Hornchurch Country Park - Sunday 1st September 2013

Amina and Madeleine had a walk planned for Sunday in Bexley, but travel disruptions on the route had them cancel that arrangement. Thus it was on Thursday evening after I'd suggested an alternative walk at Hornchurch Country Park, I found myself elected walk leader.

Warm-up session with Sue, Amina and JennyI used to know the area around the Ingreborne Valley quite well. It had until 1962 been an RAF aerodrome, then became disused and overgrown. More recently it has become Hornchurch Country Park, so eight of us met up on Sunday morning at the car park in Squadrons Approach to explore. It was a fine sunny day, warm but not oppressively hot, and we began our expedition with some warmup exercises on the training equipment usefully provided for members of the public. Then off on the walk, with some comments by me and questions by others about the wildflowers we were passing. Most striking of these perhaps was the Chicory that was showing it's wonderful blue flowers in many places in the park. The blackberries were also enticing and some of us made instant use of them.

Skirting Albyns farm, we left Hornchurch Country Park to gain Hornchurch Hill. This was a landfill site but is now laid out with foot paths and bicycle tracks. Summiting Hornchurch HillFrom the summit is a 360° panorama and we picked out some places that we recognised. Looking north across a hidden Romford was the white water-tower at Havering-atte-Bower above Bedfords Park and a few degrees to the north east could be seen Upminster Windmill with the hills of Weald Country Park beyond. More to the east were the Brentwood Hills and Thorndon Park, and the Queen Elizabeth River Crossing bridge was distinctive towards the south-east. Across much of the far southern horizon the North Downs were visible. Looking to the S.W. beyond the wind-turbines at Dagenham, Shooters Hill was prominent, then the Canary Wharf complex, the Shard, the towers of the City, the B.T.Tower and the Highgate Hills to the west. Ilford's newer tower blocks were clear, with the water-tower at Claybury, Hainault Forest and the Redwood trees at Havering Country Park completing the circle. It struck me just how many of these places the group has visited and what a good place the summit of Hornchurch Hill would be for some compass practice.

A view of the Ingrebourne river valleyWe returned to the Country Park just east of Albyns farm, stopped for a drink by a fishing lake, then continued the walk to cross Ingrebourne river at one of the few bridges. I was heading for Berwick Ponds, but it all looked different here and I made my first slight mistake in direction. It has to be said that the signposting was less than clear, but we reached the ponds then made our way back to the bridge. The River Ingrebourne is about 10 miles long and has its sources around Navestock and South Weald. It is a small but important river which feeds the Thames and particularly here has valuable wildlife and ecological importance, thus it has been designated an SSSI.

One of the group noted that there were now a number of people around in flip-flops, so we must be nearing the car park. We sat on some benches for a short while near to some of the remaining structures from the airfield days: pill boxes and Tett turrets, which are one-man fortified gun-emplacements. I'd in mind to walk northwards along the river for a mile or so before returning to the cars, but everybody seemed to think they were satisfied with the expedition as was, so we left it there.

Participants: Amina, Fritz, Jill V., Sue Sell., Madeleine plus Jenny and Garry and me.    Distance: 4 Miles

Paul Ferris   4th September 2013