Even though I have lived in London for all my life, I am still finding
out things about it that I never knew.
Some time ago, I can across a book in my local library by a
man called Hunter Davies.
He is perhaps best known for his works on football and the Beatles, but it
turns out that in his time he has written on rather a lot of subjects. The book
that caught my eye was called A
Walk Along the Tracks, in which he goes for a series of walks along the
routes of disused railway lines in various parts of Britain
(and, thanks largely to Dr
Beeching, there are a lot of disused railway lines in Britain).
It so happens that one of the disused lines Hunter chose for
his book was part of the Edgware,
Highgate & London Railway, which ran between Finsbury
Park and Edgware, with branch lines to
Alexandra Palace and High Barnet.
Today, parts of this are still operational as the Northern Line, but the bits
that interested Hunter for his book were the bits between Finsbury Park
and Highgate, and the branch to Ally Pally.
Writing in the early 1980s, he described the route as
something of an urban wasteland. However, not long after his book was published
the old route was significantly cleaned up, renamed the Parkland Walk and declared to be a
nature reserve. I promised myself I’d pay the place a visit, and when I found
myself with the day off work and the sun shining in the sky that is exactly
what I did.
My walk started at Finsbury Park Tube Station, from where I
made my way past a man selling clothes out of a suitcase underneath the railway
bridge, several buses and a run-down pub to get to the south gate of Finsbury Park itself.
Once in the park, I found a footbridge over the railway lines to the Parkland
Walk entrance.
For the most part, and as you’d probably expect from a
nature reserve laid out along the route of a disused railway line in the middle
of an urban area, the path has housing on either side for much of its length,
and the walker has an elevated view into many back gardens. That said, it is
amazing how much overhanging trees and birdsong can do to block out the noise
of the metropolis. For a few minutes, it almost felt as though I was going for
a walk in the country – an experience quite unlike the one that Hunter
described when he covered this very same ground over thirty years ago.
That said, I wasn’t the only one going out for a walk. I was
passed by a few teenagers on their mountain bikes (well, it is the school
holidays), some shoppers taking a short cut, young mothers out with their kids
and a few joggers who may or may not have been inspired to get running by Mo Farah. An elderly
couple out blackberrying were having some sort of domestic, while the sight of
a young girl carrying a lead with a staffie on the end of it prompted me to
wonder who exactly was taking who for a walk.
The walk continued, crossing quiet back-streets on bridges
built for the railway. Of course, this wouldn’t be a disused railway line
without a disused railway station, and the Parkland Walk has the remains of Crouch End
Station. The tracks are of course long gone, but the platforms are still
there, as are bits of the old station building on Crouch End Hill. It’s an odd
feeling, walking along a platform that hasn’t been used in decades.
Since I was walking through a nature reserve, I had brought
my binoculars with me in the hope of seeing some birds. It may have been the
presence of so many people, the fact that it was midday, the fact that there
are a lot of leaves on the trees at this time of year or a combination of all
of those three, but I did not have much luck. I looked up in the hope of seeing
something but I did not get to see very much. A woodpigeon, a great tit, a
couple of blackbirds and a solitary crow were all I managed.
The Parkland Walk is split into two parts; the first ends
just before Highgate
Station where there are a couple of tunnels that led to the original
station (which is on ground level, directly above the current one and as such
not accessible to the public). The tunnels were fenced off – I remembered from
Hunter’s book that he’d been able to walk the length of them – but the amount
of rubbish inside them indicated that someone, somehow had managed to sneak in.
My walk now ceased to follow the route of the line itself,
taking instead a detour through Queen’s Wood and Highgate Wood (remnants of the
ancient Forest of
Middlesex which once covered most of what’s now North London) to rejoin the
line further up the Muswell Hill Road. I knew that Highgate Wood is regarded as
very good bird-watching venue in this part of the world and was keen to add
some more bird sightings to my rather pathetic list, but alas it just wasn’t my
day. I did, however, find an old drinking-fountain erected in 1888 as ‘the gift
of a few friends’, and on such a hot day I was thankful for the foresight of
those Victorian friends.
Back on the route of the line, it wasn’t long before I
noticed that I was level with the roofs of the houses on either side. Although
I hadn’t realised it, I’d followed the line onto a viaduct on the south-eastern
side of Muswell Hill. As the street of houses on my right ended, my reward for
sticking with the walk this far became apparent – a wonderful panoramic view
across East London and parts of the City. Even
without the binoculars, I could see the Olympic Park, Canary Wharf,
the Gherkin and the Shard.
It turns out that Hunter’s recommendation was a good one,
though I don’t recall that he mentioned the view (not that any of the buildings
I’ve mentioned existed when he did it). Pleased with having found a different
aspect to London,
I walked home.
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