Skip to navigation

Tubewalker: The Tube, on Foot

Piccadilly Line: Boston Manor to Hammersmith

Boston Manor station
Boston Manor station

The weather can make or break a walk, and in this case it completely beat the crap out of it. The photographs don't do it justice, as they don't show the fierce gusts that blew rain into my eyes in Gunnersbury Park, and took my umbrella and smashed it into little pieces along the river in Hammersmith. On a nice day, this would be a very enjoyable walk, but August is proving to be a pathetic month for weather, and I'm afraid this section joins a small but growing list of tubewalks that the weather has rather spoiled.

Boston Manor to Northfields

Northfields station
Northfields station

It's hardly any distance from Boston Manor to Northfields, and I took the most direct route along the northern edge of the Tube line. There is probably a more interesting route available, and the park to the south of the line is one option that might be more worthy, but I chose to stick to the backstreets as I wanted to know what kind of houses people live in round here. The answer is that the suburbs are rather charming; OK, there are plenty of standard two-up-two-down terraces from between the wars, and there is occasional evidence of pebbledash, but as you approach Northfields the housing is really rather lovely, and the resulting terraced cottages are very pleasant indeed.

Northfields to South Ealing

Lammas Park
Lammas Park

It's an even shorter walk to South Ealing – indeed, Northfields and South Ealing are the closest open-air stations on the whole network, with just a quarter of a mile between them – but this time there's an obvious detour that's worth taking, namely through Lammas Park. In the sun this is a pleasant park with some enjoyable landscaping in the northeastern half, but it started clouding over as I reached the southern, more open section of the park, and I didn't hang around in case things kicked off; this is my local park, after all, and I know it all too well.

South Ealing to Acton Town

The boating lake in Gunnersbury Park
The boating lake in Gunnersbury Park

The big event between South Ealing and Acton Town is Gunnersbury Park, which lies on the other side of some pleasant suburbia, a little way along Pope's Lane. The western half of the park is a wide open grassy space, big enough to accommodate 36 football pitches in the winter, and as I walked through they were still clearing up the remains of the London Mela, the annual celebration of Indian and Asian culture that was celebrated here last Sunday. The clouds were building up into a serious threat as I crossed the exposed grassland, the wind whipping my hair into my eyes, but the eastern half of the park is much more sheltered, with a small boating lake (complete with a folly dating from 1760), a pitch-and-putt golf course, tennis courts, and the grand buildings of two 19th-century mansions, the Large Mansion (now the Gunnersbury Park Museum) and the adjacent Small Mansion. The gardens are lovely to walk through in the sunshine, and we should be grateful that the original owners, the Rothschilds, sold the park to the local council on the condition that it be used only for leisure and not for building yet more suburban housing.

The Large Mansion in Gunnersbury Park
The Large Mansion in Gunnersbury Park

Acton Town to Turnham Green

South Acton Estate
South Acton Estate

The walk to Turnham Green is a tale of two cities, separated from each other by the London Overground railway line. Just to the east of Acton Town station is the South Acton Estate, which is West London's biggest housing estate with over 2000 homes. I'm aware that judging a housing estate when it's raining is a little risky, as even the loveliest part of town can look pretty drab when the wind is howling and the rain is pouring down, but the tower blocks of the South Action Estate would still look pretty depressing in the sunshine, with their flaking paint, dreary 1960s colour schemes and complete lack of warmth. It's no surprise that crime is rife in this area, with drug problems, gun and knife crime, burglaries and anti-social behaviour all on the menu.

Fielding Road
Fielding Road

Turnham Green to Hammersmith

The statue of William Hogarth on Chiswick High Road
The statue of William Hogarth on Chiswick High Road

The most direct route from Turnham Green to Hammersmith is along the A315, but there's not a lot of pleasure to be found along the busy main road into Hammersmith, so I thought I'd head south and join the Thames for a while. It turned out to be an excellent idea, as this stretch has to be one of the most attractive river walks in the whole of London, even on a day when the wind drove the rain sideways under my umbrella and up my nose. I'd been looking for an umbrella since Gunnersbury without success, but I finally tracked down a shop selling them on Turnham Green Terrace, and fully armed once again, I set off towards the river.

Chiswick Square
Chiswick Square
Old Burlington
Old Burlington
Walpole House
Walpole House
Kelmscott House
Kelmscott House
The Dove
The Dove