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Burgess Park (Peckham Rye to Elephant and Castle) walk

The Grand Surrey Canal and a succession of parks and open spaces in gritty inner southeast London

Easy London Short

History

This is a list of previous times this walk has been done by the club (since Jan 2010). For more recent events (since April 2015), full details are shown.

Date Option Post # Weather
Thu, 06-Jun-24 Evening Walk - Burgess Park (Peckham Rye to Elephant & Castle): The Grand Surrey Canal, parks and open spaces in gritty inner SE London [New Walk] 7 summery
Thomas G
Length: 7.1 km (4.4 mi)
Ascent: negligible
Net Walking Time: 1 ½ hours
Meet at Peckham Rye station in the downstairs ticket hall at 18.35.
From Central London, either take the 18.07 Dartford train from Victoria (18.17 Denmark Hill), arriving Peckham Rye at 18.20,
or the Thameslink service from Kentish Town to Orpington (18.07 St. Pancras via all stations to Blackfriars (18.16) then Elephant & Castle and Denmark Hill), arriving 18.30.
There are also Overground Trains going via Peckham Rye.
From Outer London: take either the 18.03 London Blackfriars train from Orpington (arrives 18.34) or the 17.57 Victoria train from Dartford (arrives 18.39).
Return trains from Elephant go to Blackfriars/Kentish Town/St Albans or Orpington/Sevenoaks or Sutton via Wimbledon. There are also numerous buses to Waterloo or London Bridge stations, as well as the Bakerloo and Northern Lines.
An urban route entirely in the London Borough of Southwark, leading through some gritty parts of inner southeast London but largely along green corridors or through parks.

You walk through some quiet streets in North Peckham and along a linear park on the line of the Peckham Branch of the infilled Grand Surrey Canal to Burgess Park, created on land formerly filled by industry around the canal as well as dense housing but heavily bombed in WWII, and now with only a few listed remnants of its industrial and canal heritage, such as almshouses, a well-preserved limekiln and the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’.
You follow a meandering westerly route through Burgess Park to the Camberwell end and the splendid Addington Square, and walk back on a loop through the park and then on further through Walworth with its very large brutalist Aylesbury Estate. From there, the route links up a handful of small and not so small parks, leading eventually to Elephant Park, a new development on the site of the former brutalist Heygate Estate, and to Elephant & Castle Station on the boundary of Newington.

The areas walked through are a mix not atypical of the Borough of Southwark: well-kept parks and open spaces, some old and worn council estates (often of brutalist architecture), plenty of reused or part-replaced former industrial buildings, some new and more enlightened council accommodation as well as some fully gentrified areas, culminating in the still not quite finished Elephant Park.

Terrain & Access: Almost only hard surfaces. The parks and open spaces on the main walk are open 24/7.

Shorter Walks:
- Bus stops are never far away.
- Outbound and return route meet in two places in Burgess Park, enabling cutting off a part of the route.
Extension: A longer loop around Burgess Park’s fishing lake is described (add 450m).

Tea Options: Plenty en route and near Elephant & Castle station, see the webpage or the pdf walk directions for details. T=short.59

  • 06-Jun-24

    Hope you plan to wait for people coming on the Dartford to Victoria train -- I think it actually arrives at 18:40....

  • 06-Jun-24

    For regulars, we will always wait

  • 06-Jun-24

    And wait we did, for the delayed train of the delayed walker. 6 finally set off from P'ham Rye, soon joined by a 7 th who had waited at P'ham High Street for us. Braving the shared footpath/cycleway along the line of the P'ham Branch of the Grand Surrey Canal in what was cycling rush hour was interesting! Into Burgess Park then, where I was kind of surprised to see so much greenery, having done the recce for this route in deep winter. Some of the buildings along the park fringe you couldn't even see anymore!

    Punters seemed to enjoy the meandering route through the various corners of the park and past the remaining historic remnants of its illustrious past.

    On through Walworth and past or through some gritty estates plus a few small parks and green spaces, with plenty of people mingling about in the summery weather (at long last).

    At the Elephant, 1 deserted us, so 6 of us went for a meal at Lenos y Carbon, a Columbian restaurant in the railway arches, where we were met by 1 partner of a walker and 1 walker who had attended a rival evening commitment beforehand.