Charlton Park is an obvious place for a parkrun as it is along the iconic world-famous London Marathon route. It was previously part of the Charlton Manor estate built in 1746. Over the years part of Manor was sold off culminating with the Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich buying Charlton House and the remaining 108 acres of grounds in 1925. The running track was removed around 2000 but some might say they’ve upgraded with a parkrun that started on 02/10/2021 🙂
The London Marathon starts at Blackheath just up the road with runners streaming past Charlton House with hoards of local supporters cheering on both sides of the road. With the London Marathon, starting in 1981, bringing out so many supporters, it’s a wonder that Charlton parkrun took so long to start.
It’s a two-lap clockwise course predominantly on grass going to Charlton cemetery before coming back towards Charlton House, built in the Jacobean Renaissance architectural style. It’s very grand to run towards.
By coincidence, our friend and Burgess parkrun regular, Nick Sutcliffe, whom we had bumped into at Sutcliffe parkrun in February, had also decided to visit Charlton Parkrun. As with Sutcliffe previously, Nick had run to the event whilst we’d taken the bus 😀
Not only was this a newish London parkrun counting towards the LonDone challenge, it also represented the final ‘C’ needed for me to complete the Pirates challenge. The Pirates challenge is to run 7 parkruns starting with the letter ‘C’ and one starting with the letter ‘R’ 🙂
Despite 26m of elevation and the course being on grass, the grandeur of Charlton House lifted my spirits and spurred me on to a sub 20min 5k, my first of the season away from my home parkrun at Burgess Park.
With the sun streaking through we decided to have tea at Charlton House on the patio facing the park. The house with historical Royal connections is now run by the Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust with a museum collection and an archive. And behind the orangery is a mulberry tree which has achieved ‘Great Tree’ status as determined by tree planting charity Trees for Cities. You can buy the book by clicking on this link Great Trees of London.
I wonder how many more of the Great Trees of London are close to parkruns?
Happy running
Interesting. Must go one day!