"London Outskirts"

At dusk, the Church Wildlife Reserve in East Ham is the one of the spookiest places you will ever find yourself.

In Wapping you can find pieces of clay pottery and other artifacts along the Thames.

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The Church of Saint Mary Magdalene in East Ham is over 800 years old and is thus one of the first churches the Normans erected after successfully invading England in the eleventh century. Since 1977, the congregation presently in charge of the church has let the ten acre church yard - one of the largest in England - revert into a wildlife sanctuary.

No longer cut back, brush and small trees grow between and overtop the many graves. East Ham is super urbanized, lacking hardly any other open space, so all the vegetation attracts foxes, hedgehogs, small mammals and plenty of birds. Birds often seen at the reserve include Robins, Thrushes, Redwings Swallows and the oddly-named Great Tit.

Three trails loop through the overgrown graves. The Germans bombed East Ham heavily during the war because it was near strategically important docks. While walking along the trails, you will see several gravestones damaged by bombs that fell into the church yard. Around dusk the church is very photogenic. It's also more than a little eerie.

The visitor center by the entrance has a few small nature exhibits. At the visitor center be sure to pick up one of very detailed, illustrated booklets on the plants, birds and animals in the reserve.

Eastham is the farthest out. If you have a zone 1 and 2 Underground pass, you will need to pay for an extension to zone 3 while still in the first two zones. Take the underground to the East Ham station, than board the A13 bus from the station to the junction of High Street South and Norman Road. It's about a ten minute ride. The reserve's phone is 0181-470-4525. Hours are Tuesday-Friday 10-5 and Saturday and Sunday 2pm to 5pm. Entrance Free.

Like much of East London, the borough is a mix of Cockney (white working-class), Indian, and Pakistani. Indian restaurants line the street outside the metro. The food is very affordable but very hot. Be sure to order rice.

Not far from central London, quiet Wapping is a short walk from the London Tower along the Thames path. Until the middle of the past century, Wapping was the site of bustling docks and warehouses. I like to go to this area where developers are putting up fashionable condos to find artifacts from Wapping's earlier day along the river.

Several staircases lead down from Wapping High Street to the river. You have to come near low tide of course so the river banks are exposed. The first thing you will see are the remains of clay pipes discarded by generations of dockworkers. Pipe stems litter the banks by the thousands. Some still bear the designs or the names of their manufacturers. The pipe remnants range from the 1700s to the early twentieth century.

Besides clay tobacco pipe remains, there are plenty of pottery and china fragments, probably from shipments broken on the docks. Most of the fragments are pieces of typical British pottery: blue and white and showing scenes such as rivers passing through sheep covered hills. If you are an Anglophile like myself this will drive you wild. But even if you are not obsessed with all things old and British you will probably find exploring the banks to be fascinating.

You might find more than pipe and pottery remains. A National Geographic story a few years back reported on a regular artifact hunter who has found scores of perfectly preserved pipes and even Roman coins on the banks near Wapping.

I've never gotten sick from mucking about on the banks but you might want to wear gloves. Also bring some old shoes. Watch the tide which rises fast. Tides are reported in all London newspapers.

Important: The law allows you to take whatever you may find on the surface but you need a permit to dig.

The Brick Lane, Petticoat Lane and Spitalfields are three of the oldest and most interesting of London's many street markets. Any guidebook covers them in detail but what the guidebooks don't point out is that the markets which take place on Sunday morning in the East End are only a short walk apart.

Start at Brick Lane Market around 10am as the market closes down around noon. You can arrive there either by Aldgate East or Shoreditch underground stations.

Once the location of the brick kilns used to rebuild London after the Great Fire in 1666, Brick Lane today is the center of a sprawling Sunday market. The majority of stalls on Brick Lane and its sidestreets cater to East End residents (Cockneys and many recent immigrants) looking for bargains on vegetables and household items.

Brick Lane is mostly a bric-brac market, resembling an American flea market. You probably will not buy much but will enjoy the gritty market scene. Stay around the market's nucleus at the junction of Cheshire Road and Brick Lane. Around it's edges the market turns grittier as people peddle meager collections of used items.

Petticoat Lane Market is a 10 minute walk away. Walk south down Brick Lane, past the Shoreditch Underground. Turn right down Wentworth Road which leads into Petticoat Lane.

For over 200 years, Petticoat Lane has been London's premier discount clothes market. Once three miles long the market's best days are probably over but it is still a sight to behold. Stretching for over a mile, the stands serve all types of Londoners from office workers to the young and trendy.

Just to the south of Petticoat Lane on Brushfield Street is a much different market.

Eight years ago the immense Spitalfields pavilion contained London's largest wholesale fruit market. With the departure of the wholesale market to the suburbs, a local civic group converted the space into a massive craft and food market.

Spitalfields has the best food of the three and by the time you arrive there it will be near lunch. Each stand in the market serves up food from a different country. I had some good crepes at the French stand and an about average felafel from the Mid East stand. All the stands looked decent and had low prices for London.

The crafts section is the best place in either of the markets to buy quality gifts. Look for the young fellow who makes bowls out of trees that fall in storms, he is probably the most original and talented of the vendors.