A Loughton Circular Walk

I'd never been to Loughton and when the opportunity for a walk through Epping Forest with some of my good walking buddies came up I couldn't refuse. We estimated that it would be about ten miles and with the weather looking good, if a little hot, we arranged to meet at Loughton Station. I'd been through part of the forest before on the LOOP when it passed through Chingford and Buckhurst Hill.

The Route - More or Less

Heading from Loughton Station, which is the third of the name to be built - it seems to have moved about quite a bit, though only the latest, built in 1940 was built for the London Underground. It has particularly attractive gull-wing platform awnings but other than that it isn't anything to write a blog about. Head up Station Road past Lopping Hall (the site of the original station) which was built by the Corporation of London to compensate villagers for the loss of lopping rights in Epping Forest. It is an attractive building with a terracotta frieze showing people lopping branches above the door. Turn left down the high street, then right up Upper Park to Nursery Road, cross this and road and pass beside the nursery and enter the edge of Epping Forest. Turn right on a path heading towards Strawberry Hill ponds. It has to be said the route here is not clear until you find a gravel path leading through the forest.

We were surprised to see lots of small frogs or toads hopping across the gravel path - no more than a few centimetres long - a long journey for them across hostile terrain.

Odd Truncated Branches

Past the ponds you continue north eastwards until you meet and cross the A121 near a small car park. Continuing along the path on the other side of the road you head towards the earthworks at Ambresbury Banks but turn off sharp left before you reach them. The were several odd looking trees in this part of the forest, but as none of us had thought to bring an identification book with us - here is a picture instead.

Bracken Uncurling

There was a lot of bracken in the areas where the tree canopy was broken and the sunlight could stream down.

Heading north after crossing the B1393 you head up a quiet lane to the tall wrought iron gates and a pair of lodges. At first it wasn't clear how to get through till we spotted a small finger sign pointing to a sign gate that wasn't locked just stiff. The next section was a contrast to the earlier part of the walk as this was obviously a managed woodland with specimen trees laid out in an organised fashion. Carrying along the main path you start to notice the M25 for the first time, a constant drown of traffic noise which grows louder and louder until you cross it via a high level bridge.

The landscape changes instantly you cross the M25, becoming open rolling countryside and farmland on both sides of the track and before long you see the run down and ramshackle buildings of Copped Hall ahead on the right. They hold regular events, fund raising for repairs, but it appears to be almost impossible to get there other than by a bus that stops back at the lodge gates. That's fine in the summer but in the winter it might be harder to get people to turn up.

Borage Fields

Passing some rather nice cottages with well tended gardens you turn right past a pond then take a path diagonally across a field at the junction of two tracks (not easy to spot at first). This goes across a field of borage that was being ploughed in as a green manure. The drooping purple flowers and fluffy silver edged green leaves were a mass of fat bumble bees and the air was heavy with their buzzing.

The path, which is not clearly marked on the ground but aim at the yellow topped post on the far side leads into a track that climbs through a glorious meadow filled with wild flowers, bees and butterflies. 

Butterfly on Wild Flower

Bee on Wild Flower

The trail becomes a track that leads into the village of Copthall (note the change of spelling) Green and Upshire which has a fine village sign. Turning south along the Forest Way you recross the M25 by another high level bridge and you can just about see the one you came across earlier in the distance to your left.
You follow this clear path all the way to the High Beech Conservation Centre. Before you reach it there is a large car park where there is a large pub and a little bothy selling cold drinks and ice cream. We paused for a while to recharge our batteries before heading south back towards Loughton.It was a bit of a strain getting going again after sitting on a rather rickety wooden bollard but the pain in my hamstrings distracted me from my stiff knee.

Passing a finger post with a dispiriting "3 Miles to Loughton" indicator and plunging downhill past a pond and then up hill again we reached the outskirts of civilisation once more. This end of Loughton was very hilly and full of rather attractive properties. None too soon we reached the high street and our final destination, a slap up meal in Loch Fyne.

All in all a very pleasing walk with lots of variety and plenty to enjoy which probably turned out to be closer to twelve than ten miles. Well worth the effort.

Tracking the Tube: Metropolitan Line: Leg 02: Finchley Road to Wembley Park

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Weather: Hot and Sunny
Distance Walked: 8.7km
Distance By Tube: 7.24km
Stations Visited: 2
Fantastic Plaice: Ever Fresh Fish Cricklewood

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The second leg of the Metropolitan Line starts, unsurprisingly, from where I left off. The challenge this time for a walk that only includes two stations was two fold. First to avoid the Jubilee Line stations  that lie on the long stretch between Finchley Road and Wembley Park and how to get across the North Circular road without going too far out of my way.  Leaving Finchley Road and heading north past the wonderfully named Finchley Road and Frognal overground station I was glad to swing west off the busy A41 and enter the shaded and rather attractive side streets of this part of hilly Hampstead. Returning very briefly to the Finchley Road I spied across the busy thoroughfare one of my favourite eating places, Koi Sushi. Many a happy evening has been spent there after a long D&D session and it can be highly reccomended.

Heading down hill past many attractive Edwardian(?) mansion blocks and a very picturesque fire station dating from 1901 you reach Mill Lane which has a very nice village feel. That is something that you pick up when you walk through London, although everything at first appears to be one huge homogeneous metropolis, on the ground many places have kept a part of their original village feel. Hampstead is one of these and even within Hampstead there are different sub-villages and districts.

As the road turns north-west to follow a deep railway cutting there is a small nature reserve tucked into the side of the road. Westbere Copse is quite small and I should have spent a few minutes exploring it but I wasn't sure at the time if there was another way out.

The further north-west I walked along Westbere Road the less attractive the buildings on either side became, you really feel a sense of leaving Hampstead behind and moving into Cricklewood. Ah Cricklewood, this was one of those place names that had a magical attraction for me in my youth as it was the home of The Goodies. I had no idea where it was or what it was like so I made sure that today's walk passed through it. It is quite a busy, bustling place built around and along the A5, the old Roman Road that became in Anglo Saxon times, Watling Street. No sense of ancient history remains in the shop lined street of today though one shop Ever Fresh Fish had one of the finest displays of fresh fish I had ever seen. Fish from all corners of the globe (OK why do we say 'corners of the globe'? Globes have no corners!) bright eyed and very fresh looking. Didn't buy any as I think they may have been a little less fresh by the time I arrived at the end of the walk - it was beginning to get very hot indeed now and the shelter provided by the tall blocks either side of the road was balanced against the fumes from the lorries, buses and cars.

Beyond Watling Street the walk became more peaceful, with parallel streets of residential terraces running south of Olive Road, one of the houses had a very fine dragon finial on their roof which I coveted. I've seen them for sale in reclamation yards, including one near my office in Vauxhall, but they are too expensive (and too heavy to pop in my rucksack) so perhaps in our next house. One of these side streets had my favourite name so far, Dicey Avenue. It would be interesting to find out why that name was chosen, there is no pattern that I could determine; Sneyd,Wren, Dawsons, Blackstone and Heber are the others nearby. It all seems like a difficult Only Connect wall.

A very pleasant walk through Gladstone Park followed, lots of nice trees and . This is one of the numerous municipal parks that are dotted throughout London and which made walking the Capital Ring and this latest project so pleasurable. We are very lucky in London to have so many of them and we need to make sure that in this era of austerity we don't lose them or let them fall into disrepair.It had an interesting bird sculpture which reminded me a bit of some of the art in Barcelona's Park Guell.

Leaving the park, with great views of Wembley Stadium ahead, you enter Neasdon and not far ahead the drone of the North Circular starts to make itself heard. After all my worries it was actually very simple to cross. Following Neasden High Street leads to a very attractive underpass (yes they do exist and not all smell) with tiles depicting canal boats, trains and other forms of transport. I realised as I emerged back into the sunlight that I had been across the top of the underpass on the North Circular hundreds of times but never thought anything of it. A slow climb and walk along a rather busy main road followed before diving south west again towards the station at Wembley Park which has a very attractive frontage. It has obviously been upgraded recently to accommodate extra visitors for the new Wembley Stadium and this has been done very nicely giving the station a nice open feel.

That completed this leg of the walk and next time I need to make a decision as to which branch of the line to tackle first: south to Uxbridge or north to  Chesham, Amersham and Watford.