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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.

Wednesday 11 July 2018

Wednesday Walk - Hide from the sun in the woods: Epping Forest Centenary Walk - Manor Park to Epping

Length: 23.8 km (14.8 mi) [much shorter walk possible, see below]
Ascent/Descent:  315 m; Net Walking Time: ca. 5 ½ hours
Toughness:  5 out of 10 

Take the 09.40 Shenfield train from Liverpool Street (09.47 Stratford, then Maryland and Forest Gate), arriving Manor Park at 09.53. Manor Park is on the boundary of Zones 3 and 4.
Return: Central Line from Epping, departing every few mins. Epping is in Zone 6.
                                          
A map-led walk originally created by the Friends of Epping Forest.

The Epping Forest Centenary Walk runs the length of Epping Forest, an area of ancient woodland in north east London. It has been protected since the 12th century as a royal hunting forest, though more recently (1878) it has been managed by the City of London, and to celebrate this anniversary this walk was devised. The forest lies on a low ridge between two rivers, The Lea and The Roding.
The walk is mainly wooded and the southern half of the route mainly paved, but the northern part of the walk on unpaved forest trails can be muddy after prolonged wet weather.
The route passes close to Chingford and Buckhurst Hill stations about halfway for an easy dropout.

Also at the halfway point lie the lunch options: the Royal Forest pub (Brewers Fayre), and the Butler's Retreat café in a restored barn, both part of the Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge/Epping Forest Visitor Centre complex. For tea, there is the Harry Green Restaurant  en-route in High Beech and then a number of pubs, cafés and restaurants in Epping High Street including The George and Dragon, The Black Lion and The Duke of Wellington, together with various chain cafés and the Verde Café.

For walk directions, map, height profile, and gpx/kml files click here. T=3.259

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi. Is there a link so we can print the route? Thanks.

Thomas G said...

Yes, in the same place as always: click on the 'here' in the last sentence of the posting, which gets you to the webpage for this walk, and there click on the 'OS Map' tab.

Anonymous said...

Yes, but is there a typed guide to the route, please, as in paragraphed instructions? Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Just saw the referencec to this being a map-led walk.

PeteB said...

There are some basic written directions for this walk but you will still need a map or gps. See http://www.walksandwalking.com/2013/09/walks-walking-epping-forest-centenary-walk/

Anonymous said...

Central Line. Severe delays.

Thomas G said...

6 at Manor Park station, 1 at the Green Man Roundabout in Leytonstone, 1 more joining in Chingford at the lunch destination, so n=8 in w=warm-overcast-and-muggy-then-sunny weather.
Wanstead and Leighton Flats looked like the Serengeti and were quiet (i.e. devoid of football teams, it being a weekday). We got to Chingford for 12.30. The men went to the pub, the women for a picnic or to the Butler's Rest cafe. One of the men then headed home to watch the tennis and start his preps for tonight's big match. 2 of the others went to the Butler's Rest cafe for a post-lunch coffee and later explored alt. routes to the gpx route, wherever the OS map has the Centenary Walk take a different route. We therefore 'discovered' lots of narrow paths through lonely parts of the forest, interesting.
All remaining 7 were soon enough re-united and paid a visit to the remnants of Ambresbury Banks Iron Age hillfort, just a few metres off route. Then we took the direct route to the tube station, foregoing the village route past the pubs and cafes. 16.17 train.
May the best team win.

Anonymous said...

Hi. New to group. Turned up on time (I think) but no one there, which was no surprise given Central Line trouble. Waited for a while, then invented own walk as unsure of route. When did you 6 start walking? Thank you.

Thomas G said...

Anonymous 11:33:00 BST: We met on the platform at 09.53 (the train was on time), left the station via the temporary overbridge to the side road and walked up to the main station hall on the main road to check whether anyone was waiting there. Sorry to have missed you.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Thomas. See you next time.