We are back once again on the Capital Ring Walk, and we are up to Section 9: Greenford to South Kenton. Here is what we found…
We headed back across London to Greenford and prepared to start the route, which didn’t begin for about 1/2 a mile from the station (again). We found a nice little coffee shop at the station and set out along a wet, muddy industrial estate road to the start point at the corner of the Westway Shopping Park, aka the McDonald’s drive-thru.
The route starts off following along a path on the side of the Paradise Fields and “Wetlands and Nature Reserve”, this is in “speech marks ” because this does not exist. There is a field with nothing in it, and at the end is TK Maxx. We went back and followed the path until we got to the Grand Union Canal and followed the winding waterway until Ballot Box Bridge. It was a rainy day and so it was pretty quiet. We got to see some wildlife- herons, ducks, etc before leaving to cross over the canal and head towards Horsendon “Farm” again. Bunny ears because this is not a farm, it had a pair of goats and apparently a pair of chickens and a pig, but you can’t see these as they are hidden and only open to volunteers.
There is also a closed brewery and crystal shop that only opens on Thursday between 8-10 am. The staff of the “Farm” Don’t even know that the Capital Ring Route goes through their yard, but there is a Gruffalo Trail atop the “Farm” which is a series of muddy paths, with some plaster statues in them, of a mouse, a snake and a ‘Gruffalo’ – which was a 1960s kids’ book (we have never heard of it).
In our opinion, don’t bother with the “Farm” Detour; there is no point.
When you rejoin the main path, there are signs pointing in every direction: uphill, downhill, left, right, up and down. We took a guess and, after one wrong turn, found some cows and the right direction.
At the top of the Hill that gives the area its name, we sat and had a snack and took in the view, before descending the hill into a forest and a roundabout route through a park, for no real reason other than because the route had nothing better to do!
Then it’s a lot of roads towards Sudbury Hill and up Piggy Lane. At the top of this hill it started to rain, like really rain and we got very wet. After this you enter the village of Harrow and pass the Boys’ School. We chatted with a couple of the boys as we descended the steep in towards the playing fields and then were shouted at by rude Russian workmen for daring to walk on the footpath. Apparently we should have flown over the fields even though there are signposts pointing you down the path between the rugby pitches and the tennis courts.
After the school grounds, it’s mostly an overgrown footpath around the side of a Hospital Car Park and a very shoddy Public Golf Course to finish by a Rugby Club and the wonderfully weird Uneeda Drive.
So that was it, the highlight for us was the birds in the Canal and the Boys’ School, the downside was the usual lack of direction and the rubbish detours. Basically, if the CR tells you to take a detour, don’t- they are always a waste of time.
Well, there we go another section done. Come back next time for something different.
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