Saturday 3rd March 2012 Ramble 1: Little Venice to Perivale

Ramble 1: Little Venice to Perivale, approximately 6½ miles, along the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal.

We arrived at Little Venice about 11am for the start of our first walk along the Grand Union Canal, having travelled by train and underground through St Pancras to Paddington station.

Little Venice was quiet. A few boats were moored (the closed up puppet theatre canal boat being one), but the only active things on the water were a few ducks and geese. We went by the old Toll Bridge House where commercial canal boats were gauged in the days when the canal was an active trading route.  Here there is a stop lock, built during WWII as a defence against flooding, at the entrance to the Little Venice basin where many houseboats are moored (including the one used by Richard Branson in the early days of Virgin). The smell was of wood smoke and diesel fumes.

We were soon walking under a flyover of the A40 Westway which seemed to soar precariously over the canal towpath, supported by the slimmest of structures.

Trellick Tower in North Kensington, a 31-storey high block of (originally all) council flats with its adjoining service and access tower couldn’t be missed from a little further along the towpath. The block was designed by the architect Goldfinger in the ‘brutalist’ style and completed in 1972. Apparently the flats are more sought after these days, after their low-life beginnings.






After passing a new development (including smart-looking flats in a former water tower) in the Portobello dock area, Kensal Green Cemetery could be seen, (but not entered into unless as part of a tour) on the opposite side of the canal. This, amazingly big (72 acre) site holds the remains of more than 250,000 people including Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Charles Babbage, the ‘father of computing’.
  

We carried on over an old brick bridge that spans an entrance to a side basin marked Gas Works on the map. This bridge, along with a few others and the Toll House at Little Venice were the only obvious relics we saw of the long past canal trading days. Surprisingly, all trace of former wharves with their lifting equipment and associated buildings have been demolished.

Further on, alongside Old Oak railway sidings we spied many hundreds of pre-cast concrete tunnel sections and associated concrete making facilities. We thought that these were destined to go into making the 21 kilometres of twin-bore tunnels under central London, part of the Crossrail project.

Also, around here we could see Wembley stadium’s characteristic white steel arch that Wikipedia tells me is the longest single span (317m) roof structure in the world.

At Old Oak Lane Bridge the canal towpath was temporarily closed as a crime scene. This meant we had to divert around to Acton Lane Bridge, past Willesden Junction railway station, the depot where Eurotunnel trains are serviced and McVities biscuit factory.

Just after the Katsouris food factory, with its accompanying curry smells, the canal passes over the North Circular road (A406) by means of an aqueduct. The photos taken don’t seem to relay the height of this engineering feat above the busy traffic below.

Much of the time we were dodging helmeted cyclists and Lycra-clad runners; all keen to make faster progress than us.

In parts, the canal had (the backs of) factories, small industrial units and shops alongside. Elsewhere, there are residential buildings of all kinds; modern tower blocks, rundown terraced houses, flats with balconies, many of them dilapidated.

Gradually as we walked towards our goal, green space appeared between buildings, as high-rise central London transformed into suburbia. By the time we reached Perivale along with the endless rows of houses and gardens there were more playgrounds and a large golf course. Thankfully, it also has less smelly rubbish, less graffiti and less high metal fencing. It appears that the first half of the Paddington arm of the Grand Union Canal has, in estate agent’s speak, much potential for upgrading.

Despite the odds, one delight to see were a group of coltsfoot plants flowering at the canal edge. Other plants seen flowering were daffodils, blackthorn and pussy willow.  We also saw some swans nesting and plenty of pigeons (rock doves).