Chingford Circular walk

7.6 km/4.7 mi, with 109m ascent/descent and 1 ¾ hours net walking time.

A varied and undulating route through commons, ancient woods and wildflower meadows, with plenty of fascinating trees as well as fantastic views to Central London and across the Lea Valley.

You leave Chingford into the Chingford Plain, heading for the main body of Epping Forest, where you cross Cuckoo Brook, the main tributary of the River Ching and then the Ching itself, before rounding most of the artificial lake of Connaught Water. Follow a meandering route along forest paths, tracks and rides through the very interesting ancient treescape, dominated by ancient, often pollarded oak and hornbeam, including stretches along the Upper Ching River and through the valley of the meandering Cuckoo Brook.
You bypass Sewardstonebury and the Hawk Wood to walk up the sloping, south facing Yates’ Meadow, from where fine far views open out to the close-by wooded hills and into the Lea Valley with its large reservoirs, across it to North London’s higher ground and also providing for panoramic views of the London Skyline.
Descend from Yates’ Meadow and rise again along Daisy Plain into Hawk Wood and then initially skirt the wooded Pole Hill along the edge of the Chingford Plain, before turning up to Pole Hill’s summit obelisk and trig point. From nearby, a residential road takes you back to the station and some tea options, while a longer alternative leads past some more tea options, including the only pub in this end of town.

Cut the loop around Connaught Water (cut 750m).
Cut the loop past Grimston’s Oak and the upper reaches of the Ching (cut 500m).
Extensions
- loop over Yardley Hill with more complete views of the London Skyline (add 600m);
- take a route to the west of Pole Hill, for views of the Lea Valley Reservoirs (add 400m and 20m ascent).
A Shortcut at the end cuts the ascent of Pole Hill (cut 160m and 10m ascent).

Station Road is full of bars, cafés, restaurants and takeouts, but only some of them are close to the station. Passed on the optional loop through town (adds 700m) are: The King’s Head pub, The Wine Factor wine bar, Dada Café, Las Tapas, La Baita and Trattoria Ibleo (Italian), Pat Pong (Thai), Bar Sicilia.
In the station: Toni’s Express, a coffee kiosk, just past the ticket gates (Mon-Sat to 16.00 at least).

Start & Finish: Chingford Overground

Chingford Station is one of the northern termini of the Lea Valley lines from London Liverpool Street, serving Chingford, Cheshunt, Enfield Town and Hertford East. The Chingford line is operated by London Overground and the station is in Travelcard Zone 5. The journey time is from 27 minutes.

Chingford and Chingford Station

Chingford is a town and London suburb of about 70,000 population within the Borough of Waltham Forest. Waltham Forest Borough was created in 1965 by merging Chingford with Walthamstow and Leyton.
Having been referenced in the Domesday book as "Cingefort", it is thought that, with ching being old English for the king, that Chingford could refer to a King’s Ford. This idea is compounded by links to royalty using the area for hunting, with Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge still standing in North Chingford. Furthermore, there is evidence of King Harold Harefoot having lived in Chingford and the environs in the 11^th century, a date which ties in with the Old English use of "Ching" for King.
The ford in question could be one of many across the Ching River, but is more likely to refer to one across the Lea, possibly at today’s Cook’s Ferry.
Noteworthy buildings include the Queen Elizabeth Hunting Lodge and the adjacent Butler’s Retreat (a former barn), Friday Hill House, the Pimp Hall Dovecote and the Pole Hill Obelisk (marking the meridian).
Famous people with Chingford connections include a number of footballers (David Beckham, Dwight Gayle, Harry Kane, Teddy Sheringham and Andros Townsend) as well as film director Peter Greenaway, guitarist Steve Hillage, Apple Chief Design Officer Jonathan Ive, the Kray Twins, composer Michael Nyman and Tory politician Iain Duncan Smith.

Chingford Station opened in 1873 as a gateway to Epping Forest. Built initially closer to Chingford’s centre and as a temporary terminus in light of plans to extend the line to High Beach in the centre of the Forest, those plans were scrapped as the Forest got protected status and instead the station was moved to the northern edge of town, much to the inconvenience of residents nowadays.

Epping Forest

Epping Forest is an area of ancient woodland and other habitats like grassland, heath, streams, bogs and ponds, which straddles the border between London and Essex. Stretching for 19 km (12 mi) from Manor Park in East London north to Epping, with the main body of the Forest being north of Chingford, it is never more than 4 km wide, and in most places considerably narrower. It lies on a low ridge between the Lea and Roding Valleys which were formed by arms of the Scandinavian ice sheet during the last glacial period, around 18,000 BC. It is London's largest forest and largest Open Space at 2,400 hectares (5,900 acres).
The highest points are near Ambresbury Banks to the south of Epping, which is 111m above sea level, while Pole Hill near Chingford reaches 91m. On the western edge of the ridge (in High Beach at a similar height), is an expanse of gravel and sand, thought to have been deposited by an unknown river which flowed northwards from the Weald of Kent before the creation of the Thames Valley in its current location.
The elevation and thin gravelly soil (the result of the glaciation) of the Forest made it less suitable for agriculture and it was historically managed as a common, with local landowners exercising economic rights over timber, while local commoners had grazing and other rights.
It has been protected since the 12^th century as a Royal Hunting Forest, as part of the much larger Forest of Essex, which covered most of the county (i.e.: only the monarch had the right to hunt deer but it did not mean the land was necessarily well wooded). The physical Forest is thought to have declined to something like its modern extent no later than the early 14^th century, but is thought to have extended further south to the Old Roman Road to Colchester in today’s Forest Gate area of West Ham.
The Forest was principally used as a source of shipbuilding timber for the Royal Navy, which was taken overland to the mouth of the Roding (Barking Creek) and then floated in rafts to the Royal Dockyards at Woolwich and Deptford. This exploitation continued until about 1725, when all the suitable oak trees had been felled. In the 1830s, Epping New Road was built through the heart of the Forest, but else it has been largely untouched since, helped by the fight of the public to prevent partial or full enclosure.
Since 1878’s Epping Forest Act, it has been managed by The City of London who also acquired large areas of buffer land around the Forest to prevent development.
The historic land use has had a big impact on its character and ecology, this is particularly evident with the pollarded trees, which were cut back to the bolling, the permanent base of the pollard, every 13 years or so. It was cut just above the browse line of wild and domestic grazing animals. However, the pollards have not been cut since the passing of the Epping Forest Act, and have now grown large crowns of thick branches with correspondingly large boles. This gives the trees an unusual appearance, uncommon in other forests. Epping Forest has 55,000 ancient trees, more than any other single site in the United Kingdom.

River Ching

The Ching is a 9.5 km (6.0 mi) tributary of the River Lea (or Lee) and originates as a small stream from a seep at the foot of a tree in the southern part of Epping Forest (this can be seasonal). It flows through woodland to the artificial lake Connaught Water. The Water was created by damming the Ching to provide an outlet for drainage measures in the formerly swampy Fairmead area of Epping Forest.
Immediately, the Ching is joined by the Cuckoo Brook, which – together with a tributary – drains Chingford Plain and the woods rising up to Sewardstonebury. It then flows through lightly wooded commons and woods (largely in natural banks) to enter Highams Park, where it was re-channelled to bypass the new boating lake (stones from the old London Bridge were used to form the sides of the lake).
The Ching then passes the former site of Walthamstow’s greyhound stadium and flows under the North Circular Road to join The Lea north of Banbury Reservoir.

The name of the river is a back-formation from Chingford, rather than the town being named after the river.

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National Rail: 03457 48 49 50 • Traveline (bus times): 0871 200 22 33 (12p/min) • TFL (London) : 0343 222 1234

Feb-24 Thomas G