please empty your brain below

Oh dg, my cup runneth over!
To paraphrase Joni Mitchell- look what they've done to my town, Ma..............
Great blog DG. Have you thought about tracing the Victorian London Sewerage system in the same way?

This would be especially fitting on the 200th anniversary year of it's designer, Joseph Bazalgette;
Excellent, given the canal still existed within living memory - bit like the docks in general, they're people still about who are bewildered by the pace of development, pretty much everything you remember from when you were younger has disappeared.

Long rambling message on railway bridge - why Surrey?, mostly go to overseas TWATS.
This is the sort of blog that I enjoy the most DG. It would have a mystical quality if you were to follow the route to Epsom (or even Portsmouth, Southampton!).
It's actually Evelyn Street (not road) and is named after the 17th century diarist John Evelyn. I imagine the name The Timberyard comes from being the former location of Parker Timber (where an uncle of mine worked for a number of years).
I'm sure I once came across a site, telling the story of the canal's decline and including photos of it in its latter years and ultimately being filled in.
Updated, thanks.

The name The Timberyard comes from "the timber trade that once thrived along the route of the Grand Surrey Canal".
Excuse my ignorance but what is "contractually-empty".
If people from Surrey can't buy property on the Surrey Canal, who can?

They're just 130 years out of date.
If I was one of those terrible pedants, I'd point out that a "swing bridge" is one that pivots horizontally, and that magnificent red bridge is a rolling bascule bridge. This wikipedia page has a charming set of animations of different moving bridges.
Great post with great links, thanks. Looking forward to Part II.

Part of the route is shared with the exemplary Quietway 1

It’s such nice route that I time certain business meetings in Bermondsey and Deptford to be on the same day so as to enjoy a 1/4-hour peddle from SE1 to SE8 that weaves a couple of miles through the interesting railway lands without a single traffic light to intervene.
'Contractually empty' is such a useful phrase that describes much of modern life.

For some reason Fearne Cotton comes first to mind. But that might just be my medication wearing off.
Thanks DG, lovely report. By chance I ran this route today as I live nearby; it captures so much of the change that has happened in the area (of which I am part, of course).

A little piece of trivia regarding timber, next to the basin at the Peckham remains an excellent timber yard, Whitten Timber, whose roots can be traced back to the long-gone canal. The owners have a mildly interesting history display inside their modern building. Plus board cutting while you wait.
I first read it as the Grand Slurry Canal. Ugh.










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