Walking the London towpaths
The IWA Towpath Talks Society is restarting some of its popular walks in line with current Government Covid-19 guidelines. Roger Wilkinson describes how they first started and the steps made since then.
THE Inland Waterways Association’s Towpath Walks were started in 1977 by IWA member Dr Michael Essex-Lopresti.
He went on a guided walk along the towpath at Little Venice and later made some comments to the IWA, including a suggestion that if they could run a guided walk here, this would be better. They agreed, and nominated him to run it!
The first walks went from Camden to Little Venice. Following the initial success, more walk routes were started, covering the length of the Regent’s Canal.
Many walkers are pleasantly surprised to find what they see as a different world here, compared to ‘street-level’ London.
Since the mid-1990s, the IWA has collaborated with London Walks to continue these walks. The guides are volunteer IWA members, who are all waterway or boating enthusiasts.
Customers come from all backgrounds and from all over the world. Waterway enthusiasts from the Midlands, American airline pilots, Norwegian geologists and German architects have all enjoyed a walk along the Regent’s Canal.
More recently, the IWA has broadened its horizons. Now, 20 different routes in the London area include parts of the Grand Union Canal and the former Grand Surrey Canal.
We guide these walks, partly because we enjoy showing people what’s there, and partly to raise funds for waterway projects, both in the London area and nationwide.
We have now guided more than 16,000 walkers and have raised more than £48,000 for the IWA.
What do we find to talk about on these walks?
Naturally, the story of the Regent’s canal is intertwined with the architecture and the heritage. Happily, quite a bit of heritage has survived.
It may seem surprising to be passing a series of Regency villas in one of London’s Royal Parks – but how many canal schemes were driven forward by a leading London architect with royal connections?
Along the canal and around its basins, quite a few of the warehouses and factories of the canal’s old customers have been internally remodelled for modern-day uses.
For instance, the Granary Building near King’s Cross, built for transshipping grain into waiting barges, has become a campus of the University of Arts London. Nearby, the ice warehouse of Carlo Gatti, a regular customer of the canal, is now the London Canal Museum.
Wildlife is thriving along the canal. At
St Pancras, an old coal depot was totally removed to create the Camley Street Natural Park. Surrounded by trees and plants, its information centre keeps a log of over a hundred species of birds which use the canal as a ‘fly-way’.
The villages and communities the canal passes have fascinating histories.
Little Venice has been home to many well-known poets, authors, singers, actors and actresses. Madonna and Joan
Collins lived here, while Robert Browning is remembered at Browning’s Pool.
At Hampstead Road Lock, the canal passes through part of Camden Market. Some of the market’s buildings were originally built for customers of the canal.
There is much more one could say about the canal – but, better still – we hope you can come on one of our walks!
For walk dates see the monthly listings (panel above).