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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.

Saturday, 20 August 2022

Saturday Walk - East London Double Bill (II): Dagenham Parks, Rivers and Ponds

Length: 10.1 km (6.3 mi) [shorter walk possible, see below]
Ascent/Descent: negligible
Net Walking Time: ca. 2 ¼ hours 
 
Arrive at Dagenham East station for a 14.00 start. Dagenham East is in Zone 5, on the District Line to Upminster. Journey time from Aldgate East is 32 minutes, from Victoria 49 minutes. You can shave off a few minutes by taking mainline trains from Fenchurch Street (or from Limehouse or West Ham) to Barking for part of the journey (half-hourly today).
 
This is an exploration of several linked green areas in an otherwise densely populated East London suburb, leading through some Local Nature Reserves, two Country Parks, an ex-landfill site and ex-quarry, a river floodplain and along the recently restored beds of the Wantz Stream and the Beam and Rom Rivers.
This walk has a large variety of landscapes, from acid grassland, fenland and woodland to marshland and sandy shrubland via woods and a tranquil meandering valley. 
 
Beam Parklands provides functional flood prevention and public open space for the community, while the Beam Valley Country Park was formerly derelict land after having been partly worked for gravel, leaving a wide diversity of habitats, with wet and dry grassland, tall herbs and scrub, and one small area of willow woodland, a scarce habitat in London. 
The Chase Local Nature Reserve has large areas of marshland and contains 6 of only 600 mature female Black Poplar trees left in the UK as well as a fenced off Bird Sanctuary (The Slack).  
Eastbrookend Country Park, now an interesting, undulating landscape, was formerly a gravel quarry then a dumping ground for the rubble left over from the blitz. 
 
A shortcut at the northerly end of the walk reduces the length by 2.3 km.
 
For a summary, walk directions, map, height profile, photos and gpx/kml files click here. 
 
Refreshments at the end: The Pipe Major. T=short.33

1 comment:

Thomas G said...

6 of the 8 from the morning walk started with a 7th saying he'd start later after finishing lunch a bit after us.
Lots of lush greenery in the various parks today and also many water-filled ponds, but alarmingly also large patches of burnt grass and brambles, primarily in the Beam Parklands, and then also about 10 houses just to the side of the park that had part or fully burnt down a few weeks ago in the heatwave. That didn't make my local paper at the time...!
What else did we see/experience? Tons of blackberries, more than I have ever seen on a walk, herons, first just one in a pond amongst ducks, coots and swans, then 4 of them together (2 large, 2 small) in the (dry) bird reserve, The Slack. And a new cafe with lots of different ice cream brands in the Eastbrookend Country Park.
In the background we heard occasional shouts and chants from Dagenham & Redbridge's ground, who were playing Maidenhead (1-0 at FT).
n=7 in weather that was w=warm-with-a-breeze