Centenary Walk Archives - Remote London https://www.remotelondon.com/tag/centenary-walk/ Wild spaces & solitude on the edges of London Sun, 06 Sep 2020 14:26:40 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.1 https://www.remotelondon.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Greater-London-outline-favicon.png Centenary Walk Archives - Remote London https://www.remotelondon.com/tag/centenary-walk/ 32 32 179982959 Exploring the Centenary Walk, Manor Park to Chingford https://www.remotelondon.com/centenary-walk-manor-park-to-chingford/ Wed, 06 Nov 2019 21:37:00 +0000 https://www.remotelondon.com/?p=869 The Centenary Walk stretches from Manor Park in east London to Epping in Essex. The full walk is about 15 miles…

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The Centenary Walk stretches from Manor Park in east London to Epping in Essex. The full walk is about 15 miles long and explores the length of Epping Forest. There is a halfway point around Chingford, allowing the walk to be done as two shorter walks.

A short walk from Manor Park station gets you to Wanstead Flats. These are part of Epping Forest, but the ancient woods are long gone from this area. The Abbots of Stratford were grazing sheep here in the 12th century, and it has been rough, open grassland ever since. Later tree planting has created small, cosmetic copses, and there are thickets of gorse, broom, and scrub.

Wanstead Flats also boasts countless football pitches, their side lines patrolled by dog walkers. The trees provide a playground for children, and shade for the inevitable drinkers and spliff-smokers, hooded but harmless.

Goal posts on Wanstead Flats
Goal posts on Wanstead Flats frame a copse of trees

Barrage balloons at Wanstead Flats

Less typical of an urban park are the occasional, incongruous metal posts with no obvious purpose. Some say these were used to tether barrage balloons to the ground during WW2. Such balloons deterred low altitude attacks by enemy aircraft, but as the Germans typically used high level bombing raids against London, they were largely ineffective.

However, barrage balloons were typically anchored to lorries, ships, or chunky concrete foundations. Others suggest the posts simply held a tensioned fence cable. 

Rose Stephens lives locally and shared the pic’s below. She tells me she’s pretty sure the posts have something to do with the barrage balloons which flew here, but their exact purpose remains a mystery.

Two roads cross the Flats, the A114 and Lake House Road. Between them lies Jubilee Pond and a section of heath which is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). This is wildlife-rich ‘acid grassland’, a previously grazed meadow which has escaped the sterilising effects of modern intensive farming. 

The Fred Wigg and John Walsh Towers

Ahead, the Fred Wigg and John Walsh Towers dominate the horizon and the football pitches and scrub below. During the 2012 Olympics, these monolithic blocks were topped with missile launchers, to defend against terrorist attack from the skies. Now their tenants await a new threat, redevelopment or demolition, although plans are currently on hold.

A pair of tall housing blocks in the distance, overlooking a wild space
The Fred Wigg and John Walsh Towers, as seen from Wanstead Flats

The Centenary Walk heads north, bordering an unkempt treeline and bushes, and then into Bush Wood. Away from the open fields, there are less people. The path passes under the busy A12 roundabout, then escapes into an open stretch of scrub and vegetation, leading towards Hollow Pond.

Dead trees silhouetted against the sky
A group of dead, blackened trees reach to the sky near Hollow Pond

Trees and fungi

Passing the small car park at Snaresbrook Road and then skirting a school, the natural surroundings seem to step up a notch. Open meadow mingles with patches of mature trees. Like much of Epping Forest, this is also an SSSI. With lots of dead wood on the ground, autumnal fungi were everywhere. I stopped here awhile, grabbing some lunch. A hungry crow kept me company, carefully sizing me up while awaiting crumbs. Aside from a couple of dog walkers, I had the place to myself.

Trees and open meadow
Marked on Google Maps as Fleazel’s Field, a good lunch stop
Fly agaric, a red toadstool with white spots
Fly agaric on the Centenary Walk
Fungi growing on dead wood
The dead wood in Epping Forest is great for fungi

Losing the Centenary Walk

I lost the Centenary Walk here, as it isn’t well signposted, and I was admittedly concentrating on the colourful fungi. My path took me to the busy A406 roundabout, where it loops over the dual-carriageway and under the feeder roads. Police tape was wrapped around a shattered, truncated streetlight. Bedraggled flowers and a white floral cross snagged drifts of car-thrown litter. All rather grim. A better path crosses the carriageway via a nearby footbridge. 

At least the underpass graffiti is friendly

Back on the correct path, I walked up to the boating lake in Highams Park. Here I saw a couple of big-nosed shoveler duck and at least two little grebe. The little grebe are fast and small, resembling hyperactive windup toys as they repeatedly dive for food.

The River Ching

With dusk falling around me, I crossed the A1009 and followed the River Ching’s braided channel through woodland. By the river, a tree hollow held a soggy collection of soft toys, a plastic doll, and a child’s book, perhaps a spiritual offering or memorial.

Soft toys heaped into the open hollow of a tree
A votive offering, memorial, or something else, off the beaten track.

At Hatch Plain, the Centenary Walk was sticky and muddy underfoot, the route churned by cyclists. At the A110 I considered abandoning my walk and following the road into Chingford, but I pushed on, into the murk of Whitehall Plain.

With luck I found a bridge across the Ching, then walked a spacious, wooded path towards Rangers Road. In the dark, nearby, an owl called.

Chingford and chips

The path led me to Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge, which dates back to 1543 and is now a museum. The neighbouring Tudor-style Premier Inn is impressively over-the-top, dating back to 1879, but rebuilt after fire.  

The path follows the road into Chingford and its end-of-the-line station. I finished off the walk with Chingford chips, then hopped onto an Overground train and headed home.

Bright orange fungus on dead wood
The Centenary Walk, fabulous for fungi

More information

Wanstead Flats

Epping Forest on Wikipedia

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