This is not a walk that starts promisingly, but perhaps that’s the perfect metaphor for London – a city often accused of being ugly and inhospitable, yet also a city of hidden treasures and ghosts of a forgotten past.
Parklands Walk follows the long-abandoned railway line from leafy Muswell Hill to the urban transport hub of Finsbury Park in North London. You won’t find it on a list of popular tourist attractions but at almost five miles, it is London’s longest nature reserve.
Turning off the busy Muswell Hill Road I stepped onto a dirt path enclosed by tall trees. Litter unceremoniously decorated the ground. But as the trees opened up, a panoramic view of London, seen from one of the city’s highest vantage points, was the first of many highlights.
On a clear day, you can see not only the monolithic Shard piercing the sky, but past the steel and glass heart of the metropolis right up to London’s eastern boundaries.
But it’s not until you leave the woodland and traverse a short section of the traffic-laden Archway Road that you slip through a narrow gate and your journey really begins.
It’s here, that if you look down, the first evidence of the forgotten railway appears – iron sleeper rails now overgrown by scrub. Started in 1867 and intended as part of the Northern Line, it was eventually abandoned after WWII and left to decay. Now just intermittent fossils mark the passing of time.
As I continued, the noise of the city disappeared. The sound of traffic; replaced by birdsong; the fumes by the heady smell of earth and scrubland.
For the most part, the path is just that, but then echoes of the past emerge: the skeleton of metal foundations underfoot, occasional brickwork being devoured by the roots of trees and as you reach Crouch End the path momentarily becomes a platform – Edwardian gentlemen now replaced by the odd jogger.
Nearing the end you reach the hulking remnants of a Victorian viaduct, left to ruin. The council has wisely decided to leave the more artistic graffiti in situ. This is where urban expression meets fading grand architecture and wild woodland.
When I came to the main road it was with disappointment; but if you ever fancy a walk with your loved-one or simply a shortcut to Finsbury Park station, I can highly recommend you take the tube that never was.
Ben Davis 2015 