Evening Walk - The River Beck: Through Beckenham's busy Town Centre and some parks and woodlands, then up the River Beck corridor to rural West Wickham and Hayes

Length: 9.5 km /5.9 mi, with 110/86m ascent/descent 

Net Walking Time: 2 hrs

Take the 18.12 Orpington train from Victoria (via Brixton and Herne Hill), arrives Beckenham Junction at 18.35. 

Return trains: every 15 minutes on xx.13 (to London Bridge and Charing Cross).

Beckenham Junction is in Zone 4, Hayes in Zone 5.

 

The write-up in the reverse direction (south-to-north):

After a part-suburban, part-rural walk from Hayes station through West Wickham, this Outer London route follows the River Beck from its sources in woodlands on high ground in Spring Park to Beckenham’s Town Centre as closely as sensible. In the upper reaches, the Beck forms the Borough Boundary between Bromley and Croydon (i.e. formerly Kent and Surrey), and the very most of the route runs through Bromley.

The route through the Beck Corridor itself is a healthy mixture of mature and younger woodlands where the river meanders naturally and some landscaped parks with lakes dammed from the river, featuring a couple of ‘waterfalls’, mainly linked-up by quiet residential roads, but not without about 1 kilometre of busy roads to walk along. The Beck is crossed many a times, including once on stepping stones.

Beckenham’s town centre features the ‘Cathedral of North West Kent’ with England’s oldest lychgate.

Eat/Drink: more than a handful of options each in Coney Hall and in Hayes. See the walk directions for more detail.

For walk directions, map, photos and gpx/kml files click here. T=short.62

#2026-07-03T18:12