Six years ago I followed a seriously uncompromising footpath round the back of Beckton sewage works as far as Beckton Creekside Nature Reserve. This creekside haven was as remote as I dared go at the time, there being no alternative exit from the lengthy access road down to the Barking Flood Barrier. But this time I took company and walked all the way to the main drainage outfall of Bazalgette's great sewer, gazing out at the unfinished wedge of Thamesmead across the estuary, along what might be London's longest dead end path...
The path with no exit has two entrances, neither of them especially appealing. The most direct access starts opposite the 5-a-side on Jenkins Lane adjacent to convenient bus stops on routes 325 and 366. It used to start beneath a rusty welcome arch courtesy of Thames Water but that's now vanished, its replacement a scrappy laminated sheet tied to the first security gate. The fenced slalom ahead is optimistically titled the Northern Lagoon Walkway, not that anything tropical will be visible as you wend between brackish scrub and empty warehouses for slightly too many minutes. We didn't go that way.
We walked in underneath the A13, in fact we walked all the way from Barking, attempting to follow the river Roding as it morphed into the muddier Barking Creek. A quiet path hugs the edge of Cuckold Haven Nature Reserve, currently bursting out into shades of spring green, with occasional glimpses of flats and reeds where the treeline thins. At Whitings Trash Screen the Environment Agency prevents gunk from exiting a small drainage channel and a final stepped path drops in round the back of Shurgard Self Storage. The A13 is supported on chunky concrete supports, an underside that barely anybody sees but is sufficiently graffitied to confirm you're not the first ones here.
Beyond the bridge is where the Beckton Showcase cinema used to be, but that closed in 2022 and has subsequently been replaced by four huge white sheds called Valor Park. These have a lot of tall flappy doors suggesting future use as a distribution depot, and also a rim of saplings recently planted in the hope of blocking out clear sightlines from the footpath. Employees might one day be able to exit through security gates to a bench freshly placed on the riverside, perhaps to enjoy a smoke in view of the Bestway cash and carry, but thus far the only occupants are a security handler and their vanful of canine defence. And beyond that is the all-important kissing gate, we're going in...
Everything ahead, which is a thin strip of just over a mile, is the property of Thames Water. Beckton Sewage Works opened in 1864 as the endpoint of Joseph Bazalgette's sewage solution, initially covering 9 acres and since expanded to 250. Most of the former marsh was covered in a mosaic of settlement tanks and circular sludge pools, since augmented by hundreds of pipes, modern plant and the end of the Lee Tunnel. If your toilet lies north of the Thames then your organic waste may ultimately be dried here and burnt as 'cake'. You get the best view of the sewage works on the first bend, a ridiculously extensive landscape of concrete structures and sudden drops, alien enough that you might expect characters from Blakes 7 to come running through at any minute.
A few minutes down, just off-road, is the entrance to Beckton Creekside Nature Reserve. This approximately triangular enclave, hemmed in on two sides by mudflats, comprises mostly scrubby woodland and is home to several species of flora and fauna. Marked paths guide visitors away from the riverside and past the foot of a hulking pylon, its four feet planted in a reedy pool. One track leads up a very slight elevation to a 'view'point with a single picnic table, for hardy sandwich-munchers only. You might meet conservation volunteers here once a month or, as in our case, a seated visitor keen for our human incursion to go away. At the far end is a second gate back onto the road, this where nervousness originally nudged me back but this time we were going all the way.
The access track continues straight along the edge of the sewage works proper, specifically alongside a concrete trench in which a river of sorts flows inexorably towards the Thames. It fills from dubious culverts and frothy sluices, carrying best not think what, all safely contained behind a barb-topped fence. Signs warn of deep danger and also that this road is liable to flood at high tide, although I think it'd have to be a big spring tide to do any damage. Eventually the reeds open out to reveal the very end of Barking Creek, also the backside of the industrial warehouses at Creekmouth on the opposite bank. The pylons ahead are super-tall so they can cross the creek with ease.
I was expecting the tip of the path to be empty but instead a team of workmen had driven here in two vans and were busy hacking down surplus undergrowth around the sludge valves. A separate hi-vis worker was sipping a hot drink by the seawall, presumably on a break, and having had the sense to cycle here rather than walking. We had to wait for him to ride off before we got the estuary to ourselves.
The Thames feels massive here, as do the surrounding structures safely tucked out of general view. The Barking Flood Barrier is 60m high and of 1980s vintage, a fluvial guillotine ready to do its protective duty if the Thames ever threatens to invade.
This is a great place to watch birds, for example the wildfowl swimming happily in the swirling effluent from the outfall conduit. On our visit the tide was also coming in, creeping visibly across the mudflats and rising around a crescent of gulls standing on a semi-submerged bar until forced to fly off. Creepiest of all were the rooks perched individually on all the fencepoles screening off the water treatment works, occasionally flying down to the concrete wall but mostly just being sinister and watching our every move. But it still wasn't as scary as I'd previously anticipated, indeed I might now even be tempted to walk it solo.
The access road bends here to follow the Thames, soon ducking beneath two thick green pipes. These stretch way out into the river onto a wooden jetty and are part of Boris Johnson's fiasco of a desalination plant which has operated only five times since 2010. The gates underneath are labelled 'These gates must be kept locked at all times' but were intriguingly open, indeed temptingly so. We wondered if they were only open because the workmen had driven through so decided against exploring, but I understand others have continued round several bends towards an 'attraction' Google Maps describes as The Two Benches. If that's the case you might be able to go another quarter mile to a properly locked gate just round the back of the Gallions Reach Retail Park, and if they ever unlock that a fabulously bleak looping footpath could be possible. In the meantime perhaps I've tempted you to visit the backside of a sewage works down what might just be London's longest dead end.
Update: several of you have confirmed that it is possible to walk further, indeed you've done just that, along a further stretch of tank-overlooked riverfront. This makes the dead end a full mile and a half long (i.e. an hour to walk it there and back)
