Extra Walk 311 – Cheshunt to Broxbourne, via Waltham Abbey Length: 17 km (10.6 miles), with the option of a shorter circular walk. Toughness: 2/10
10:28 Cambridge train from
Liverpool Street (Tottenham Hale 10:40), arriving
Cheshunt at
10:48. You can use Oyster PAYG or contactless at Cheshunt and Broxbourne but both these stations are outside the main TfL fare zones. You might well find that a simple
return to Broxbourne is cheaper.
There are trains back from
Broxbourne at xx:16 & xx:47 to Liverpool Street, and xx:25 & xx:55 to Stratford. All trains call at
Cheshunt (4 minutes later) and Tottenham Hale.
A preliminary version of this walk had its début in February, so apologies to Sunday walkers for an early repeat. As much of it is on surfaced paths through
River Lee Country Park it will doubtless get pigeon-holed as a winter walk, so this might be your best chance to see what the area looks like with leaves on the trees, orchids flowering in woodland glades and dragonflies flitting around the ponds.
Lunch is in the town of
Waltham Abbey, which boasts a particularly fine Norman church: much smaller than in its heyday as an Augustinian Abbey, but well worth a look. There are plenty of possible watering-holes and two of the pubs are suggested – one in the western hemisphere, the other in the eastern. On the return route it's worth popping into the
Terrace Bar & Café in the
Lee Valley White Water Centre, either for some mid-afternoon refreshment or simply to watch the spectacle.
The route goes back past Cheshunt station so you could simply call it a day and complete an 11½ km
Short Circular Walk. The full walk continues northwards through a less-frequented section of the Country Park to Broxbourne, with the reward of a nice riverside café (or pub) before the journey back.
You'll need to bring the directions from the
Cheshunt to Broxbourne walk page. T=swc.311
With about half the distance on tarmac or gravel and the rest on relatively firm earthen paths, this proved to be a good winter route: no deep mud and just small bits of standing water. With plenty of birds (lapwings, kormorants etc, but no herons or egrets) on the plentiful waterways (rivers, streams, mill stream, lakes, flood channels, river navigations and flooded grasslands) and some interesting wooded areas passed through, this is a varied walk never far from the trainline (and several stations) and with an interesting village for a lunch stop (1 abbey with its gardens, 5 6 pubs and 3 4 cafes: one is spoilt for choice). We stayed together to Waltham Abbey and dispersed there to the various lunch options.
1 moved on early, the other 9 re started as a group, soon passing enclosures with picturesque Old English Goats, employed there to be munching away at brambles and shrubs. 1 of the 9 walkers then finished at Cheshunt station, the rest marched on to Broxbourne. 5 of those got the 16.10 Stratford train, the other 3 had to wait a few minutes longer for the next Liv Street train.