walk/tour
Outside Abbey Arms pub, (next to Abbey Wood Station, 31 Wilton Road
As a modernist 1960s development designed around extensive waterways and pedestrian routes, Thamesmead is also a perfect place for cycling. This cycle tour will take you deep into the 'Town of the 21st Century'. Highlights also include Grade I-listed Crossness Pumping Station and Lesnes Abbey ruins.
Abbey Wood
B11, 472, 469, 244, 229, 180
Tour End: Crossness Pumping Station. From there you can cycle the Thames Path to Woolwich Elizabeth Line Station or return via the artists' studios at the Lakeside Centre, on the way back to Abbey Wood Station - also open for the Open House Festival.
Participants must be competent riders and bring their own bicycle. Distance: 5 miles. Further 2 miles from the last stop at Crossness to cycle back to Abbey Wood. Toilets and refreshments will be available at Crossness. Thamesmead is mainly flat, although there will be a few short and gentle ascents. The route avoids main roads and utilises bike-suitable paths where possible.
Thamesmead has miles of canal, lake, parkland and riverside paths. Coupled with its pedestrian walkways separated from road traffic by the modernist 'streets in the sky' aesthetic, this makes Thamesmead the perfect location to explore by bike. Hailed in the 1960s as 'The Town of the 21st Century' you'll discover all about this utopian housing project built on soggy marshland. It was meant to house 60,000 Londoners desperately in need of decent housing following World War II. But by the 1970s the plan was faltering as an era of adventurous planning and public housing drew to an end.
A highlight of the tour will be to step into the magestic interior of Crossness, Thamesmead's Grade-I listed jewel (in a slightly stinky crown). We'll rewind a century back from Thamesmead's foundation to explore how in the 1860s London rose to the challenge of becoming the largest city the world had ever seen. There you'll find out about one of the most ambitious public works of modern times: London's sewer system.
We'll look at what lies in store for Thamesmead. Abbey Wood Station is now the terminus of the UK's newest railway – the Elizabeth Line – putting Thamesmead within 20 minutes of central London. At the other end of town, a DLR river crossing might unlock the last section of undeveloped riverside land in London, creating the potential for thousands of new homes. But with these plans has come redevelpoment - and large areas of the original brutalist estates are coming down to make way for new flats.
On the way we'll visit the 12th century ruins of Lesnes Abbey, learn about two Norman Foster-designed buildings that reflect the changing nature of the area, and search out the traces of the old Woolwich Arsenal site - which once extended across miles of what became Thamesmead.
This tour is led by a participant of Open City’s Golden Key Academy – a course training up insightful and engaging guides dedicated to explaining London and bringing its many stories to life. It is part of a wider collection of tour events created by Golden Key Academy guides for the Open House Festival celebrating their conclusion of the eight month course.
Further information on the Golden Key Academy can be found here https://open-city.org.uk/golden-key-academy
