Let's return to London's newest official walkway, the Green Link Walk, which was launched on 1st March. If you need a map try here, if you need an app try here, if you want 45 pages of walking instructions try here, and if you're reading this several months in the future try here.
The second section is the longest and I had the sense to walk it on a sunny day. It's an urban trek across the borough of Hackney, via admittedly attractive streets but again not especially 'green'. I had my stopwatch out as I walked so I could add up all the potentially green bits and I think I scraped 30 minutes out of 2¼ hours. Such are the consequences of devising a 100% accessible trail across built-up inner London. On the plus side, on this section it is at least clear what the Green Link Walk actually links.
WALK LONDON Green Link Walk[section 2] Lea Bridge to Angel(5 miles)
If you haven't walked here from Epping Forest the best way to the start point is via Lea Bridge station or aboard the 55 or 56 bus. Things kick off officially outside the Lea Valley Ice Centre but more practically at the actual Lea Bridge - a bridge across the River Lea. Descending to the riverbank we find three iterations of signs for walkers, the first being one of those lovely metal fingerposts erected in the 2000s to show where strategic walks go, the second a 2010s-style post with thin black pointers. It hasn't proved possible to retrofit either of those for the new route so two small Green Link Walk signs have been affixed to a lamppost instead, and they stand out. The two other key walkways we're linking to at this point are Capital Ring section 13 and Lea Valley Walk sections 3 and 4, both of which follow the river for a heck of a lot longer than we're going to.
[Along this brief waterside stretch I spy a cormorant, a weir, a couple of jogging dogs and the Princess of Wales, which in this case is a pub and not a convalescent playing hide and seek. The path bears off just before the footbridge to enter Millfields Park, one of Hackney's largest, which it crosses diagonally on a broad solid path. Look for the London County Council boundary marker at the start, the huge electricity substation in the middle and the dense swooshes of daffodils near the end. By the time I reached the pedestrian crossing I reckoned that'd been ten solid minutes of 'green', which I'm going to flag up as green text like this 🕐 10 mins]. I also intend to flag up the frothier nonsense in Go Jauntly's walk description in red, for example their description of Millfields Coffee on the far side of the crossing as that lovely coffee shop. It is admittedly buzzing.
And now for a lot of pavement walking as we follow Millfields Road due west. The directions say nothing other than be mindful when crossing the side roads but one special thing to look out for is the rare streetsign with an NE postcode at the end of Chailey Street and another is the old shopfront of Ansells (Upholsterers of Distinction, Estimates Our Pleasure) at the top of Alfearn Road. At Clapton Pond the GLW signs disappointingly direct you around the outside of the pond complex, whereas the written instructions are vaguer and merely say follow the park around. [Assuming you're able-bodied do absolutely take the opportunity to enter, get a close-up of the fountain and cross the ornamental footbridge 🕐 1 min], because obeying the route too literally would be a wasted opportunity.
Our next green stop is Hackney Downs, which at 40 acres is another of the largest parks in Hackney. Having made a bit of a detour to get here the GLW peculiarly chooses to follow a single path along the shortest edge rather than venturing any distance into the centre. [You get to follow a fine avenue of plane trees and admire a splendid Victorian terrace 🕐 4 mins] but I say stuff that, head into the middle and then turn left along 'New Cross Fire Avenue'. You'll get to learn a lot about a 1981 conflagration and how it took the life of a local teenager, plus the opportunity to sit on a week-old memorial bench, then get a closer look at the delightful doggymosaics the official walk marginally misses.
In the southeast corner is the walk's first signage aberration courtesy of local mischief makers or vandals. One of the GLW signs has been turned to face completely the wrong path, and it looks like they tried to shift the other and bent it in the process. Another of the signs out on the pavement has also been spun to point the wrong way, and it's a bit dispiriting that this has happened within ten days of the walk launching.
In central Hackney the route meanders somewhat to try to tick off any available medium-sized greenspace. That means filtering back east past the best Vegan cafe! A visit here is a must! to find a lovely small park. [This is Clapton Square, a remnant from the reign of George III when Hackney was a prosperous country village, although the central playground and drinking fountain are later additions. By good fortune a chain of paths now heads south via St John's Churchyard, bypassing Mare Street, along the tombside alley of Churchwell Path. Keep an eye out, if you can, for Blind Fred's plaque. After one of the pleasanter stretches of the walk 🕐 9 min] you emerge onto Morning Lane, home to the disastrous gentrification experiment of Hackney Walk where every single business attracted to the fashion-led honeytrap has now closed, apart from the Burberry outlet store that first triggered it.
It's back to backstreets again as we approach the heart of Hackney via the Hackney Picturehouse, Hackney Empire and Hackney Town Hall. Here the wayfinding signs reappear, having been unhelpfully intermittent during the last paragraph, so best not try walking the GLW without instructions just yet. I broke off here to enjoy the temporary photographic exhibition in Hackney Museum, an evocative social retrospective, before continuing down the unusual cross-grid pathway of Hackney Grove. If you've never explored Hackney off the main streets before you'll be amazed that these snickety backways exist, although the steady stream of cyclists confirms that locals very much know. Best ignore the Italian restaurant amazing pizzas. Good vibes aplenty! unless you've hours to spare because we're coming up on another marvellous greenspace, London Fields.
The official path stays outside the fence for the first couple of minutes, only cutting in by the toilets, then another unhelpful sign points ambiguously down the wrong path. [Instead cut across the centre of the park, alas its narrowest dimension, enjoying an all too brief burst of plane trees, spring blossom and exercising dogs 🕐 5 min]. If you've been adding up my green timings you'll realise they already total 29 minutes, which is disappointing because I only promised you half an hour of green and there are still two miles to go. On stepping out of the park expect plenty of pavements ahead, and although these are unexpectedly attractive backstreets the 'green' motif is now relying heavily on street trees and whatever's planted in people's front gardens.
Here's the next signage disaster, a repeater sign at the first fork in the road which plainly points left (along Shrubland Road) whereas it should point right (along Albion Drive). I was so convinced that I walked the wrong way for over quarter of a mile, admittedly along a parallel street but without any signs to guide me back onto the correct route. Please fix this one.
Albion Drive goes on a bit, which is good because it's easy to follow, and ends with a gorgeous railinged haven called Albion Square Gardens. Think shrubbery, flower beds, palm trees, even a gardener's hut, all in a long thin enclosure faced by prime terraced villas. A carving on the central drinking fountain confirms that this hideaway was laid out in 1899 by the Metropolitan Gardens Association and its Passmore Edwards gusher was added 11 years later. Alas the GLW signs ignore ASG, ditto Go Jauntly's instructions, whereas you should definitely walk through and lap it all up. They also bypass Stonebridge Gardens, the triangle of grass below Haggerston station, [although arguably the brief daffodilled remnant of Stonebridge Common allows the walk to accumulate its final minute of green 🕐 1 min].
There's another trail-based miss at De Beauvoir Square, Hackney's largest and possibly finest garden square, where the Green Link Walk signs merely skirt the Jacobean-style houses on the southern edge. It may be that the route's designers wanted to avoid a garden that might be locked, it may be the route was deemed not step-free enough or it may just be that the entrances are in impractical positions, but for goodness sake don't be a slave to the instructions and instead nip in and lap it up. The rosebeds are sure to be great in the summer (I watched two gardeners tidying them up). The road ahead is glorious - broad, blossomy and quiet enough to wander up the centre, this because the quiet streets of De Beauvior have been low traffic since the 1970s. The quality of life here barely flickers as we cross from Hackney into Islington.
I walked pretty much all these streets during lockdown but somehow missed Elizabeth Avenue, another aesthetic winner, where small circular Green Link Walk signs appear on the lampposts for the very first time. You're unlikely to get lost now as the roads flow sequentially and quietly towards the southwest. We're following a residential channel midway between Essex Road and the Regent's Canal, and although the latter's towpath would have been a much more obvious target for a long distance walkway, the route's architects (or non-step-free connections) have kept us away. Instead there are almshouses to admire, multiple aspirational terraces to pass and also cafe owners who think £12 for 'wrap and juice' is a Meal Deal worth shouting about. Unfortunately there are no further parklets to walk through, the only green patches on the map proving to be segregated playgrounds or jumped-up verges.
Finally the road reaches a Cajun pub A taste of Louisiana you'll never forget! beside a quiet bridge across the Regent's Canal, a tranquil car-free walking route through North London. Again no attempt is made to join the towpath, not even for the short dash to the mouth of the Islington Tunnel, most likely because a wheelchair user could never tackle the steep climb at the far end. The strategic walk which does follow the towpath is the Jubilee Greenway, one of the lesser known in the ambulatory basket, and our link to that is why Green Link Walk section 2 ends here. For section 3 expect a much shorter walk across the inner city, but for now you can duck off here for the joys of Upper Street, welcome refreshment or temporary escape via Angel tube.
