13.4km (8.4miles) Difficulty 3/10.
This walk takes you through the ancient woodland of Epping Forest, to Upshire. Then on through open countryside with good views around Copped Hall Park.
The forest is renowned for its ancient pollarded trees, primarily oak, beech and hornbeam, which support a wealth of rare insects and fungi.
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 40 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.
It is important that you comply with our Covid Rules (see top of this page). To maintain separation, sub-groups (6 or less) are asked to stagger departure by a few minutes.
Lunch
You could try for an early lunch at High Beach Visitor Centre where there is a refreshments kiosk, toilets, café and the Kings Oak pub (0208 508 5000).
The Horseshoes pub (01992 712745 ) in Copthall Green is better placed, with friendly service and good food. With Covid restrictions affecting eateries, you might prefer to bring a picnic lunch. 80m from the Horseshoes, the entrance gate to St Thomas’ Church leads to a pleasant grassy area with wooden benches suitable for a picnic.
Tea
The recommended tea stop is the Verde Café, 88 High Street, Epping (01992 571476). Like most Epping teashops, it closes at 4pm on a Sunday. If you're too late, there are pubs (see text).
Walk Directions here
A map and compass (or gps ) are recommended for some sections.You can shorten the walk to about 5 miles by staying on the 3 Forest Way at paragraph 7 and rejoining the main walk at the end of paragraph 30.
Copped Hall a restored manor house near the afternoon route, has a limited-entry Autumn Garden Afternoon today. £6 for a timed-entry ticket .
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4 comments:
A conveniently numbered n=6 gathered at the station. We let the 3 younger ones scamper off ahead leaving a slower, steadier trio to soldier along behind. The advance 3 weren't seen again. The day was W=mostly-sunny-some-cloud There was one teensy shower near the end that gave us a rainbow. The slow 3 stopped at High Beach for a mix of hot drinks, chips and packed lunch. At the end, we didn't visit the High St, we went straight to the station. A nice walk but the leaves not turned yet. Some fungi seen and 3 lazy longhorns asleep in a meadow. There are one or two points where the directions seem ambiguous but we got through just fine without resorting to map, compass or gps.
The walk page comments function seems to be out of action at present so posting this here.
Directions work quite well. Just one or two things.
Point 4 Unless I missed an earlier fork, the "right fork" is really a 90 degree right TURN and, in my eyes, its on more of a crosspath than anything else. We overshot this turn looking for a fork.
Also I did't see a white topped post with a horseshoe on.
Point 7 It might be helpful to describe this bridge and dip as the second such. We spent time trying to find the left turn at the first dip. The description of the second bridge as 'barely noticeable' is disconcerting. I had no trouble noticing it and the brickwork is fairly prominent. (This might sound pedantic but it helped sow seeds of doubt).
(Following the path to the left along the waymark posts went well but we ended up nearer the Kings Oak than intended, possibly because we could see the car park through the trees).
Point 33 I went astray here before and nearly did again. Its easy to lose bearings here. I think one problem is that the track is variously described as a road and a "track". "Tarmac track" is, I think the better term. I don't think its quite grand enough to be considered a road. (Again, this might sound pedantic but it sows seeds of doubt). A helpful motorist driving away from his house put us right here.
One thing that might be helpful if the walk is updated (I'm not volunteering!) Forest entry/exit points (at road crossings) are numbered e.g Gate 62 This would be helpful confirmatory detail.
Another teensy thing: if people don't want to go to the Horseshoes or the church, it might be helpful to direct them down the "Alternative Shorter" route with the added advice to go right at the road (not obvious unless you've done the walk before).
Thanks for this Ian. I have saved your comments and will amend the walk directions (sometime)
Just to say that I’ve done this walk twice independently and always find the walk directions confusing for the reasons given below.
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