Parametric data
- Route name:
- Edgware
- Start point:
- Edgware, Middlesex, HA8 7AW.
- End point:
- Victoria, London SW1.
- This route on OS maps:
- https://explore.osmaps.com/route/15426416/ ...
- Distance:
- 10.4 miles walked, 9.9 miles flown.
- Duration: :
- 3.1 hours.[1]
- Duration: :
- 2.9 hours.
- Ascent:
- 66 metres.
- Stiles:
- 0 (zero).
- Landmark of note:
- Will Marble Arch do?
- Feasible excursion:
- What alternative route could improve upon a dead straight line between the endpoints? If you must, then go down Park Lane rather than through the park itself.
- Waypoints:
- Burnt Oak, Colindale, The Hyde, West Hendon, Dollis Hill, Cricklewood, Mapesbury, Brondesbury, Kilburn, Maida Vale, Lisson Grove, Marble Arch, Hyde Park, Belgravia.
- Refreshments:
- Coffee from Starbucks, Edgware. Lunch at Jaffa Corner.
Weather:-
10°C,[2] ⛅️
Not warm for April. I survive.
-
Avoiding roads: -
Walking in the A5 carriageway is ill-advised and
unnecessary.
-
Footpath construction: -
Asphalt all the way.
-
Footpath condition: -
Just the ticket during 2024's downpours
-
Vistas: -
Not on this walk.
Blackberries:-
You'll be lucky.[3]
Route map.
Walk notes.
Near a year ago I am pounding the A2 or Watling Street (as the Romans didn't call it). This week I am back in the capital for a crack at the Edgware Road, or A5 as Highways Britain insists. This is, however, the second attempt at a traversal of north London. The same route in January last year set a record pace for a walk: 3.4 miles to the hour. It's no surprise that I am able to top 3.6 today. The year AD 410 was a sad one for highway design. Since then, the rolling English drunkard has made the rolling English Road,[4] ... and you are lucky to make any sort of progress at all. What have the Romans ever done for us?
My return to London is due, in part, to the transportation issues that I experienced on recent walks to rural rail stations. It is unsatisfactory to finish a walk only to wait the best part of an hour for a train. Confident that barely six minutes separates one Northern Line tube from another, we reach Brent Cross only for the driver to announce that this particular transport of delight will not, as advertised, terminate at Edgware. Harrumph.
In the end I set off southwards; in the footsteps of Len the
Legionary. I'll wager that he was untroubled by rail disruption
of any kind. However, if he is wearing one of those legless
tunics then he is likely more troubled by today's rather chilly
gusts blowing up it 🥶
In a complete change from my 2023 expedition, I use the
eastern footway as it is, for some reason, simpler than the
west. I'm also (as you have twigged) completing the route north
to south once more. The original point of this was to avoid the
tube during peak hour. This morning's difficulty suggests that
walking into the sun is the greater disadvantage. You're never
too old to learn.
Like Len, I require no GPS to navigate the Edgware Road, and I recall enough of the southern end of the route from last year to dispense with orbiting advice. This adds to the satisfaction on any expedition. Less time as a cellphone zombie usually adds to the joy. Staring at a screen may be preferable, however, to staring at Staples Corner. Not to mention hearing it. Len didn't need to stick his fingers in his ears at this junction. Nor might I have needed to fifty years ago, but now one car horn starts when the previous one stops. It just isn't British.
I had not appreciated that there was such a thing as a River Brent, yet here it is. Don't just come for the shopping. Take in a cruise along the Brent's charming and bucolic meanderings through Wembley and Golders Green. Earth hath not anything.
A walk passing through both Kilburn and Belgravia is going to include noticeable changes in scenery. The transition is sharpest south of, say, Cambridge Avenue. We're done, thanks, Lidl. M&S is the next purchase. Farewell Super Pizza, hello Cafe Laville. The scene at Maida Vale is familiar from my walk along the Regent's Canal last year, where a strange little bistro is perched right above the canal itself. I shall splash out on a lunch another day but, it transpires, a back story (I cannot relate here) goes with it. Len's salary probably didn't stretch to the tariff at the Laville. I understand they no longer accept payment in salt, anyway.
Another difference from last year is the multitude using Hyde Park. I know this is a Saturday, but what Uncle Tom Cobley is up to (supervised by a hundred Metropolitan Bill) I'm unsure. Doing a demo? Tomorrow is the London Marathon, so perhaps all are here for a gander at the venue? One activity, though, is unchanged: the skateboard speed trials. If you were lucky enough to survive Deliveroo riding his 'scooter on the same pavement as you in Kilburn then don't imagine that you can afford not to check your rear view mirror walking through the park. It's a risk not worth taking.
At Hyde Park Corner, I pass the Lanesborough Hotel but, in 1888, this imposing building was still St Georges Hospital.[5] On the 13th April that year my gt2 grandfather from Paddington, carpenter John Mayhew, was in a cab parked outside. Alas, his journey there was too late, and he was admitted DoA. Fifty seven years of age, he left seven children, including gt grandma: Alice.
