April 1, 2002: Uxbridge to Moor Park

After two failures at organizing the start of the 2002 walking season, the Lees and I made a beginning at last on April Fool’s Day, a Bank Holiday Monday. Connex South East had been closing lines this weekend for track maintenance and I knew trains would be infrequent at best – so I proposed, at the last minute, that we skip ahead to a stretch of the London Outer Orbital Path that could be accomplished using the underground system only. This is why I left the house shortly before 9:00 for the Maida Vale tube stop.

Trains here were running with their usual frequency and I hadn’t long to wait for a southbound shuttle to Baker Street. Here I rose two levels to find the Metropolitan Line. An electronic sign provided the cheery news that I had only a five-minute wait aboard a train already at the platform and soon I began a long north-westerly journey – with few other passengers in evidence. I arrived at the end the line, Uxbridge, at about 9:50 – finding the door of station loo locked as I made my exit.

Next door, in a Costa Coffee, I found the Lees. I ordered a decaf and we chatted for fifteen minutes before entering a nearby shopping mall, also mostly empty, in search of toilets that could actually be used by the public. Then we returned to the precincts of the station and headed northwest along the old high street and over the Frays River. Tosh knew her way around a bit – having added to her retirement menu a course here in how to become a Citizens Advice Bureau volunteer.

At the Grand Union Canal we passed the venerable Crown and Treaty pub (at a site where, in 1645, representatives of the crown failed to come up with a treaty also acceptable to the Parliamentarians). In the parking lot of the Swan and Bottle, on our side of the street, steps lead back to the canalside (and the only LOOP sign encountered all day) and here we turned north for four miles or so of lovely and level walking. We soon reached Uxbridge Lock and used a bridge to cross over in front of the lockkeeper’s cottage. The River Colne joined the canal for a while as we walked under the A40. At Denham Lock we paused to see two narrow boats wait patiently for the lock doors to open.

It was a lovely sunny day, with the occasional cloud, and temperatures in the high 50’s and low 60’s. I wore my blue sweatshirt throughout and took most of the lead in the conversation, having much gossip to impart on the state of the school and our department as well as recent travel (we had just returned from a trip to Paris) and travel still to come.

The many bridges here were numbered and we used 182 to cross to the east side of the canal where we had our first encounter with the many lakes that had been created out of abandoned gravel quarries. Often we had lakes on either side of the canal and this was lovely walking; bird life was plentiful, coots, mallards, swans (no offspring yet) and one impressive heron who accompanied us for a while, swooping overhead in flight, walking on the grass like an avian Groucho Marx at other times.

We turned right to circle a marina and spent a few minutes in woodland. I was following the directions in David Sharp’s book very closely, and it must have been the only time that my first reading of a guidebook coincided with its immediate employment on the trail – for the choice of this stretch had been made so late that I hadn’t done any advanced reading.

A track lead out to a road where we turned left, crossed the canal, and made our approach to the Horse and Barge pub – which I had proposed as our lunch spot. Tosh pushed open the door exactly at 12:00 and asked, “Are you open?” A woman behind the bar turned to the lady proprietor and repeated this question, “Are we open?”  The answer came in the affirmative form and Tosh selected a sunny table next to a window (and then selected a second unsunny table some distance from the window because the first spot had been so breezy that the napkins kept blowing off).

I ordered a mineral water, just the first gesture in the abstemious regime that I had begun only two days before, the Dr. Atkins low-carbohydrate diet. The water, therefore, was followed by a tuna salad, but this proved to be a sobering experience; the boiled potatoes had to be brushed aside but I could eat all of the rest, though I didn’t quite understand why, in addition to the pickle, the Horse and Barge had also added pickled cabbage, a pickled onion, and pickled beets to the concoction. The Lees, meanwhile, had huge piles of forbidden french fries on their plates – as Harold had ordered the fish and chips and Tosh an omelet. While we ate the place filled up and outside the fires of the barbecue smoked in the breeze. We spent about an hour in this congenial atmosphere, a discussion of this June’s walk on the Cotswold Way dominating the conversation.

Then, after another trip to the loo (I was supposed to be drinking eight glasses of water a day) we departed for another stretch on the canal. We had a brief rest at Black Jack’s Lock, site of an abandoned mill, and reached another pub, once the Fisheries Inn, then the Minnow and now, in the kingdom of the twee, renamed the Coy Carp. Tosh debated whether to enter its premises and asked me whether we would find another pub on route and I was able to suggest that another hour or so would bring us to said establishment – so she did not enter the Carp.

Here, at any rate, we turned our backs on the Grand Union Canal, and headed in a mostly northeasterly direction away from the water. The second half of our walk, in rural surroundings, would prove to be much more strenuous, with plenty of contours and route-finding challenges.

We crossed the canal one last time and followed a twisting road out to Summerhouse Lane, where we turned left to climb away from the canal. After a while we turned off to the east and followed first a road, then a track, and then a path past the well-tended grounds of Parkwood Kennels. There was no one about and, indeed, we heard nary a bark, so the atmosphere was eerie. We almost walked right into this establishment, but Harold spotted a parallel path on our left and we retraced a few steps to take it up through a lovely woodland.

At the top things leveled out and the path brought us out to a road, where we turned left. A children’s learning center here occupied the site of an abandoned pub, but the Plough was still remembered in its effigy silhouette in the sign out front. One bungalow later we turned right on a road that ended at a stile into a large open meadow. Our guidebook promised us “a clear little path” but grass had grown over this trail and we had only the briefest glimpse of bare earth as we headed northeast on grass toward a footbridge protected by stiles.

It was a heavenly afternoon and it felt great to be out in real countryside. The trees were all in blossom as well and the sweeping vistas were grand. Accompanied by a hedge we continued forward, over some more stiles, dropping down to a dip and then climbing another hill on bare earth toward the distant Harefield Road.

Tosh wanted to know if we would make it to the next pub before closing hours, since it was 2:40 by now, but I assured her we would. There was no verge or pavement for us on Harefield Road, but traffic was slowed here fortunately because they were repaving this stretch and they had placed a temporary traffic signal to regulate the flow. At the top of another hill we reached the Rose and Crown, ordered our drinks, sat down, and heard them ring the last orders bell.

I had another mineral water. We did not sit for any great length as the proprietors were quite eager to shut their doors against any more customers in a quite lively bar scene – the notion that they could make some more money by remaining open on a Bank Holiday afternoon not having occurred to them (they did serve one couple who arrived after the bell).

Back on the Harefield Road we located a public footpath and headed east again, soon reaching a field with a wood on our right. We dropped down to a dip and began climbing up the opposite side but here we encountered a small route finding problem – Sharp’s suggestion that we were to look for the next turnoff  “shortly before the field ends” seemed to bear no fruit as we reached the end of the field and found no turnoff to the right, as we expected. A lone horsewoman (whose mobile phone was bleating) was circling this field so Tosh engaged her in conversation while I retraced our steps some distance, discovering the wooden barrier into the woods – some distance before the end of the field.

We now climbed up into the woods but the trail was very muddy, chewed into paste by the hooves of horses and covered in thorny vines that proved to be quite a menace. I tripped several times, once twisting my right knee, and I had scratches on my legs even though I was wearing trousers. This path gave way to a much more comfortable track – but when we reached a stream we turned north on a narrow trail that crossed the stream and, in wet surroundings, inched into more woodland, including a grove of conifers. Eventually we turned south and found a very muddy horse ride heading for Betchworth Heath in a northerly direction.

Things were very muddy underfoot and more vines posed a problem but, after passing two electricity pylons, we found more open territory – if just as wet – leading up to the A404 and another pub. It took us a while to find a gap in the traffic, but once we had reached the opposite shore, turning east again, we disdained the pub and its sequel across the street, the Prince of Wales – which now seemed devoted to daylong doses of exotic dancing! Suburbia had undergone some changes.

Soon thereafter we turned north on a paved path, crossed a track, and fought our way through more undergrowth  – as they never seem to have finished paving this section – though the stones were lying by the side of the trail. The latter became muddy again and after floundering around for a while Harold and I followed Tosh into a meadow where the footing was better.

Part of this route was also blocked by fallen trees but we persevered over these and past back gardens and out to Kewferry Road, a suburban corner of Moor Park. Here we headed north through a glamorous estate and took an easterly line in a hedge-lined alley behind garden fences again, crossing several roads until we had walked under the railway line.

I was encouraged to see tube trains trundling by every few minutes –for now it was time for us to leave the LOOP for the day and use a wide sandy path to head north through a stretch of woodland adjacent to the tracks. Tosh stopped to ask two lads with a wheelbarrow and shovels why they were digging a hole. They said they were preparing a hideout. Meanwhile Harold and I snuck off for a last forest pee and at 4:50 we reached Moor Park Station. We had walked ten and a half miles.

We stood on the southbound “fast” train platform but twenty minutes passed before a train bound for Harrow arrived and in the interim I had given Tosh a photo I had taken of her at her mile 2000 – and a copy of the first draft of A Walker’s Alphabet, one that I had been lugging all day.

We parted at Harrow, where the Lees went looking for a train to Rayner’s Lane, and I soon boarded a Baker Street train. I was too tired to read and so I just sat there like a lump, getting off at the end of the line and walking down to the Bakerloo Line. I was home shortly before 6:00 after a most enjoyable outing.

Our next day on the route was:

Day 6: Hamsey Green to Banstead

To continue from Moor Park you need:

Day 12: Moor Park to Borehamwood