Totteridge Circular
Length: 14.1km (8.8 miles) Toughness: 2 out of 10
Meet at 10:30am> at Totteridge and Whetstone tube station, the penultimate stop on the High Barnet branch of the Northern Line. The journey time from Euston is 25 minutes. All stations at the start and alternative finishes are in Zones 4 or 5.
This is a delightfully rural walk in north London’s greenbelt countryside that escaped development in the 1930s thanks to local resistance. Meadows and woodland feature strongly.
The recommended lunch pub is the Three Hammers (020 8959 2173) in Mill Hill, 7.6km into the walk.
As well as a shortcut to lunch, saving 1.3k, there are two possible extensions in the afternoon, one to High Barnet, making a total walk of 18.1km (11.2 miles), and the other to Cockfosters on the Piccadilly line, making a total walk of 19.8km (12.3 miles).
You will need to download the Walk Directions.
T=SWC.228
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3 comments:
This time of the year this walk can be very muddy and waterlogged
I haven't found any evidence yet of serious mud and/or waterlogged fields, after the long, hot, dry summer of 2018. I have gaiters, just in case.
I thought that I might get to record a verified zero attendance on this walk (as opposed to the assumed zero attendance if we get no walk report), since on arrival at the station (my local one) at 10.27 no other walkers were in evidence. Had none turned up, I would have gone off to do something else. But in fact they were all assembling on the station platform in traditional SWC style, and in the end a group of n=11 set off.
The clouds were parting at this point and for a time it was fairly sunny. Alas, by mid morning it clouded over, so w=briefly-sunny-then-cloudy is entered into the log. There was no mud at all, with even normally bog-prone parts of the route being solid underfoot. Some fine remaining colour on oak trees but basically trees were bare.
Most did the main route to lunch, enjoying the view down onto Alexandra Palace, Highgate and other such lesser heights. At least one walker, who we are happy to see back with us after a break for medical reasons, did the short cut to lunch and reported no navigational problems apart from having to circumvent a football game. Two walkers, mysteriously, materialised on the main route going in the opposite direction from the one specified, having got lost in some way or other. They went on to complete the walk from this direction without going to the pub. One other apparently got a bus home from the lunch pub.
Four of us lunched in the not-at-all-full Three Hammers and three of us enjoyed fine roasts (nut in my case) with generous portions, which we accompanied with a talk about the dangers of eating too much carbohydrate. Three picknickers joined us for drinks: one went on alone.
In the afternoon seven of us enjoyed an uneventful walk back to Totteridge station. None went for tea, as far as I am aware, apart from the picknicker who had gone on ahead who found Costa Coffee well frequented, the tea room near the station having mysteriously decided to close early (a commercial lesson there somewhere...).
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