14
July 2017
From Surrey Docks
tube station, we walked up Redriff
Road directly into the area that used to be Surrey
Commercial Docks, now converted largely into housing and green space. Right at the beginning of Redriff Rd a line of old (we estimated 40/50
years) Cherry-plum trees Prunus cerasifera occupied a bank
above the pavement, obscuring the large Tesco complex behind. Ripe fruit, variously purple and yellow,
covered the pavement and kerbside, while others, red and orange-yellow, still
clung to the twigs above.
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Cherry-plums, Redriff Road
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The road then
passed over a pedestrian underpass that was once the connection between Greenland and Canada Docks. Here has been transplanted (1959) a bridge
(built in 1949) that used to span Deptford Creek (which would be crossed later
on the walk), replacing the original wooden bridge here. This gaudy red construction is a "Scherzer rolling bascule lift-bridge"
designed by the American William Scherzer.
It opened and closed using a system of counterweights to hinge it about
the rocker shown in the photo.
Scherzer rolling bascule
lift-bridge, Redriff Road
Further along, the
north side of the road used to be occupied by the Russia and Quebec Docks, part of
the former Surrey Commercial Docks.
Lines of trees planted by the road here included Silver Maple Acer saccharinum (with galls of Vasates quadripedes, first recorded in
Britain in 2002 but now prevalent in the south-east) and London Plane Platanus x hispanica with mines of Phyllonorycter platani (also new to Britain
in 1981). Lower plants included Black Mustard
Brassica nigra and Maple-leaved Goosefoot
Chenopodium hybridum.
Maple-leaved goosefoot
Just after Quebec Way a path
descended to the left into Russia Dock Woodland, these docks having now been
replaced in 1985 by housing estates and green space that was largely left to
grow wild. Materials, including ironwork,
from the original docks was used in the construction of the park, where just a
narrow stream and a few ponds remain of the waterways, while the main path
included the remains of the wharf beside Russia Dock.
Russia Dock Woodland, path
along old wharf
Beside the path
rough grassland included a good range of flowers - Hedge Bedstraw Galium mollugo, Field scabious Knautia arvensis, Marjoram Origanum vulgare, Lucerne Medicago sativa sativa, White Campion Silene alba, Bladder Campion S. vulgaris, Common & Greater Knapweed
Centaurea nigra & scabiosa, Montbretia Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora, Curled Dock Rumex crispus, Purple Loosestrife Lythrum salicaria, Great Willowherb Epilobium hirsutum, Indian Balsam Impatiens glandulifera, Bristly oxtongue
Picris echioides, Wall Barley Hordeum murinum, Dwarf Mallow Malva neglecta, and Honeysuckle Lonicera periclymenum. How many of these had at some time been sown
here and how many had arrived of their own accord, it is difficult to tell. One surprise, however, was more than one tree
of Lord Derby apples (Malus pumila
cv.) with their distinctive conical shape, which could not have come true from
seed and must be presumed to have been planted.
Holly blues and hedge browns fluttered around the scrub.
Lord Derby apples
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Hedge brown on hedge
bedstraw
Dwarf mallow
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The path led directly
into Staves Ecological Park. A small pond was covered with Least duckweed Lemna minuta, and at its edge were
Celery-leaved Buttercup Ranunculus
sceleratus and Lesser Water-parsnip Berula
erecta. Nearby a large clump of
Lavender Lavandula angustifolia was
flourishing among the bramble scrub. A
weathered notice referred to the celebration of the Park's 30th anniversary,
which would have been two years ago.
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Celery-leaved buttercup
Lavender
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An artificial
mound, Stave Hill, had been created where Stave Dock once was, giving good views
over London and
the docklands.
View from Stave Hill
towards Tower Bridge
Below the mound we
added more plants to our list - Harebell Campanula
rotundifolia, Green Alkanet Pentaglottis
sempervivum, Wild Strawberry Fragaria
vesca, Chicory Cichorium intybus,
Wild Carrot Daucus carota, Greater Celandine
Chelidonium majus, Hedgerow Cranesbill
Geranium pyrenaicum, Hop trefoil Trifolium campestre, Black Horehound Ballota nigra, Musk Mallow Malva moschata, Round-leaved Cranesbill Geranium rotundifolium, Shaggy soldier Galinsoga quadriradiata, and Thale Cress
Arabidopsis thaliana.
Holly blue on knapweed
Round-leaved cranesbill
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Shaggy soldier
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A larger pond to
the north played host to the birds one would expect: Heron, Mallard, Tufted
Duck, and Moorhen.
Heron and mallard
Female tufted duck leads
her brood away
Juvenile moorhen
From this pond we
took a path east out of the park, past a school and through a built-up area to
the Thames Path. We turned south along
this with a vista of Deptford and Greenwich
ahead. It was low tide and people were
searching the exposed mud for "treasure".
We walked past
Surrey Docks Farm, with its animal statues and busy with school parties.
At the inlet beyond
here to Greenland Dock at Helsinki
Square was a metal sculpture 'Curlicue' by William
Pye, erected in 1989. It is symbolic of
heavy dock machinery.
Near this statue
the pavement cracks were filled with an interesting range of adventive plants -
including Common Cudweed Filago vulgaris,
Four-leaved Allseed Polycarpon
tetraphyllum, Toad Rush Juncus
bufonius. Ivy-leaved Toadflax Cymbalaria
muralis, Buckshorn Plantain Plantago
coronopus, Pellitory-by-the-wall Parietaria
judaica and Mexican fleabane Erigeron
karvinskianus. Having just returned
from Madeira we were struck by the similarity between this plant community and
that of the streets of Funchal (where all the above also occur), showing how
near the warm micro-climate of inner London
approaches that of sub-tropical areas.
Common cudweed
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Four-leaved allseed
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Beyond here on the
Thames embankment we also saw Wineberry Rubus phoenicolasius, Perennial Rocket Sisymbrium strictissimum, Hemlock Water-dropwort
Oenanthe crocata, Canadian and
Guernsey Fleabanes Erigeron canadensis
and sumatrensis, Least Pepperwort Lepidium virginicum and Garden Parsley Petroselinum crispum.
Wineberry
Detail of perennial
rocket with seeds
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Least pepperwort
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At the edge of
Deptford the Thames path is forced inland
through streets and through Sayes Court Park, a small park with a few trees,
including a Turkish Hazel Corylus colurna
at the east entrance and a Black Mulberry Morus
nigra near the southern exit. Many
of the fruits on the latter were being collected by a local resident, whose
hands were stained red, as it is impossible to collect them without spilling
the juice.
Black mulberry
Coming into Wharf
Street in Deptford we added Annual Mercury Mercurialis
annua to our tally and came across another modern sculpture celebrating
Dockland, 'Cochlea' by Ekkehard Altenburger 2015 - composed of three types of
granite from different parts of the world and symbolising noise pollution.
We were now
approaching Greenwich, passing (from right in the picture) new office blocks to
let, built on the site of a retired power station, and seeing ahead the Cutty
Sark docked at Greenwich, the dome over the entrance to the footway tunnel
beneath the Thames, the Royal Naval College and Greenwich Power Station, still
functional for standby power generation.
By the time we got
to the Cutty Sark we had joined throngs of tourists. The clipper was currently getting a lick of
paint.
We walked up Greenwich Church Street
to the main road, where we could take a break for coffee and a snack at
Waterstone's. It was a short distance to
William Walk, leading to the NW entrance of Greenwich Park. This was also busy with tourists, who were
mostly visiting the Observatory and taking selfies with each foot on different
sides of the meridian, but having done this some years before we bypassed it for
the more botanical interests of the park.
At the top of Blackheath
Avenue, which was lined by Horse-chestnuts Aesculus hippocastanum and Sweet
Chestnuts Castanea sativa, stood a
couple of veteran specimens of the latter, planted in the 1660s. We measured one to be over 7.2 metres in
girth.
We went on further
SE from here to the Flower Gardens, where there were some Victorian cedars
(including Deodar Cedrus deodara), a
tall Ginkgo Ginkgo biloba, another
Sweet Chestnut said to be nearly 400 years old, and a Whitebeam with large,
almost circular, leaves which may have been Round-leaved Whitebeam Sorbus eminens, although it is difficult
to separate for sure from extreme examples of Sorbus aria.
Sorbus eminens?
A couple of oaks
had been fenced off because of infections by Oak Processionary Moth Thaumetopoea processionea, but we saw no
evidence of caterpillars; perhaps they had been successfully treated. The flower-beds were invaded not just by the
usual yellow-sorrels but also by the larger-leaved Pale Pink Sorrel Oxalis latifolia (which, unlike other
pink-sorrels, has no orange warts underneath the leaves).
From the hillside
in the park we had a good view north to Royal
Naval College
and, across the river, Canary
Wharf, our final
destination.
The only wildlife
we saw in the park were the Grey Squirrels bothering tourists for hand-outs
but when we left
the park down William Walk we found ourselves tailing a female Mallard and her
brood of eight healthy-looking ducklings.
To get to the Thames, their presumed
destination, would involve crossing the extremely busy main road (perilous
enough even for human pedestrians). We
had not time to follow their progress and we only could only hope they made it
safely.
We returned to the
dome by the Cutty Sark that marked the unique tunnel beneath the Thames to the Isle of Dogs, reached by a long winding
staircase. Only when we inspected the
photo afterwards did we see the shrub growing on the roof of the dome. Its pinnate leaves, the leaflets with
distinct stalks, marked it out as most probably False Acacia Robinia pseudoacacia.
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Cutty Sark
seen from entrance to tunnel
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This tunnel,
opened in 1902, is a boon for walkers and also cyclists, although we wished the
latter had obeyed the instruction to dismount, as they came past us at
dangerously high speeds. The dome over
the exit on the other side, at Island Gardens, Millwall, appears to be identical to that at
Greenwich.
We crossed Manchester Road and
entered Millwall Park.
This is mostly recreation ground and bare grass, but at the far NW
corner is a mound where vegetation is allowed to grow with a fascinating
profusion of Maple-leaved Goosefoot, Fennel Foeniculum
vulgare, Horse-radish Armoracia
rusticana, Crow Garlic Allium vineale,
Twiggy Spurge Euphorbia x pseudovirgata,
and Sand Lucerne Medicago sativa ssp
varia, the latter distinguished by its seed-pods coiling for no more than
half a circle and flowers ranging from cream to yellow to green to pale blue to
deep blue to purple to almost black, sometimes mixed in the same flower-head.
Twiggy spurge with
horse-radish
Colour forms of sand
lucerne
There was also a
profusion of docks, although these were all in seed with brown spikes and
withered leaves. We saw the common Rumex crispus, Rumex pulcher, Rumex
obtusifolius but also good numbers of Greek Dock Rumex cristatus, its broad fruits with one prominent tubercle and
their dentate wings net-veined.
Greek dock in fruit
North of here was Mudchute Park, which, like Surrey Docks, hosted
an educational farm, but also had large areas of scrubby vegetation. There was more Twiggy Spurge and Greek Dock, plus
Perennial Nipplewort Lapsana communis ssp
intermedia, Viper's Bugloss Echium
vulgare, Black Mustard, Perennial Wall-rocket Diplotaxis tenuifolia, Hoary Cress Lepidium draba, and Alexanders Smyrnium
olusatrum.
Perennial nipplewort
From the SE corner
of Mudchute Park
we took the side-street to Manchester
Road and walked north, between the Thames and what was previously docks.
Manchester
Road
There were views
of Canary Wharf
(replacing India
and Millwall Docks) to the west and the O2 arena across the river to the east.
Canary Wharf from Manchester Road
O2 Arena from Manchester Road
Along the road we
added more plants to our list - Water Bent Polypogon
viridis, California Poppy Eschscholzia
californica, and Common Poppy Papaver
rhoeas. We went as far as the Blue Bridge,
opened 1969, crossing the east entrance to West India South Dock. It was based on the traditional Dutch
drawbridge and, at the time, was the largest single-leaf bascule bridge in Britain,
using hydraulics to raise it.
From here we found
our way west through the confusing array of water basins and buildings
comprising Canary Wharf, which by now was crowded with people who had left
work, packing the squares and outside cafés and bars. The only street-side plant we recorded here,
in this well-manicured environment was Garden Lobelia Lobelia erinus. We managed
to get a table inside in the Roka restaurant before catching the tube from Canary Wharf
station to travel home.
Looking east from Canary Wharf
towards the Blue Bridge