Canal

In 1809 there was a canal that connected the southernmost part of London to the heart of the city in and around Deptford. The system of locks went right through Honor Oak Park which then was still in the country. It was Kent back then (or was it Surrey?) and after all the forests were cleared to build the fleet that discovered (or to invade?) the new world the land was given over to agriculture and farming. It was one of those idyllic ‘green and pleasant’ land type vistas – you know the kind that you saw during the opening ceremonies of The Olympic Games with all the sheep, the cricket games and the English weather. Actually it just occurred to me that they forgot to have a fox hunt as well. Yeah, get some blood sport in there. A great ‘idyllic’ English pastime! Anyway back to our wandering canal. For some bizarre reason the route of the canal decided to go against the local geography which meant that just before Honor Oak Park (if you were travelling south in a sedate manner on a barge) you needed to go through 6 locks to go UP the hill at One Tree Hill. Now why would your friendly local canal architect actually want to go UP? The lay of the land at this point dictates that you would continue along a more level geography (as is currently followed by the train) through HOP and on to Forest Hill. So anyway, just slightly north of our current Honor Oak Park Station there are the remains of the lock keepers cottage buried there under the weeds and trees. Perhaps in another 100 years or so somebody might dig it all up and marvel at the stupidity of 19^th century man and his quest to go up hills in narrow boats. I don’t have to point out of course that the canal went out of business because if the impractical war against physics and the advent of coal powered steam locomotives, demand for cheaper and faster transport into the centre of London and the rise of the restless, hungry and expanding Victorian age.

So it was goodbye to all this:

And hello to all this: