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Thames Path: Westminster to Greenwich

The best long walk in London: the south bank end to end, flat, and almost never beside a road.

8 miles, 3 to 4 hoursWalks & routesViewsFree

The path at Greenwich, by the foot tunnel dome. Photo by Steve Daniels, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

County Hall, the Southbank Centre, Gabriel's Wharf, Tate Modern, the Globe, Borough Market, Tower Bridge and the warehouses of Shad Thames — and then the half nobody walks, which is the better half. Past Bermondsey the crowds thin out and the path runs round the Rotherhithe peninsula through old dock cuttings, past the Mayflower and the Brunel museum, then along Deptford Creek before Greenwich opens out with the Old Royal Naval College laid out in front of you.

The traffic is somewhere else for nearly all of it — you can cross the middle of London on foot without walking beside a moving car, which is not true of any other route this long. Where the path does join a street, for a few blocks around Rotherhithe and Deptford, it is a quiet one. The air off the water is the reason to do this rather than cover the same distance through town.

It is never far from a station, so it splits neatly: Westminster to Tower Bridge is a comfortable hour and a half, and the rest is another two. Do it east so the light is behind you and Greenwich is the reward at the end.

Where
Westminster Bridge to the Cutty Sark, along the south bank
Start
Westminster Bridge — Westminster or Waterloo
End
Cutty Sark, Greenwich — Cutty Sark DLR or Greenwich

Always open

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Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.

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