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Tubewalker: The Tube, on Foot

Central Line: Barkingside to Woodford

A signpost on the London Loop along Green Lane
A signpost on the London Loop along Green Lane

I was a little nervous about how today's walk was going to pan out, particularly as I was joined by my mate Charlie, who's a veteran of long-distance walks the world over. The first half of the Hainault loop from Leytonstone to Barkingside, which I walked a couple of days ago, had started off well but got a little ragged and slightly uninteresting towards the end, and I was a bit worried that Charlie would have to endure yet more endless backstreets of boring suburban housing, the sun cooking us in the treeless wasteland of zone 4... but in the event, this leg turned out to be a corker.

Barkingside to Fairlop

A lonely shopping trolley in Barkingside
A lonely shopping trolley in Barkingside

Before all the rural scenery kicks in, though, there's a short stretch through the suburbs of Barkingside, though it's possible to avoid the backstreets by taking the public footpath north along the side of the playing fields of King Solomon's High School. This looks good on paper, but the reality is a bit more earthy, as this is clearly where the locals come to dump their rubbish. It's a thin path, wedged between serious fencing on the right and the back gardens of the inhabitants of Heybridge Drive on the left, but that hasn't stopped someone dumping a shopping trolley on the side of the path, where it's fatally tangled up in the deep grass. How on earth did it get here? And what were they thinking? It makes you appreciate just how much effort goes into dumping shopping trolleys sometimes...

Fullwell Cross public library
Fullwell Cross public library

Fairlop to Hainault

Fairlop Waters
Fairlop Waters

Further along Forest Road, past a farmhouse that dates from 1855, is Fairlop Waters, the largest country park and leisure facility in the London Borough of Redbridge. The complex consists of two golf courses, a driving range, a large boating lake, a conference centre and a restaurant, and while this might sound like the kind of place you'd bump into the photocopier sales conference from hell, it's actually a rather delightful place. The conference centre is pretty attractive and sits at the western edge of the lake, which is surrounded by bushy undergrowth and trees and makes for an enjoyable walk in the sun. The paths are wheelchair-friendly, so it's easy going, and on a hot day like today, the breeze coming across the lake is like manna from heaven.

Fairlop Oaks playing fields
Fairlop Oaks playing fields

Hainault to Grange Hill

Limes Farm Estate
Limes Farm Estate

But before the rural edge of London kicks in, there's a short section through the Limes Farm Estate. Googling the estate name brings up a fairly sad picture, with residents feeling that the estate is out of control, one woman saying she received death threats when she caught youths in her garden, and the chairman of the Limes Farm Community Association saying, 'There is a great amount of bad feeling towards the police. They're appalling. They come over here frequently but it doesn't help. There's no way of stopping these kids from coming here. What can people do other than take the law into their own hands? I don't advise it, but I can see it happening.' It's scary stuff, made only scarier by the death of a 14-year-old schoolboy in after being stabbed in the back and head outside an unmanned police station; two boys, aged 13 and 14, were arrested on suspicion of his murder.

Limes Farm Estate
Limes Farm Estate
Grange Hill station
Grange Hill station

Grange Hill to Chigwell

Fields near Grange Hill
Fields near Grange Hill

Just after the station there's a turning off the main road down to Chigwell Cemetery, but this isn't the path you want. We discovered this the hard way, wandering down to the cemetery and its handy toilet block, only to find that the right of way we thought we'd been following was on the other side of a fence. On attempt two, we managed to catch the right path through a small wooded area and out into some lovely farmers' fields that stretch all the way to the houses of Chigwell in the distance. This is cause for celebration, because this is now Essex, and rural Essex, too. We plonked ourselves on the edge of a field, in the shade of a tree, and enjoyed a leisurely lunch under the peaceful blue skies of the countryside, marvelling at the fact that this is still zone 4.

Charlie and some horses
Charlie making friends
St Mary's Church, Chigwell
St Mary's Church, Chigwell
Chigwell station
Chigwell station

Chigwell to Roding Valley

Blackberries along Luxborough Lane
Blackberries along Luxborough Lane

Past the station, the houses along the High Road get even larger and even crazier. Some push the boundaries of taste into a whole new area, while some are so bland (yet so obviously expensive) that you wonder how anyone could spend that much money but get so little imagination in return... but whatever the architecture, it's endlessly fascinating. Behind the houses on the left-hand side of the road is Chigwell Golf Course, which can only add to the sense of rural idyll that these large houses enjoy, and it's easy to see why Chigwell was lumped in with Loughton and Buckhurst Hill as the 'golden triangle' from the TV series Essex Wives, on account of the locals' hefty bank balances and ostentatious lifestyles.

Spurs Lodge
Spurs Lodge

Roding Valley to Woodford

Mock Tudor houses in Woodford
Mock Tudor houses in Woodford

I'd originally planned to wander through Ray Park on the way to Woodford, but even though my A-Z showed a friendly looking path crossing the park, the chained fence and the 'Private Property' signs at the end of Durham Avenue rather stopped that plan in its tracks, so instead we took the direct route through the suburbs of northern Woodford instead. Near to Roding Valley station the suburbs are Mock Tudor heaven – good examples of the genre, too – but as you approach Woodford the Mock Tudor morphs into bungalows for a stretch, before turning into lovely Victorian and Edwardian terraces, though quite a few of these terraces have been sprayed with pebbledash, which is a shame. Still, it makes the bare-brick houses look even more beautiful, and happily they're in the majority.