Back to all weekly shorts
Weekly Short
21 June, 2024
The Green Link Walk is a new 15 mile walking trail, tracing its way through wetlands, rivers and tree lined avenues. But it’s not what or where you’d expect; it’s another addition to TFL’s repertoire of London walks designed to get people out and about in the capital.
This one – from Walthamstow tube station to Peckham Rye (or the other way round, if you prefer) – takes you through the Walthamstow wetlands, the green spaces of Hackney, the garden squares of Islington and the parks of South London. Improbably, given the start and end points, it’s a surprisingly green and shady walk, with tree lined pathways, busy parks and tiny urban garden spaces. It’s by turns beautiful and surprising, and if you time it right, you can arrive in Exmouth Market around lunchtime, giving you the opportunity to refuel before heading out for the last stretch.
If this sounds unlikely, it’s worth knowing that around 20% of London is public green space, with over 3,000 parks and a wealth of smaller areas of nature, and if you include private space, almost 50% of the capital’s area is covered by either water or green space. In 2019, London was declared the world’s first National Park City, recognising and celebrating the importance of nature in urban settings. Nature is just as important in cities as it is outside them, providing vitally important leisure opportunities but also providing important services to people who live there, mitigating the effects of pollution and reducing the heat that builds up in urban areas. As temperatures rise, and nature comes under threat, protecting the green spaces we have doesn’t just help address climate change, it also ensures that we can keep living comfortably in cities.
All TFL’s London Walks are well signposted, designed to be accessible to anyone relying on public transport, and to show walkers aspects of the capital that may otherwise be missed, while also ensuring you’re never too far from a pub. The Capital Ring traces the North and South Circular but despite that, manages to take in some of London’s finest areas of open space, nature reserves and Sites of Special Scientific Interest, while the London Loop heads further out, to places that feel remote and wild even as you are still within the M25. Whether you’re after a significant long-term project (the London Loop is 150 miles long, which is at least 10 days of walking) or something you can do in a day, you’ll find yourself looking at the streets of London in a new way.
By Claire Jost