September 21, 2006: Elstree To Cockfosters
Christ Church, Cockfosters
Three months had passed – since the end of our summer ramble in the Lakes – before we were able to take to the trail again. First we had the hottest July in London history, then a very rainy August, then a September in which Tosh was just too busy to do anything. Even today she insisted that she had to be back in time to register American voters at ASL at 6:00 and so, rather than our continuing way out west on the Chiltern Way, I decided it would be better to pick up another missing link on the London Outer Orbital Path – by walking from Elstree to Cockfosters, a distance of ten and a half miles.
My next task was to get us started in a timely fashion while, at the same time, utilizing our freedom passes so as to avoid any additional payment on London Transport or train. I succeeded. First I determined that instead of heading for the Thames Link station at King’s Cross we could pick up the St. Albans train in West Hampstead. The Lees could have reached this spot by riding on an overground train from Acton Central but at the last minute Tosh diverted to ASL, where she dropped off her registration forms and her skirt – the Lees thus arriving in West Hampstead on the Jubilee Line. I spotted them heading for the Thames Link station on West End Lane as I was approaching it after a short ride from West Kilburn on the 328 bus.
We had plenty of time before our 9:52 train and so we walked over to a coffee corner where Costa and Starbucks were check by jowl. Tosh chose the former since there was a shady table on the sidewalk here – though only one and a half seats were so protected and, with all the buses, lorries and stereo-blaring private cars at our elbow, it was extremely unpleasant being here. (And Harold had just had a coffee while waiting for Tosh at the St. John’s Wood station.) The search for shade this early in the morning tells us, however, that we were expecting temperatures in the low 80’s today.
When we returned to our platform there was only a short wait before an equally short ride (just thirteen minutes or so) to the Elstree and Borehamwood station, where we had last been in July the previous year. I arranged my guidebook in my map case and we headed up to street level at 10:15, crossed over the railway line in a westerly direction, and turned south on Deacon’s Hill Road. David Sharp admits that there is too much road walking on today’s stage, but the Lees enjoyed scoping out the front yards (including the inevitable Pampas/Pompous grass) of affluent suburbia. The sun was in our face for much of this but, after a long pull uphill, we reached the A411 and turned east in rolling countryside that offered a little shade.
We had a nice bit of downhill for a few minutes and then it was uphill on pavement, soon accompanied by woodland on our left. The guidebook mentions the possibility of taking to parallel paths through the woods but there were lots of private property signs posted by Liang Homes hereabouts and one wondered if such routes would be preserved for long. On the opposite side of the highway we were encountering some grand piles and when we drew abreast a red pillar box we crossed to the other side to begin a real path downhill and into the Scratchwood woodlands
The route was well waymarked here and we followed paths and tracks in a southeasterly direction, emerging in open territory near the famous Scratchwood Services on the A1. Here we sloped down the grassy margins of a picnic ground and re-entered scrub at the bottom, pausing only once to hunt up a marker post that had disappeared beneath the vines of a bramble bush. Just as we approached the A1 itself I fell into an argument with Tosh when that lady insisted that she was resigning from the Ramblers Association because the latter opposed wind farms. I happen to agree that the wind farm is not the answer to the nation’s renewable energy needs –because each windmill produces so little energy that it takes thousands to make a difference and by this time you have eradicated seascape and countryside for miles. Today I just argued that Tosh should write a protest letter and keep her membership in an organization that does so much good. Eventually she agreed to do this.
There now followed a very unpleasant mile on the pavement of the highway, at first in a southerly direction, since no crossing had been provided here for walkers. It was noisy, uncomfortable walking, with the sun in our faces, though I suppose that after we had reversed direction, utilizing an underpass, walking became a little more pleasant – since there was some shade on the east side of the highway. Eventually we reached the entrance to the Mount Moat country park and turned off on a stretch of tarmac that lead us into woodland again.
LOOP signage wasn’t perfect hereabouts but we were now also following the Dollis Valley Greenwalk and where one set of signs was missing the other was usually in evidence. We located a set of steps and descended to a streambed, my progress faster than the others since I slipped on the bottom step and fell to my knees – an accident that could be blamed on the loose leaves or my dark glasses or my general clumsiness. Tosh had been agitating for an early lunch stop and so, just before noon and after we had climbed another hill we located a bench and sat down. I had packed an Atkinsonian feast consisting of cold chicken, cheese, celery, hardboiled egg and some almonds – the latter shared with the Lees. Tosh had made sandwiches with a less than satisfactory bread.
We were at lunch only twenty minutes before continuing in an easterly direction over several farm roads and down to a junction with the source of the Dollis Brook, not even a trickle at this point, but destined to improve in volume as those LOOP stretches we had already covered to the east had demonstrated. At an ambiguous parting of the ways a jogger tried to advise us – but as he had never heard of the LOOP this was not fruitful. By this time I had figured out that we needed to turn right and soon we were coming up behind an elderly couple (she on a cane) with a blind Labrador who was having difficulty escaping the last gate onto the Hendon Wood Lane.
We crossed this busy road ourselves and headed south, climbing a hill as our jogger headed back, and escaping soon after passing the gate to a sports club. We followed a hedgeline to our left as we made a sunny descent and then penetrated the hedge itself in order to walk onto the grassy margins of a football field. A signpost that might have offered some directional help lay rotting in the grass but we turned half right and passed through another hedgerow to begin a long, hot section with hedges and the stagnant pools of the Dollis Brook on our left. I made the mistake of asking Tosh if those weren’t sloes decorating one of the bushes we were passing – and she now devoted herself to picking these small purple fruits while Harold and I stood in the shade of a nearby tree.
We were doing well against the clock so there was no rush but when Tosh broke off at last I couldn’t get a straight answer out of her as to what she planned to do with the prize. Evidently you can make sloe gin with these fruits but she won’t drink it because there is too much sugar in the recipe. There is also a recipe for sloe jelly but she doesn’t have it any more, though she does have other specimens of the fruit itself. “If we ever move house,” Harold now added, “I’ll have to throw them out of the freezer in the basement, where they’ve been stored all these years.” We thought we were making progress again but Tosh soon found another bush and Harold and I had to sit down under a crab apple tree, whose sour fruit was littering the path. Fortunately Tosh showed no interest in this fruit.
At one point we crossed the infant brook and continued on the north side, better shaded, and soon leading to the first housing of Greater Barnet. Again we had a rest in the shade, a very curious trio to a passing sheep dog, and then continued forward amid apartment blocks and on tarmaced paths as far as Barnet Lane. There was a great deal of civic open space hereabouts but Tosh was worried that this would all be ploughed over for new housing in the future. More playing fields were encountered once we had crossed the lane and this was hot and rather tedious walking as we turned north and then east again, passing a kiddies playground and reaching Fairfield Way. I was getting really thirsty and there was no shade on this suburban street but I had been promising the others a pub stop and at the top of the street, as we reached the A1000 main road, we found the Old Red Lion and plunged in.
It was about 2:15 and we had now walked seven miles. This meant that we had plenty of time to enjoy our drinks. Harold had a Coke and I had a pint of Diet Coke with lots of ice. The latter made its presence felt in Tosh’s mineral water as well, though she had persuaded the publican to add half a dozen lemon wedges to the top layer. This accommodating gentleman also filled her canteen when, after obligatory visits to the loos, it was time to leave.
By now it was shortly before 3:00 and we had to turn right on the main road, pass under the tracks heading into High Barnet Station, and use a pedestrian crossing to reach the foot of Potters Lane. We soon left this street behind us and descended a sunny hillside, with the tracks over on our left. Housing over on our right soon produced a tarmac path that led us up to a triangular green where we turned right on Meadway. An Indian gentleman was standing in his driveway and we agreed with him that this was a splendid afternoon.
We crossed Meadway and entered Burnside Close and crossed another road that contained an entrance into King George’s Fields. Here we began a major climb – Tosh out in front. Indeed she sat down for a while with a couple on a bench and waited for Harold and me to pass her by. Behind us there were distant views of London – we thought we could see the top of the tower at Canary Wharf. When the hilltop was reached we turned from the northerly direction of the last hour to an easterly one and walked along a road next to Hadley Green.
We were now to enter a truly posh bit of ancient hunting territory once belonging to QEI, Enfield Chase, while Hadley village itself had a number of surprising attractions. We walked on paths through the green itself, first passing the manor house of Hadley House with its attractive bell turret. As is her habit, Tosh said hello to a senior citizen heading our way and he paused, squinted into the sun, and replied, “Hello. I didn’t recognize you with that hat.”
Next we passed a house that belonged to the novelist Fanny Trollope (young Anthony lived here too) and a cottage that David Livingstone had lived in after returning from his first African expedition. Then there were some charming almshouses, built in 1612 for “six decayed housekeepers” and a handsome church (with adjacent school) where the Range Rover set were picking up uniformed daughters. A set of white gates ushered us into Chase territory itself and we followed a roadside in an easterly direction with more mansions on our right.
Eventually we were invited to take a path into the woods of Monken Hadley Common, paralleling the traffic on our right but, to the disgruntlement of the Lees, shutting off our views of more posh piles. An additional problem was that the woodland path was getting wetter underfoot and when we reached a truly mucky section and my boot had managed to squirt mud all over my map case, we found our way back to the road, which as Bakers Hill, carried the LOOP down to a parking lot. We crossed a railway bridge where flowers had been left as a memorial after some local tragedy and followed a sunken lane into woods.
We were sheltered at last from the worst of the afternoon sun – just as well as we were running out of steam. Sharp denounces a little four pillared bridge as “pompous” but at this point he does recommend a brief diversion to our left where, surprisingly, at the top of a bank we reached the lip of an idyllic small lake, complete with fisherfolk, lily pads and coots – Beech Hill Lake.
Our trod now continued and we soon reached civilization again on Games Lane – with more white gates ushering us out of the Chase and up to more cottages whose parking spaces seemed to support nothing larger than expensive VW bugs. We had reached the outskirts of Cockfosters and after turning right at we prepared for a final entry into the town itself. Our road, Church Lane, was being dug up and it wasn’t easy to negotiate its surfaces. One of the road workers also advised us that there had been a motorcycle accident on the main road ahead of us (we could hear the sirens) but that we should have no problem reaching the tube station.
We reached the church and turned left to reach the A111 at a corner that had a great sentimental attachment for me – as it was while standing here (and observing the LOOP sign overhead) that Dorothy and I waited for the delivery of our puppy Fritz – almost three and a half years earlier. It was 4:50.
We used an underpass to enter the station (where I noticed that the café was closed) and used our freedom passes to approach a Heathrow train. I used the mobile phone to give Dorothy an e.t.a and we were off. There was an unexpected pause at Arnos Grove but we got going again and headed west. Harold would certainly make it back home by 7:00, when he was expecting an important phone call, and Tosh, with a change at Green Park, would certainly make it to ASL by 6:00. I was the first to get up and say goodbye, switching to the Bakerloo Line at Piccadilly and joining the rush hour mob (one that kept me standing as far as Paddington) – arriving home at last shortly past 6:00.
Our next walk was:
Day 14: Chigwell to Harold Wood
To continue from Cockfosters you need: