This walk takes me to the far east of the Epping Forest District to Chipping Ongar, at the end of the Epping Ongar Steam Railway line. The more modern 14th century name of Ongar was thought to mean ‘Grass Land’, with the pretext Chipping coming from an old English word refering to ‘Market Place’. Ongar…
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Highams Park is a Special Area of Conservation and a Site of Special Scientific Interest. This was once an area of woodland pasture believed to have been cleared by the Saxons and there have been a number of manor houses here, the original of which was nearer to the river Lea. After this was demolished…
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The area known today as the newly planted Theydon Bois Wood to the East of Theydon Bois and alongside the M11 is believed to have once been part of Epping forest. As far back as the 18th century this piece of land appears on maps to be divided into separate fields and was once referred…
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Once part of North Weald Airfield, Roughtalley’s Wood is a relatively small nature reserve in North Weald. Although it is possible to walk around in a fairly short time, this really is worth spending some time exploring in order to absorb the incredible wealth of species found here. There are a Surprising number of different…
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Roding Valley and Chigwell Meadows nature reserve straddle either side of the M11 and are in the centre of what was once the ancient parish of Chigwell which once stretched East to Hainault and West beyond Buckhurst Hill towards the river Ching, and included Lords bushes in Knighton Wood. Much of the area was…
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This is a longer walk best suited to experienced walkers who are familiar with the public footpath and bridleway network and map reading. As it uses a large number of both long and short public footpaths, bridleways and public byways through a number of different parts of the district I’ll refer to them by their…
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