London’s Green Chain walk connects over three hundred parks and open spaces in the south-eastern part of the metropolis. It extends from Erith in the east to Crystal Palace in the west with branches to Thamesmead, Nunhead, Beckenham and Charlton and offers a great chance to stroll in surprisingly rural parts of one of the world’s great cities linking up with other paths such as the Capital Ring.
(see also my post in Italian at https://longoio3.com/2019/07/10/londra-selvaggia/)
Originally set up in 1977 to protect open spaces from being built on the Green chain is a walk I know rather well since a branch of it starts near my home in the Royal Borough of Greenwich.
Though never done completely in one go I’ve covered all the route taking different sections at different times. During the recent UK heat wave I decided I’d head for one of its most idyllic stretches. There is a marvellous compendium of woods stretching from Frank’s Park near Erith to Bostall Woods including Oxleas, well-known for its bluebells and Lesnes Abbey with its spectacular wild daffodils.(For pictures of these see my post at https://longoio3.com/2020/04/06/daffodils/)
London’s Coronation church, Westminster Abbey, is known throughout the world. However, in pre-reformation times the city had many other abbeys which are now sadly either in ruins or have completely vanished.
Ruined Lesnes Abbey is on the Green Chain walk and is surrounded by an extensive forest appropriately called Abbey Woods.
1178 saw the foundation of the Abbey of Saint Mary and Saint Thomas the Martyr in Lesnes by Richard de Luci, chief executioner of England. It was built as a penance for the murder of Thomas Becket, in which he was involved.
(Murder of St Thomas a Becket)
In 1179, de Luci resigned from his office and retired to the abbey, where he died three months later and was buried in the chapter house.
It is interesting to note that the first part of the pilgrim route known in Italy as the Via Francigena passes from London to Canterbury where pilgrims visited Saint Thomas Becket’s tomb, a journey that gave rise to Chaucer’s wonderful book of tales and Pasolini’s film. Lesnes abbey never became a large community and Cardinal Wolsey closed it down in 1525 by a law for the closure of monasteries with fewer than seven monks. It was one of the first to be suppressed after the dissolution of the monasteries in 1534. The abbey is surrounded by parkland and an ornamental garden known as the monks’ nursery.
(Pilgrim statue carved from a tree trunk in Lesnes Abbey)
I especially like the way the Abbot’s symbol, the shepherd’s crook, is weaved into various elements of the monks’ garden:
Even though Lesnes Abbey is in a state of extreme ruin, its various sections can easily be distinguished.
The church:
the principal cloister:
the chapter house:
the refectory:
the dormitory and the library in which the Lesnes Missal, now in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, was located.
Every time I visit Lesnes Abbey I think of those lines from Shakespeare’s seventy third sonnet:
‘Bare ruin’d choirs where late the sweet birds sang’.
However, I’m glad to say that once a year the parishes and clergy of the Roman Catholic deaneries of Bexley and Greenwich organise a procession of the Blessed Sacrament in the Abbey ruins, bringing them to new life. The procession would have been in June this year but has unfortunately had to be cancelled because of the pandemic.
I continued my woodland walk passing various interesting features: the chalk pit which once supplied building material but is now securely fenced off because of the danger of its very steep slopes:
The fossil beds where one can spend a happy time uncovering sand sharks’ teeth dating from the cretaceous era:
A large pond, with an unfortunate tree collapsed upon it.
The path is well sign-posted and maintained.
Eventually I emerged from the cool woodland and found myself entering a broad heath and the heat again.
Why certain idiots travel miles to find a crammed place on a beach flouting every health and safety measure imposed during this pandemic crisis when near to their home they can find the most beautiful and unpopulated open spaces I shall never know!
PS If you read Italian there’s more on Lesnes Abbey with extra pictures in my post at: