Actually, the first real capital was at Colchester, also included in our series of walks and the capital even settled briefly on St Alban's, before permanently establishing itself at Londinium, the main Roman settlement on the River Thames. By coincidence, we've also been in St Alban's this month, with our walking group, The Odd Weekenders, so we've now visited all three of Britain's Roman capitals!
Of course, Londinium is where we live and, indeed, BAM's lovely new apartment is within 15-miles walking distance from Cheshunt, our main destination for the day. For once, there was no need for lodging and victuals and the journey to the start of walk at Mile End was quite easy this time for me and BRH (Best Russian Husband) and even easier for BAM (Best Aussie Mate).
Mile End to Hackney Wick (1.8 miles/2.9 kilometres)
Now in the beating heart of East London, Mile End was once at the very edge of a nascent city - a mile beyond the city's Aldgate to be precise, hence the name! It's an area that BAM knows like the back of her hand, so we let her guide us through Mile End Park and along the Hertford Union canal at the southern end of Victoria Park.
For a big city, London has a surprising number of green spaces and we were really lucky with the weather that day, glorious spring sunshine, which brought out hordes of joggers, dog-walkers and cyclists.
It's really lovely along the canal and this whole area is undergoing yet another period of transformation, as snazzy apartment blocks are popping up like mushrooms along the canal side. In a nice contrast to our last Chester walk (Caerphilly/Cardiff), whereas we ended the last walk with the urban graffiti, joggers and city parks in the capital of Wales, we started this walk with pretty much the same ingredients, but this time in the capital of England!
The Hertford Union canal is a really short one, just about a mile in length and was opened in the 1830's as a link between the Regent's canal and the Lea Valley navigation. It was the first time I'd ever walked there, but BAM quite often jogs that way, so she's seen this whole area go through various stages of development in the past few years.
Hackney Wick to Springfield Park (2.7 miles/4.3 kilometres)
There's a lot going on in Hackney Wick and, ever since the 2012 London Olympics, this whole area has been gentrifying at a tremendous pace. At the end of the Hertford Union Canal, we turned north into the River Lea Navigation, past the Copper Box arena, which is where we went to see a couple of Handball matches during the Olympics.
We also walked past an interesting building which is now called Here East and was the media centre during the Olympic games - there are plans to turn this whole area into a high-tech IT hub, a kind of digital city and I have a feeling I'm going to get to know this area quite well in the future!
From Here East we followed the canal towpath along the edge of Hackney Marsh to Lea Bridge, where the (until now) straight canal, takes swings dramatically around an attractive bend surrounded by even more apartment blocks all the way to Springfield Park.
Springfield Park was once part of a private estate, but opened to the public in 1905. Interestingly, the landscaping work that was done on the park in preparation for opening it to the public, uncovered some Roman artifacts, sarcophagi and shards of pottery, so it was reassuring to know that we were following a path that the Romans had carved out many centuries before us!
We had a nice picnic in the park and enjoyed the sunshine, as we sat at a park bench munching on some chocolate that BAM had brought back from Central America.
Springfield Park to Tottenham Hale (1.3 miles/2.1 kilometres)
As you walk from Hackney Wick, with all of its gentrification to Tottenham Hale, in the London Borough of Haringey, the symbols of economic regeneration and the building boom start disappearing, being replaced by much poorer social housing and signs of deprivation.
No doubt one day places like Upper and Lower Clapton, more famous in the 90's for drug and gun-related crimes will become as gentrified as other parts of London further south but, at least for now, the Boroughs of Hackney, Haringey and Enfield have some serious social issues to deal with. Whilst researching for this blog post, I found a really interesting website called London's Poverty Profile, which outlines the levels of social deprivation across all London boroughs.
I really love London, having lived in this city for more than 8 years now, so I want to see the city prosper and I hope all Londoners will get a fair chance at life, with the same opportunities as their fellow citizens in more affluent parts of the country, many of which we've also visited during our Chester series of walks.
Tottenham Hale to Enfield Lock (6.4 miles/10.3 kilometres)
After Tottenham Hale the landscape gets noticeably more industrial, as it passes by some of London's biggest industrial estates and retail distribution centres. We're quite familiar with this walk, as we've done it a couple of times before, namely when we walked the Lea Valley path, back in 2012. Myself and BAM walked the entire 50-mile Lea Valley path, which starts in Leagrave, not far from Luton and ends at the River Thames in Limehouse Basin.
In this part of London, the path follows the River Lea Navigation past the Tottenham Marshes, alongside a series of reservoirs; Lockwood, Banbury, William Girling, King George, that supply us Londoners with our drinking water. I've quite often seen these reservoirs from the air, as they stand out quite majestically from the surrounding urban sprawl, when you're coming in on flights from Europe or Asia.
The reservoirs are much more difficult to appreciate at ground level, as they're hemmed in by fences, probably a good thing really, as these protect London's water supply from contamination.
Enfield Lock to Cheshunt (3.1 miles/5 kilometres)
Enfield Lock definitely has an edgy feeling to it and I first came here in 2009, during my first year in London, when I was walking the 150-mile London Outer Orbital Path, a.k.a. The London Loop.
The Lea Valley path, rather dismissively, crosses the London Loop, obviously not that pleased about its more prominent rival, and heads north out of London towards the M25. From the M25, it's a fairly short walk through Hertfordshire to the town of Cheshunt, not yet swallowed by the ever-expanding city, but feeling more and more like an outer suburb of London, as the Lea Valley towns get sucked into the excitement of life in the capital.
Despite having walked past Cheshunt twice in the past, I'd never actually walked into the town but, as we were in search of a hearty meal, to end our 15-mile walk, we passed the station and followed Windmill Lane to the town centre on Turner's Hill.
It didn't look too promising at first, but we were lucky to find a really nice restaurant called Fishy Delishy on Cheshunt's College Road.
Pretty much all of this walk would be accessible to wheelchair users, as it follows a very level canal towpath - the trickiest parts would be around the locks, like Enfield Lock, but this is a path that is used by all kinds of people and I would recommend it for wheelchair use.
Image credits:
All photos were taken by me - please feel free to reuse them under the following Creative Commons license:
- Attribution (especially to this blog post)
- Share-alike
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