The Journey

On Wimbledon Common or pounding streets

We spent time in Nature enjoying this land.

We would CAVAT trees at Cambridge Road or Waterloo Coin Street

I held the DBH tape while you tested its accuracy with your hand span.

Armed with suitable detection equipment

We would listen to bats at Kensington Gardens or the Canons.

Embarking on a survey of a large poplar, you swore, A LOT,

As it had already been felled ANON.

On looking for brackets : -

"Resinaceum has increased in Richmond Park," you say

We debate a Podocypher rosette , or was it old cabbage fungus

Let's put in on the checklist for next year's Foray.

Taking home made wreaths to Jubilee Gardens

on the first of the Summer's Saturdays

In memory of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War

and to Highgate, red roses for Marx on his Anniversaries.

You said, "This will be a good RESISTOR",

On handing an Indica chestnut to me.

The resulting tree has reached your 'lofty' height

as, for now, I see you in every tree.

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The Black Path (AKA Porter's or Templars' Path).

The Black path is a trail from Walthamstow to Shoreditch done justice in these two links Spittlefields Life . The route of this medieval footpath is visible through street markets, shop and road names. There is no formal map of the Black path, yet a keen walker with a sense of direction, willing to make a few twists and turns, through several welcome green spaces, will find their way. Tracing a trajectory running northeast and southwest between Shoreditch Church and the crossing of the River Lea at Clapton, the Black Path links with Old Street in one direction and extends beyond Walthamstow in the other. Sometimes called the Porter’s Way, this was the route cattle were driven to Smithfield and the path used by smallholders taking produce to Spitalfields Market. Sometimes also called the Templars’ Way, it links the thirteenth century St Augustine’s Tower on land once owned by Knights Templar in Hackney with the Priory of St John in Clerken...

Soundwalk

This year we repeated the Soundwalk that we undertook last year and highlighted the changes. Well for a start there was no Lucy , although we were able to play recordings of her reading her poetry, secondly we were limited to six participants. Here is an account of last years walk. Soundwalk on the Cambridge Road Estate by Alison Whybrow 2019 I love the walks that Alison organises, I discover so much about the place I live. This one didn’t disappoint. About 20 of us assembled outside the cemetery gates wrapped up and ready to go, some from across London, mostly local. It was going to be a chilly evening. We took time to listen to the birds, Jackdaws, making a racket in a tree next to us, and notice the connections and avenues that the trees created both on and off the estate. The older the tree, the richer the biodiversity that it houses. Walking with Alison is a different way to experience place. A deeper more personal way, seeing things I wouldn’t see and sharing knowledge that...

Trespass in Battersea

Trespass in Battersea ‘London Reclaim’, the name on the tug proclaimed, (pulling yellow containers on barges). In this sentiment, I felt the same; so many pathways curtailed that I couldn’t even walk down Pumphouse lane. No passage through, to the development of “Phase 2”, Unless driving a lorry to the waste transfer station. No route to the Thames Path and riverside, Without hard hat and constructive intent. Otherwise ‘No Pasaran, down the Pumphouse lane. "You can better your photos on the other side where stand 250 shops, some of them open". Outdoor tables covered in an Astroturf fuzz. Why not let me stand in a lane named Pumphouse It would give me such a buzz. Notices and signs that change the chemicals in my blood Evict the endorphins and scatter the serotonins. Hoardings proclaim venues, culture and art from wood. Yet no history from the Covid-closed Heritage Centre, and no chance of walking down Pum...

Walk with John Clare

John Clare Cottage 6.9.20 This year is the 200th anniversary of poet John Clare's first publication. On the 20th July 1841, he left the asylum in Epping and walked 80 miles to Northborough. I intended to follow in his footsteps and undertake this walk; now140 miles as it traverses motorways and circumvents private land. This is the story of my walk in prose and poetry including one published in 'The Meeting'. Out of Epping Epping Forest as ‘common land’ is highly accessible and can be approached from any compass direction. An exemplar of ‘being unenclosed,’ without walls or fences; No convoluted journey to search for pedestrian gate or stile. Enter from the Twittens of Loughton, Ivy Chimneys of Theydon Or the footpaths converging on the Copt Hall cerviduct. Chime over Bell Common, or jump over Chingford Find your own route and walk in your own gait or style. Make time to visit every feature, greet every tree, Relax up Pole Hill - or f...

On the importance of paths

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/A-little-book-about-Paths-alleys-twittens-and-droves-of-SW-London-in-prose Walking would be impossible without paths. Paths are a form of separation between us and modern life. They separate us from traffic. They flow like water to provide us with natural shortcuts and desire lines. They can allow for a continuity of gardens and be good wildlife corridors. They can provide a link to the past and the people who used old routes, providing a touchstone for emotional memory. When we follow in footsteps we are in harmony with our ancestors. Walking routes became a way of ‘un-enclosing’ paths or re-appropriating them for common use. In the modern emphasis on swift travel and new cycle routes, the pedestrian has been forgotten. Some of our hard-won paths are once again in danger from enclosure, appropriation ...

Anatomy of Norbiton: a Circumambulatory by Toby Ferris

Here are some segments from a walk around the bounds of Norbiton reproduced from Anatomy of Norbiton with Toby's permission. For the full text and his beautiful pictures see http://anatomyofnorbiton.org/circumambulatory.html 'The logic of Norbiton’s streets has nothing to do with its circumference. Their grain is governed by the line of the railway, the routes into Kingston and Wimbledon. If you try to walk its perimeter you are forcing that grain, committing a minor spatial infraction. The same can be said of the streets of its interior: they do not lead to other places within Norbiton, but originate and terminate outside it. Their business is not with Norbiton, but across it. When we walk the circumference of Norbiton, then, we do so as engineers of ideal space armed only with the string and sticks, the ambulatory measure, of our minds; we are engaged in the survey of the anfractuous, perhaps not properly existent fringe of an object which ...

Walk With Jane

Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) was an urbanist and activist whose writings championed a community-based approach to city building. She had no formal training as a planner, and yet her book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 1961 introduced ground-breaking ideas about how cities function, evolve and fail, that should be common sense to architects, planners, and politicians but is it? "Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody." Jane Jacobs and us listen to House sparrows Kingston town centre- my home town of more than 40 years; who does it belong to? Who decides if it should be a 'concretopia'? Certain species reach a tipping point where they can no longer subsist; How can we ensure that valuable natural assets will be retained in major new developments? The last 27 years; this district has been my home but now it is fast bec...

The Criminal Trespass Bill

Dear all, BREAKING NEWS: thanks to you, MPs will hold a debate in Parliament on 25th January into Government plans to criminalise trespass! Parliament's Petitions Committee has just scheduled the debate, after our petition - ' Don't criminalise trespass ' - got over 134,000 signatures, back in early September. Massive thanks to all of you who signed and promoted the petition! But now we really need your help to contact MPs and get them to say the right things at the debate. We've written a template email, below, which you can adapt and send to your MP. When MPs hear about issues from their constituents, they're so much more likely to take action - and even if they disagree with you, they have to take your views into consideration. You can look up your MP and their email address on the Parliament website here . Remember to include your postcode when you send your email, to show you're a constituent, otherwise they won't have to respond. If you get ...

Walk with Richard Jefferies

On May 18th 2018, Richard Jefferies exited his blue-plaqued villa at Woodside, 296 Ewell Road, opposite the former St. Marks school (built on Tolworth Common during his 5-year residence). Here he wrote, 'The copse adjoining the back gardens of Woodside was visited by pheasants which sometimes strayed into the neighbours’ gardens. Early in the March mornings he woke to the ‘three clear, trumpet-like notes’ of a missel thrush ringing out from the copse. From his window in the evenings he could hear partridges calling. Stone-chats perched on the furze bushes of Tolworth Common. He strolled towards Tolworth Broadway and Greenway, followed by 30+ participants keen to locate RJ's observations from 'Nature Near London'; first published as a series of articles in the Pall Mall Gazette for the commuting public. In 1920 the very same paper celebrated his work by reprinting excerpts from his regular column - along with joining instructions for his walks - by tram and motorbus-bu...

Walk with Jane

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