Jubilee Greenway - Tower Bridge to Hungerford Bridge

This post almost brings me up to date with my Jubilee Greenway walk, a 60km circuit of London, which I started from Victoria Park at the beginning of January.

I walked from Tower Bridge to Westminster on Tuesday 10 March, but I'm splitting the walk into two posts due to the sheer number of photos that I took!

I was on familiar territory, as I have walked this stretch of the Thames many times in the past, though I've only been as far as Lambeth Bridge (where I crossed the river this time) once before. Somehow walking it as part of the Jubilee Greenway was different though, it wasn't just about getting from A to B and I took the time to look around me more (and to take lots of photos which I don't often do in London).

I reached Tower Bridge last time out; my 'home' station is on the north side of the river and the path goes along the south bank, so I started by crossing the bridge again, looking across to City Hall, The Shard and HMS Belfast,

and once across, I could look back to the Tower of London

and the skyscrapers in the City - the Walkie Talkie, the Cheese Grater and the Gherkin.

This stretch of path alongside the Thames, is part of the Queen's Walk and the (Silver) Jubilee Walkway, as well as the Jubilee Greenway and the Thames Path.  

I spotted the Queen's Walk Sundial close to City Hall. I'd never noticed it before, but there was a good reason for this - it was only put in position on 15 January this year!

Looking north again, the top of the Monument was peeking out from among the buildings and cranes

and Tower Bridge was beginning to recede behind me.

Past HMS Belfast, the World War II cruiser which is now part of the Imperial War Museum,

and a mosaic commemorating the Old London Bridge

with a final look back along the Thames

before I detoured inland, along Tooley Street and past the modern London Bridge, briefly reaching the river again near Southwark Cathedral.

Previous London Bridges spanned the river at this point, and there is a remnant of the 19th century bridge embedded in the path here

together with a quote from Sir Walter Raleigh.

(Click any photo for a larger version if you can't read the engravings.)

I went inland again, round the back of St Saviour's church, crossing private land 

and passing the Golden Hinde II, a full-sized replica of the ship that Sir Francis Drake used to circumnavigate the globe between 1577 and 1580, now berthed in St Mary Overie Dock.

Along Clink Street next, past the ruins of Winchester Palace

and the site of the eponymous prison.

Back to the river, along a stretch known as Bankside; I passed Shakespeare's Globe (never known it so quiet; it's normally heaving with people around here)

and approached Tate Modern, in the old Bankside Power Station. I've passed it many times, but never been inside before. Time to correct that, and I visited the old Turbine Hall first, with an art installation by Richard Tuttle called I Don’t Know . The Weave of Textile Language.

Then I wandered round the surrealist gallery - Poetry and Dream. There was plenty more that I didn't see, and I shall definitely make a return visit.

Outside in the sunshine, the Millennium Bridge spans the river from Bankside to St Paul's.

Heading onwards, I passed HMS President, a World War I anti-submarine ship which is now in private hands and used as office and conference space. She was repainted in a modern version of 'dazzle camouflage' in 2014 as part of the centenary commemorations.

Past the London Television Centre

and the National Theatre

with a statue of Sir John Gielgud as Hamlet.

Time for something else that I've never noticed before - the South Bank Book Market, tucked under Waterloo Bridge.

A bit further along, I passed the South Bank Skatepark,

almost opposite Cleopatra's Needle, an Ancient Egyptian obelisk dating from around 1450 BC and erected on the Victoria Embankment in 1878.

Approaching Hungerford Bridge, with its twin Golden Jubilee footbridges, 

the London Eye suddenly looms into view.

On the other side of the bridge lies Jubilee Gardens, created for the Silver Jubilee in 1977 and recently revamped for the Diamond Jubilee. Lots more photos to come, including more 'things that I've never noticed before', but I've decided to split the walk here before the post gets even more unwieldy than it already is! 

The Bude Light

After a brief detour, I'm returning to photos from our holiday in Devon, though for this page we'd crossed the border into Cornwall.

I had a single portrait photo of the Bude Light, and picked a challenge to suit it - this month's Twistback Thursday from Sketch-n-Scrap. It's made up of an archive sketch with a twist, and this time the twist is to use a mask.

I've already chosen to do my holiday pages on Dotted Swiss cardstock, and the embossed dots made working with a mask a bit tricky. My first attempt was a mess, so I used something simpler for the second, a plain circle which I used to surround the photo. Once my papers were in place, I ran my title around the circle and wrote my journalling on a tag.

The original Bude Light was a very bright oil lamp invented by Sir Goldsworthy Gurney and named after his home town. It worked by introducing oxygen to the centre of the burner, and they were used in lighthouses and the Houses of Parliament. This Bude Light was created as part of the millennium celebrations and the 30 foot concrete cone is lit up internally using fibre optics.

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill Dotted Swiss

Paper - 7 Dots Studio Illumination
Washi Tape - Papermania

Mist - Docrafts

Ink - Docrafts

Tools

Heidi Swapp Circle Mask

Big Shot & Sizzix Wallflower Alphabet Dies
X-Cut Small Circle Punch

Explorers

When I'm nearing the end of a collection pack, and I want to kill it off, I just cut the remaining pieces to rectangles, layer them up and plonk a photo or two on the top. If I don't have a suitable photo to hand, I make a 'starting point' page to finish off later on. I did just that last summer, with the remains of Basic Grey's Plumeria collection, and last weekend I acquired the right photo to finish off the page at last.

My daughter is an Explorer Scout (the division for 14-18 year olds, following on from Beavers, Cubs and Scouts) and all the scouts in the district gather together on the Sunday nearest St George's Day to renew their Promise, have a parade and present awards from the past year. This photo was posted to the group's Facebook page later in the day.

I still had some transparencies left from this collection, so I layered two of those up on top of the single one I'd already placed on the left. I also strung some twine through the tag and spattered mist across the diagonal. Finally I added my title and journalling. The letter stickers are also Basic Grey, but a different collection.


Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - Basic Grey Plumeria
Letters - Basic Grey Picadilly
Die Cut & Transparencies - Basic Grey Plumeria
Ink - Docrafts
Mist - Docrafts, Mister Huey

Tools
Sewing Machine

Birthday Cards

I don't often shop in Hobbycraft, but the opportunity arose to visit one earlier this week and I seized it with both hands, anticipating a happy hour while my son sat an exam nearby. However, I was rather disappointed in the range of stock they had and the price of their individual papers and cardstock, and came away in much less than my allotted hour having spent just £4.25.

I did buy a new birthday stamp though, and I put it to use straight away, making two cards from card sketch #48 at Sketch-n-Scrap.

I tried a few ink pads with the stamp, and got the clearest image with Distress inks. I'd hoped to cut them out using my Shape Cutter, but they fell between template sizes so I had to use scissors, and disguised the wonky edges with ink.

I stuck fairly closely to the sketch for my first card, but changed a few things on the second.

Lydford Gorge

I'm continuing scrapping our Easter holiday in Devon, with a trip to Lydford Gorge. It's somewhere we've visited many times, but we still go again whenever we are in the area. It's another National Trust property, with a car park at each end of the 1.5 mile long gorge. Our last visit was in 2008, and it feels like a very long time ago.

I based my page on this month's double page sketch at Stick It Down. I am on the single page design team there, and I never intended to do all the double pages too, but so far I've done so every month.

I started by flipping the sketch, so that my portrait photos of the rapids and waterfalls are on the left side. I also replaced one of the landscape photos with two smaller portrait photos, and then squeezed in two more in place of the smaller square photo in the sketch. I also like it when papers span the gaps between the two halves of a double page, so I moved some of the background papers closer together. I have lots of the Dotted Swiss cardstock, and I've decided to do all my holiday photos on it to make a definite sub-section of my 2015 album.

Believe it or not, I based my colour scheme around the butterfly washi tape as I really wanted to use this. It's from Teresa Collins' Daily Stories collection and although I bought several of the papers I've used most of them now, so I dug around for matching colours, finding papers from American Crafts/Shimelle, Pebbles and We R Memory Keepers that were close matches.

I've really loved these glittery foam Thickers; the narrow font doesn't take up much space, and I've had loads of titles from them without running out of vowels. I am running out of other letters now though, and have resorted to cannibalism to get the ones I need - the Gs are really Cs with additions, and the Rs started out as Ps.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill Dotted Swiss
Paper - American Crafts Shimelle, Pebbles Home-Made, We R Memory Keepers Indian Summer
Letters - American Crafts
Washi Tape - Teresa Collins Daily Stories
Word Stickers - American Crafts Shimelle
Label Stickers - 7Gypsies
Ink - Docrafts

Sandymouth

The main reason for my current stack of 2015 photos to scrap is that we spent Easter week in Devon, mid-way between Dartmoor and the coast. Our first excursion was to Sandymouth, a National Trust beach north of Bude in Cornwall. It was very busy near the car park, but almost deserted further down.

I used the mid-month sketch from Sketch-n-Scrap for my page, but changed the photo sizes. I wanted to use a larger photo of the beach, and added small pictures of our friends' dog and a close-up of a shell.

I've had a piece of shell-printed paper since last summer which was waiting for a beach page. It came from a Quirky Kit, and the same kit had the white woodgrain paper. I also keep a bag of beach-y scraps and the yellow pieces came from that.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill Swiss Dot
Paper - Carta Bella Ahoy There, We R Memory Keepers Indian Summer, HOTP
Letters - Making Memories
Stickers - Anita's Glitterations
Enamel Dots - Teresa Collins
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Big Shot & X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die
X-Cut Small Circle Punch

Moving On Up

I've reached that point in the year when I still haven't finished last year's albums, but this year's photos are stacking up and demanding my attention. It happens every year, and the lure of new photos always wins. They're not piling up too quickly yet, I've counted 5 singles and 4 doubles that will bring this year up-to-date so I can go back to 2014.

My first 2015 page was made with this month's sketch at ScrapMuch?, though I did play with the dimensions to suit my landscape photographs. I found that the notebook paper I punched didn't really fit at the top of the page, so I moved it on to the side instead.

When I find older embellishments that I have half-forgotten, and want to use up, I keep them on my desk in plain view. The flower is one of those pieces and it feels good to get it on a page at last.

The pictures are my daughter and her fellow Scouts being presented with various awards and badges, including the Chief Scout's Gold Award. They have all moved on to become Explorer Scouts now.

Supplies
Paper - Crate Paper The Pier, Simple Stories Take a Hike, Bo Bunny Camp-a-Lot
Flower - Teresa Collins Vintage Finds
Enamel Dot - Teresa Collins Daily Stories
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Big Shot & Sizzix Wallflower Alphabet Dies
American Crafts Notebook Border Punch

On the Map

A roadside cafe may be on odd subject for a scrapbook page, but we've been stopping at the Old Willoughby Hedge Cafe on the A303 for the last twenty-five years. Any trip to the West Country is an excuse to stop here for breakfast baps mid-morning or burgers for lunch. It used to be something of a secret but its popularity means that access to the lay-by has been improved, it now has a 'Services' road-sign and it appears on the latest version of our road atlas. Still, the food's as good as ever, and although this photo is from last year, we've visited twice more in the last couple of weeks. 

I really wanted to use the 'I think I'll stop here' piece from the Shimelle collection, and added a couple more of her papers, a piece from Heidi Swapp and an ancient map paper.

The little row of triangles on the map came from a newish die, and the three triangles above it were the inner parts of the same cut. 

Supplies
Paper - American Crafts Shimelle, Heidi Swapp September Skies
Sticker - American Crafts Shimelle
Ink - Docrafts
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot
Provocraft Alphabet Dies
Little B Arrows Dies

Jubilee Greenway - Cutty Sark to Tower Bridge

I'm going back to the Jubilee Greenway now; it's a 60km circular walk around London commemorating the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and I started it in January. I'm behind with blogging it, and I walked this section on 21 February.

I started off by retracing my steps to the Old Royal Naval College. Last time I was here, a film crew was swarming around, but today all was peaceful and the buildings were not obscured by equipment.

Photos in the bag, I set out again on the Jubilee Greenway, looking back towards the College, the Cutty Sark and the dome of the Woolwich foot tunnel.

I would be following the Thames again today, and my next landmark was a statue of Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, who studied shipbuilding here at Deptford Dockyard in 1698.

I veered away from the river for a short stretch through a residential area. My guide says that this is the only marker pointing the wrong way, but it appears that someone has turned it round. I followed it across Lower Pepys Park and between the flats into Upper Pepys Park.

Sadly, there's no statue of Samuel Pepys in the park, but I did find another Millennium Milepost. One thousand of these have been erected on cycle paths across the country, and this is the second that I've seen (the first was near the O2 - see this post). I'm heartily glad that I am not heading for either Oxford (110 miles) or Dover (115) and can't imagine choosing to cycle between the two cities.

Back to the river, and it's time for another cannon

then something a bit different - Circumsphere (by Chris Marshall and Stephen Lewis) - a sculpture made from more than a mile of steel rods, with discs that show the route of Sir Francis Drake's circumnavigation of the globe. His voyage ended here in 1581.

Then I crossed over the lock gates at South Dock Marina

and onwards to Greenland Dock with its Tide Gauge House and Lock Keeper's Office.

With a choice of bridges, I used the old Swing Bridge to cross the Dock and return to the riverside.

From the old to the new, and another sculpture - The Curlicue by William Pye.

The Jubilee Greenway passes through Surrey Docks Farm next, though the first animals I saw were more sculptures.

Mindful of the distance that I had still to walk, I bypassed the real animals, and continued along the river. There seem to be cannons and anchors wherever the path is wide enough, and I passed a few more here.

I detoured inland again, around the Hilton Hotel, and emerged at the river to see a sailing boat which I watched while I walked through another residential area

with an obelisk, that appears to serve no purpose. There's no inscription on it and I can't find anything online about it. Then again, there are plenty of sculptures in London that have no 'purpose'.

Then I passed Limehouse Marina on the opposite bank. This is where the Grand Union Canal meets the River Thames and it will be the end point of my walk in another 20 miles or so.

Up ahead of me, I could see the skyscrapers of the City of London silhouetted against the sky

and then I passed Metropolitan Wharf - setting for The Great British Sewing Bee (which I love watching even though I haven't sewn anything in years).

My destination now appeared on the path signposts, but I wasn't sure whether to be glad or sad that the distance wasn't on there. It seemed like I still had a long way to go and my legs were beginning to ache.

As the river bends, I was surprised to see as far as the top of the Millennium Wheel at Westminster, dwarfed by the Shard at London Bridge.

The path weaves in and out of housing, sometimes next to the river, sometimes a street away. I passed 'The Sunshine Weekly and the Pickpocket' (by Peter McLean) on one of these corners, but I've not been able to find any more information about the statue online.

I'd been in Rotherhithe for a while now, and I reached the Brunel Museum, which is in the old Engine House used to pump water out of the Thames Tunnel, the first tunnel in the world to be built under a navigable river. The tunnel was built by Marc Isambard Brunel and his son Isambard Kingdom Brunel between 1825 and 1842; designed for use with horse-drawn carriages, its costs spiralled and the finished tunnel was only used by pedestrians who accessed it via a zig-zag staircase. In the 1860s, it was bought by the East London Railway Company who ran trains through the tunnel; today London Overground trains still run through it to Wapping.

Outside the museum is a bench based on the last of Brunel's constructions - the Royal Albert Bridge over the River Tamar

and, contrary to what my guide says, a Jubilee Greenway marker that IS pointing in the wrong direction. 

I followed the path in the right direction, and passed the Church of St Mary the Virgin and a memorial to Christopher Jones, master of the Mayflower, who lived in Rotherhithe from 1611 to his death in 1622. He was buried in the churchyard here, but the exact location has been lost.

Returning to the river once again, it was heartening to see my destination, Tower Bridge, ahead of me, but it was still a long way to go.

Next up were some gardens, with a plinth commemorating the Queen's Silver, Golden and Diamond Jubilees. 

Going on takes me into Bermondsey, with Wapping Police Station, home to the Marine Policing Unit, on the opposite bank.

On Bermondsey Wall East are statues of Dr Alfred Salter and his wife Ada, philanthropists who provided free health care to the people of the area in the early 20th century.

After Bermondsey Wall West, the path runs along a passageway between the buildings of New Concordia Wharf, 

and then crosses St Saviour's Dock on an award-winning, almost invisible, modern bridge.

I almost walked straight past the Design Museum,

but my attention was drawn to the sculpture outside - Head of Invention by Eduardo Paolozzi. I wasn't sure what is was from behind, 

but it became obvious when I walked round to the front.

One last anchor, the biggest yet, 

and I'd finally reached my destination.

I was really glad to cross over, on my way to the station, 

but I had time to look back at the last part of the walk, along Butler's Wharf

and to stop near Tower Hill tube station to see Emperor Trajan guarding one of the largest remaining fragments of the Roman city walls.

Thanks for sticking with me through such a long post. The next stage of my walk runs from Tower Bridge along the South Bank to Lambeth, and then across to Westminster. I hope to bring you that quite soon, and then to keep on top of the blog posts as I walk each section in future.