Brenchley Gardens

Those of you who looked at the Charlotte Mew poem a few weeks ago may have realised that when she writes:

To-morrow I will tell you about the eyes of the Chrystal Palace train
Looking down on us, and you will laugh and I shall see what you see again...

She is almost certainly referring to a train on the old railway line from Nunhead to Crystal Palace High Level station. This line ran from Nunhead Junction (actually a station on the other side of Gibbon Rd from the current Nunhead platforms), through now-demolished stations at Honor Oak (on Forest Hill Rd), Lordhsip Lane (on Lordship Lane opposite the Horniman Gardens), Upper Sydenham (South of Wells Pk Rd) to Crystal Palace High Level. There are several Web sites which tell more of this branch, which opened in 1865 to provide an easier journey to the Crystal Palace. The station ran alongside the Palace, and there was a subterranean passage that lead directly into the gardens from the station. The line finally closed in 1954.

I've also seen a posting (where? I can't find it now - maybe I imagined it) that suggests Charlotte Mew's brother might actually have been buried in Camberwell Old cemetery (which the line also passes). I somewhat doubt this, but it is possible. Certainly, I don't know exactly when Nunhead Cemetery became generally known by that name (as opposed to All Saint's, its original name).

Anyway, the path of the Crystal Palace branch line between Kelvington Rd and Forest Hill Rd is now Brenchley Gardens, a long thin strand of park. So I went there for a mooch around.

This sign is busy and confused. You are welcomed in many languages, then told what not to do in lots of shouty icons. Help!
It was something of a grey day, but the squirrels were out in force.
These two shots were taken firstly beneath and then from the side of a rich stand of evergreen trees.

The trackbed of the old railway can still be clearly seen:
And the tangled, darker, older woods of One Tree Hill lurk just the other side of the road.

The views, particularly from the Kelvington Road end of the Gardens, where there are fewer screening trees, can be quite stunning. Today was a trifle misty however, so visibility was limited.

In the photo below, Canary Wharf can just be made out in the distance. Ivydale School is partially obscured by the tree on the right. The neat green in the foreground is Aquarius Golf Club, which covers the Beechcroft Reservoir. The latter is a fantastic engineering achievement - a huge man-made reservoir - and was once a World-beater, I gather. But of course it is mostly underground and hence hard to get to see.
A better view of the Golf Club below, including the odd golfer. The trees in the distance show where Nunhead cemetery is; to the left of that, in the centre of the picture, are the allotments covering Nunhead Reservoir. The blocks of flats further towards the left are in the Rye Hill Park estate.
Further along, the Gardens look down on the backs of houses in Marmora Rd (parallel to Mundania).

On other days, there have been superb views into Central London - The Post Office Tower (as I still call it), The Eye, Parliament, and the horrible new tower near the Elephant can all be clearly seen. But not today.

Another view down the old trackbed:

The Kelvington Rd end of Brenchley Gardens is a little wilder and less cultivated...
however, as you walk towards Forest Hill Rd, they become more formal and managed.


(What? More cultivated as you move away from Nunhead? That can't be right!)

Spring flowers seem to be very much the in thing in Brenchley Gardens at the moment...

Along with gnarly, windy trees...

But now I must confess. I really took this walk to go and see one of my favourite road signs, at least locally:
Yes, that's right. It says U turns only.

And there is more than one of them!

(Re-reading what I just wrote, this comes across as a really nerdy thing to have done. Sigh).

An explanation of the signs at least seems called for. These directions are by the bus lane. And they instruct any buses taking that path (in practise only the 63) to make a U turn because it is the end of their route.

Hence the unlikely sign.

I suppose the other aspect of the photgraph is that to the right hand side it shows where the old Honor Oak station used to be.