Who would believe...

…that this is London – about a mile from the leafy park I blipped on Tuesday. On my way to the course in Greenwich, I spotted this view from the train window, and decided to come back. This is near where the River Ravensbourne flows into the Thames. It’s tidal at this point (this is low tide!) and is called Deptford Creek.

In the Domesday Book of 1086, there are several windmills recorded nearby. Henry VIII established a Royal Navy Dockyard here in 1513 that remained until 1869. In 1581 Queen Elizabeth I knighted Sir Walter Raleigh on the Golden Hind in Deptford Royal Dockyard. In 1694, Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, spent 3 months here learning about modern European ship-building (and getting drunk and disorderly).

The area is starting to come up in the world again. Where the river flows into the Thames, round the corner from here, there are huge modern apartment blocks with fantastic views up to Tower Bridge and across to Canary Wharf. The colourful building you can just glimpse top left is the Laban Dance Centre. And, yes, those are swans asleep on the mud!