Canal

Just after noon, we walked to Wimbledon, took a tube to Warwick Avenue, and walked around Paddington and Marylebone from the London Hidden Walk book. We left Warwick Avenue and turned down alongside the canal, where I could snap this picture of a custom-built canal boat that a friend used to live in. I don't think she owns it anymore, having headed out across the world in search of other boating adventures (although she is back in London next month for a catch-up). It was when we reached the bridge at Maida Vale that we realised we'd taken a wrong turn - which was not a great way to start the walk - and we retraced our steps and found our way to Westbourne Terrance Road Bridge - which was remarkably narrow for something named as a road bridge - and down onto the towpath to Little Venice. The book suggested that the name's origins are not known but might be attributed to Lord Bryon.

A walk along the towpath quite quickly takes you away from the blissful peace of the canal junction and the lovely townhouses to a more modern development at Paddington, with the Westway thundering overhead. It's quite a contrast with the area we'd just been in, where Richard Branson essentially started his empire from a boat. His name would come up in several other locations on the walk as he moved around in the early days of, I guess, what's become The Virgin Group.

Even with the Westway thundering above us, there's still a footbridge to cross the canal and come out the other side. We failed to spy much Welsh about St David's Welsh Church (the gates were locked), but the next church, St Mary's, is more prominent with what was the graveyard given over to more public spaces. Of note was the housing development next to the church named after Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin nearby.

Quite why nobody has turned the statue of the 18th-century Welsh actor Sarah Siddons away from facing the road and into the park is beyond me. Seems ridiculous. Apparently, her most famous role was Lady Macbeth in 1785. I am unsure when the statue was erected, but I guess the road came later. It takes a lot of work to get near. Turning it around would mean she was looking into Paddington Green: I know I didn't watch the early 2000s TV show named after the area, and I didn't know that London's first bus service ran from near here.