Before I moved back to London a few months ago, I didn’t really know much about the Marshes in East London. I’d heard of the Hackney Marshes, but I thought it was just somewhere to play football on a Sunday. My image of the place was influenced by the Nike advert (below) that was filmed there in the 90s, except without the famous footballers.

Discovering the Marshes properly – and realising that there’s so much more to the place than Sunday football matches – has been one of the most enjoyable aspects of my second-stint living in London. I spend a lot of time there now, whether I’m running, going for a walk, or using it as a quieter route to work.

Another escape from London within the city

I realised a while ago that a lot of my favourite places in London are those that actually trick you into thinking that you’ve escaped it. Don’t get me wrong, I do love the chaotic craziness of the place. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have spent nearly a decade of my life there. But sometimes you just need a break from London. And places like the Regent’s Canal and Hampstead Heath provide that. When you’re walking there it’s possible to forget that you’re in the middle of one of the largest cities on earth.

The Marshes in London offer a peaceful escape for the mind. Huge green spaces are flanked by winding paths that follow the curving canals on each side. The peace that you find there is only occasionally broken by the sound of a crane somewhere in the distance or the splashing of water downstream.

A few months ago I made an impromptu decision to sign up for the Great North Run. I’d thought about doing the race a few times over the years, and one evening I randomly saw an advert for it flash up on my laptop.

Why not, I thought.  

Running the Marshes

The next morning, however, the enormity of running a half-marathon actually dawned on me. I hadn’t been running seriously for years. I would have to train.

This is how I discovered the Marshes properly.

I’m currently living about five minutes away from the Marshes. Geese fly over the house in the evening as they make their way from one reservoir to another. Trees on the edges of the fields sway in the breeze outside my window.

I could run there, I thought. My limited experience of running in London years ago had taught me that running on pavements through crowds of passive aggressive Londoners and traffic fumes is no fun at all. I needed to find somewhere else. Somewhere quieter.   

So I slipped on my new running shoes and set off. Away from the sounds of the city and into a tunnel of green that leads down to the Walthamstow Marshes, which is one of several sections of the Marshes that run all the way from Tottenham in the north to the Olympic Park in the south.

The more I’ve run, the longer I’ve been able to run. And the longer I’ve been able to run, the more of the Marshes I’ve discovered.

Discovering new routes

When you run on the Marshes, you occasionally reach a gate or a turning in the path, which indicates that you’re about to reach the next section.

The first few times I came upon these places, I had no idea what lay beyond. And that’s a pretty amazing feeling to have in a city where you’ve lived for years. A city you feel like you know pretty well. It also made running much more interesting. At least for somebody like me who was pretty convinced that running was incredibly boring. Running on the Marshes, I felt like I was always discovering somewhere new.  

One evening I took one of these random turns into a new part of the Marshes I didn’t know before. Suddenly I was running alongside strange-shaped concrete blocks and iron contraptions jutting out from the ground. I discovered later that this area is called the Middlesex Filter Beds. Now a nature reserve, it was once a Victorian method for filtering and controlling the water in the canals.  

The Marshes as a microcosm of London

The wide-open green spaces of the Marshes seem to provide an accurate representation of the broad spectrum of London life. You hear a variety of languages spoken there. Locals walk their dogs and amble around slowly as if the Marshes were just an extension of their own garden. Those who live on the floating barges of the canals sit on the edge of the waterways in the morning and sip a coffee. And because of the location of the Marshes in East London, there are usually plenty of hipsters around.

On one morning run through the Marshes, I encountered the dying embers of an all-night rave in a half-hidden section, two horse riders galloping ahead of me in the distance, and a group of school kids and their teachers singing as they picked berries from the hedges. Fortunately, I don’t think any of these groups of people encountered one another.  

This summer the sun’s intense heat has scorched the Marshes, turning green into yellow. My morning runs there have become earlier and earlier in the hope of finding the odd cooling breeze. And my runs are now soundtracked by the chirping of thousands of crickets beneath the long, swaying grass.

I find it interesting that a part of London that until recently I knew next to nothing about has become one of my favourite parts of the city. It’s a discovery that has taught me to stay curious about London. What else is out there that I’ve missed?

The Wetlands

After all, I’m still discovering new places within the Marshes. The last few times I’ve gone running down toward the Walthamstow Marshes, I’ve noticed a gate on my right that leads into the Walthamstow Wetlands. However, it always seemed to be locked. I noticed on my way home last week that it only opens between 9.30am and 5.30pm – in other words, during this summer’s peak heat times.

This weekend I visited the Wetlands for the first time with my family. I discovered that Europe’s largest urban wetland area is just around the corner. It’s another incredibly peaceful place, with a variety of birds, geese and ducks skimming along the water and perching on the branches that overhang the reservoirs.  

The Walthamstow Wetlands have opened up an even longer running route for me now. And the routes around the Marshes are so varied and interesting that I think I might just carry on running there after the race in September.

It might actually be a bit cooler then, too.