Meet at
19.00 hours prompt outside Stratford Station (Mainline, Overground,
Underground, DLR), next to ‘Robert’, a heritage locomotive displayed on
the station forecourt on the Town Centre side (i.e.: not
the Westfield side)! [see the pdf directions for how to get there from your
platform w/o fault]
Note: Route
revised again in March 2020, to reflect the ongoing works in the Park and
surrounding areas.
This
walk follows a meandering route through Stratford City, a development
preceding the idea of London applying to hold Olympic Games, and including the
very large Westfield Shopping Centre, as well as through the neighbouring Olympic
Park and past its surviving Olympic venues, one of the largest urban parks
created in Western Europe for more than 150 years, and designed to enrich and
preserve the local environment, by restoring wetland habitats and planting
native species of plants along the River Lea and the Bow Backwaters. It is
still a work in progress, in its continued transition from sports venue to
public park, with many new neighbourhoods and amenities added since the 2012
Games.
This
is combined with a detour through parts of the adjacent former industrial areas
now famous for artists’ spaces and independent micro-businesses, but undergoing
speedy regeneration: Hackney Wick (South) and Fish Island. These
areas are still noticeably shaped by their former mix of (often polluting)
industries in this complicated space, dominated by railways, canals, locks,
river arms, channels, flood plains.
For a shorter walk, start from Stratford International DLR Station, passed after 850m.
For a much shorter walk, Hackney Wick Overground Station is passed after 5.5 km/3.4 mi.
For
a southerly
extension follow the Greenway on top the Northern Outfall Sewer.
Refreshments: Plenty of options en route, for details please check the pdf.
For
a detailed route map, gpx/kml file, photos and pdf
directions click here.
T=short.27
1 comment:
12 at the start, with 2 starting later (arriving independently but walking together), 2 others also arriving late, walking more or less straight to Crate Brewery, then after a drink or two walking the route backwards to the Beer Merchants Tap, where most of the others were just leaving and joining the walk for the rest of the route, plus 1 that arrived at some point by bike and - pushing it - joined the walk for a while, incl a drink or two.
Westfield Shppoing Centre and the Olympic Park, the canalside barge cafes and pubs, breweries etc, everything was as busy as if nothing had ever happened in the last 4 months or so. The paths are mostly wide enough though to still move between the people serenely and safely. Great to see that the park has come on so nicely (just talking about the plantings here and the public realm), money well spent.
At the end most retired to the Stratford (Hotel's) Brasserie by the I'nal DLR station, a very fine place (just the right type of location for the SWC Xmas Party we thought, if stretching the budget a little, perhaps).
We left at 22.45 or so...
n=17 w=very-warm
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