London's Crocus carpets — Where my wheels go

Crocuses in St. James's Park, Westminster — Crocuses in St. James’s Park, Westminster

London’s crocus carpet

Snowdrops get plenty of press, daffodils too, but somehow the colourful crocus, whose season fits between the two are overlooked. If you were to choose one of those bright, shiny days when winter is quietly morphing into spring, when the snowdrops are nearly done and the daffodils still tight in bud, you’ll wonder how you could have ignored the millions of mauve, white and Tyrian purple goblets for so long. The first half of the ride explores the carpets of over a million Crocus tommasinianus in the south-west, whilst the second half in central Royal Parks, shows off the hybrid’s vibrant colour mix of oranges, purples and white. Between the two are some delightful passages of cycling through Richmond Park and beside the river Thames where the soft light of a lengthening day calms the soul.
Crocuses apart, the route is a lovely and relaxing ride through the parks and streets of SW and Central London passing many wonderful sights along the way, including Chelsea Football Club, Brompton Cemetery, Westminster Abbey and the historic Smith Square in Westminster. Marked on the route are some excellent eating and drinking places too - from possibly the best hot-chocolate stop in London to the trailblazer of London’s craft beer revolution.

Hyde Park

Crocuses in a West London garden

Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew

St. James's Park

Cannizaro Park, Wimbledon

Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew

Crocus tommasinianus

Ride practicalities
START/FINISH: Wimbledon/Battersea DISTANCE: 57km for the full loop or 44km if you finish in Battersea TOTAL ASCENT: 346m TERRAIN AND SURFACES: Rough path on Wimbledon Common, hard packed track in Richmond Park and beside the Thames, bike lanes and traffic-free paths MAINLINE TRAIN SERVICES: Wimbledon/Battersea Park Station/Queensbury Road LINKS TO OTHER RIDES: Parks and Heaths, Riding in Arcadia RECOMMENDED FOOD AND DRINK;

The route can be shortened, to become an almost traffic-free ride around the parks of SW London. This is a particularly good route for the first half of the crocus season, when the C. tomassinianus are in full flower
The Crocus tomassinianus bloom earlier than the hybrids, so it is worth considering doing the SW half of the ride as a separate ride - Cannizaro, Ham House, Kew Gardens.

Ride Notes
It is very lovely on the heights above London, surrounded by the heathland of Wimbledon. The freneticism of the city seems a long away as great tits, finches and robins sing in the trees. The Common has many surprises, including a windmill, lakes and a stylish Georgian house along with its estate. Until the leaseholder inherited a Sicilian Dukedom in 1832, Cannizaro House had the less exotic name of Warren House. The mansion is now a private hotel, but the grounds are owned by the Council. The lawns are crocus-covered in a sea of mauve and silver; the colour you’d find inside a mussel shell.

The Charity which owns the commons, the Wimbledon and Putney Commons Conservators, are a pretty officious bunch when it comes to cycling across London’s largest open space. There are only two paths where cycling is permitted, and even here pedestrians are given priority. No matter, the riding is pretty through woods and across heaths before going downhill beside the Beverley Brook into Richmond Park.

As you ride through the park on the hard-packed cycle path around the park’s perimeter, you’ll see the gnarled forms of ancient oaks, which were already venerable when Charles I sequestered the park for his deer. From the park, you are soon into Ham with one of the country’s grandest Stuart houses. The lawn has been restored into its original eight plats - grass squares divided by pathways - and have been planted with over half a million ‘tommies’ as horticulturalists are want to call Crocus tommasinianus, and the effect of this purple haze against the majestic brickwork of the house is one of London’s finest springtime sights. Although the bulbs do very well in England, they are native to the Balkans, Turkey, and the mountains around the mediterranean.

Taking the river path, you ride through one of London’s loveliest landscapes; a poetic mix of woods, the river, vast lawns and great houses. ‘Villages’ such as Isleworth with their pubs and church towers, and graceful riverside Georgian homes are all part of the delight. After Putney Bridge, you head in-land as it were, into the heart of London along quiet ways to Kensington Gardens. The way to the crocus fields is along the ‘Route du Roi’, Anglicised to ‘Rotten Row’, which links Kensington Palace to St. James’s. At this time of the year, the Horseguards are often practising their manoeuvres along the sandy horse track , their breastplates reflecting the sun like a hundred mirrors. Parakeets add the illusion of some tropical warmth to the winter sun as they screech and dive through the trees.

The crocus hybrids you see in Hyde Park and later in St. James’s Park, have been developed from the corms which arrived from Turkey in the 16th century. Whilst they never reached the heights of the 18th tulip-mania, crocus corms were still highly prized and very expensive and, rather than be planted outside in parklands, they were placed in specially made crocus pots, manufactured by firms such as Wedgewood and displayed inside.

As you ride towards Hyde Park Gate, take the cycle lane up towards Marble Arch, where you’ll swathes of colour stretching up beside Park Lane. In St. James’s Park, follow the bees to the nectar-rich blooms to the eastern end, opposite the Foreign Office. And just in case it had crossed your mind that here was a valuable source of saffron - a spice more costly than gold - it may come as a disappointment that the saffron crocus is not grown in this country and worse, the stigmas in these hybridised plants are mildly toxic.

You leave St. James’s Park, and weave a route through the historic gas-lit streets of Westminster, through Vincent Square and Smith Squares, before crossing the river once again. Battersea Park was created from reclaimed marshland in the mid-nineteenth century and became the centre piece of the 1953 Festival of Britain’s pleasure grounds. In the last twenty years the gardens have been much restored including the planting of several thousand crocuses at the western end. In the late-winter sun the spicy scent and sweetness of winter shrubs carries across the carriageway which encircles the park. It is a delightful way to finish this celebration of early spring’s less heralded flowers.