I saw a drug deal in a playground, and watched parakeets cavort

October 6, 2021 8:42 AM

James Gingell describes walking London's Capital Ring.

The Capital Ring is a circular walk around London's inner suburbs. Other similar walks include the tourist-friendly Jubilee Walkway, the London LOOP covering the outer suburbs or the London Spiral which takes in everything!

posted by Stark (18 comments total)

and then, of course, there's the excessive version, which is to walk the path of the M25 itself.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 10:26 AM on October 6, 2021 [3 favorites]

Very cool. I'm about 20% through a multi-year project to walk all of the London Loop but as its 242 km it's been slow going.
posted by atrazine at 10:38 AM on October 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

I miss walking around London so, so very much. Due to some health issues, I've not been able to leave my flat for a while and these crisp October days are prime urban exploration weather (when it's not pissing it down).

I love taking the tube to a place I've not been before and spend a few hours wandering aimlessly and then find a bus back home. London boroughs have such different vibes to them, both as a visitor and living in them. Pre-covid a quiet pint or coffee while people watching somewhere new was always a little treat.
posted by slimepuppy at 10:39 AM on October 6, 2021 [12 favorites]

I don't walk much now--very poor California public transport and suburban sprawl combined with newfound car ownership and decreasing adventurousness--but I have very fond memories of walking miles and miles through London when I lived there many years ago. And buses that could actually take you where you needed to go in a reasonable timeframe! I'd love to get back to that. I've never lived in a city that felt nearly as rewarding to walk; would I get that feeling in New York or Boston? I suspect the combination of sheer density with the variation wrought by that winding river and a long, long history (with all the changing use and inconsistent or absent planning that implies) has something to with it. So maybe you only get that in Old World cities that haven't bulldozed too much of their history or didn't just recently explode in population. What are the other great walking cities out there?
posted by col_pogo at 10:48 AM on October 6, 2021

That is to say, is there a practice or a literature of the great walkers and walking routes of Paris, Tokyo, Barcelona, Shanghai, Istanbul, etc? (A half-remembered urban studies class brings the word "flaneur" and...Balzac? no, Baudelaire--to mind, although to be honest I'm most intrigued to hear about non-European examples.)
posted by col_pogo at 10:51 AM on October 6, 2021

Gingell makes the whole thing sound almost bucolic. I live a couple of hundred metres from a stretch of the Capital Ring in south London and while most of the streets it passes down are pleasant enough, it's relentlessly urban and it wouldn't occur to me to walk it for pleasure.
posted by Hogshead at 11:44 AM on October 6, 2021

col_pogo, you might really enjoy Wanderlust: A History of Walking, by Rebecca Solnit.
posted by oulipian at 11:45 AM on October 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

Why walk when you can run? Then the 150-mile (242 km) Loop takes only 1d 10h 23m 21s. (Which reminds me of this joke: "I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.”)
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 12:50 PM on October 6, 2021

Neat. I'm going to have to reserve a few days to do this. (Assuming it will someday be possible to travel. . . )

I set out to walk San Francisco's 49 mile scenic drive once. Somewhere in mile 38 I got tired and quit. (Starting mid-day, stopping for drinks along the way, and trying to carry out a photography project at the same time were probably bad ideas.) I still want to visit and complete the whole thing one of these days.
posted by eotvos at 1:15 PM on October 6, 2021

I did the whole thing a few years ago, it was a great way to understand the city better. What really struck me was how the richest areas often were the most hostile to walkers. I recall getting lost around Harrow School because the paths were very poorly signposted, unlike most other areas.
posted by adrianhon at 2:43 PM on October 6, 2021 [3 favorites]

I would love to do any/all of those London walks. For San Francisco, in addition to the epically scenic 49 Mile Drive, there is now a varied and fascinating Crosstown Trail.
posted by PhineasGage at 3:01 PM on October 6, 2021

So maybe you only get that in Old World cities that haven't bulldozed too much of their history or didn't just recently explode in population.
I'm not entirely sure about London's green spaces, but it was the target of some heavy bombing during a war in the last century, while also struggling with population density and smog caused by chimney smoke. They banned unclean coal and moved to gas heating. A chunk of time was spent selling people their council-provided houses and controlling the expansion of the urbs and suburbs. London has vehicle emission controls but crucially, also, shit roads for personal driving or taxis. Mass transit via extensive bus routes as well as metro rail makes up for this
...but ultimately means more space for green-ness.
posted by k3ninho at 3:19 PM on October 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

[parakeets cavort] is exactly the kind of Netflix subtitle I want to see more of. [insects trill] and [parakeets cavort] is a guaranteed good time.

This is a nice article and a big walk from one end of England to the other is pretty much the only thing on my bucket list.

I don't know anything about "US poet Frank O'Hara" but he sounds like a real bellend.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:31 PM on October 6, 2021

and then, of course, there's the excessive version, which is to walk the path of the M25 itself.

Doesn't tracing the dread sigil odegra lead to, well, problems?

The biggest urban walk that I attempted was one day when I set out to walk the length of Manhattan on Broadway, starting in the Bronx (well, in Marble Hill, which is still technically part of Manhattan). I only made it down to Times Square when I had to break it off because I had things to do that evening in Brooklyn, but I'd previously walked from Battery Park up to the UWS going the other way, so I'd done it all, just not in the same direction or on the same day.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:00 PM on October 6, 2021 [2 favorites]

I did the Northern half of it as part of the Ultra London ultramarathon a couple of years ago. Would love to try the other half if I ever get the time.

About 2/3 of it is parks and pedestrian footpaths. There are stretches on normal streets but they're not the bulk of it.

It's a good way to get a feel for the whole of London, not just the centre. And there are all the things you come across: it goes through Crystal Palace so you just look to your left through the bushes and see full sized dinosaurs (models) which is cool if you're not expecting it.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:27 PM on October 6, 2021 [3 favorites]

This looks like a lot of fun. Love da parakeets.
posted by grobstein at 10:13 PM on October 6, 2021

Beijing: walking the rings from 1(forbidden city) to third, is doable and interesting. I definitely do not advice walking the fourth and beyond, they are for cars, 7 is not Beijing, why does it exist?
I am partial to ring 2
posted by thegirlwiththehat at 12:09 AM on October 7, 2021 [1 favorite]

I walked the Capital Ring, all 78 miles of it, at the beginning of this year, with the help of this excellent guidebook which I can't recommend too highly.

This article really resonated with me, particularly when he describes being asked if he had a 'nice walk' and realising: 'I had no idea how to reply'. That's very much how I felt. I've lived in London nearly all my life, but walking the Capital Ring restructured my mental map of the city in a profound way. It was an extraordinary experience, made even more extraordinary by doing the walk during lockdown, when it felt, at times, as if I had the whole city to myself.

Rather than trying to describe it, here are a few images from my photo album:

Houseboats on the River Lea Navigation, a cosy Ratty-and-Mole feeling with the engines puttering away and smoke coming out of the chimneys.
Emerging from shelter after a short sharp shower of rain at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
A strange, half-derelict marina by the canal in Brentford, on a bitterly cold day with the snow coming down.
The dinosaurs in Crystal Palace emerging from the Ice Age.
A glorious walk through Richmond Park as the sun was setting.
After dark, a glimpse inside the open door of one of the Richmond boatyards.
An unexpectedly beautiful park in not-very-beautiful suburban Perivale.
And, not a great picture, but since we mentioned parakeets, here's a whole flock of them coming in to roost in a suburban street near Grove Park station, making a hell of a noise. (I saw parakeets everywhere on the walk; they seem to have colonised the whole of London.)

I also invited friends and family to sponsor me, and raised over £600 for a London homelessness charity. So that was a nice bonus, and made the whole thing feel a bit less self-indulgent.
posted by verstegan at 9:11 AM on October 8, 2021 [5 favorites]