It was the warmest day of the year marked at 18C, and throughout the week the weather had been great. The Capital Ring is a circular walking route that completely encircles inner and central London. It is said to be over 120km and is split into 15 more sizeable routes that take the walker through parks, forests, cemeteries, docklands and residential areas, with the occasional unexpected obstacle such as a canal or fallen tree. The route was created by ramblers in 1990 and today it’s fully signposted and supported by Transport for London. The official route starts off in Woolwich and that’s where we started our journey.

We met at Woolwich Arsenal station for 10 am, taking the back streets to avoid the heavy dust from the main roads towards the waterfront where the walk office starting point was: Woolwich Foot Tunnel. There were a group of 16 partial cast iron body moulds standing in some sort of pattern in defined circular spaces. These statues were created by Peter Burge, who wanted to depict a collective human presence arranged as if coming together with the tightest concentration of figures in the middle of the group. I completely missed that point but enjoyed looking at the ¾ moulds; each of them allowed you to see the inside of their mould and gave a rather creepy feel. Good thing it was broad daylight and the sun was beating down otherwise I would have not enjoyed the sculptures as much.

Following the Thames path, we carried on a little bit further down the river so that we could get a closer look at the Thames Barrier. The Thames Barrier is one of the largest movable flood barriers in the world; spanning across the River Thames it protects central London from floods caused by tidal surges. It has 10 steel gates that can be raised into position; when we saw it the gates closest to the shore had been closed but the other 8 remained open.

We rejoined the Capital Ring path at Woolwich Road. Crossing that we found ourselves wandering through into Maryon Park, which did an amazing job of dampening all sounds of roaring traffic from the A206. I was surprised to see an animal park en route; you can’t really tell just by looking at the pdf map, but on Google it does clearly mark it as an animal park rather than a children’s zoo. I would have liked to get more photos of the animals but sadly the fence, which I’m sure prevented many little fingers from being taken by hungry chickens, left gaps too small for any decent photography of the brightly coloured birds and peacock that was trying to charm his way with the wrong species of bird.

Charlton Park was a noisy affair; with its large open spaces there were countless children of all ages playing various sports with parents watching from the sides. We stopped here for a small comfort break and I would really recommend not stopping for the bathroom if you can help it; let's just say that they are not well kept at all despite being near a cafe.

Once again we deviated slightly from the route as Charlton House caught our eye. It would have been nice to have learned about the history of this building, but it is now just a community centre with a library and cafe built in on the ground floor. This would have been a lovely place for a comfort break if we had known in advance.

We stopped for lunch at the Red Lion pub just off Shooters Hill. We found that there was barely anywhere to eat in the area and those that were open were working on a cash only option. In our current cashless society, we didn’t think that this was going to be an issue but it was. We both had a Pieminister Moodog pie which really hit the spot for us and, despite the desserts calling, we couldn’t eat anymore. The staff there were really lovely and also topped up our water bottles for the last leg of our walk.

We made it back on track by crossing the main road, Shooters Hill, and disappearing into Eltham Common. From this part on till the end, it was just us wandering through parks and woods enjoying nature. Severndroog is an eccentric triangular castle which stands at 19 metres high and was built as a memorial to the 18th century owner of the surrounding lands, Commodore Sir William James, by his widow Lady Anne James. At the ground floor is a cafe which is open from Thursday to Sunday, but only on Sundays is the viewing platform open from which you can see 7 counties along with an amazing view.

Carrying on along the path we found the demolished Castlewood House; what structures had been left had been charred by fires. It is a shame that people don’t care for things anymore but it was lovely to see the start of the rose garden being grown.

Continuing through the woodland to Oxleas Meadows, on top of the hill we found a cafe and toilets. The view was great but you could definitely see a hazy line of discolouration above the city, the rise of pollution covering the buildings like a blanket. Going back down the other side of the hill we found it amusing to find Long Pond as we didn’t find the pond to be substantially long. The rest of the walk felt like we were in deep woodland areas and at one point had to climb over some trees that had either been struck by lightning or had rotted from the inside. The walk ended at a junction where you could carry on walking alongside the A2 towards Falconwood station or use the crossing to carry on into the start of section 2 of the Capital Ring.

How long and far is the walk?
According to GoogleFit and a pinch of salt, our walk was 13 km and took 4 hours 40 minutes in total, excluding our lunch break but including all of our little deviations to the route. The actual distance is meant to be 11.2 km (7 miles) so we weren’t far off. It was a really nice adventure through parts of London that I had never really thought about visiting. I’m also really glad the weather held out as the next day was pretty dire in comparison.

Despite carrying my camera with me for this walk, I didn’t actually take that many pictures. In the past it used to be a problem and I would struggle to enjoy the moment, but now I feel at ease taking time to be with the moments. Over this walk there were a few notable sights such as the Thames Barrier, Maryon Park, Charlton House, and Severndoog castle, however as Severndoog castle’s viewing platform wasn’t open on a Saturday I think the Thames Barrier topped the list of the sights for me and it was wonderful to be able to see the barriers up so close.

For the next sections we will be using the Google map version of the route, as it is easier to follow an interactive map than a pdf that only names the larger roads. As we plan the next sections, we will be adding additional things like interests, bathrooms, and places to eat. All important things for an enjoyable day out into the unknown.