Walk from Ealing to Southwark.
🚶️

Parametric data

• Route name:

  South Ealing tube to London Bridge rail station.

• This route on OS maps:

  https://explore.osmaps.com/route/15150504/... .

• Distance:

  10.8 miles.

• Duration
  29th Dec 2022:

  
  3.9 hours.

• Topology:

  Point to point (9.6 miles Eastward).

• Ascent:

  46 metres.

• Stiles:

  0 (zero). But about 3,000,000 trippers are worse.

• Landmark of note:

  Take your choice (except The Shard). The Wellington Arch, will do.

• Feasible excursion:

  Absolutely any crossing of the Thames except Westminster Bridge. I'd go over by trebuchet if it was an option.

• Avoiding roads:

  Unless you are a tripper, so have no idea how to use a crossing.

• Footpath construction:

  His Maj. doesn't do dirt tracks round Buck House.

• Footpath condition:

  The odd loose cobblestone.

• Refreshments:

  The Windmill.

• Vistas:

  The best, IMHO, are through Kensington Palace^[plc] Gardens. Definitely the nicest part of this walk.

• Blackberries:

  Those occupying^[bon] Westminster bridge were being sold everything and anything except. At knockdown prices? 😆

Route map and notes.

The ziggurat on the horizon is likely a new tower across the river in Vauxhall.

By tradition, over indulgence during the Christmas period is rectified by a long walk to burn calories off your conscience. To judge from the multitude swelling the Capital today, food prices cannot have been prohibitive to the extent reported.

Reaching the start in West London is made harder by Overground rail engineering work that wipes out Brighton Line services to Victoria. Blackfriars it has to be, ho hum. At least Ealing is untroubled by swarming tourists at 11AM, and the first ⅔ mile are the quiet residential backstreets typically seen beginning my walks across London. Even along the B4491 there's nothing much doing until Gunnersbury Park and a peedestrian break. The Park may have alleviated one, ahem, pain, but it causes another. Software recommends routes south of the Park and use of the A4. That may be more direct, but an earful of Chiswick Flyover is unwelcome.

Navigationally, this route is very simple; just head east through Acton toward the A402, Shepherd's Bush, Holland Park, and Notting Hill, entering Kensington Gardens through the gate opposite Inverness Terrace.^[ken] Almost four miles folllow without need to consult GPS. In fact, keep it in reserve for another ½ mile down the first diagonal path you see, past the Watts sculpture. Its end meets a path going east across Carriage Drive (down which few carriages do drive) into Hyde Park. Follow the path between the Fountain and the southern edge of The Serpentine to its easternmost point.

I had planned a stop for lunch at the Serpentine Bar, but the same idea occurs to everyone noticing that the Pound Sterling has taken a dive against the Arse Wipe of the People's Banana Republic.^[stl]. OK, scratch that idea, and keep going. Soon Hyde Park Corner is in view. Try to cross under the Wellington Arch, but find that a tourist bus has chosen to stop at the interchange, where it jams the traffic, including the ambulance behind. Perfect. In 1888 a cab pulls up here outside what was then St Georges Hospital. In the cab are the remains of my maternal gt2 grandfather. Alas for John Mayhew his ride there was never completed in this world. Mayhe rest in peace^.[sgh]

Peace is what you do not have on your way to Buckingham Palace. Looked at on the Google Earth image taken November 2020 you might expect few people there today. Perhaps Covid restrictions created an illusion of abandonment. Outside Chuck's place is near pandemonium in 2022. I know now where Ernest Thesiger^.[thr] was coming from. Take a breather walking the luxuriously wide Birdcage because, over Westminster Bridge, no sardine escaped from a tin packed so tightly as this one. To reach County Hall requires a fight lasting twenty minutes. Earth hath not anything to show more foul.

A dive under the arches at Waterloo escapes tourist turmoil only for my path to be blocked now by a police cordon. It seems one of the small businesses there has trouble. Looking at the map, you might imagine that a useable route from here to London Bridge would be complicated. Actually, you need little more than The Cut and Union Street. It's quite pedestrian friendly, too. There's plenty of traffic around, but it is going across your way, toward Waterloo, Blackfriars, Southwark or London bridges. Forget your GPS because The Shard marks your destination. Walk this way. Why do large buildings today need nick names? When will they buid The Sore Thumb? I encounter The Eyesore often enough.

First, however, some unfinished business: lunch (fish and chips) at the Windmill Pub, 150 yards on from the Old Vic. As a student in London, I was never charged £1.50 for the pleasure, but £15 is the going rate today, and I do not complain. It's worth it for the opportunity to rest and recharge my battery. I mean literally recharge it. On a dozen previous walks, my 'phone waved the white flag well before the end of the day. For this walk, however, Santa has supplied an auxilliary battery and, as I mop up the last mushy pea, my elderly blower drinks its last ampere hour. Nice.

Taking in a hundred yards or so near the end of the A3, I reflect on a career spent entirely alongside it, 35 miles south west in Guildford. However, I scrub the planned short cut across King's College because the distance saving is insufficient to be worth navigational hassle this late in the day.

I've had enough and, if The Wen^[wen] is like this in the depths of a turbulent winter, then what might the summer months bring?   I shan't be back to discover the answer because I bid asphalt and trippers^[trp] farewell, and head back to the Surrey Hills before then 🙏