Everything all at the same time: A wild goose cycle

I often get hairbrained ideas into my head and become slightly obsessed with doing/seeing certain things.

A couple of these short obsessions resulted in me planning a long bike ride around the Thamesmead area. I roped in my sister and an another friend, picked them up from Hackney Central to head to Greenwich where we would start our ride proper.

Somewhere after Mile End, we got confused as to where we were going so I suggested doing the route in reverse and heading to Poplar, so off we went for our first stop at Robin Hood Gardens. It's set for demolition but like a lot of council estate demolitions, these things take a long time so I'm not sure where they are at with it. It seemed to be full of residents unlike Heygate which has been sitting predominantly empty for years.

It was designed by Alison and Peter Smithson with the 'streets in the sky' concept in mind and it was completed in 1972. We walked alongside the garages on the 'outside' before coming into the main grassy area.

To the left in the picture below you can see a big bin. As we walked past, a lady dropped her bin bag from the balcony (the gap in the wall) straight into the bin - they'd lined it up well for this purpose. Made me chuckle.

Robin Hood Gardens

From there, we were headed to Beckton Gas Works - I know much of it isn't meant to remain but I wanted to see for myself. Closed in 1970, it has been used in lots of filming, most famously, in Kubrick's 'Full Metal Jacket'. Beckton = Vietnam apparently

We cycled quite close to the river, going along Royal Victoria, the ExCel centre and under the new cable car. From there, we went through Beckton District Park and onto the Beckton Gas Works. There wasn't much to see, less than I anticipated and I realised perhaps I should have google mapped Beckton Alps (toxic spoil from the plant created a hill which people used to ski down!). It had started raining a bit, so we had a quick break eating scotch eggs next to a retail park before giving up on my Beckton dream and heading to the Woolwich Ferry. I'd never been to Beckton before so it was still worth it.

Beckton Alps

What I wanted to see

What we did see

I hadn't been on the Woolwich Ferry in about 10 years so it was nice to go on it again, especially with a bike. It's free and I got to see downstairs for the first time.

These were locked but a nice reminder of the past.

From the ferry, we cycled along the Thames Path to Thamesmead, we were heading for Southmere Lake. Binsey Walk is another place Kubrick has filmed, this time briefly for 'A Clockwork Orange' but you might recognise it more from the Channel 4 show 'Misfits' - most of the antics happen around the community centre.

Again part of this estate is getting demolished and some of the houses had already been knocked down - next to residents going about their business of course. This is a nice piece about its history with photos from then and now.

This sign about horse grazing made me laugh

I believe the towers are staying

Lots of lines

Southmere Lake

It was time for us to have a quick break before heading home via Greenwich. The sun started been all glorious as we passed the Thames Barrier and Antony Gormley's Woolwich Arsenal statues. I think we were all quite knackered by the end, so had dinner in the Cutty Sark pub and then got the overground home.