The above photo was taken after conpleting the second part of the River Wandle Trail in February (the first part I walked in January of this year). I posted about the previous legs on this blog back in the beginning of the year. A week ago I came back to walk the final leg.
The start of this leg begins on the other side of the road from where the top photo was taken. I always enjoy walking somewhere new, and this was quite surprising. I never knew all this countryside was here, a vast open stretch in Wandle Meadow Nature Park. Firstly, we walked through Wandle Park itself (not to be confused with Wandle Park in Croydon, where the first leg began!). Out onto a lane and then into the Nature Meadow with its plyons and old sewage works.
After this we got a litle lost and had to double back as we realised we were in a different park than we should be! I had two different maps with me (plus Google Maps) and even then it was sometimes hard to follow the small turns. Sometimes we had to leave the river and walk along roads and rejoin it further along. This happened at Earlsfield where we walked a stretch of a busy main road, passed the the station and veered off left by the Wandle Trail Pub and down a long road before a right turn took us into King George’s Park. This is one of the biggest parks I think I’ve ever walked in (except in central London).
The park is split into several parts, and being a Saturday, football was taking place – Little League teams and some adult teams, plus some sort of touch rugby which seemed to be a charity event as people were dressed in weird costumes! There was so much activity going on here including the small play areas and tennis courts. So many people walking, but part of this park is behind the town of Wandsworth itself.
Wandsworth was also busy with Saturday shoppers, and we stopped to get a hot drink, and I used the facilities in the shopping mall (the river runs through the shopping mall!). We took our drinks over the road into an old churchyard, minus the church. We found out that this was the former site of the Society of Friends Meeting House (Quakers). The graves were still here and benches dotted around, making it a quieter place to sit for a breather.
We were now not far from the River Thames. Rain had started to spit, but luckily it came and went, and thankfully waited until we were home before it set in. We followed the main road round and crossed over taking a right to meet the A3 into London. Here we picked up the river once more and followed it to where it met the River Thames. After around five miles we had reached our destination.
The Causeway. Nearly there now.
Since that walk the weather has taken a nose dive, with only some afternoons with sunshine. We’ve had days of rain and our garden has been flooded two days in a row. This has never happened like this before. Back in 2007 we did have one deluge which flooded the garden, but never two days in a row. The weather forecast doesn’t look that great for this week either. Everything is so wet. The local park, where I jogged during the worst of lockdown, has an impromptu lake! I had planned a walk with a friend later this week, but I fear we will have to cancel, as it seemes to be a day of nothing but heavy rain.
My London+ 