The GBR Project (GBRP) Ch.10 Day Four. London
Day 4 From Windsor to London - The Big Smoke (but not anymore!)
Windsor. View from bridge over river Thames
The last day of my adventure but perhaps the most trepidacious. I was actually going to London, the Big Smoke, the Mighty Wen and a place with lots of roads to get lost in. This meant more consultations over the maps with coffee. The Great Western Way map made it very clear that one could cycle through Windsor great park on NCR4 but when I got there, after skirting the many tentacled monster of our Soverign’s rather large house, I found that the park was unequivocally closed to cyclists. It was ‘verboten’ in certain absolute terms. This was not a place that you might ‘just get away with it’ if you trespassed for a while. One inch of rubber tyre on that sacred soil would no doubt set off a maelstrom of fevered activity by the security services or even the balaclavad SAS. It was clear they didn’t want me to take tea with the queen or to use her parkland as a cut through to Egham.
Windsor Great Park was not that welcoming
But to Egham I had to go. It is a place that conjures up ..er nothing in the mind. Except maybe an English breakfast when you think about it. I tried to find something, anything that might raise it above the void where it naturally sits. Staines the next destination on route 4 is a name that hardly conjured up great euphoria either. This was not going to be an experience like the exhilarating ride over the Marlboroough Downs or the jungle-adventure through the Savanake forest. This was going to be a teeth-gritting, heads down sort of day. I knew this as I battled on along the only alternate route to the wide open spaces of the parkland I had anticipated and set off along the A308. It was unpleasant or rather lacked any of those charms I had so far enjoyed. I either cycled on the busy road or took the precarious ‘shared paths’ that were unappealing to pedestrians and dangerous to cyclists. ‘Shared misery’ I suppose. The surface was uneven and led one up and down a quantity of chicanes leading to the driveways of suburban houses. This in itself is not a problem and could be fun on a mountain or purpose build track; however the combination of potholes, narrow passages, where hedges or posts blocked the way, meant that one was in constant danger of being tipped into the fast flowing, remorseless sea of traffic just inches away. As a writer rather than a cyclist however, I can skip these less than interesting episodes and neatly, magically, just tell you the route without dwelling too long on the negative.
Boredom Alert! So at risk of sounding nerdy the A308 took me to Staines where I took the A320. The NCR 4 then divided, one route taking me west via Chertsey and the other headed south through Laleham. However at that point and somewhere on the B376 that road too would also have turned right and gone to Chertsey. It was a sign I missed. No doubt it was very small, broke, vandalised or just hard to see amongst the visual overload of a busy stretch.
Cycling in a city is not pleasant and really quite dangerous!
Whatever the reason I found myself on the way to Shepperton. This was not a problem and there was something in that name that was appealing. The association with film and the early days of British cinema drove me to press on rather than turn around to find the planned route to Chertsey. Both roads I’m sure would be busy and equally polluted. So although I never saw or came close to the famous studios (if they still exist) I was now fixed on heading for the river where I knew the route would be more peaceful. Or assumed it would. A quick look at the map showed me I could re-join NCR 4 at Walton on Thames so headed for that. This diversion I had made took no longer. In fact it was slightly shorter than ‘the 4’ and I felt had no real downsides as the whole area was full of busy roads and urban sprawl anyway. I was very relieved to see the mighty Thames though.
After the smaller Kennet that I had followed for so long it looked magnificent, regal, and stately. I could now follow the river path all the way into the heart of London. I had sort of arrived and it felt like it. Suddenly I was in a location that was grander, more prosperous and more historic. I experienced the kind of awe that all travellers from the provinces feel when they see their capital or some great glittering city after weeks of travel through fields and simple villages.
Hampton Court. The scene of so much chicanery
Nearly there
It is uplifting and so much more so after a few days of slow travel to arrive on a cycle route than via the M4. Transportation by motorway is brutal, efficient, fast and hassle free but it squeezes the joy out of the journey. In fact its not a journey at all, just a means to an end. This is fine I guess if the end justifies drowning out one of the great pleasures of life which, let’s face it, is often more valuable and precious than the end itself. It would be like avoiding a sumptuous meal in favour of vitamin or protein pills. The only ones who considered this were lycra clad futurists on a mission to Mars - a barren lump of rock with no life, no joy or interesting future. So as I travelled east upon an almost perfect cycle path I enjoyed the travelling, the present and ever-changing scenery. Just as ‘Real’ travellers had done before me:
Slow Travel throws up all sorts of adventures
As I neared my final destination the town houses and bridges that spanned this beautiful river got grander, bigger and more opulent. As I past Kingston the path got busier and busier, more bustly, more alive with a keen anticipation in the air. I stopped awhile opposite the great Hampton court, a scene of so much pomp, avarice and villainy. The gates themselves outside which I parked my bike were bigger than, well most other gates that I have every seen. They were burnished with gold. The sort of gates when shut in your face make you feel unworthy, small and impoverished. You might possibly knock once, as it were, but not twice. Unless you were the postman perhaps! The house behind was equally opposing and declared a power that was not only absolute but civilised and learned. The architecture commissioned by Woolsey had all been cutting edge at the time. It was imbued with all the brand values of the renaissance.
Shortly after and much to my surprise the 4 led me away from the Thames and Strawberry Hill to cut across Richmond park avoiding a loop in the river. I was now back in a sort of unexpected wilderness. There are many paths through it of course but on a bike you are free to go off piste a bit and immerse yourself in the wildness of the place. There are acres of thick bracken and bramble over which one can just see the outer suburbs of London like Richmond, Barnes and Wimbledon.
Richmond Park has extensive views over London’s suburbs.
The map for this patch was not very detailed and I exited the park at Richmond which was the wrong exit and would not bring me back on the 4. A quick about turn led me back to the junction from which I found the Barnes entrance to the park. Still on 4 I made my way (although the red queen would rightly have said none of these ways belong to me) back to the river that led to Fulham. I was now in or passing through one of the wealthiest areas of London and, as if to underline the fact, I passed the majestic Imperial Wharf, a new development that frankly whiffed of money and entitlement. The architecture was modern, clean and smart. The flats were fitted with expensive granite and marble. The gardens were cared for and trimmed with weedless borders of imported grasses and exotic plants. Water cascaded and was directed through the shurbs in a carefully nurtured way. The bridges on my right were now familiar from my time spent in London in the 1980’s. Chelsea, Grosvenor and Vauxhall and Lambeth had all been landmarks while leafing through the well-thumbed A to Z from which bearings were taken. I now had to leave the security and safety of the river and venture into the mouth of the beast. Into the capillaries and veins of the greatest, cosmopolitan metropolis on earth. The streets of London are famous but not for their cycle friendliness.
It was with a fair dollop of worried anticipation that I turned off the main artery into London opposite Vauxhall bridge and headed for green park and then ultimately Hyde Park where I was going to meet my friend and guide Tim Conrad, he would then lead me through the Heart of Darkness to his house in Kensall Rise. To be quite honest I don’t really know how I got to our rendezvous although I did note the following roads I used. Lupus St, Islip St, Horeseferry Road and Grosvenor Place. Essentially I followed my nose, that strangely functioning ‘compass organ’. Once I saw the high walls protecting Buckingham palace and its occupants I knew Hyde park was not far away and then, there it was. Hyde park corner. I had made it. And all in one piece. And absolutely no disasters after all!
From this central meeting place and nearly 300 years before intrepid and curious travellers had set off in a coach to travel the very same route I had just taken. Sam Wellers quote ?? they would have had the same excited anticipation I had felt when leaving Bath just four days ago. It was a great feeling arriving in London in fact it had felt like a great adventure through which I had travelled in rain and shine. Experiencing both confusion and exhilaration.
Hyde Park. The end and final destination of the GBR Project
To Follow: Ch. 11 What was the Great Bath Road Project really about?