The London Loop Part 11: West Wickham to Coulsdon South
The loop so far has been rather gentle, but this section had some more challenging changes in elevation, Snowdonia it is not but the North Downs which todays walking crossed in a number of places still requires you to stop and catch your breath occasionally!
Starting back in West Wickham the path soon enters Spring Park Woods the another of the many areas of woodlands owned by the City of London Corporation in South London.
Threehalfpenny Wood
The next area of woodland Threehalfpenny Wood marks the boundary of the London Borough of Croydon and the beginning of the climb through Shirley up onto Addington Hill with it’s great view of central Croydon and the City of London and Dockands beyond.
The view from Addington Hill
The route now heads south for a considerable distance through Littleheath and Selsdon Woods until finally turning west once again just north of the village of Farleigh.
Walking into Hamsley Green is was lovely to cross paths with a group doing their Duke of Edinburgh Expedition walk, such a brilliant activity !
Selsdon Wood
Beyond Hamsey Green the only Trig Pillar on the loop is found at Dispey Field, the route then drops rapidly into the valley carrying the A22 and East Grinstead Railway line before climbing back up again this time using steps onto Kenley Common.
Going up! steps to Kenley Common
At this point I’m afraid the Avgeek in me took over as I spend a very happy hour or two wondering around Kenley Aerodrome, one of the best preserved Battle of Britain airfields complete with dispersal pens and the old officers mess – and oh I might have had a pint at the Wattenden Arms to toast “The Few!”
Disperal
Wattenden Arms
Dispersal Shelter
A pint of London Pride
Kenley Memorial
The Officers Mess
From Kenley the route descends one again into the rather charmingly named “Happy Valley”, before once again climbing through some more woodland up onto the chalk grassland of Farthing Downs.
Farthing Downs
And from Farthing downs its all downhill into Coulsdon and the end of this section at Cousldon South Station.
Well is was such a pleasant day, I walked for most of it covering 16 miles or more than 25km, a bit longer than usual and two sections of the loop from the official guide.
The first section continues along the banks for the River Cray, upstream now the water is remarkable clear and the highlight of this section is the Five Arch Bridge above a weir in the Foots Cray nature Reserve.
Five Arch Bridge
A little further on is a useful signpost informing me I have only 44 1/4 miles to go on the London Loop, so I have completed 2/3 all ready!
Passing through Foots Cray a commuter village I expect the estate agents might call it, the route crosses Sidcup Place Park and then crosses the busy A20 before entering the first of many woods to be experienced today, Scadbury Park’s Little Wood.
Little Wood
From Little Wood the route then enters Park Wood and eventually Petts Wood, the woodland which in this case has given it’s name to the local suburb. The bridleways here are quite difficult to cross the lack of rain for the last month or so having hardened them into a tough craggy surface and I needed my walking boots !
Walking into the town of Petts Wood the path rapidly crosses three railway lines via three footbridges, before this section of the route finishes at the edge of the Jubilee Country Park.
I continued South walking through the residential streets of the “other” Farnborough towards High Elms Country Park.
The Other Farnborough, Kent
High Elms Country Park was a nice spot to take a break and grab an ice cream, walking the loop during the final stages of lockdown (hopefully) you really miss the ability to pop into a pub for lunch ! The Park was the site of a large Manor House owned by the Lubbock family which was unfortunately destroyed in a fire in 1967, the foundations of the building are still visible as is the Eton Fives court.. every house should have one!
Eton Five Court
As the route of the Loop starts to finally head West I was becoming more and more aware of the sound of aircraft operating out of Biggin Hill just a few kilometres south of the route, and was pleased to spot one of the Heritage Hangars two seat Spitfires in the circuit… (must do that one day…)
The route climbs onto the North Downs and passes the Wilberforce Oak, the site of a conversation between William Wilberforce and Prime Minister William Pitt the younger that began the process to abolish slavery in 1788.
The Wilberforce Oak
The final section of the walk skirts the southern edge of Hayes common, finishing rather unceremoniously in Coney Hall, just a kilometre away from Hayes BR Station.
And I’m back, after a COVID-19 lockdown break, back walking the London Loop, and now South of the River !
Quite a contrast to my last visit to Purleet on the other side of the River on a cold and wet November, instead a beautiful sunny April Saturday..
The QE2 Bridge on a Sunny day!
This is officially the first section of the walk, starting in Erith (pronounced Earith) it is not the most picturesque section of the walk but captures the fact that this is a city walk and cities are a place of work !
The first section from Erith railway section to the mouth of the River Darent, is quite industrial passing through Erith itself and then a series of breakers yards until you reach a windmill and the banks of the Thames across Crayford Marshes
The Industrial city
The first notable feature of the walk for me was the Darent Flood Barrier part of the extensive flood defences of the Thames and I guess a little brother to the more famous Thames Barrier at Greenwich.
The walk now heads south and then west along the River Cray across more marshland, heading South and West is going to be the general direction for a while !
Crayford was like much of England waking up to it’s first Saturday following the end of the latest lockdown and looked like any other busy commuter village on the outskirts of London, this is a good thing !
Crayford awakes
The route continues west along the banks of the River Cray, passing below the busy A2 London to Dover Road and then on to Bexley.
In respect to mobile phone usage I swing both ways so to say, my “work” phone is usually the latest Android device, currently a Pixel 5a (5g) and my “home” phone is an iPhone.
I have been sitting out iPhone updates for the last few years, happy with my 2017 iPhone X, but this year some of the new “Geogeek” features on the new iPhone 12 Pro have had me reaching for the Amex card !
Clearly the LIDAR capability is a technological leap forward bringing the capability to map indoors and undertake SLAM based navigation could at last bring progress to the challenging business of bringing consumer mapping indoors, somewhere we spend at least 80% of our lives (even more so during COVID ?).
This technological leap forward taking a capability that previously costs tens of thousands of dollars into a phone comes once again from the integration of complex electronics onto dedicated chips in this case a VCSEL (Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser).
The image of my desk above was generated combining the camera and LIDAR sensor of my new iPhone in around a minute !
Another dedicated chip in the new iPhone is perhaps even more interesting but less obvious at first
Another dedicated chip in the new iPhone is perhaps even more interesting but less obvious at first. Apple have been developing their own “U1” chip for a few years, it’s name is a big clue to its role, it is responsible for Ultra Wideband or UWB communications.
UWB may be used for personal area network communications, allowing devices such as phones and remote controls to communicate with each other and nearby devices, so there is a lot of crossover with the more well known Bluetooth protocol. However, there is big difference in how UWB operates that means it can offer some more functionality that is very useful for location determination and familiar if you know anything about how GPS works.
UWB is a pulse-based system, one that repeatedly blasts out signals then turns off before repeating, by regularly sending out a pulse of data, it can enable other nearby devices to know it exists, or vice versa if it receives a pulse from another device. This is clearly beneficial for proximity sensing applications such as contact tracing which have been problematic with Bluetooth.
Because UWB uses a wide range of frequencies it enables devices to more robustly perform Time of Flight (ToF) calculations, estimating as does GPS how far apart the devices are located.
Any system based on Time of Flight calculations have to deal with multi-path propagation where radio waves take multiple paths to reach a destination, by using multiple frequencies a more accurate calculation is possible.
UWB tracking applications have been used for a number of years in high end engineering applications, for example Airbus used a UWB system developed by Ubisense to prevent tools ending up inside sealed airliner fuel tanks !
Devices communicating with each other using UWB can apply timestamps for receiving and sending packets, allowing the calculation of relative distance between them with some accuracy but in addition it is also possible for UWB radios to determine the angle of an inbound signal, determining a direction the device is located in relation to it.
Time and bearing measurements should allow relative position down to a few centimetres and of course these can be anchored if one of the devices has a known fixed location in space.
What does this all mean?
Well potentially in your pocket you now have one device which solves both the problems of location determination and capture indoors !
The London Loop Part 7: Chigwell to Upminster Bridge
The Only Way is Essex ? Well yesterday walking this section it was and it was another long one at 16 miles!
The first section climbing up from Chigwell into the havering forrest is the poorest maintained and signposted section so far.. this signpost early on was a classic… “Do you think we might have gone a bit far with the new fence Darren ?”
New fence ?
This is a very rural section also and in mid October that means ploughed fields and very muddy conditions either side of the section through Hainault Forest.
As I walking on a Sunday there was also a little dodging of Golf balls on the busy Hainault Forest Golf Club which the route crosses before climbing again into Having Country Park.
As you would expect in the parks along the route, the path is generally well maintained but crossing farmland and hedgerows a little care and attention is needed, this footbridge could do with some work!
The middle section of the walk is across downland farmland before dropping down into Harold Wood and once again entering the edge on London suburbs.
Pages Wood
The final section is relatively flat following the Ingrebourne valley and crossing the southern part of Pages Wood a new woodland recently planted, great to see so close to London !
The longest section so far at just over 18 miles, with quite some contrast with arable agriculture replaced within a few minutes with industrial estates !
The first two thirds are really quite rural walking through woodlands around Trent Park and then climbing across agricultural land onto the Ridgeway. Trent Park is currently being redeveloped as residential apartments but has an interesting wartime history as an interrogation centre for captured Luftwaffe aircrew.
Trent Park
Descending from the Ridgeway the route follows along the banks of the Turkey Brook a tributary of the River Lea.
The section to Enfield lock is actually rather built up crossing Enfield High Street.
Passing Enfield Lock, the route briefly follows the course of the River Lea or is it Lee south along side the massive reservoirs of the Lee Valley Park. For centuries there has been argument as to the correct name, both seem to be used but there some logic – Natural features are Lea, whereas man made features such as the park or the navigation (canal) are Lee..
Lee or Lea Valley Reservoirs?
Climbing up the other side of the valley onto the Sewardstone Hills provides some fantastic views over the City of London and the loop actually enters the County of Essex for the first time.
M11
The final section passes through the southern end of Epping forest into Chingford and across the M11 Motorway into Chigwell and its Tube station on the Central Line.
October of course it’s muddy! Good job my trusty walking boots were on my feet, despite the urban feel to the western section of the route and the dry conditions in September this is proper country walking requiring the appropriate footwear !
A full afternoons walking covered the 10 miles from Elstree to Cockfosters across many of North London’s commons.
Once again the route of the path and the rather vague green diamonds on the OS Maps did not always agree requiring a little bit of back tracking and improvisation here and there especially along the Dollis Hill Green walk section – beware !!
I had never visited the rather upmarket neighbourhoods around Hadley Common before, very smart houses and cars – it’s not often you sees a Ferrari 250 TR drive past !
Ferrari !!
This section finished at Cockfosters the northern end of the Piccadilly Line, the name of which causes much amusement to American tourists for some reason 😉 It is also a classic Charles Holden design, with lovely art deco features …
Cockfosters Underground Station
So this is roughly quarter of the route complete already, could be finished by Christmas ?
I had planned to spend the weekend in the West Country, but this time bad weather rather than COVID-19 changed my plans, so despite some at times ominous looking clouds I walked another section of the loop.
Walking during the time of COVID !
This section heading East from Northwood through woodlands and the occasional golf course is very rural despite starting and finishing at Stations were you oyster card is accepted !
To be honest there is not a great amount to see on this section of the route and it is mostly easy to follow, despite a farmer near Pinnerwood doing their upmost to ignore the existence of the right of way !
The route passes just to the South of Bentley Priory, famous for it’s role during the Battle of Britain, a return to visit its museum is something to add to my list of places to visit !
The London Loop Part 1 : Teddington to Hatton Cross
Time for another quest, the scope limited in the current COVID-19 world, so no Globe Trotting hunting Concorde, instead a longish walk.
I have been walking a lot since COVID has become part of our lives, usually in the evening around the neighbourhood, my Fitbit tells me that since March that’s an average of 21,000 steps per day !
Much as I love this part of South West London, I wanted a challenge and was vaguely away of the London Loop, a walking route around London of some 150 Miles ( 242 km) which happens to pass through Bushy Park very close to my home in Teddington.
The only real question was which way… Clockwise of course!
The Beginning and hopefully the end – Chestnut Avenue, Bushy Park
The route is signed although not very well in places and although the trusty OS Explorer map can be vague in places, it really is required – it may not be hiking up Snowdon but without one you will get lost !
1:25,000 Ordnance Survey – Old School but very necessary!
Today was Part 1 an easy 10 miles or so from the starting line of the Chestnut Avenue in Bushy Park, following the River Crane to Hatton Cross close to Heathrow Airport, actually remarkably rural as you case see from the pictures below..
Interesting sight on this part of the route is the Shot Tower in Crane Park, built in 1826 to manufacture lead shot.
Crane Park Shot Tower
Essentially a lighthouse with a heating chamber rather than a light at the top. Lead was heated until molten, then poured through a copper sieve. The size of the shot determined by the size of the holes in the sieve. As the drops of molten lead fell through the air surface tension formed them into spherical balls. At the bottom of the tower the lead shot was caught in a water-filled basin.
Bloomberg reports the latest rumours surrounding the upcoming iPhone launch, including such Geo technologies as LIDAR expected to feature in at least some of the new devices this Autumn.
The extent to which such previously specialised and complex technologies are reaching the mass market should not come as a surprise, after-all GPS receivers were once very specialised. As soon as a consumer value was identified however, mass market production and simplification reduced the price of these features considerably, and today they provide much of the smart in smartphones!
However the most interesting part of the report for me is almost a footnote, Apple will introduce a “Find my Remote” capability to the next generation Apple TV.
In the crazy days of Where 2.0 and the maximum inflection point for Location Based Services (LBS) we used to quote that one of the most common phases uttered on phone calls was “Where are you?”, thus we argued there was a huge opportunity for friend finding applications – well that did not quite work out, however when did you last ask at home… “Where is the TV remote?” while searching under the sofa cushions…
Where is the TV remote ?
Unlike friend finding there are no privacy implications of finding your own stuff in your own home.
This is a perfect example of Ambient Location working at the personal scale, the application of traditional geospatial technology over the range of a few metres often having the users own location as the origin of a local private coordinate system.
It may be argued that we are still only in the early days of the “Internet of Things” where the networked devices we own at home (or work – is there a difference these days?) both provide relevant information to us and modify their behaviour based on both environmental factors and the proximity of people to them.
I get the feeling I’m still very much the “early adopter” with my Nest smoke detectors sensing when nobody is at home to switch off the heating or having my Hue controlled lights automatically turn on when my video door bell recognises I’m returning home..
This is all still rather complex to set up and, if I’m honest, rather flakey in operation..
But… there is another innovation which the “Find my Remote” use case also demonstrates that may make this all much more mainstream.
Coming to a surface near you soon…
Surface computing is another term beloved by technologists which covers the development of voice based assistants and other personal technology such as home electronic displays which are becoming alternative “surfaces” which we use to interact with the internet and with cloud based services.
“Alexa, re-order AA batteries”, “Hey Google, Join my meeting”, and soon “Siri, where is my remote” are phrases becoming common in our homes and make use of the surface interfaces to home automation services – and of course many of these surfaces rely on an explicit knowledge of location, at least within the logical framework of our homes.
If I’m in the Kitchen, I just have to ask to “Switch on the lights”, there is an explicit knowledge that since the Home Hub in the kitchen picked up my voice, the lights I’m requesting switched on are those in the kitchen..
The logical map of my home?
This understanding of our homes from a spatial perspective is still rather limited, we don’t for example usually have an understanding of the topological connections between rooms but that will come… perhaps from devices equipped with LIDAR!
The “Parsons Test” of IoT ?
In the past I have offered the simple use case of
“Hello Computer, are my keys upstairs?”
as a test case for demonstrating a useful application of combined IoT / surface computing, seems we are getting close to passing the test.
When you expect a surface computing interface…
Of course we could just eliminate the need for keys or remote controls in the first place ;-
