Running on Wimbledon Common: the quiet one

Wimbledon Common is the one people forget. Richmond Park gets the deer and the attention, and the Common sits two miles away with more than a thousand acres of heath, woodland and scrub and a fraction of the traffic.

For running it has one clear advantage over Richmond: far more of it is genuine trail. Where Richmond gives you a surfaced perimeter path and open grassland, the Common is a tangle of narrow dirt tracks through gorse and birch, and it is easy to run for an hour without seeing a bicycle.

Getting there

Wimbledon station is the obvious one, on the District line, South Western Railway and the tram, then a walk or a bus up the hill to the Village. Putney is the option from the north side. Neither drops you at the edge of the Common, so factor in a warm up of roughly ten to fifteen minutes either way.

Wimbledon Village at the top of the hill is where most runs start, and it is worth starting there rather than at the bottom, because the hill is a great deal nicer as a warm up than as a finish.

What it is like underfoot

Sandy, and that is unusual for London. The Common sits on gravel and sand rather than the clay under most of the city, which means it drains far better than Hampstead Heath and stays runnable through a wet winter when the Heath has turned to soup.

• •Narrow sandy singletrack through gorse and heather on the open heath
• •Wider woodland tracks in the north towards Putney Heath
• •Some genuinely boggy patches near the ponds whatever the sand does elsewhere
• •Very little climbing. This is rolling rather than hilly, so it is not the place for hill reps.

Navigation, honestly

It is easy to get turned around. The paths are numerous, unsignposted in places, and look much the same in every direction, which is part of the charm and a genuine nuisance the first few times.

The windmill is the landmark that saves you. It sits near the middle, it is visible from a good deal of the open ground, and there is a car park and cafe by it. Orientate on the windmill and you will not stay lost for long.

The Cannizaro and the Village end

Cannizaro Park, tucked off the Common at the Village end, is a formal garden rather than running ground, but it is worth knowing about for a walk afterwards. The Village itself has the pubs, and The Rose and Crown is the one we use as a start and finish.

“The Common drains where the Heath does not. In January that is the difference between a good run and a slog.”

When to go

Any time, which is rather the point. It is at its best in late summer when the heather is out, and it is the most reliable winter option of the four big commons and parks in this part of London because of the sand.

We use it for a free group run from the Village, easy pace, back at the pub by midday. Dates go up on the What's On page along with the rest of the London programme.