IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Rockbourne Road, LONDON, SE23 2DD

These fine old houses will by now have been converted into flats. This is the A205 South Circular, a busy through route. On street parking is out of the question.

This bend illustrates how there is no such actual road as the South Circular. Instead it connects adjacent A roads between Kew Bridge and Woolwich Ferry, and where there were none then widens local residential roads such as this one. In fact this is not a real bend on a road, but a junction where the existing roads were widened to fit in the new A road whenever it was built. Local interest groups have ensured the South Circular never becomes a dual carriageway or loses any of its traffic lights unlike the gradual (but far from total) transformation of its northern counterpart, which included an entirely new stretch at almost motorway speed along the river Roding through East Ham in the 1990s, where it had previously fizzled out into passing through town centres like these to the south.

Having passed one 'dead pub' on my walk, seeing all the boards outside advertising various attractions, gave me the confidence to march up to the front door of this establishment - to find it firmly locked! This at 12:20 on a warm Thursday! The first rule in my 'how to keep a pub open' is: 1. Sell beer, whenever the Law allows and the custom offers.

This stretch is Sunderland Road, both where I am standing and the road beyond. Stanstead Road is ahead in the distance, running left to right past the Balm of Gilead Church Image Spot the white vans near the church, following the road round. It demonstrates very well the twisting, improvised nature of the South Circular, which has been cobbled together out of what were once suburban side streets.

Waldram Park Road.

On the junction of the A205 Sunderland Road (on the left) and Stanstead Road (on the right).