London LOOP Section 11 – Hayes to Uxbridge 15th January 2011

It being a Sunday, when we are both free from the burdens of earning a crust, we decide it would be a good day to walk Section 11. We have the good fortune to wake on a clear, still and frosty day, ideal for walking.

As the morning progresses we fill ourselves with bacon and eggs and prepare ourselves for the walk ahead. Belatedly I realise I haven’t printed off the directions or the map for this section. To my great consternation I discover the printer is out of ink! No time to get a new cartridge, so we decide to take David Sharp’s guide book with us instead.

I don’t usually use his book on a walk, as for some reason he has divided his LOOP walk up into 15? Sections instead of the 24 presented on the web site. Normally I use his book as a reference text, or as a pre-walk introduction. On this occasion Mr Sharp will be our saviour. In fact his well written text and Ordnance Survey maps are excellent and at no time do we ever get lost during the walk.

Unfortunately messing around with maps and printers means we arrive 1 minute after our bus is due to depart from the end of the road. 20 minutes later another one arrives (early as it turns out). This whisks us off to Newbury Park tube station. A half hour or so more and the Bakerloo Line spills us out into Paddington Station, where we have just missed a train.

We elect to have a coffee and a muffin at Paddington. It is when we are consuming our refreshment that we have time to look up and see a pretty disgusting looking collection of mould on the girders above. This and the excrement from passing pigeons threatens to fall un-noticed into one of the many sushi dishes bumbling along the conveyor belt of the sushi restaurant below. It is hard to understand why the station, or more importantly the environmental health officers, haven’t insisted on enclosing these food providing establishments with a more sanitary environment. Instead we sit sharing chairs and tables with winged vermin picking over other peoples food remains. No thank you!

Before too long we realise that we are pushing our luck again, as we have several hundred metres to walk to platform 14 to get our train. We make it just in time. The journey to Hayes and Harlington station is pretty rapid, just enough time to make a toilet stop, since finding toilets on the LOOP can be a major issue. As we pull into Hayes and Harlington and step onto the platform, we are regaled by a wonderful aroma of fresh ground coffee. It is then I realise that there is a coffee factory close by. What a wonderful smell to wake up to each morning. Doubtless local people can’t smell coffee after years of this. I feel sad for their sensory deprivation.

The journey from home in Romford to the start of this section has been approximately 2hrs. A total of four hours of travelling to and from our current section only leaves 3 or 4 hours for actually walking in January, so we set off at a brisk pace.

As we pass the The Old Crown pub where we enjoyed a drink a few weeks earlier, after our last excursion in the dark, we get to see it again in daylight. The towpath is undergoing repairs, but fortunately not in our direction. All around us the towpath has the misfortune of being swamped by litter. Likewise the waters of the canal. The most wretched piece of unwanted waste floating in the canal however, is a very bloated and very dead grey squirrel. Rats are very good swimmers. I’m not sure that squirrels get the same chance to learn and it is evident that this one perhaps misjudged the strength of an overhanging branch and fell to a watery grave below.

I misled the reader earlier, when I claimed the printer didn’t print maps or directions for us. In fact it printed the maps but only the first page of the directions before coughing and spluttering to a halt. However, the first page of directions proclaim that there are 2 kissing gates in the first 200 yards or so. In truth there are none. This leaves Betty a very disappointed girl since she is very fond of kissing gates.

The other disappointment is the absence of canal craft plying to and fro along one of the busiest canals in the UK.

This of course is no fault of the LOOP planners. Unlike the large cargo carrying arteries found on the continent, the UK’s piddly little canals are only really any use as cruise ways. Whilst coal, sand, gravel, sugar beet and oil is required all year round, tourists have a preference for warm weather cruising. Hence, the lack of boats. However, today I suspect the boat owning fraternity is missing a trick, as the weather is gloriously sunny. Cold yes, but wrapped up warm this is ideal canal boat weather.

There is an abundance of modern canal-side flats however. Human beings seem to be drawn to water. Over the last few decades we have gone wild for living adjacent to old docks, lakes, rivers, the sea, marinas and even canals. The Grand Union Canal is no exception, and as with many of our old industrial cities, the developers have lured house-buyers to sunny Hayes with the promise of a waterside idyll. I for one would love to be doing the washing up, watching a canal boat chug slowly and quietly by.

As we near the end of page one of the directions, we are informed that to our right is “Lake Farm Country Park – home and sanctuary to wildlife such as birds, butterflies and insects”. This is not particularly informative, since it could be describing almost anywhere on the planet, such is the abundance of these three groups of wildlife (in fact two groups of wildlife – since butterflies are insects). A check of the management plan for the park reveals that it has been designed to have a mix of habitats including grassland, scrub, meadow, a pond and amenity grassland. Skylark, a recently threatened species, is found here, along with invertebrates such as the crab spider, ichneumon wasp and speckled wood butterfly. Most of the plant species are unremarkable, although it is always nice to see a swath of oxeye daisy. Less welcome is the Japanese Knotweed, a common weed of former industrial areas adjacent to water.

Soon we approach a gate to Stockley Park. Access from the canal towpath is obviously restricted, since the kissing gate has a padlock on it. Fortunately for us it is unlocked and we pass through (much to Bettys’ delight). I suspect the sort of people who roam canal tow paths after dark are not welcome in Stockley Park. I suppose that counts us also, after our last adventure along this towpath, after dark, 3 weeks earlier. Adjacent to the kissing gate is another gate. This one would offer unrestricted access to a short fat dwarf of perhaps a very large dog. Having seen some of the fearsome muzzled canines that escort the residents in this part of the world, I suspect the latter.

Stockley Park is a shiny new high tech business park. Water features, pathways, bowling green quality lawns and planted trees abound. All is very sterile. The ‘green’ movement will have arrived once places like Stockley Park embrace nature. When the grass is allowed to reach 10 centimetres in height, when our endangered British garden birds are to be found feeding on strategically placed bird feeders, when rotting piles of wood are left for invertebrates to thrive and the waters are rich in marginal plants, aquatic insects and amphibians. Why is it that business and a natural environment are considered mutually exclusive in the UK?

In fairness, the LOOP directions inform us that 140,000 trees have been planted, although most appear to be non-native hybrid lime trees and fast growing birch and willow. Wildflowers may be plentiful in the spring and summer months, but all I can find is a specimen of chive, which doubtless has escaped from someones herb garden. Perhaps they grow chive at Stockley Park, so that the indigenous ‘suits’ can use it as a garnish on their prawn sandwiches?

Beyond the glass, brick and metal edifices the lawns become even more manicured as we approach the golf course. Here black clad gentlemen (no sign of women here), toil their weary way over the fairways and greens, pausing only briefly to assault a small white ball, before continuing their laboured way in pursuit of their prey. Only the day before I was observing the red clad golfers of Royal Epping Forest Golf Club. I thought golf was a cut above football in the sporting scale, but it appears that there is a club kit or strip for indulgers of both sports. I wonder, when rival golfers meet each other in the street or during a match, do they hurl abuse at each other, questioning their parentage or their choice of partner?

Eventually we reach an elevated viewing point overlooking Stockley Park. Few people are about, but most who are appear to be of oriental extraction. If they are just visiting from far off China, they must go back home with a rather skewed idea of what the British scenery is like. You do get a good view of Heathrow from here and can watch a steady stream of jets landing. As they touch down on the tarmac they go out of sight, that is except for their tail plane, which you can see slicing between the trees, like the dorsal fin of a passing shark.

Now following Mr Sharpes directions and the ample supply of waymarkers on the ground, we quickly find our way back to the road, where we pass through a small commercial estate flanked by rather forlorn looking houses. I wonder if they at one time housed workers at the former brick works that once occupied this site? It always intrigues me to think what it might be like for someone who lived in houses from a century earlier, to travel forward in time by 100 years and look out of their window to see how much things have changed in that time. At least the Brickmakers Arms is still there, so he’ll be able to get himself a nice frothing pint of beer at any rate.

As we rejoin the towpath we pause to read the inscription on a plaque inlaid into the parapet of the bridge across the canal.

The next mile or so is easy and pleasant walking alongside the canal as it turns northward in the direction of far off Braunston in the English Midlands. It is not long before we reach Cowley Peachy Junction. This is a charming picturesque area, which probably explains why so many narrowboats are moored in the substantial marina here. Doubtless most are owned by Londoners, who can’t wait to escape from ‘the smoke’ at weekends.

A side arm of the canal (The Slough Arm) takes westward, away from the main Grand Union Canal. The water here is very clear. On the bank we find an uncommon sight, the shells of the Swan Mussel, a freshwater bivalve. This is a good indicator of unpolluted waters. I wonder which creature took the mussels from the canal bed. Mink, possibly an otter, or just some curious human with a net. Hopefully there are plenty more where these water shellfish came from.

Swan Mussel

A little further on we cross the Frays River Aqueduct. Betty is understandably fascinated with the idea of a bridge carrying the canal over a river. I felt just the same the first time I came across one. There is something a little bazaar about water carrying boats over one’s head.

A few hundred yards further on we take the footbridge over the canal. From the bridge you can see a granite obelisk erected on the tow path to remind transporters of goods that there was a duty to be paid on coal and other goods brought within 20 or so miles of London. Over the footbridge and we are walking what should be a quiet rural footpath, but we can hear an unwelcome interruption ahead, in the form of motocross bikes revving up.

As we approach I feel a mix of irritation, fear and anger in anticipation of some sort of confrontation. Three riders sit astride their bikes, the rear one being assisted by two non-riders. He is evidently having trouble keeping his bike going. As we pass them the noise is deafening. I wonder if they are going to tear up the footpath or are just using it as an access route to some waste ground where they can use their bikes legitimately. Such is the pressure on UK footpaths from so many conflicting users, that we have to give the benefit of the doubt to avoid unnecessary confrontation.

Soon we arrive at Little Britain, where I might expect to meet a two well known comedians. In fact it is a lake whose outline is not dissimilar in shape to that of mainland Britain, hence the name. Here fishermen and water birds share their love of water and small fishy things beneath the surface. Turning left we cross over River Colne out of London and into Buckinghamshire.

Buckinghamshire appears little different to London, although perhaps the air is a little fresher? I suspect the property this side of the river is more expensive. As we walk north alongside the river, the illusion of being in rural Bucks, away from the big city, is shattered by a buck of a different kind, can of lager in hand and a fearsome looking muzzled dog in the other. I suspect he comes from the other side.

Shortly we pass an attractive weir across the river, although the distant hum of the M25 detracts from its charm. Soon we cross Iver Lane and back over to the right bank of the river. Here a sculpted panel passes on a few nuggets of information before the path is squeezed between the river and a rather unattractive high fence.

The Weir

The wooden fence gives way to a chain-link one revealing a massive parking lot of vans. Here urban London squeezes right up to the border with its posh neighbour on the far bank of the river, leaving only 3 or 4 feet for us poor pedestrians to continue our circumnavigation of the capital.

The Colne is now a typical urban river complete with sightings of a live rat scuttling along the bank, the ubiquitous angler, this one with a twenty-foot-plus long perch pole enabling him to fish in Buckinghamshire territorial waters from his own perch in London. Inevitably the view deteriorates into a scruffy urban industrial landscape before we reach Cowley Mill Lane.

At this point the LOOP directions take the walker along Culvert Lane and back to the Grand Union Canal. This pair of walkers however turn left down Cowley Mill Lane and then left again along the A4007. Many years ago I used to work in an environmental education centre in Canterbury. Several other sister centres were sponsored by the National Grid, one of which I recall was at the Iver substation. I am hopeful of finding the Iver Environment Centre along this road, but after several hundred yards lose the desire and we decide the day is running out too quickly. I resolve to return another day. Iver Environment Centre is a fascinating, if small destination for anyone interested in the environment. It is only a few hundred yards off the LOOP. However on checking its web site (http://www.ivernature.com/index.html) it appears not to be open to the general public. So make arrangements first in case you find you have walked the busy A4007 for nothing.

Doubling back up the A4007 we eventually return to the Grand Union Canal, passing an imposing World War 2 pillbox still standing guard in case any more Londoners dare to invade Buckinghamshire. This section of the Grand Union Canal is packed with fascinating narrow boats. Some are located at a boat yard on the far bank, many floundering like beached whales on hard standing, having their bottoms blacked.

The Pillbox and narrow boats at the boat yard

On our side of the canal we pass a mock galleon; a former floating chinese restaurant; a lovingly restored Clayton Fellows Morton freight carrying narrowboat, complete with riveted hull; a floating small business churning out stoves and other metalworking items and a boat whose owner supplements his alternative lifestyle by selling logs to passing narrowboats. A little further up we observe the intriguing Parexel building, looking for all the world like an art deco ocean liner that took a wrong turn up the Thames and ended up on the bank of the Grand Union Canal at Uxbridge.

This section of the LOOP ends at the Swan and Bottle pub, but we elect to walk up to Uxbridge Lock because we are nosey and it is not yet dark. Here we watch two boats enter – one a one-man boat and the other containing six young men returning from a lads weekend, complete with bottles of lager. Taking our lead from these six wise young men we return to the Swan and Bottle to celebrate yet another stage ticked off.

The intriguing Parexel building