Martin Wainwright gets a tip-off about an impressive panorama from a south London suburb, which proves a surprising and stunning addition to his Best Views collection - in spite of the misty weatherA Best View in London might seem a yawn and a clich�, with everything from Big Ben to the Millennium Dome represented on millions of postcards.But to make that assumption would be to underestimate Ian Cobain, one of the prime sleuths involved in investigative reporting for the Guardian.Earlier this year in the paper's newsroom, he sidled furtively up (as sleuths do) and said, with his hand over his mouth (as sleuths also do): "I've a best view for you, Martin. It's the one I get from my allotment here in London."I could look at it all day. In fact I do, to the detriment of the Cobain runner beans and pumpkins."Pshaw! A best view in the London suburbs? Pull the other one! But Ian was undeterred by my incredulity and in due course he was proven right. The great thing about this great city is how its immensity breaks down into fascinating detail - everywhere.I live in Leeds and detest metropolitan arrogance. But I love London itself and, thanks to years working there in the past, know its centre backwards. Every time my wife and I stay with our son in Bloomsbury, we work out a different route from his flat to John Lewis in Oxford Street (there isn't ? yet ? a branch in Leeds). I reckon we are on number 135 at the moment, and they have all been full of wonders.The suburbs have less of the centre's fame but just as much of the same unexpected magic. Chiswick was the one I got to know best, and as Ian took Chris Thomond and me through his native Dulwich, much was familiar. Arts and crafty villas, astonishing numbers of street trees, small but imaginative gardens, and relics such as Pond Cottages - the equivalent of Hogarth's house in Chiswick ? from the pre-Victorian past.The route to the view also passes one of London's moments of incidental splendour which, in Chiswick, took the shape of Chiswick House and Lord Burlington's arcadia beyond that ropey "temporary" flyover across the A4. In Dulwich, the equivalent is the art gallery and the college, a world of wealthy serenity leading up to the quaint tollbooth, set up in 1619, which charges you a �1 to drive on to Crystal Palace and the wider world.Here, Ian turned left up Grange Lane, through a landscape as rural as anything we have in Yorkshire. Brambles, honeysuckle and a great, dominating hillside of densely planted ancient trees, less than five miles from Charing Cross. To top it off, we could hear the screech of one of our cosmopolitan capital's most successful immigrants, the ring-necked parakeet).As it flew overhead, we turned into the allotments: it's private land that doesn't welcome sightseers, but you can have the same view from paths within the neighbouring Dulwich Wood. This is a wonderfully wild piece of rus in urbe; an unusual mixture of ancient woodland, Victorian "improvement" and modern planting. There are more than 200 species of trees and plants, masses of wildlife and a folly hidden away in the centre. But we are here to look outwards, and to view ? I take back that pshaw! and all my related scepticism ? a truly stunning panorama, even though it was a slightly and grey and misty day."There's the Wembley arch," said Ian, flinging out one hand to the west. "And there's Canary Wharf," making a Y with his other hand pointing due east. In between, the whole mighty skyline of one of the world's greatest cities marches across the field of view, with the homely patches of veg a pleasantly contrasting foreground.The middle distance is instructive, too. First the open spaces of the college and its playing fields, with related land preserved by the bequest of the great Elizabethan family of Alleyn. Then comes the canopy provided by all those street trees undulating over three gentle hillsides between here and the Thames.Finally there's the river itself: it's not visible, but on a warm summer's day a skein of mist traces its course from Hammersmith Mall to the Isle of Dogs. Around it are the familiar shapes of the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye, the Post Office Tower and, well, everything else."You can see Nelson's column on a good day," said Ian. More nebulously, you can see Hertfordshire. You can also sleuth 'til you drop. "One of the other plotholders has brought along binoculars and watched people going in and out of the Victoria and Albert museum," says Ian. Never pick your nose or scratch in central London. Someone may be watching from Dulwich.We started our film on Westminster Bridge, recalling those lines by William Wordsworth about earth not having "anything to show more fair". Quite how he came to that conclusion, as a child of the Lake District, will be forever mysterious. But when it comes to the view from Grange Lane allotments in Dulwich, Earth has few things to show more impressive.LondonUnited KingdomEuropeMartin Wainwrightguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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