I chose my day well. We’d been having a mini heatwave, so I avoided the highest temperatures and chose a day when it was around 25c for this walk. In the book London’s Waterside Walks by David Hampshire, it states the walk is five and half miles, but add that to walks to/from stations (and a bit of off track investigation), I walked about seven miles.
The walk begins at St Margaret’s railway station (easily reached from London Waterloo), and actually takes in two rivers. The River Crane is a tributary of the River Thames, meeting that river at Isleworth, and the Duke of Northumberland’s River which is a tributary of the River Crane. The Crane (lots of info and photos here on Paul Talling’s website) begins in Hayes, so I was only walking part of it.
The route is fairly easy to follow, crossing through a recreation ground for the first glimpse of it, but I almost came unstuck where there is a bridge over the river. I had to double back, cross another field until I entered Mereway Nature Park. This is beautiful. There are boards dotted around giving information on what you might see here, and little pathways that led further into the trees. It would be nice to spend more time here, though I did veer off a couple of times to explore a little. I particularly loved the decorated seats and wooden markers, both here and along the River Crane later.
Seats and markers 
Following the Duke of Northumberland’s River, you eventually come to Kneller Gardens. Here there is a cafe and the all important toilets! The park has play areas, tennis courts, gym equipment and lots of picnic tables. The river runs through here and there were ducks and moorhens.
Following the path out of the gardens, you cross a main road, and then you are into Crane Park. I was impressed with how large the park is. At first the space is quite open, with the river running alongside it. The further you go, the more the trees encroach and the path narrows.
Following the sign post I headed towards the Shot Tower. The Shot Tower is the remains of Hounslow Gunpowder factory built in the 1760’s. It was renowned in Europe for producing the finest black gunpowder. The place eventually closed in 1926. I believe there are open days.
From that spot it wasn’t too far from the finish, anyway. Eventually, you come out to a very busy road (Great Chertsey Road – A316) and turn left and cross the road and head into Percy Road passing Twickenham Cemetery. From there it is a rather boring walk to Whitton Station. The only light relief was finding the knitted hat on one of the post boxes! At Whitton I’d not long missed a train, so I went and bought myself a sandwich, eating it on a bench in the high street. When I reached the station, I found my train had been cancelled, due to lack of train drivers! I had to wait about forty minutes for the next one. Rather frustrating but, that’s life!
My London+ 