Make the most of the season’s sunshine with a picnic and a sublime stride along the river Thames.
At just under 3 miles, this route makes a great afternoon walk, especially if you’re combining it with a trip to the fabulous historic palace.
You can extend this by following the river through Teddington and Richmond or perhaps an extended run to take in the Wimbledon Common.
The Thames Path is the holy grail of easy, scenic running. Extending for 184 miles from Gloucestershire to Charlton in East London, it’s peppered with excellent transport links and people friendly facilities. This is where the city dweller can get away from it all, without the horror of being more than about 15 minutes from the nearest pub / loo / Tesco Express.
We start on the North side of the bridge at Hampton Court and head onto the Thames Path to skirt the mighty parklands of the palace. The bridge itself crosses the country boundary from Greater London to Surrey and is made of portland stone in a design that compliments the palace architecture in the style of Christopher Wren. If you like bridges, there are two matching ones further along the path – at Twickenham and Chiswick – which were opened upon the same day in 1933. If you don’t, I won’t trouble you any more with this stuff…
On today’s route we’re bound for the city, and as we filmed on a busy Saturday afternoon in late summer the route is bustling with life and quite immaculately maintained. With the palace and parkland on the left, we pass Thames Ditton Island on our right. Fancy people live here, dock their boats and on the whole evade flooding by having their houses built on stilts. Further along are two smaller islands – Boyle Farm Island, which is home to just one family, and the unoccupied Swan Island. Imagine living there eh?
2 miles into the route, the Thames winds North East and Surbiton can be see on the other side of the river. We pass Raven’s Ait – the island that is now home to a sailing and watersports club.
Barge Walk is a pleasant riverside park that feeds the path into the bridge at Kingston. From thereon in you can cross the river to follow the path further into Teddington, Richmond and beyond.
AMENITIES
A wealth of pubs, shops and facilities abound at the start of this route around Hampton Court, but the walk itself is quite devoid of opt-outs until the next bridge at Kingston, so leave prepared and take a drink if it’s hot.
Kingston itself has a bustling centre, restaurants and cafes which are perfect for a post-wander refreshment. Hampton Court train station has links to London Waterloo and Clapham Junction via Surbiton and Wimbledon. The route from Kingston rejoins this line further up at New Malden, but most usefully also takes a route to Waterloo and Clapham Junction via Teddington, Richmond and Putney.
Of course, if you have 4 hours to kill on a sunny day, the riverboat ride all the way to Westminster runs from April to October with stops along the way.
You’d probably be quicker to run.