Bexley to Petts Wood

Finally, after more or less kicking my cold, I was able to go walking again yesterday to tackle another segment of the London LOOP. This one went a little more than seven miles from Bexley, in southeast London, westward to Petts Wood.

I came across a field of dead sunflowers, their seedy heads hanging. "You should have seen them two weeks ago," said some guys who happened to walk past while I was taking this photo. "The whole field was gold!"

I passed the Five Arch Bridge over the River Cray, a "much rebuilt" historic structure dating from 1781.

Then, in the community of Footscray, I passed this very tired (and well-camouflaged) cat.

I also passed the medieval Scadbury Manor, the moated ruins of a manor house dating back to the 1200s. In the 1400s, the powerful Walsingham family replaced an earlier wooden home on this site with one of brick, but a later owner pulled the whole thing down in the 1700s. It was partly rebuilt in the 1930s, and all that's left now (besides the moat) are some reconstructed chimneys and foundations, as well as some newer outbuildings.

From there the path led into Petts Wood, a National Trust woodland full of natural curiosities like this tree, which seems to have fallen over some time in the past and regrown from its collapsed trunk! You can't keep a good tree down.

I finished my walk in the community of Petts Wood, where I stopped at a cafe and had an excellent vegetarian English breakfast -- although it was by now something like 2 p.m. I had a quick wander through town and then caught a train home!