London Loop Section 23, Upminster Bridge to Rainham

15th September

I arrived at Upminster Bridge station on the District line at about ten past eleven in the morning which gave me plenty of time to complete sections 23 and 24 of the LOOP. First however a short diversion to Upminster Windmill, the actual mill this time rather than the pub as on my last visit at the end of Section 22.

Upminster Windmill was built for James Nokes, a local farmer, in 1803. It is a Grade II* listed building and in terms of quality, completeness and significance it is widely considered to be amongst the very best remaining English smock mills, so called because its shape is said to resemble the traditional clothing of agricultural workers. It is owned by the London Borough of Havering and managed by the Friends of Upminster Windmill. It works and they have open days but today the slats on the sails were fixed open and the stiff breeze was turning the fantail that keeps them pointed into the wind. Talking of wind today there was a Yellow Warning for high winds and it was certainly very gusty.

From the windmill I returned to the route of the LOOP along residential streets, occasionally holding onto my hat. Once through Hornchurch Stadium’s car park the way ahead shadowed the River Ingrebourne, as it would for much of the remaining walk. Passing through an open grass area and then crossing the river on a footbridge to a stretch of scrub, woodland and rough grass with the unseen river now behind trees on my left. Across Hacton Lane and around the children’s play area I followed the well surfaced path through Ingrebourne Valley Local Nature Reserve, through shallow puddles until the route turned away to the right over a little wooden bridge provided to allow dry progress when the River Ingrebourne frequently breaks its banks at this point. As it had indeed today.

Past another playground and a visitor centre and now I was entering Hornchurch Country Park, formerly RAF Hornchurch. Looking at the mostly wooded area that you pass through it’s hard to imagine that from 1928 until 1962 this was a military airfield, one that played a major part in the Battle of Britain being a Sector Airfield of RAF Fighter Command’s 11 Group, covering London and the south east of England and was attacked by the Luftwaffe on twenty occasions. It’s a lot quieter now but there are a number of leftovers dotted around from its wartime days, including several “pillbox” bunkers.

I passed Ingrebourne Marshes and climbed the slope up to where the control tower once stood, of which nothing remains but a good view to the south west.

The route carried on down the Ingrebourne Valley parallel to the river until turning west to skirt around Albyns Farm Lake and then south west again by Albyns Farm itself. This much restored and rebuilt medieval manor is surrounded by the sort of strikingly off-white high rendered wall that wouldn’t look out of place around a Spanish hacienda. Part way along which is a very large set of black wrought iron automatic gates with the name across them picked out in gold lettering and a CCTV entry system. It was probably the most Essex thing I saw all day (even if now technically in Greater London). I didn’t dare stand in front of the gates to take a photo though.

Onward through field and wood to cross Ingrebourne Hill where I made the short diversion to the hilltop viewpoint. The path up to the viewpoint has been laid out in a series of lazy back and forth loops by some planner and which therefore mostly has a desire path cutting across them directly to the top because no one has time for that nonsense. There’s a good view from the top, particularly of towers, cranes, and the odd wind turbine across Dagenham, Becontree, and Romford. I returned to the LOOP via the other zig-zag path (mostly, see above) and beside Lake Stilwell to join the Rainham Road and turn south towards the village of Rainham itself. I passed the telephone exchange and its adjacent Albion pub, crossed New Road near the roundabout and then along Bridge Road over the River Ingrebourne again before nipping into Tesco for a pee because every little helps 😀

Then I carried on along Bridge Road following signs to the railway station which is the end of Section 23. I found a bench beside the station that was out of the increasingly strong wind and took a break for half an hour to eat my picnic lunch, (ham and cheese sarnies, crisps, a flask of Bovril, and some grapes that were a bit past their best if you’re curious) and prepared to tackle Section 24 to Purfleet. That will be covered in the next blog though.

There’s the usual collection of photos from Section 23 in this FlickrAlbum.

 

 

 

London Loop Section 22, Harold Wood to Upminster Bridge

20th August, 14:30, outside Harold Wood Station

“It’s only four and a half miles” I reasoned, “It’ll be easier to get home from Upminster Bridge too.”

So I finished my ice lolly and set out in the sunshine to walk section 22 of the London Loop, turning left out side the station down the very suburban Oak Road, into Fitzilian Road, and right into the gravelly Archibald Road past the allotments to Squirrels Heath Road and across that to escape suburban streets at the end of Brinsmead Road into Harold Wood Park.

The Harold from which Harold Wood gets its name is Harold Godwinson, the last legitimate King of England, before the country was occupied in 1066 by the Norman usurper William the Bastard. We’ve been ruled by foreigners ever since 😉

Some of the local street names recall the connection to Saxon royalty, for instance Athelstan Road and Ethelburga Road.

In Harold Wood Park I crossed the River Ingrebourne, the 27 mile long tributary of the Thames whose course the Loop shadows for much of the rest of Section 22 and indeed onwards to the Thames at Rainham.

I walked along a broad well-surfaced path between the Ingrebourne and Pages Wood, a recreational area with many paths and a wooden sculpture trail. Where the path passed beneath the power lines I paused to forage for Blackberries, my sandwich box was now empty and it seemed a shame to be carrying an empty box when I could be carrying the makings of a crumble instead. Particularly when a passing dog walker advised me that there were some apple trees up ahead which would provide something to complement the blackberries. I picked up three windfalls on my way through 😀

Passing out of Pages Wood I came to Hall lane, a busy road which I had to follow to get across the A127 Southend Arterial Road, built in the 1920s to link Romford to Southend-on-Sea and once described by Clement Attlee as “one of the worst pieces of main road in West Essex” due to problems with the road surface after it was constructed. It doesn’t look so bad now but it’s not the nicest stretch of Loop to walk along, especially on a warm afternoon, so I was glad to reach the shaded service road section and then to leave it and turn West down River Drive.

At the end of River Drive the path leading into the dense woodland came as a relief from the sunshine. A winding path led through the trees, fortunately not overgrown and in August not muddy either though I expect in winter it would be quite trying.

All too soon came a bridge over the Ingrebourne and it was open fields with no shelter for most of the way on. I rested a short while at the bridge, the next mile or so was going to be a slog. The Ingrebourne ran to my left, out of sight mostly as I plodded round two sides of a large wheat field that had already been cut, harvested, and the straw baled and carted off leaving only a big expanse of stubble baking in the afternoon sun with just the occasional dog walker circumnavigating it.

Leaving the field through an alleyway at its south western corner it was now back to suburban streets crossing the Liberty Line Romford to Upminster railway bridge in Wingletye Lane then along Minster Way to the end of the section opposite Upminster Bridge Station.

Upminster Bridge is the location of a windmill, “considered to be one of the finer examples of a ‘smock’ mill remaining in England. The name comes from the supposed resemblance to the smock once worn by farmers. Upminster Mill was built in 1803 by James Noakes, a local farmer”, says the Loop guide.

I was too tired at this point to walk down to it though so the only windmill I saw was the The Windmill pub where I could have a sit down and a nice pint of Abbot Ale before getting on the District Line towards home. I’ll check out the other one next time.

London Loop Section 22 ✅

London Loop Section 22 Flickr Album

London Loop Section 21, Havering-Atte-Bower to Harold Wood

20th August

Two Tubes and a Purple Train followed by a bumpy bus ride from Romford deposited me at Havering-Atte-Bower around quarter to midday to start the next part of my London Loop walk. It was considerably cooler than the last time I was here, enough to require a second layer in fact, although that would be put away before too long.

A short walk north from the bus stop on the green brought me to a Loop sign pointing east down a narrow path between a garage and a wooden fence, which soon became a narrow path between a wire fence and a lot of brambles. This was when I remembered that I meant to bring a walking pole, very useful for fending off sharp vegetation but not if you’ve left it in the back of the car on the other side of London 🙄

Oh well, the path soon widened out anyway and then led along the edge of an open field. To the right appeared a white water tower built in the 1930s but made to resemble a Norman tower. I followed the path left around the top of the field past a sad looking horse (Why the long face?) and then through a gap in the hedge over a sketchy-looking wooden footbridge, through some brambles and up over the brow of a low hill in an open field.

Following the path across the field I came to the iron gateposts that were once the entrance to Pyrgo House. Just past here the footpath has been blocked, cordoned off with an electrified fence, the Public Footpath signs and Loop way-markers torn down and thrown in the hedge to provide a space for rich gits to play on their horses.

I followed the faint track alongside the electric fence up and around the horse ride to try and find the route of the Loop again. The route guide here is a bit vague, there are several paths. Once again the waymarker had been knocked down and moved so that it pointed the wrong way. Following the arrow alongside another fence with horses on the other side I came to a metal kissing gate, tied to this was another post with Loop and footpath markers which pointed in directions that made no sense and didn’t appear to be paths. After some messing about I realised that I was now some distance from the correct line of the Loop and had to just take a bearing across the field to regain it alongside Tench Pond Plantation. Come the revolution the bastards at (I think) Home Farm need to be first up against the wall 😦

By the sign imploring people to “please stop shooting our deer, we regard them as pets and our children play in these woods so it’s not safe” I turned North up the field edge then east through another field to reach Paternoster Row, a quiet lane leading past a number of bungalows to Widdrington Farm. Just before the farm I climbed over a high and quite wobbly stile to take Footpath 10. The route guide says this crosses Carter’s Brook but if so I never saw it. What I did see was my first deer of the day and even managed a slightly fuzzy long-distance photo of it.

Footpath 10 ended at Cummings Hall Lane along which I walked to Noak Hill Road by The Deer's Rest PH (too early to stop for beer) and past that turned into Tees Drive. This runs alongside the Carter’s Brook where it flows through the trees in a steep sided dell. Despite being next to the road with housing on the other side this strip of woodland was full of deer so I walked along the roadside, the trees were a bit low along the path anyway. I think that I spotted Bambi anyway, along with some of his friends.

From here I was following the Carter’s Brook, mostly unseen behind a broad strip of brambles and trees, first on the left then after crossing Whitchurch Road with it on the right along with more deer on the wide grass area between the river and the blocks of flats. Crossing Dagnam Park Drive I entered Central Park.

It’s nothing like the pictures I’ve seen of its New York namesake but it did provide a handy bench on which to pause for my picnic lunch. Although lunch was accompanied by loud rap music and the occasional waft of exotic roll-ups, so maybe the two Central Parks do have something in common after all.

In Central Park Carter’s Brook becomes Paines Brook and the Loop follows it South through a strip of green between the housing estates, eventually reaching the busy A12 Colchester Road dual carriageway. Fortunately it wasn’t so busy as to need the 1000 yard detour to the pedestrian crossing. Safely across I rejoined the path beside the Paines Brook through a field to Church Road, and then a short walk through residential streets to the end of the section at Harold Wood Station.

It was now quite warm so I treated myself to an ice lolly, sat on a bench across the road from the station entrance, and prepared to start Section 22.

London Loop Section 21 ✅

London Loop Section 21 Flickr Album.

Eyam

 

3rd August

On my way back from Scotland earlier this year I stopped overnight in Stoney Middleton in the Derbyshire Dales. At the time I decided it would be good to come back with some more time to explore and since I was going to Market Harborough to the tank show and would therefore be half way there anyway I booked a holiday cottage for a few days in nearby Eyam.

Eyam’s main claim to fame is the story of how the village chose to go into isolation so as to prevent infection spreading after bubonic plague was discovered there in 1665. Following the decline of the local mining and associated industries the main local economical activity is tourism with Eyam being promoted as “the plague village”. The story may well have been embellished by various writers since the early 19th century but it’s a good one to bring in the punters. I have visited Eyam before as a day tripper but as for staying there, well it’s been 370 years since the last case of bubonic plague so I reckon it should be safe enough 😏

My accommodation was just off the main street so couldn’t have been more conveniently located for exploring the village with its church, village green complete with stocks, and signs outside the houses listing the names of the 17th century plague victims and other historical notes. Most of the buildings are picturesque and built of local stone, save for one large house built in red brick near the village green, appropriately named The Brick House.

Being Sunday it was quite busy but having settled in I waited until early evening to go for a wander round, by which time it was much quieter. The Miners Arms owes it’s name to the former source of the villager’s income and is a decent local pub, good beer from local breweries too.

Monday morning was remarkably wet, very much not walking weather, more reading a book weather. Around three in the afternoon though it brightened up considerably so I took a walk over to Stoney Middleton. It might have been sunny but it was also very windy on the top of the hill, with strong enough gusts to make holding a camera steady difficult. The tail end of Storm Floris which was giving Scotland a good seeing to I suppose. Some great views up there though and a steep climb back up “Jacob’s Ladder” to Pretty Wood and back to Eyam via the Riley Graves, a small plague graveyard now looked after by the National Trust but open to all to visit and admire the views to the south. In a bit of poor timing I arrived back in Eyam before opening time and couldn’t be bothered to hang about for half an hour so went back to the cottage via the village shop to buy something for tea.

Tuesday promised changeable weather with scattered showers all day. I didn’t fancy my planned walk so postponed it and got a bus to Bakewell about 20 minutes away. Bakewell it turns out has an excellent local museum in The Old House. Of course if you are visiting Bakewell you have to get a Bakewell Tart or a Bakewell Pudding. Or er, one of each 😋 Having explored the town I took advantage of being a buswanker for the day and stopped off for a pint in the Red Lion in the town centre, which either hadn’t taken down all the Xmas decorations or had started putting them up early. Then dodged the rain showers at the bus stop before riding back to Eyam.

Wednesday was much improved weather wise so I put on my boots and backpack and headed north out of the village up a steep path past the site of an old mine and up onto the ridge of Eyam Edge where I turned West and followed the lane to Bretton with long scenic views to the north and south. There was a nice cool dry breeze up there and it was a pleasant walk with hardly any traffic. Beyond Bretton the track ahead was subject to a long term temporary closure but I was heading downhill to the village of Foolow anyway. I arrived in Foolow near the simple church and village green with its very circular pond.

I sat on a bench for a while in the shade watching two MAMILs comparing bicycles. The sort of bicycles that cost the sort of money that would get you a fairly good second hand car. The breeze had gone and the sun was now quite hot. Also it was midday and my holiday let host had recommended the Bulls Head Inn so… I sat outside in the sunshine with a pint, watching the world go by and fending off the occasional jasper. Very pleasant it was too. Like being on holiday.

Suitably re-hydrated I carried on on a footpath across the fields - and several drystone walls with a variety of stiles - to get back to Eyam. It had been a rather nice hike, only about four and a half miles albeit gaining nearly 700 feet in altitude in the first six tenths of a mile, and warranted a lazy afternoon to follow.

On Thursday it was time to go home. For a change I plotted a route avoiding motorways and therefore also avoiding the M42 around Birmingham and the M25 around London. Surprisingly this added only about 20 minutes to the journey time, being a more direct route. More pleasant too.

Yes, there’s a Flickr Album with lots more photos 😀

 

 

London Loop Sections 18 & 19

 Enfield lock to Chingford and Chingford to Chigwell

3rd July

Hey, the temperature has dropped back below “bloody scorching” so time to do some more London Loop. I headed back to Enfield Lock station to start Section 18 to Chingford and if things went well, Section 19 to Chigwell. Things went well, although not in any way that I could have anticipated.

I left the station and walked back down Bradley Road, a little less litter-strewn today than last time, to begin Section 18 at the little bridge over the Turkey Brook. The water was hidden in a deep channel full of vegetation to begin with although further along this thinned out to reveal patches of not-very-inviting stream before the path bore away from the brook and up over the A1055 via a long footbridge. From the top of the bridge you are supposed to be able to see the Sewardstone Hills ahead but mostly there seems to be trees in the way. After crossing the bridge the path brought me to the actual Enfield Lock on the River Lee Navigation.

From here I walked along the towpath past Swan & Pike Pool and along by the River Lee itself with quite a few Coots and Canada Geese swimming in the flowing water. This year's Coot chicks are now almost as big as their parents but fuzzier.

Two further footbridges took me across first the River Lee and then the River Lee Flood Relief channel and at the same time out of Greater London and into Essex. In this picture London is on the left and Essex on the right.

Leaving the river(s) behind the route passed first through Sewardstone Marsh, although with the recent weather the paths were dry, then along a side street and across the A112 Sewardstone Road before striking diagonally across an empty car boot sale field and carrying on along a gravel track uphill to Sewardstone Park Cemetery and “Gardens of Firdaus”, an area set aside for burial of those of the Islamic faith. Passing through a strip of woodland I reached the top of the hill and turned back to look at the view over the King George V Reservoir.

Shortly after leaving Enfield Lock I’d notice and passed another Loop walker - we’re easy to spot, standing looking about and reading from a folded sheet of A4 paper trying to work out which way to go next - and she had been not far behind me for some time. Standing looking at the route instructions was what I was doing, trying to work out where the “faint path across the field” went and was it through the building site that wasn’t mentioned at all? Now there were two of us trying to work out where the “faint path across the field” went and was it through the building site that wasn’t mentioned at all? Having decided it was “that way” which turned out to be too far to the left we found ourselves at the edge of a woodland hunting for a disused stile and the entrance to a path through the woods. With two sets of eyes and helped by my having the route marked on Organic Maps on my phone we eventually regained the route, the faint path across the field we should have taken only being obvious from the bottom of the hill but not the top, and the disused stile entirely hidden in a bush. We carried on through the woods to Bury Road.

Now I normally walk alone but I’m not entirely antisocial and since we were both heading the same way we walked on together. Besides with two of us surely we could halve the chances of getting lost on a Loop section with rather sporadic way-marking. Since my new-found walking companion was very pleasant to be with there aren’t very  many photos to accompany my words in this blog - a lot of chatting ensued and snapping was rather forgotten 😀

We turned down the main drive to the Scout Association HQ at Gilwell, turning left at its large “Leopard Gates” through a long section of woodland first west then turning south, passing through a meadow, back into the woods to a turning east which is a lot clearer on the map than it is on the ground so we almost missed it, and then alongside a golf course, mostly heard rather than seen to Bury Road again. Crossing Bury Road we turned south through the woods parallel to the road and then through a car park to a three-way London Loop sign on a lamppost near the Holly Trail Cafe and that was Section 18 ✅

And it was only about twenty-past one.

Section 19 began by heading north east onto Chingford Plain for a short way then forking left up hill towards some trees, keeping an eye out for somewhere shady to sit for lunch. The area behind the Epping Forest Visitor Centre was filled with several hundred (so it seemed) uniformed schoolkids but we managed to bag a picnic table under the trees behind the Butler’s Retreat cafe and they didn’t come out and complain about us sitting there eating our picnic lunches and putting the world to rights. Suitably refuelled we set off again across and then east parallel to Ranger’s Road past some very old oak trees, with a little diversion around where some roadworks had closed the path. There were some young Duke of Edinburgh’s Scheme participants along here, heading in the opposite direction and a bit nonplussed by the barrier across their intended path so we pointed them in the direction of the diversion we’d just taken.

Crossing once again the border from London into Essex gently uphill along a broad open grassy strip with a near constant stream of DofE walkers going the other way we reached Epping New Road and waited for a gap in the traffic to cross it. And waited. And waited. If anywhere along this section needs a pedestrian crossing this is it. Eventually we made it across, through Powell’s Forest, and across High Road too, coming out into a residential street, North End, where the route instructions had us puzzled and the way-mark mentioned couldn’t be seen.

It had become a running joke between us that the way-mark you can’t find is probably quite obvious ten paces further on and so it proved again here although when it’s high on a lamppost and only visible from alongside rather than as you approach it, it doesn’t help. The next turn took us between some houses and felt as if you were about to walk into someone’s back garden but there was in fact a footpath entry hidden in the corner which lead between the gardens, one of which contained a remarkably large Willow tree. We went along the edge of the trees by an open area, did some more head scratching as to which of the paths across the open field was the right one, picked the wrong one and as a result I now realise looking at the map more closely did two sides of a small triangle before dropping down into the Roding Valley to cross over the Central Line via a high metal footbridge.

A short walk along Thaxted Road and its classics suburban semis brought us to the turn right onto the Green Walk between the residential roads and past Roding Valley Cricket Club to the un-named lake which is a flooded gravel pit, used to supply the building of the M11 motorway. Here we paused to admire the view of the scattered clouds and blue sky reflected in the water. I actually remembered to take a photo.

Skirting the southern side of the lake we crossed the River Roding and followed it for a short distance in the welcome shade of the riverside trees before looping around the back of the sports centre to reach Roding Lane. The last stretch was roadside, over the top of the M11 and down Chigwell Rise to the end of Section 19 at the mini roundabout where it meets High Road. Turning right towards Chigwell Station I was a bit disappointed to find the pub was closed for refurbishment because some liquid refreshment would have been welcome right at that point - the forecast overcast skies had not materialised.

At least we hadn't got lost despite the missing way-marks 😀 

Section 19 ✅ 

At the station having worked out which direction each of us needed to go in we said our goodbyes, agreeing that it had been a fine afternoon’s walk improved by the company. We parted expressing the thought that maybe we’d see each other out on the Loop again and headed to our respective platforms.

And all the way home I kicked myself for not seizing the opportunity to give her my number to make that more likely 🙄

Such is life.

London Loop Section 16: Elstree to Cockfosters.

24th April

 

 

Section 16 is the longest single section of the London Loop at 11 miles. There are limited points at which to shorten the walk so when I left Elstree & Borehamwood station at just after 11 a.m. I initially intended to go as far as High Barnet where I could escape onto the Northern Line, then make a decision about the remaining three and a half miles.

 

It’s a long steady climb from the station to Barnet Lane whether you take the official route via the Deacon’s Hill Road as I did or the alternative unofficial diversion via Woodcock Hill Village Green. Whichever route you take passes above the Midland Main Line far below in the Elstree Tunnel, the towers for the ventilation shafts of which are visible from the road.

 

 

 

I had a bit of trouble locating the path off Barnet Lane because the house next door had the builders in and they’d parked their trucks and vans across it, eventually I had to climb over the drawbar of a plant trailer to get to the footpath. The slightly muddy path led down to an old oak woodland, Scrachwood Open Space. Walking through these bluebell woods is classic London Loop territory, i.e. you wouldn’t think you were in London. Emerging from the woods at the A1 dual carriageway, requiring an 1100 yard diversion to the nearest subway to cross it reminds you that you are.

 

 

 

 Eleven hundred yards of rushing traffic, litter, abandoned tyres, and plastic bottles of lorry drivers’ piss later I turned right into Moat Mount Open Space. It could only get more pleasant from here on and thankfully it did. The loop here joins the Dollis Valley Greenwalk and passes a small pond that is the source of the Dollis Brook. A small pond that I failed to spot. Unless this is it but I’m not sure.

 

 

 

I walked on through a mix of shady woodland and open fields until I reached Hendon Wood Lane, a little way along which I turned into Totteridge Fields. That’s a figure of speech obviously, I didn’t literally suddenly become a nature reserve. I carried on down through the nature reserve then through a sports field and into a section where the path runs through open fields managed under the Countryside Stewardship Scheme by a tenant farmer. That means signs pointing out that it’s private land, stay on the path and nowhere to sit lest you linger rather than pass directly through. Which was a shame because it was really time for my picnic lunch. Eventually I crossed the Dollis Brook over a metal bridge, awarding myself 2 points for spotting the adjacent stinkpipe, and paused on a convenient concrete block at the edge of an open grassy field for lunch.

 

 

 

 As you can see above the forecast cloudy skies and 20% chance of rain were so far staying away. Fortified by my traditional picnic of salmon paste sarnies and prawn cocktail flavour shells I set off east again through wide grassy areas with the Dollis Brook now to my right but mostly hidden and the houses of southern Chipping Barnet to my left, a residential  area that Open Street Map says is called Duck Island despite not being an island and I didn’t spot any ducks, only a pair of self-propelled council lawnmowers. Beyond the houses lay a steep upward climb on a narrow tarmac path followed of course by coming back down again to Barnet Lane, not the same Barnet Lane as earlier. Crossing the road and entering the sports centre, past the football pitches behind high metal fences with “no unauthorised use or ball games” signs and suddenly there were people about, more people than I had seen since leaving Elstree. I was now in deepest residential Barnet, heading for the Great North Road. To get there I walked up Fairfield Way, a street so patriotic that many of the houses proudly flew Union Flags in their front gardens, albeit defaced with the legend “VE Day” in gold lettering. Many of those same houses had drives in which were parked German cars. Draw your own conclusions.

 

 

 

Where the Northern Line crosses over the Great North Road I sat on a wall and tried to decide whether to turn left to High Barnet or right to carry on to the end of Section 16 at Cockfosters. It was 14:37, the sun was shining, plenty of daylight left, no walking back from the station at the end of a long day since my car was at Hounslow West. I convinced myself by a narrow margin to turn right. As it turned out the last three and a half miles happened to be some of the nicest parts of the section.

 

 

 

 Not the very first bit though because having gone under the bridge above and crossed the road at a light controlled pedestrian crossing that only grudgingly allowed pedestrian to interrupt the flow of traffic I turned left up Potters Lane. And I mean up. Save for a short set of steps down a bank off the road and into a meadow it carried on going up. Past the back of High Barnet station glimpsed between the trees, levelling up for a bit along some residential streets before a long climb up through King George’s Fields with a good view if you turned around. I could really have done with that bench being unoccupied.

 

 

 

Fortunately there were other benches and then I reached Hadley Green Road, with the open, tree studded green to the left and old houses facing it on the right, including the large red brick Hadley House with its stable block and near the end of the row Livingstone Cottage, former home of the missionary and explorer. He of “Dr. Livingstone I presume?” fame. Although calling it a cottage is a bit of a misnomer given the size of the place and according to the rather grand plaque on the front bearing his likeness he lived there in 1857. Only 1857?

 

 

 

Beyond Hadley green it gets seriously villagey as you pass a row of almshouses into the centre of Monken Hadley. At eleven miles north-west  of Charing Cross we’re close to the limits of Greater London in what was once  a parish of Middlesex that stuck out into Hertfordshire. It has lots of old buildings, a  late 15th. century church with another set of almshouses next to it, and white wooden gates across the roads into and out of it. You can see why the writers Kingsley Amis and Elizabeth Jane Howard chose to live here, poet Cecil Day Lewis who stayed with them died here, and for nearly thirty years Spike Milligan lived in the village as well, although that wasn’t so good for one local teenager who strayed into his garden.

 

 

 

 I was safe from being shot since a: the London Loop passes Spike's former home on the other side of the road in the trees on Hadley Common and b: he’s dead. The path continued through the woods and through a lot of tree roots requiring some care to avoid tripping over until I reached a small car park in Bakers Lane with some information boards and two burnt out mopeds to reinforce the idea that this is still London. Then I continued to the bridge over the East Coast Main Line just north of New Barnet station, the bridge’s elevated position being good for photographing passing trains between King’s Cross and The North, if you are tall enough to see over the brick parapet that is.

 

 

 

 From the railway bridge I walked (somewhat slower now) through the beech woods disturbed only by birdsong and the incredibly loud public address system at New Barnet station. I climbed a steep set of steps for a quick look at Jack’s Lake with its afternoon anglers - does sweeping a massive net back and forth in the water count as angling? - before returning to the main path.

 

 

 

I carried on along the track passing occasional Loop way marks before reaching houses and a pub which reminded me of the following joke:

 

Three guys were visiting England and were told they had to go to a great old pub called The Cock Inn. Each of them went off in different directions and planned to meet at the pub at five o'clock.Two of them arrived on time, but there was no sign of Edward.  Finally, at five thirty, he showed up with the his shirt torn at the collar and two black eyes.
Shocked by his appearance, the other two asked Edward what had happened to him."Well I was walking down the road," Edward explained, "I noticed a man and woman behind a bush. So I stopped and asked, 'How far is The Cock Inn?’” 

And that’s when the trouble started 

 

 

 

 After that you’ll be glad to know that my walk was close to its end and therefore so is this blog post 😀

 

A last few streets and I passed Christ Church and arrived opposite Cockfosters tube station at four minutes to five, four hours fifty minutes since leaving Elstree & Borehamwood Station including 20 minutes break for lunch and a couple of other brief rest stops. I’ll take that. I’m glad I decided to do the whole section in one go, although I’m feeling it today. The last part was picturesque in the afternoon sunshine, the rain never happened, and it will make starting the next section much simpler whenever I do that. 

 

 

 

Many more lovely pictures to be found in this Flickr Album.