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Tubewalker: The Tube, on Foot

District Line: Richmond to Ealing Broadway

The Japanese gateway in Kew Gardens
The Japanese gateway in Kew Gardens

The only problem with this tubewalk is that I've already walked most of it at least once, and some of it I've walked more times than I care to remember. This doesn't make it any less wonderful as a walk – and wonderful it most certainly is – but it does slightly lessen the excitement when you know exactly what's round the next corner.

Richmond to Kew Gardens

Kew Pagoda from the Japanese gateway
Kew Pagoda from the Japanese gateway

Richmond station is not situated in the most attractive part of town; it's right next to the busy Kew Road, far away from the riverside delights in the south of town. Obviously, the Tube avoids the regular flooding of the Thames and stops well north of the town centre, but this does mean it's a fairly easy escape from the terminus: turn right, head over the roundabout with Mortlake Road, and after a short no-man's land boasting a boarded up tea room and a closed pub (which have been closed for aeons, it seems), the vista opens out on the left with the Old Deer Park, home to the London Welsh Rugby Club.

The Temperate House
The Temperate House

Kew Gardens to Gunnersbury

Cottages along the Thames
Cottages along the Thames

Heading north from the station along Leyborne Road gives you a chance to wallow in the peace and quiet of Kew. OK, planes still chunder overhead on their way to touchdown and there's still a fair amount of traffic around, but by London standards this is a quiet backwater, and it's lovely. The housing doesn't feel so expensive that you feel like a trespasser (as it can in some of the more exclusive parts of Kew, nearer the green), but instead it feels like the kind of place you could possibly afford to live one distant day, given a big dose of luck and a fair career wind. It is a long way from the City, after all, and with just one lifeline – the District line, which crosses Mortlake Road ahead – it's perhaps a little more cut off than the well-connected require... though I'm sure the house prices round here are still jaw-dropping, as it's such a lovely part of the world.

Kew Green
Kew Green
Strand-on-the-Green
Strand-on-the-Green

Gunnersbury to Turnham Green

Christ Church on Turnham Green
Christ Church on Turnham Green

I'm a bit biased towards Chiswick, as I spent three very happy years here sharing a flat with some delightful friends while having more fun than was strictly sensible. The feeling of walking from Gunnersbury station to Turnham Green and past my old doctor, my old dentist and my old flat... well, it's heady stuff, is nostalgia. But then Chiswick is a lovely place, even if it's a little too cappuccino belt for some, and even though Chiswick High Road is a busy place with a good range of shops and more pubs, restaurants and coffee joints than you can shake an au pair's allowance at, I still like the place. It even has its own local record label just off the green – Independiente – who can boast Travis, Embrace and Martina Topley Bird on their books, and it's not every Nappy Valley suburb that can boast that.

Chiswick Common
Chiswick Common

Turnham Green to Chiswick Park

The three bridges over Fisher's Lane
The three bridges over Fisher's Lane

It's all greenery from Turnham Green to Chiswick Park, as the whole stretch crosses Acton Green Common. This time the Tube rumbles away to the south, and this long, thin stretch of enjoyable parkland is split in two by Fisher's Lane, which ducks under the Tube via not one, not two, but three bridges. In the centre is the original bridge, which would have carried the original 1879 line, but now it carries the westbound Piccadilly sevice and the District line to Ealing. On the northern side of the original arched brick bridge is a sturdy iron bridge that carries the same services heading east, while the iron bridge to the south carries the District line to and from Richmond, peeling off to the south just west of Chiswick Park station.

Chiswick Park station
Chiswick Park station

Chiswick Park to Acton Town

The Bollo
The Bollo is a good gastro-pub

There isn't a great deal to report about the walk to Acton Town along Bollo Lane, except for students of sociology, who might enjoy the way in which Chiswick bluntly morphs into Acton at the London Overground level crossing about halfway between the two. The Chiswick end starts with the Gunnersbury Triangle, a cute little nature reserve that's tucked away off the road, and then it's all lovely Victorian terraces, with The Bollo proving an excellent place if quality gastro-pubs are your thing. The enjoyable suburbs continue all the way to the railway line, and then bang! You're into Acton, and it's all industrial estates and council housing.

Acton Town to Ealing Common

Mock Tudor houses on Carbery Avenue
Mock Tudor houses on Carbery Avenue

It's all backstreets to Ealing Common, and the industrial estates of Acton don't make it here. Instead, this is the Kingdom of Mock Tudor, with entire rows of houses flying the black and white flag. The other side of the Tube line is home to the London Transport Museum Depot at Acton, where vintage trains are stored, and just north of that is the large Ealing Common Tube Depot, but you'd never know, because Carbery Avenue and Tring Avenue are such peaceful spots.

Ealing Common to Ealing Broadway

The UK's first Nando's Restaurant
The UK's first Nando's Restaurant

This final leg is very much a personal trek through Ealing and you might wonder what all the fuss is about, but I have to say, I am fond of where I live. Peta and I moved to Ealing from Balham three years ago, intending to rent for six months while we found somewhere to buy, but we ended up renting such a pretty little workman's cottage – complete with a real fire, a garden, jasmine climbing over the front door and a white picket fence – that we never got round to it... and now that the market is gently collapsing and we're still here, enjoying our lack of mortgage in the quiet 'burbs of Ealing.

The Red Lion
The Red Lion, or 'Stage Six' as it's known by the locals
Houses on Ealing Green
Houses on Ealing Green