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From Times Online

April 3, 2006

Spring time in Richmond

Sara McConnell guides you on a perfect springtime walk around Wimbledon and Richmond

Spring is finally here after a depressingly cold March and colour is returning to London's parks and commons as leaves unfurl and daffodils burst into flower. With the Easter holidays starting and days lengthening, this is a great time of year to enjoy green and watery London. This month's walk avoids busy roads almost entirely, exploring two of west London's best-loved open spaces, Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park, and the River Thames at Richmond.

Highlights

Wimbledon Village
Wimbledon Common
Richmond Park
Isabella Plantation
Petersham Meadows
River Thames
Richmond and Richmond Green

Type of walk: linear

Time taken: two and three quarter hours

Distance: approximately six miles

Start: Wimbledon station (trains from Waterloo, District Line tube, Croydon Tramlink)

This walk can be muddy so wear good shoes. An A-Z is vital and a compass is also useful.

Turn right out of Wimbledon station into Wimbledon Broadway and up Wimbledon Hill Road to Wimbledon Village. The Broadway is busy but you quickly escape the noise and fumes as you walk up the hill to the Village. This is the smartest and most expensive part of Wimbledon, a cluster of whitewashed Victorian buildings now housing expensive shops selling designer clothes, gifts and antiques. This is a good place for a meal or a drink if you want to eat before the walk, with chains like Pizza Express and Strada, wine bars and pubs. If you plan to eat en route, stock up here on picnic food because there is nowhere else to buy refreshments between Wimbledon Village and Petersham, two hours' walk away.

Turn right at the first roundabout and left at the second, past a white gabled Jacobean manor house. This is Eagle House, now the headquarters of the Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation, set up in 1988 to preserve Islam's written heritage. The house dates from 1613 and became a boys' school in 1789 before being rescued from demolition in 1887. The Rose and Crown pub just beyond Eagle House dates from the early seventeeth century and was the start of the coaching route from Wimbledon to London.

The war memorial ahead marks the beginning of Wimbledon Common, London's largest expanse of heathland. Before you are 1140 acres of open space, woods, golf courses and horse rides all waiting for you to explore. A word of warning here - the Common is cris-crossed with paths but in authentic rural fashion, waymarks are almost non-existent. It is easy to walk round in a circle and find yourself back where you started. The walk heads across the common in a roughly straight line from east to west.

To find the beginning of the route across the common, continue along Parkside with the war memorial on your left and cross to the common at the traffic island. Double back towards the war memorial and look for a public footpath sign, at which you take the path half left. At Cannizaro Road, cross and continue straight on along the footpath. You may well enounter a string of children on ponies from Wimbledon Village Stables as you walk. Once you are out on the Common and walking through the woods, listening to the woodpeckers and looking at the new green leaves gradually coming out on the trees, it is hard to believe you are still only 15 minutes by train away from central London.

At a junction of paths, continue straight on. The path to the right leads to the Wimbledon Windmill, built in 1817 and now a museum. This is well worth a diversion and is a good place for a picnic and a look round the museum, open from April to October.

Back on the walk route, at the second junction of paths, keep walking straight on. Shortly afterwards, the path forks and you need to take the right-hand fork up a grassy path through gorse. This path runs parallel to a horse ride for a short distance before veering away across the London Scottish Golf Club golf course. Continue straight on. Now you can really get into your stride as you reach a wide wooded path running past a horse schooling ring on your left down to the western edge of the Common. Where a path joins from the left, continue ahead onto a path marked by a Capital Ring sign. The Capital Ring is London's newest official walk, a 75 mile walk round London's inner suburbs which was completed in September 2005.

The brook on your left is the Beverley Brook, a tributary of the Thames which rises in Worcester Park and emerges into the Thames at Putney.

A roar of traffic greets you at the busy A3. Follow Capital ring signs across playing fields to a footbridge over the A3, past Beverley Cottages (named after the brook) and into Richmond Park past a sign for Stag Lodge Stables.

Richmond Park, London's largest Royal Park, is not a neat manicured stretch of grass as its name implies but a 2,500 acre swathe of rough grass, ponds, knarled ancient trees and muddy tracks and dark lumps which on closer investigation turn out to be groups of the park's famous deer herd. At Robin Hood's Gate where you enter the park, take a path to the left which twists uphill through trees to the Broomfield Hill car park. Cross the road and keep straight ahead along a wide path through metal gates to Isabella Plantation.

This wonderful enclosed garden is a complete contrast to the wide open space of the park around it, full of rhododendrons, azaleas and other Victorian favourites. The garden was enclosed in 1831 and is at its most florally dramatic at this time of year when the great buds on the rhododendrons burst into flower and the ground is carpeted with daffodils and bluebells. Take the path straight through the garden, through plantations of heather, bamboo and fir, with a stream flowing alongside you on the left which opens out into Peg's Pond. Cross the wooden bridge over the stream to another metal gate and take a rough path straight ahead to a white fingerpost.

Following the sign for Richmond Gate and Pembroke Lodge, then pick up a footpath parallel to the road. To your left, the park slopes down to Ham, Petersham and the Thames and to your right on a clear day you can see across to central London.

Look out for a double Capital Ring sign and follow the arrow to the left. The rest of the walk follows the same route as the Capital Ring, down through Petersham Meadows to the Thames at Richmond. It is only when you descend the steep path to Petersham from Richmond Park that you realise how hilly the Park is. Petersham is a small riverside settlement with some delectable Georgian houses, popular with London's expatriate German community because of the nearby German school.

If you need a drink after nearly two hours' walking, the Dysart Arms pub next to the walk route is a good stopping place. Otherwise (or afterwards) follow the green Capital Ring arrow along a narrow footpath beside the pub to the Thames.

The stretch of Thames between Petersham and Richmond is one of the most rural and sylvan on the river's journey through London to the sea, with meadows sloping down to the towpath and well-kept houseboats moored at the river's edge. Turn right up the towpath towards Richmond Bridge whose distinctive humpback and arches you can see ahead. If you want to admire the sweeping view across the Thames to Surrey, follow the sign to Terrace Gardens and the Georgian terraces of Richmond Hill. Otherwise continue under Richmond Bridge, turn right up the steps to emerge at Richmond opposite the Odeon cinema and head left for the town centre.

Richmond may be a suburb of London but it is also a smart town in its own right, with plenty of bars and restaurants to satisfy the fussiest walker, as well as an eclectic range of shops. To finish off the walk in style, go left up King Street past Dickins & Jones and turn right into Paved Court, a small pedestrian alleyway lined with jewellers, patisseries and other small individual shops. The street opens out onto Richmond's showpiece, Richmond Green, a grassy square edged with red brick and white painted Georgian townhouses and narrow shopping streets leading off to the right.

A right turn down Duke Street takes you to the Quadrant and the end of the walk at Richmond Station.

Finish: Richmond Station (trains to Waterloo, Woolwich and District Line tube).