Wednesday 30 October
From Acton to Hounslow, inspired by a walk suggested by John Rogers in This Other London.
I wanted to go West because everything seems to go East.
West is home. Was home.
I started at Gunnersbury House, once home to royalty and the Rothschilds, now a museum. The paint is peeling off the facade.
I walked over the golf course, through the park, behind the M4. Cars.
The museum shows the industry in the local area, which was an industrial hub in the 1930s. This area was then what the City is to us now.
There are still many corporations in this graveyard of Art Deco.
Glaxo-Smith-Kline next to a church, a motel stuck onto an old pub, Big Yellow Storage or Mercedes Benz opposite Gilette.
The walk was 6 hours long.
Escaping the motorway, I turned off into a residential area, where the planes were flying 40m above my head.
Then I turned East – home.