From A-Z

Sat 16th Oct 2021

Walk Details:

Event Type
Group Walk
Region / Area
Southern England / London
Local Group
London
Distance
24ml.
Start Time
09:15
Route
Beckton station Finish: 18:45 Clapham Junction station

The Tarmac Walkers 2021 Saturday Special
An east to west traverse across the capital linking the first and last roads listed in the index of the London A - Z (13th edition)

General Notes
Lunch at Greenwich where it is possible to join the walk, but contact the leader to arrange a meeting point and time
Finish

Entry Details:

Cost

Walk Report

London A-Z, Saturday 16th October 2021
17 walkers, 22.5 miles - leader Ron Williamson
A walk conceived as a result of reading an article in Country Walking magazine during those increasingly distant days of lockdown. The first listed road and the last listed road in the index of the London A-Z are some 10-11 miles apart as the crow flies. Maybe a route could be devised linking the two and also two other sites significant in the A-Z's history.
Some six months later, after some enjoyable time studying various maps and walking parts of the route it was time to put plans into action.
Really things could not have gone much better, even the five-minute downpour, that surprised us all, happened where shelter was available, just as well as many had believed the weather forecast and had left serious waterproofs at home. With fifty planned short stops at places of interest and as usual in London much more to be seen and heard, 13 of us reached the final destination at the designated time after discovering an additional 200 yds of the Thames Path near to a highly decorative pumping station and making a planned but not recced south to north traverse of One Tree Hill.
I got a lot of satisfaction out of this walk, I think that it far exceeded the expectations of most if not all participants and it was good to see a great mixture of people from the eager beavers, those recuperating from injury or treatment, those who reached a PB in terms of distance to those of us glad that we could still break the twenty-mile barrier. It is so easy for walks in London to include all comers.
The challenge is, therefore, to walk from Aaron Hill Road to Zulu Mews with just two compulsory check points on route namely Abbeville Road, the original first listed road and the blue plaque for Phyllis Pearsall, creator of the A-Z. The file at https://ldwa.org.uk/lgt/downloads/London/Beckton_-_Clapham_Junction_A-Z.pdf will take you to a crib sheet of the 50 points we visited on the route, have fun plotting our route and maybe you would like to plan and walk your own.
Photographs by Tony Hobbs and Keith Lane

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