Romford to Havering Park Walk

Sunday June 23rd and another hilly London walk. Having explored south, north and west London it was about time to have one on our home patch, east London. So it was that I arrived at Romford station just before 11 a.m. and was soon joined by Sue, Jill V and Nigel, as well and Francesca and Elliot from my 18 Plus group.

Leaving the station we headed along Eastern Road continuing to reach the entrance to Lodge Farm Park, the first of the five parks that the walk would take us through. Sadly, the park’s miniature railway, which is open two Sundays a month in the summer, was not working, although it was when I trialled the walk. Exiting the park we crossed over the main road and entered Raphael Park. We followed the path by the lake with its fountain, and came to the statues of Percy the Park Keeper and his animal friends. Percy is the star of the children’s books by local author Nick Butterworth, and also an animated TV series. Give yourself a point if you know who voiced Percy in the series (answer later).

Leaving Percy and friends we exited the park, continued to and crossed over the A12 and soon entered Rise Park, following the “Thomas England Walk” around the edge of the park, passing a fitness trail and a small brook to reach Lower Bedford Road. We entered Bedfords Park, and climbed to the summit of Foxes Hill, with some good views over the Thames Valley and beyond including the Queen Elizabeth Bridge. We then continued through the park, spotting buzzards and hobbies on route to the visitor centre for our lunch stop and more great views.

Suitably refreshed, we had a look at the resident herd of Red Deer, then continued past the car park, through woods and along a grassy plain with Havering Water Tower ahead. We left the park and turned left reaching Havering-atte-Bower cricket ground, which surely has some of the finest views of any cricket ground. Continuing, we soon reached the top of Orange Tree Hill, one of the highest in London. We crossed the village green and entered our fifth and final park, Havering Country Park, where we headed downhill through an avenue of impressive Wellingtonia or Giant Redwood trees before exiting onto a lane with more glorious views over London, and from here we made our way back to some houses to catch a bus back to Romford.

The walk was about 6 miles with some good views, a variety of terrain and things to see and learn about, all virtually on our doorstep, but I certainly wasn’t aware of all this until recently!. And the answer to the quiz – the voice of Percy the Park Keeper in the TV series was provided by Jim Broadbent, well done if you knew that. .

Trev Eley  2nd July 2024