Length: 8.7 km (5.4 mi) [Shorter and longer walks possible, see below
Ascent/Descent: 154m
Net Walking Time: ca. 2 ¼ hours
Meet outside Stanmore Station (up the
steps) at 18.45. Journey time from Baker Street is 28 minutes. Save some
minutes by taking the Met Line to Wembley Park and change there. If you travel on the Jubilee Line from any station south of Baker Street, change at Finchley Road.
Stanmore is the northerly terminus of the Jubilee Line and in Zone 5.
This undulating route in a leafy part of North London almost completely
eschews roads and housing to lead through three separate large Nature Reserves
or Commons with a couple of smaller green areas in between, providing for a
large variety in ecologies, including secondary and ancient woodlands, streams
and ponds, coarse grassland, unimproved neutral grassland, acid grassland,
heathland, scrubland, open glades and wetlands. Many areas are rich in
wildflowers, butterflies and moths.
You rise up through the fine Modernist Warren Estate and through the
wooded Stanmore Country Park to Wood Farm Local Nature Reserve with the London
Viewpoint and its panoramic views across London from Alexandra Palace to
Heathrow via The City, Wembley and Harrow and out to the North Downs.
Descend through grassland and reascend through Cloisters Wood to reach
the ridge of Stanmore Hill at Little Common. You pass Stanmore Common’s
Brewer’s Ponds and in the decidedly wilder Common proper have a choice of
routes through it.
Lastly, the descent through Bentley Priory NR, location of RAF Fighter
Command during WWII, enchants with quiet grasslands and varied woods, as well
as more vistas to parts of London. Also passed are a large artificial pond with
a very old oak tree and a private deer park (the latter on a shortcut).
Walk Options:
Bus Line 142 travels along The Common (the A4140) and its
Stanmore Priory Drive stop is passed 4.3 km into the walk. This connects to
Stanmore and Edgware Tube Stations or to Watford Junction.
Extensions are described in Stanmore Country Park (add 350m),
Stanmore Common (add 1.0 km) and in Bentley Priory NR (add 400m). The longest
version of the route has 10.5 km.
Shortcuts are possible by cutting out the loop through
Stanmore Common and by taking a more direct route through Bentley Priory Park,
along the Deer Park on tarmac rather than through the grasslands and woods and
past the ponds on partly mud-prone paths, or by taking a clockwise route around
the pond.
An Alternative Ending leads along the
main road through Stanmore (the A410), past more tea options.
Bus Lines travelling along the A410 through Stanmore to the
Station cut up to 1.1 km on this option.
Refreshments:
There are no pubs in Stanmore
For walk directions, maps, height profiles, photos and gpx/kml files click here . T=short.56
1 comment:
4 of us got going about 18.50, with 1 other a train or two behind, and then another walker was lurking in the first bit of wood, so n=6 in total on a w=warm-and-clear evening.
Very clear views from the top indeed, the 'London Viewpoint', no haze at all, so Canary Wharf, the City, Nine Elms, the Mole Gap with Box Hill, Wembley and Harrow were all clearly visible.
Later on, a muntjac was encountered, and a herd of Longhorn cattle were tending to a meadow, and then we reached the Bistro 101 at 20.40 for our pre-booked outside table. The manageress even remembered us from last year (no group had booked a table as late as 21.00 since then, apparently)! 5 of us stayed until 22.15 (wonderful meals and service, again). The rest of the route through the woods was walked in near darkness (but with a 2/3 moon) and on to the tube it was.
At Wembley Park it got very crowded with Lana Del Rey spectators, which dropped the average age in our carriage quite dramatically.
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