A walk around St. John's

Many moons ago, through some random googling, Brockley Jon stumbled across a home-made looking website which provided walking guides around the more interesting parts of London, with the south-east very well represented.

The walks on the site, London Footprints, are squarely aimed at those interested in finding out a little more about the origins of the area, and possibly seeing some hidden gems of pre-war architecture scattered amongst all the estates and urban sprawl.

A few weeks ago, Brockley Jon and the other half ventured out to try the St. John's walk.

Starting at the war memorial on Lewisham Way, we picked up the 3 mile loop about half-way round. The walk meanders through some of the lesser known bits of the St.John's and Lewisham Way area. The whole walk took about two hours, including a stop at the quirky and excellent Deptford Properly café gallery. Rather than recite the route, which you can read (and hopefully try for yourselves) here, we'll let the photos below do the talking.

Highlights that you may or may not know about already include the hidden gem of a road that is Somerset Gardens, with Beaufort Lodge sitting at its entrance, the wartime stretcher railings of Carrington House, and the timber framed shops of Tanners Hill.


The magnificent Barclays Bank building on Lewisham Way


The fantastic fairy-tale inspired Beaufort Lodge on Loampit Vale


The epic ship-like Cranbrook pub (anyone been in?)


All that is left of the once grand Pynes department store, now home to a bookies (typical)