My Local London: Richmond to Hampton Wick Riverside Walk

In my last podcast (#23) I started an occasional series called “My Local London” where I share some of the things about London that I find interesting, unusual and fun, as someone who has lived here for over 20 years. In that podcast, I talked about The Fourth Plinth on Trafalgar Square. Today, I’d like to share with you a riverside walk we did the other day from Richmond to Hampton Wick. I’m doing this by way of a written post instead of a podcast as I didn’t bring my digital recorder with me on the walk - and also, I’ll be including some directions about the walk so you may want to print out this post if you want to go on the walk yourself.

One of the best things about London is the River Thames, which bisects the city from West to East. You can walk along most of the Thames Path across Central London through some of the city’s most historic sites. You can also head out East towards the sea or West up towards the source. I’m particulary fond of the western segments from Hammersmith westwards. You can do most of them in short, manageable legs as there are many tube or train stations that make it convenient to walk along in half or full day chunks.

The walk we did this week started at Richmond station. Coming out of the station, turn left and walk along the high street (The Quadrant) full of shops, cafes and restaurants. Richmond has the feel of a lively, cosmopolitan - and affluent - town and you could spend quite awhile shopping in the upmarket boutiques and refreshing yourself with cappucinos and lingering over lunch. But we were out for fresh air and exercise so we strode past them all briskly, heading down The Quadrant until Duke Street where we turned right.

Duke Street open out onto Richmond Green. Walking diagonally left across the Green, you suddenly have a vast sense of space after the confines of your tube or train journey and the hustle and bustle of the high street. At the far corner, aim for Old Palace Lane, a cute little street of workers cottages that look like they have come straight out of Wordsworth’s Lake District - but no doubt costing millions these days!

At the bottom of Old Palace Lane, the river opens out to the left and right, with Twickenham Bridge on your right. Turn left and the footpath will now take you all the way to Hampton Wick, with the river on your right.

The route takes you past some lavish houses and flats on your left, with cafes spilling out onto the paved riverside walk. There were ice cream vans and scores of young kids and teenagers as well as young families and older couples mingling in this area between Twickenham Bridge and Richmond Bridge.

Once you pass Richmond Bridge and head onwards to Petersham Meadow, the scene becomes quieter and more rural. Up on the left, the red Gothic building of The Star and Garter nursing home for ex-servicemen and -women rises up over the meadow. The path gradually narrows as trees and shrubs now close in and it suddenly feels like you’re in the middle of the countryside, with very few other people but a few cyclists and other walkers.

This lovely rural section carries on for a few miles until you reach Teddington Lock, where smart apartment blocks appear on the far bank across the neatly tended lock. At this point, you can cross the footbridge to the other side and head towards Teddington Station but we stayed on the south bank and carried onwards towards Hampton Wick.

At Lower Ham Road, we came across a canoe club and several teams of school children learning to canoe in single kayaks and also a team of them in a double catamaran. It looked great fun to be careening through the water on such a bright clear day - although the kids were having some difficulty co-ordinating their strokes: they needed a big scary guy beating a drum Ben-Hur style, I reckon…

Just before Kingston Bridge, we found the Boaters Inn, an unexpected gastropub in a rather unprepossessing wooden building. Our feet were aching and we were ravenous so we stopped for a late lunch - and to our delight, the food was delicous, the portions were huge and the inside of the Inn has the feel of a modern brasserie! Between us, we checked out the fish and chips, fish pie, pan fried mackerel and grilled pork chop before diving into chocolate brownies and ice-cream, summer pudding and lemon cheesecake. Yum!

Moving on, we came to civilization at Kingston Bridge where there is a huge John Lewis! We didn’t tarry there for a shopping break as we would have liked but now headed to the north bank across the bridge for a stroll in Hampton Palace Park, which is free and not connected to the palace itself these days. Back in the day, though, it would have formed part of Hampton Court Palace grounds, as signified by the landscaped water feature and fountain in the park that draws your eye to the eastern facade of the palace in the far distance. As we meandered through the long grass, we came across herds of deer that glanced up curiously at us, descendants from the deer that Henry VIII used to hunt here.

The original plan had been to walk all the way along the river to Hampton Court train station but after just over 8 miles, we were flaked so we headed to Hampton Wick station which was nearer and headed back Waterloo (trains are every 20 mins or so and journey time is about 30 minutes).

The map of our walk is below - click on it to go to a detailed view with mileage in Google Pedometer: