It was a grey, damp February morning when we set off from
Brent Cross in north London to follow the Dollis Valley Greenwalk as far as
Woodside Park. It had been raining the night before – the paths were muddy and
the stream was in full spate, carrying fallen branches and debris downstream.
But everywhere were early signs of spring. Crocuses were pushing their way up
through the carpet of leaves and nestled under the trees some tiny double
snowdrops had emerged.
Birds were out too, paddling through the water in
search of food.
We even spotted an egret.
The Greenwalk runs for about ten miles through much of the valley,
linking areas of countryside and public spaces. It’s now surrounded by London
suburbs, but you can still get glimpses of what the area was once like. The Abbots
of Westminster had property there by 1284 AD, and the Decoy Ponds, at the north
end of Brent Park, are thought to be remnants of a lake created by them as a duck
decoy.
In the 18th century a stuccoed
mansion, Brent Bridge House, later the seat of the Whishaw family, was built
just north of the stream next to Decoy Wood, and some of it
survived as part of the Brent Bridge Hotel. By the bridge are two picturesque but rather dilapidated pavilions that may have heralded the
entrance to the property.
An Ordnance Survey map of 1900 shows both the mansion and, on the south side of the stream, Brook Lodge, once
a farmhouse but converted to a gentleman’s residence by Charles Whishaw shortly
before 1828. It was demolished in 1935, after serving as an annex to the hotel.
Following the Dollis (now a brook) north, we came to the 13-arched viaduct that soars up 60 feet above Dollis Rd and is the highest point on the London Underground system. It was built
in 1863 as part of the Edgware, Highgate and London Railway and originally
provided a link to the rail network for steam trains. A triumph of Victorian
engineering, it is still in service, now carrying Underground trains on the Northern Line to Mill
Hill East.
Windsor Park is also part of the Greenwalk. There we found a memorial
stone to Flying Officer Kenneth Charles Legge, of 571 Squadron. A former resident
of Village Rd, Finchley, he took off from RAF Oakington in Cambridgeshire on
Feb 6 1945, piloting a Mosquito plane on a bombing mission to Berlin. But that
was the last time he was seen – he and his plane vanished without trace.
The
memorial was erected by his mother, Mary Elizabeth Legge. A Google search
reveals that it was a second tragedy for the family - Kenneth Legge’s wife,
Ruby, had been among the hundreds killed in a devastating bombing raid on
Manchester on December 23, 1940.
To the north of Windsor Park, still following the
Dollis, are the Fursby Avenue allotments. It was encouraging to see evidence of
dedicated gardeners having being hard at work, despite the weather, and at least
one walker in our group left determined to go home and get to work in the garden, repairing some of the winter's ravages.
