Length: 20.9 km (13.0 mi)
Ascent/Descent: 336m
Net Walking Time: 4 ¾ hours
Toughness: 5/10
[shorter versions possible, see below]
Take the 09.50 Laindon train from London Fenchurch Street (Limehouse
09.55, West Ham 10.00, Barking 10.05, Upminster 10.14), arrives
Laindon 10.22.
Return trains: on xx.28 or xx.58.
This is an energetic and varied figure-of-eight walk through some
tranquil, hilly parts of Essex, mostly through woods, both ancient and modern,
and through flower-rich meadows and some farmland, which are all parts of
Langdon Hills Country Park and the neighbouring Langdon Nature Reserve (which
itself consists of five separate reserves). The hills form a crescent shaped
ridge running West-to-East, giving panoramic views over the Thames Estuary from
many points: out to Canvey Island and Fobbing Marshes in the East, across to
Kent and to London’s Skyline in the West.
The lunch destination Horndon-on-the-Hill is a conservation area and features
several noteworthy buildings as well as a multi award-winning pub. On the
return you walk through more beautiful, undulating woods and then through the
Dunton Plotlands part of the Nature Reserve, an interesting area formerly full
of bungalows and chalets for Londoners, now with a brand-new large visitor
centre and café.
This walk contains some arable field crossings around lunch (about 1,000m in total), where it is also afflicted by some road noise from the nearby A13 for a while.
Walk Options:
A couple of shortcuts cut out 2.4 km (1.5 mi) and 2.6 km (1.6 mi)
respectively.
Cutting out the outer loop to Horndon-on-the-Hill reduces the walk by
5.5 km.
Tea: Langdon
Visitor Centre in Dunton Plotlands (café open to 16.00, 3.1 km
from the end of the full walk).
For summary, map, height profile, some photos,
walk directions and gpx/kml files click here. T=swc.114
2 comments:
An all-male Gang of n=4 convened for this drencher of a walk.
The rain was heavy and consistent until noon, but we were all appropriately dressed for the occasion, so no moaning. Then a dry period erupted, most of which though we spent at the lunch pub, after which we had rain again! At a quarter past three though, it stopped for good, just as we were nearing the stretch where you get panoramic views of London's skyline. Perfect timing. A little later we were even bathed in sunshine, for about 10 minutes or so. Oh, the luxury!
The rest was overcast, so all in: w=lots-of-rain-with-some-breaks-and-even-a-little-sunshine.
1 cut out the bottom part of the figure of 8, 1 other walked the pm shortcut, 2 all of the route. Lunch at The Bell was as good as ever (they had one small table left in the bar area, which is exactly what we needed). The arable field crossings were of the ploughed-London-Clay variety so, as the boots had just returned to some semi-presentable state at the time, we skirted the last field before lunch. Else: lots of slippery stiles and very slippery footbridges (I tried leaf-skating, it works), one stretch of very overgrown footpath (I will send a mail to the Essex r-o-w Officer) and some very fine conversations along the way.
A very good day out. It definitely blew away any cobwebs there might have been...
Oh: plenty of fascinating mushrooms.
Yes, it was a very good day out. Must be something wrong with me as I enjoyed the rain.
Also, great to see the Essex hills, 40 metres above sea level.
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