13.4km (8.4miles) Difficulty 3/10. Through the ancient woodland of Epping Forest, renowned for its ancient pollarded trees (primarily oak,
beech and hornbeam), supporting a wealth of rare insects and fungi. The afternoon takes you through open countryside.
Transport
The walk starts from Loughton Underground Station at 10.30am. Meet outside near the ticket gates.
Loughton and Epping are both in Travel Zone 6 on the Central Line. Trains are frequent. It takes about 37 minutes to travel from Oxford Circus to Loughton. Use the TfL journey planner to calculate your journey time from other stations.
There is car-parking at both Loughton and Epping underground stations.
Lunch
You first reach High Beach Visitor Centre where there is a refreshments kiosk (cash-only), toilets, café and the Kings Oak pub (0208 508 5000). There are also picnic benches nearby.
The Horseshoes pub (01992 712745 ) in Copthall Green is better placed, with friendly service and good food. Nearby, the entrance gate to St Thomas’ Church leads to a pleasant grassy area with wooden benches suitable for a picnic.
Tea There are pubs, cafes and restaurants in Epping High Street. Costas and Caffe Nero are open till 5:30. Stronger stuff available at the George and Dragon, the Black Lion or the Duke of Wellington.
Walk Directions here You can shorten the walk to about 5 miles by staying on the 3 Forest Way between paragraphs 7 and 30 t=swc.197
Sunday, 24 November 2024
Sunday Walk: Loughton to Epping
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2 comments:
I will be about an hour late and will do the short walk; I may double back to the lunch pub depending when I get within striking distance
So with just one on time to do the full walk, it was just the #2 of us today on a #very-windy-but-dry-and-surprisingly-mild day. I'd found the short walk a bit boring in the past but today, with a russet carpet of leaves, some golden colour still on the trees and the wind occasionally blowing waves of leaves across the path, I found it quite charming.
Amazingly the two of us reached the point where the routes converge at the same time. I had stopped in the woods for a sandwich and the main route walker had dropped into the Horseshoes where they were not very hospitable and declined to serve him food at the bar. We dropped into Cafe Mio in Epping for tea and a big slice of cake before heading for the tube. Stormy weather had returned before I could get home, but it was well worth venturing out
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