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This Week's Walks - Archive

Please see the Saturday Walker's Club This Week's Walks page.

This is an archive of walks done by the Saturday Walker's Club. You should only need to use this page if the SWC website is down.

Sunday 5 March 2017

Sunday Walk – Epping Forest

Extra Walk 241 – Leytonstone to Loughton
Length: 12.8 km (8 miles). Toughness: About 3/10

Take a Central line tube to arrive at Leytonstone (TfL Zones 3/4) by 10:45 (a 25-minute journey from Oxford Circus). Turn left outside the station and meet on the pavement outside Le Parisien café.

Loughton (Zone 6) is also on the Central line. Buy a Zones 1-6 Travelcard or use your Oyster card.

This walk picks up the Epping Forest Centenary Walk just north of Leytonstone tube station and follows its course through a succession of green spaces (remnants of the original forest) to a lunch stop in Chingford. The shorter afternoon section goes through the more familiar part of Epping Forest before dropping down to Loughton. Although not exactly a country walk (with plenty of main roads to cross) there will be some muddy stretches, so wear appropriate footwear.

For lunch the walk author recommends Butlers Retreat, an up-market café, with the nearby Royal Forest for those preferring a traditional (Brewers Fayre) pub lunch. There are several pubs and coffee shops for tea in Loughton High Street.

You'll need to print the walk directions from the Extra Walk 241 page. If you also bring the directions for Extra Walk 197 (Loughton to Epping) you could extend the walk to Epping.
T=swc.241

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

5 walkers.
Sunny weather, with one light shower.
Thank you to Mike for a great walk.

Anonymous said...

N=5

Mike A said...

n=5 congregated outside the Leytonstone Tube with the weather w=much_better_than_forecast_with_high_cloud_and_some_sun. Some troublesome mud which was slippery rather than deep resulting in two falls and a submission. In a "Corrour" moment one walker (you know who he is) managed to emerge from the Forest at the wrong pub. To avoid a yellow card he swiftly corrected his mistake and a few minutes later all left the Forest in front of the Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge (coming up for it's 500 year anniversary). This was open and the 5 took advantage of a visit and a presentation by the curator there. All visited the Premier Inn next door where on jumped ship and another joined. Much easier underfoot in the afternoon with mostly gravelled tracks. One walker continued on to Epping while the remainder set forth to Loughton.
All in all a nice day out with much better weather than expected despite the mud.

JuneT said...

3.5 hours from chingford to Epping, the footpaths were not well maintained towards the end, I had to climb over a padlocked gate at one point and I wish I'd had the written instructions for the bit that said "don't attempt the broken stair stile" ...but no bones were broken and the rain only let loose as I reached the station.
There's a longer route starting at manor park, through Wanstead flats, which might make a nice summer's day out.