You walk through some quiet streets in North Peckham and along a linear
park on the line of the Peckham Branch of the infilled Grand Surrey Canal to
Burgess Park, created on land formerly filled by industry around the canal as
well as dense housing but heavily bombed in WWII, and now with only a few
listed remnants of its industrial and canal heritage, such as almshouses, a
well-preserved limekiln and the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’.
You follow a meandering westerly route through Burgess Park to the Camberwell
end and the splendid Addington Square, and walk back on a loop through the park
and then on further through Walworth with its very large brutalist Aylesbury
Estate. From there, the route links up a handful of small and not so small
parks, leading eventually to Elephant Park, a new development on the site of
the former brutalist Heygate Estate, and to Elephant & Castle Station on
the boundary of Newington.
The areas walked through are a mix not atypical of the Borough of Southwark: well-kept parks and open spaces, some old and worn council estates (often of brutalist architecture), plenty of reused or part-replaced former industrial buildings, some new and more enlightened council accommodation as well as some fully gentrified areas, culminating in the still not quite finished Elephant Park.
Terrain & Access: Almost only hard surfaces. The
parks and open spaces on the main walk are open 24/7.
Shorter Walks:
- Bus stops are never far away.
- Outbound and return route meet in two places in Burgess Park, enabling
cutting off a part of the route.
Extension: A longer loop around Burgess Park’s fishing lake is described
(add 450m).
Tea Options: Plenty en route and near Elephant & Castle station, see the webpage or the pdf walk directions for details. T=short.59
3 comments:
Hope you plan to wait for people coming on the Dartford to Victoria train -- I think it actually arrives at 18:40....
For regulars, we will always wait
And wait we did, for the delayed train of the delayed walker. 6 finally set off from P'ham Rye, soon joined by a n=7 th who had waited at P'ham High Street for us. Braving the shared footpath/cycleway along the line of the P'ham Branch of the Grand Surrey Canal in what was cycling rush hour was interesting! Into Burgess Park then, where I was kind of surprised to see so much greenery, having done the recce for this route in deep winter. Some of the buildings along the park fringe you couldn't even see anymore!
Punters seemed to enjoy the meandering route through the various corners of the park and past the remaining historic remnants of its illustrious past.
On through Walworth and past or through some gritty estates plus a few small parks and green spaces, with plenty of people mingling about in the w=summery weather (at long last).
At the Elephant, 1 deserted us, so 6 of us went for a meal at Lenos y Carbon, a Columbian restaurant in the railway arches, where we were met by 1 partner of a walker and 1 walker who had attended a rival evening commitment beforehand.
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