So after the record breaking hot temperatures that hit the UK this week it was great to be back running in the capital in refreshing summer rain at Hanworth, West London, shear heaven!

Aviation Past

This weeks parkrun was based at Hanworth park has a very interesting history including the park was also know as London Air park being once a grass airfield that was operational from 1917-19 and 1929-47

Would have been great to be there when the land was used as an airfield and seeing the mighty Graf Zeppelin airship land on this site!

Saving History

Soon as I arrived it became clear the rightful passion Hanworth parkrun community had for saving the parks historic Hanworth Park House from collapse!

The current house was built after the original Henry VII Hanworth palace hunting lodge burnt down in 1787 and with the work finishing on the new house in 1802.

I hope their mission is 100% successful to bring Hanworth Park house back to it’s former glory for the local community to enjoy and the dream of starting their parkrun event each week in front of this iconic building is achieved, all the best guys!!!!!

50 Not Out

I would just like to wish a big well done the my top buddy Martin Ball who run his 50th different parkrun event at Hanworth and the funny thing was we only found out on the drive back home 🙂

Martin it has been my pleasure to have you as a running buddy on my tourist adventures, you bring sunshine to every event you attend and being there for me in the darkest of day’s with the loss of my dad last year, thanks mate!

As always it was great to meet fellow parkrun tourist for the first time in Nigel Rose far right of picture and Tony Streams standing next to him, pleasure to meet you guy’s 🙂

Course

The course is a simple 2 and a bit clockwise laps of the perimeter of Hanworth Park that is run on multiple surfaces including grass, gravel, tarmac and is flat in nature!

Points to note

• Potentially a fast course in dry conditions
• Can see the grass section being very boggy after a long period of prolonged rain.
• Great for the confidence not to be lap multiple times by the leaders as you would find on a 3 plus lap course.
• Beware of a few potholes on the grass paths, but to be fair this was mentioned in the run briefing!

Overall I really enjoyed this multi terrain course and the rain added to the fun running with my mate Martin 🙂 My time was 42:45

Facilities

There is free car park at Hanworth Air Park leisure centre quite close to the start Sat Nav TW13 5EG and toilets are available from the same place before the start of the parkrun with doors opening at 8am on Saturday’s.

Finally for the post run coffee you we popped back into the leisure centre for a well earned hot drink and to dry off. So as a tourist to Hanworth this event ticked all the most important facilities boxes for me, excellent stuff!

Final Verdict

I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart this weeks run director Leanne Murray and her top team of volunteers us the warmest of welcomes and it’s hard to believe your parkrun is only 13 events old, excellent work everyone!

So finally I throughly recommend Hanworth as an event to add to your tourist list of places to visit. So Hanworth I think you have a special community going on there and long may it continue 🙂

Best

Mark aka Silent Runner