I worry sometimes that my content isn't niche enough. Things to do in Wood End. Roadworks at the Bow Roundabout. A walk along the Burnt Oak Brook. So today I'm going all-out niche in an attempt to dampen interest even further. Welcome to Random Bexley Footpath.
All Outer London boroughs have a Definitive Statement of Public Rights of Way and a Definitive Map, ideally up-to-date and hopefully online. Bexley's offering is particularly straightforward to access, clearly defining the locations of footpaths 1 to 254, so I picked one entirely at random and then went and walked it.
Random Bexley Footpath #7: Byway from Abbey Road to St. Augustine's Road (half a mile from Abbey Wood towards Lower Belvedere)
Typical, all those numbers to choose from and the random number generator chooses 7. On the plus side we've got ourselves a Byway and they're rare in Bexley, even if it does mean watching out for traffic. Promisingly it runs along the edge of Lesnes Abbey Woods, kicking off by the recreation ground a tad beyond the abbey ruins. Aha, what we have here is essentially a service road that slinks round the backs of the gardens on Elstree Gardens for residents' vehicles only, which explains the pushbutton lock on the barrier at the Abbey Wood end. The backs of gardens are not pretty, the fences often shabby, occasionally tumbledown. Only one panel is actually missing, revealing piles of rubbish and a discarded trampoline. Not many properties have garages and even fewer look like they're ever used. It's a bit muddy underfoot but my trainers survive generally unscathed.
And all this time what's been lurking to the right of the byway is Lesnes Abbey Woods. It's right there behind a line of low metal railings, a glorious deciduous wanderland brimming with wildlife and interest. Close by is a parallel path along which dogwalkers and merry families stroll, scrunching underfoot, beneath an intermittently yellowing canopy. But that path's not an official public right of way because the entire wood is roamable, so here I am trapped on the dull side with the backs of sheds and fences that haven't been Cuprinoled recently. A squirrel hops up onto the railings with a stray sweet chestnut between its paws, then hops off into the woods as if to taunt me. The mud eases on the final approach to St Augustine's Road, where the shortcut through the car park is no longer accessible because the pub's been demolished.
OK maybe that was too interesting, so I picked another random number and tried again.
Random Bexley Footpath #162: 115m from Frognal Avenue to Sidcup Bypass Road A20
On the very southern edge of the borough, this one's a shortcut across paddocks round the back of Queen Mary's Hospital. Except I couldn't find it. I walked the stretch of Frognal Avenue where it ought to start, not far from mental health and the lung clinic, but all I found was unbroken hedgerow. I did find a stile a little further up the lane, at the gates where the owner drives in to feed the horses, but the pole beside it didn't have a footpath sign on top even though it looks like it once did. I then walked the long way round to the dual carriageway on the bypass where the path is supposed to emerge but it didn't - the embankment is too high and the fence unbroken. I was thus unwilling to climb over that stile and wander around a paddock in search of an exit that isn't there, so Footpath 162 went unwalked.
I've since checked a Victorian Ordnance Survey map and it turns out there was originally a very sensible footpath here crossing Scadbury Park towards Chislehurst. But that was cut in 1926 when the Sidcup Bypass opened, and properly severed in 1987 when the nearby roundabout was underpassed, so the runty Bexley end no longer makes any sense. It's not officially 'extinguished' but you can't walk it, and what I think my random number generator has uncovered is a footpath anomaly that's past its use-by date.
OK maybe that was too interesting, so I picked another random number and tried again.
Random Bexley Footpath #210: 70m from Maylands Drive to Cleve Road
Welcome to Albany Park, the interwar suburb served by a lowly station midway between Sidcup and Bexley. Maylands Drive is on the slopes leading down to Footscray Meadows and part of the Royal Park council estate. Footpath 210 begins beside a house which I suspect keeps a 'Lest we forget' poster in the window all year round. It's a cut-through between back gardens. It's fully paved. It slopes downhill. It has two lampposts. The fence is partly overspilled with ivy. Halfway down is the Maylands Avenue electricity sub-station. Someone's left their brown bin out. Also littering the path are a cardboard box that once held ice cubes, some dog food packaging and a tequila beer wrapper. Number 28's hedge is well looked after. Cycling is not permitted but this is only signed at the Cleve Road end. It only takes a minute to walk it. The nearby church looks like an example of copper-based origami, but this is not on Footpath 210 so I shouldn't mention it.
OK maybe that was too interesting, so I picked another random number and tried again.
Random Bexley Footpath #155: 275m from York Avenue to Old Farm Avenue
Back to Sidcup again but this time west of the station, which will soon prove important. The first stretch off York Avenue is a gravel track with a separate pavement, right up to a barrier liftable by emergency vehicles only. The big building on the left is a care home with a penchant for advertising itself on multiple adjacent fences. The large greenspace on the right is Sidcup's King George V Playing Field, one of 471 nationwide, and much loved by Bexley young'uns who like an organised kickabout. And then the footpath does something annoyingly interesting, it launches across the railway inside a narrow cage-like footbridge. Crossing from one side to the other feels a bit like walking through an aviary at a poorly maintained zoo.
And when you finally twist down on the far side the houses ahead look like nothing else in the immediate neighbourhood. This is Old Farm Place, the first completed project of BexleyCo, the council's new in-house property development arm, and contains 58 new homes squeezed into a linear site. Normally this might be laudable but in this case they built the houses across half a park, the argument essentially being "well we've got to build some somewhere". This annoyed locals mightily, even after the remaining half of the park was majorly spruced-up. All the new homes have parking spaces, less than half are affordable, and this being Bexley all were marketed as having "access to three motorways". Footpath 155 ends shortly afterwards on an avenue with more traditional, less dense semis.
OK maybe that was too interesting, so I picked another random number and tried again.
Random Bexley Footpath #93: 200m from Parkhill Road to Hurst Road
Hello Old Bexley. Footpath 93 runs just west of St John the Evangelist Church. It starts beside the driveway to the vicarage. Cycling is permitted. The path is initially broad and meandering. Fences outnumber walls. One house's back gate opens onto the path but otherwise there are no intermediate access points. You can see the church but you can't get to it. An electricity substation is located about halfway down. Beyond the substation the path narrows and gets straighter. It emerges between 633 and 635 Hurst Road. 633 has a lot of flint in its walls. Rest assured Footpaths 92 and 94 would have been duller.
