76km London to Rochester
The Queen Elizabeth Bridge, Dartford
Ride Overview
The land between the castles
Four castles, two cathedrals, an endless supply of river views and a vast sky-filled landscape, would make any ride special. Add magnificent ships plying the river, the silver veins of light-caught ditches threading through rough pastures, the salty air and the largely flat and traffic-free riding, and you have all the ingredients to make this a truly stunning day out. The ride on mixed surfaces, is an edgy one - passing former industrial sites, docks, scrap metal places, and empty marshes. For those who love the fantastical juxtaposition of urban countryside and industry the route to Rochester is a real treat of a ride.
Route revised and updated January 2023 and again in September 2023
Part of the Guided Rides series 2024
Ride Practicalities
START/FINISH: The Tower of London/Rochester Castle DISTANCE: 101km. TOTAL ASCENT: 676m TERRAIN AND SURFACES: A quiet mix of traffic-free cycle paths and good gravel tracks. FOOD AND DRINK: Erith; Greenwich Pantry, Gravesend; Marie’s Tea Room, Upper Upnor, The Tudor Rose, Rochester; The Cheese Room Deli
MAIN TRAIN SERVICES: Fenchurch Street, Thames Gateway/DLR, Erith, Gravesend and Rochester LINKS TO OTHER RIDES: Greenwich to Hampton Court, Chiswick to Greenwich, Slade Green to Waltham Abbey, NCN 1, North Sea Cycle Route
Ride Notes
Hopefully, as you stand facing the de-bloodied walls of the Tower of London you will not be quaking with fear, as Britons a thousand years ago would have done, had they been standing here, newly subjugated and conquered. It is hard to imagine now, that the World Heritage Site and icon of Britishness, was an awful thing. Perhaps it has mellowed with age as the Reigate stone walls begin to crumble and Piet Oudolf wildflower planting in the moat, have had something to do with the change from stronghold to military ornament.
Leaving the Tower you ride across Tower Bridge (where there are no protected bike lanes) before turning onto Tooley street and the new C4, a superb traffic-free cycleway to Greenwich. Once beside the Cutty Sark, (formerly the world’s fastest clipper), you ride through the UNESCO World Heritage Old Royal Naval College and onto the Greenwich Peninsula. From glorious Baroque, you pass a Gothic set of Almshouses, a former power station, an eco park, a sailing club and the Angerstein Wharf. Here many millions of tons of sea-dredged aggregates are landed which form an essential core for much of London’s buildings, including the Olympic Park and Arsenal Football stadium. It’s a taste - literally as the air is often full of dust - of a former London - industrial, sea-facing, docklands.
The entirely traffic-free route narrows as it twists and turns around creeks and wharves, some of which are being regenerated into glassy homes. It’s an atmospheric place of noise, dust, joggers, a golf driving range, and impressive modern architecture. Also on the route are various installations which together form The Line, the UK’s only public art walk - linking Greenwich to Stratford. You’ll see Anthony Gormley’s ‘Quantum, Gary Hume’s ‘Liberty Grip’ and Richard Wilson’s, ‘Slice of Reality’.
A few pedal-turns later, on a wide and smooth cyclepath beside the ever-fascinating Thames, you arrive at the Woolwich Arsenal, one of the nation’s most important military and industrial sites. For over two centuries these wonderfully severe buildings were the heart of British military ordinance manufacture. The site is has been converted into flats and it must be strange to live in a place where so many weapons of war were made. Once you have passed the old cannons pointing across the river, the route takes on a very different appearance. The flat marsh land becomes wilder and the Thames grows wider. The air is saltier, the ships larger, the horizons no longer hemmed in by the city. The riding is easy and relaxed and you may spot several of the 4,000 or so seals which live in the river.
At Erith, you leave Greater London and ride into Kent, where the paved paths end. Until Greenhithe, the riding is on a selection of gravel/dirt paths.After rain the narrow path around the Crayford and Dartford marshes can be muddy and the track alongside the Thames can be bumpy. Both are cycle-able (the Crayford Marshes section is part of the National Cycling Network). It’s a lovely ride, providing you are prepared to cycle on some mixed surfaces. The landscape is dramatic with huge skies, rustling reeds and rough pastures where semi-wild horses roam. After all the busy-ness of London this is a haven of creeks, reeds and peace. Not that it was always so. You’ll see remnants of sheds and buildings as you ride across the marshes, which are the remains of munitions and gunpowder factories.
From Dartford, the route returns to the river on an old tramway, which brought small pox victims to the Joyce Green Isolation Hospital. Once back beside the silvered Thames, the riding continues on a rough track, past the former Littleworth Power station, now an Amazon distribution centre. The highlight of this section is riding under the spectacular Queen Elizabeth bridge. Soon, you’re into the old estuary towns of Greenhithe, Swanscombe and Northfleet which are quietly being transformed with new and salubrious housing. This used to be an area very much ‘out of sight, out of mind’ where housing was wretched and the rule of law absent. These have been industrial areas since Roman times, where chalk and lime have been dug and cement made. You continue riding on protected cycleways through the industrial areas which are amusingly attractive in a gritty sort of way. Cliffs, disused quarries now filled with water, chimneys belching white smoke and decaying jetties are all part of the charm. And on the river enormous ships ride the tides.
With a modicum of relief, you arrive in Gravesend whose centre is one of the prettiest of all Thames-side towns with its weatherboarded buildings climbing the hill of the High Street. The town makes for a good half-way stop and whether its sandwiches overlooking the busy Tilbury port across the river, or a sit down lunch in Marie’s Tea Rooms, a break before the Hoo is not a bad thing.
The Hoo is a beguiling landscape of salt-marsh and low hills which separates the waters of the Thames from the Medway. Light-silvered veins of water-filled ditches spread across the green grass. Sometimes the wind tears off the storm-flecked estuary, at other times there is a serene hush and stillness. The contrast to the former industrial sites of the Thames could not be more pronounced, for you ride past apple orchards and strawberry farms. You may well pass groups from Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and other central Asian lands who are here on temporary visas to pick fruit. Their accomodation in crumbling static caravans is pretty grim and is a salutary reminder of the human ‘cost’ of our fruit.
From the hills, it’s pretty much downhill all the way to Rochester. Upton, the last village of the ride, with its cobbled street, pubs, weatherboarded homes and castle is the sort of place that is hard to ride through without stopping. The Tudor Rose, half way down the highstreet is an especially atractive and traditional pub. Rochester is just across the bridge, so once you’ve had your pint/lunch/supper, ride on and cross the Medway on a protected cycle path, noting as you do the listing Russian submarine in the estuary.
The route cannot decide where to finish; beside the towering Norman castle, or at the great West door of the Norman cathedral, or at the Cheese Shop and Deli half-way down the bunting bestrewn high street. All three require your attendance, but that might depend on the times of your train back into London, and your energy levels at the end of a long and magnificent day.
Every route on this website has been carefully researched as well as ridden. However situations on the ground can change quickly. If you know of changes to this route, or cafes, pubs and the like which you think other cyclists need to know about, feel free to share your thoughts below.
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