Hurlingham

It's pretty clear that effort has been made into making the Thames riverfront an accessible place to everyone. Throughout London, you've got all these random little signs pointing you towards Thames Walks and Jubilee Walks and there's that whole South Bank situation. In my neck of the woods this plan of attack runs into two big glitches: Craven Cottage and the Hurlingham Club.

Craven Cottage isn't a cottage. It's a football stadium, home of the Fulham Football Club, and it essentially abuts the river. So you don't really blame them. Plus they've been there for over a hundred years.

Hurlingham has also been in its present location for over a hundred years but they're just being snobby. They just don't want to let you walk through their land because a) they're better than you and b) the members have paid good money and waited a long time to get access to that land for themselves. To back track momentarily, the Hurlingham Club is a 'sports' club for people with too much money who are willing to be placed on a waiting list for 15 years before being allowed membership.

To back track even more, the club was founded in the latter half of the 19th century as a place to shoot pigeons. Don't ask me how this can be considered a sport, you just drop some bread crumbs and they come flocking. Or perhaps these were smarter pigeons? One of the early patrons was a Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), which generally means they can charge more money for membership. The club later evolved to include polo, and Hurlingham was apparently the 'home' of polo (meaning they got to make up the rules) up until the second world war. In their effort to provide a home for every soldier, the local council, um, requisitioned the polo ground and put up some ugly council housing. Alas, no more polo at Hurlingham. However, they do still play bowls and have both indoor and outdoor swimming pools on their 42 acre spread. There are rumors of a fancy club house in there somewhere, but you can't see it from the street!

So if you find yourself casually strolling along the river in Fulham, be prepared to come across a giant walled-off hurdle. And thanks to the quick thinking of the council, to get back to the river on the other side you get to walk by some ugly now ex-council houses.