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This Week's Walks - Archive

Please see the Saturday Walker's Club This Week's Walks page.

This is an archive of walks done by the Saturday Walker's Club. You should only need to use this page if the SWC website is down.

Sunday 7 January 2018

Sunday Walk – Arcadian Thames (Richmond to Hampton Court)

Extra Walk 46 (variation) – Richmond to Hampton Court
Length: About 12½ km (8 miles). Toughness: 1/10

Meet in the booking hall of Richmond station at 11:00. Either take the 10:39 Reading train from Waterloo (Vauxhall 10:43, Clapham Jct 10:49, Putney 10:53), arriving at 10:58; or the Overground or a District line tube (see the TfL site for times). Richmond is in Zone 4.

Trains back from Hampton Court (in Zone 6) leave for Waterloo at xx:05 & xx:35. If you finish at Kingston, trains back from there are also half-hourly at much the same time (xx:04 & xx:34).

The full Extra Walk 46 goes from Wimbledon to Kingston, but Wimbledon Common can be very muddy in winter and this walk's second half along the Thames Path combined with the optional extension to Hampton Court looks more suitable for January.

From Richmond station I suggest crossing over the main road, going through an alleyway to a side street and turning left to reach Richmond Green. Go diagonally across it and down Old Palace Lane to the river. Turn left and simply follow the Thames Path for about 8 km to Kingston. There are plenty of refreshment opportunities in this large town, including several riverside pubs.

Unless you want to finish the walk here, cross Kingston Bridge and keep left on the other side. The walk notes give you the choice of walking through Bushy Park (to the north of the A308) or Hampton Court [Home] Park (to the south). If you take the latter route note that you can no longer get into the Palace Gardens via the back gates, so you have to head back to the main road or (on the other side of the Long Water) find the unobtrusive gate leading out to the river. There are refreshment places in the informal gardens at Hampton Court (free to enter) and near Hampton Court station (on the other side of the river, just across the bridge).

You could probably get by with the brief notes above but more detail can be found on the Wimbledon to Kingston Walk page.
T=swc.46.d

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you to Sean for posting this lovely walk.
Perfect time of year for Bushy Park and Hampton Court.

Anonymous said...

10 walkers
Weather fine

Marcus said...

n=10
w=fine