to look at the view. At one point two elderly ladies joined me on the viewing platform. They’d taken the nice level route from the nearby car park.

It was along that level route to the car park that I walked next before turning right by the isolated Chinese Restaurant and back into the woods, going up and down some rather more moderate slopes until reaching Coombe Lane tram stop. A little way along to the left I crossed Coombe Lane and entered the grounds of Heathfield House, taking a path through the woods and dropping down some steps to reach the pond near the house itself. A Grade II-listed Italianate Victorian villa at the top of Gravel Hill, it was once the home of industrialist Raymond Riesco who gifted it to the people of Croydon in 1964. Croydon council have been trying to sell it as a development opportunity on a 125-year lease. From the number of yellow petition posters in the area I think it’s fair to say that the people of Croydon are not happy about that plan. As I write this I see that the property has been pulled from the auction in what’s being described in the press as “an embarrassing U-turn by Mayor Jason Perry”.

Having walked around the pond I took the path back up again - yes the route just goes down and around the pond just to go back up again via an almost adjacent path - and through the landscaped grounds with an impressive Camellia tree next to the path. Crossing the car park I noted some vintage COVID Precautions signage still in place on the gate. Will future generations look on such remnants the way we look at ghost signs on buildings and pre-Warboys road signs?

From Heathfield left along Riesco Drive and into the Bramley Bank Nature Reserve, the way through this ridge top woodland being a little difficult to determine, the guide says keep on the main track by the left hand edge but nothing resembles a “main track”, about half way through the left hand edge turns 90 degrees to the left, and if there were any Loop markers they’re well hidden now. I emerged at the small patch of grass opposite the houses of Broadcoombe and followed the Loop markers into Littleheath Woods for a short distance before crossing the open space of Fallen Oak field where a couple with a dog asked me if there were any “sheep farms or anything around here”. Wrong person to ask mate 😀 

Then it was back into Littleheath Woods and uphill again over the brow of a hill.

Near a water tower and comms mast the path turned right, became somewhat uneven, and wiggled its way through a tapering stretch of woodland past a playground to meet the A2022 Addington Road. Thank you if you were the truck driver who stopped to let me cross here rather than take the 200 yard detour via the crossing at the traffic lights.

The next 750 yards or so was along a back alley behind houses and across a couple of residential roads and that’s some good shit you’re smoking there miss. This brought me to the entrance to Selsdon Wood. Where the path went steeply uphill again. Or at least by this point in the day it seemed steep. The surface was also littered with washed out flints and tree roots to catch the tired and unwary. Down again to a right turn onto the old bridleway Baker Boy Lane through the ancient Puplet Wood and after another mile of stumbling over loose flints etc. I arrived next to the entrance to Farleigh Court Golf Club. (This section of the Loop goes around the golf course rather than through it which if you’ve read my previous blogs you’ll realise is frequently not the case.) I followed the path along the side of Old Farleigh Road before crossing it to Elm Farm, the crossing point here being a bit risky as it’s on a fast bend. Nearly got taken out by a Tesla 😒

The path between Elm Farm and Allesley Farm is narrow and I expect in the summer will be overgrown. It runs downhill (hooray!) and then along the edge of Mossy Hill Shaw with views over fields and woods to the north,

before going back uphill again (boo!) through the trees to then pass along the edge of a large field to a shiny new kissing gate erected in memory of a former chair of Croydon ramblers. Here the Loop turns left onto Kingswood Lane where there were a lot of horse riders heading into Kings Wood from the Equestrian Centre. The fella at the back rode head down scrolling on his phone while allowing what looked to me like a cart-horse he was on to take care of the navigation 😀

Kingswood Lane eventually morphed from paddocks to suburbia and at the junction with Limpsfield Road I completed Loop Section 4 by Hamsey Green Pond.

It was about 5pm and since I was still roughly three hours from home I celebrated completion with a can of beer and a sandwich from the Co-Op, sitting on a bench by the pond with the other dodgy-looking characters. Then I got the bus to South Croydon station. Of course Thameslink was in disarray so my trip back via Redhill meant in all I was out for nearly eleven and a half hours. I slept well.

London Loop Section 4 ✅

A Flickr Album with some more photos. 

That's now Sections 1 to 15 done, about 99 miles out of the route distance of 154 (including station links).