Summary

An Essex walk with a heritage railway station within easy reach of London

Introduction

This route is free to use for all walkers and was devised to be within easy reach of Central London and independent of Network Rail. Those of you who knew Stephen Backes aka Bridie may be interested to know this walk passes near to his final resting place in the GreenAcres woodland. There’s a spur track on the GPS files that will guide you to his grave if you wish to visit. A visit will add about 2.2km to the walk length and you may find his grave at https://what3words.com/arts.throw.deep

Allow 4 to 5 hours to do the full walk or about 3 hours if you intend to leave the walk at North Weald
Add an hour or so for lunch and another 40 minutes if stopping for a late afternoon thirst quencher at either    📍  The Theydon Oak or  📍  Garnon Bushes  (the alternative wet weather ending)

Please note this walk route is GPS led so you will need to follow the GPX or KML routes provided. I can recommend GPX Viewer Pro (£6.99 to £9.99 for all your devices forever). ThIs App has a good choice of maps including Google (Normal, Terrain and Satellite), OpenStreetMap and others. A free (limited) version is available to try.

The complete file set for this walk (including the PDF and EPUB downloads of this document) may be found at https://www.lwug.org.uk/walk3835 If you have downloaded copies to your club/groups Website please ensure you keep your copies up to date or simply refer to the link above where the latest revisions can be found.

Some advisory notes

• There are three motorway crossings (two underpasses and one bridge). These crossings are at right-angles to the motorway direction and noise is fairly minimal but will depend on wind direction.
• The first section of the walk crosses some marshland so boots are recommended.
• Some of the boardwalks at the beginning of the walk are a little rotten in places
• About 3km of the walk is on quiet tarmac roads, but there are grassy verges alongside.
• Two endings are offered for this walk. The standard ending via the Theydon Oak pub is recommended during dryish weather.  However after a day or more of rain, the alternative route via Garnon Bushes pub is recommended.
• Sunshine and then rain in spring and summer will cause rapid growth of dog roses and other brambles in the first kilometre of the walk.  Nothing too onerous, but you might consider packing secateurs.
• Stratford station may be busy on the return journey if West Ham are playing at home.