Feet First Walking

 

I got the idea for this walk from a booklet I found on my shelves that I forgot I even had! the booklet is called Rural Walks Around Richmond, published by the RA Richmond Group in 1995. It has taken to now for me to do a walk from it.

 

St. John's Church is a short walk from Hampton Wick station. The gates lead into Bushy Park and the walk goes up and around the perimeter of Hampton Wick Cricket Club.

 

Bushy park starts to open up near to Hampton Wick CC.

 

The trees beside Chestnut Avenue.

 

A fine oak tree displaying its autumn colours.

 

The Willow Plantation.

 

The Waterhouse Plantation.

 

Here's a picture of my lunch-date.

 

One thing I hadn't taken into account when starting this walk was it probably wasn't the best place to be in the middle of the rutting season. My idea had been to take less trodden paths, but if you look at my track there are various places where I had to take sharp detours to avoid stags defending their hareem. Best not to get too close and stick close to trees where possible.

 

I took a walk around the gardens before passing in front of Hampton Court Palace and onto the Thames Path.

 

Looking back to Hampton Court Bridge.

 

The avenue of trees beside the Long Water.

 

Looking down the trees with Long water on the left.

 

Looking up Long Water to the Palace. At this point the weather was quite wet and in general it wasn't a great day for taking pictures.