Chipping Ongar and the Roding Valley

Length - Walk – 6.5 miles approx

On 20th September 2025, eleven of us went in three cars to Chipping Ongar, where we regrouped near the library. As we drove into the town a couple of us saw the steam of a steam engine but the locomotive itself was hidden by the carriages behind it. By the time we’d exited the cars and headed up the road for our walk the train had left the station.

We therefore cut through the old cemetery to Lyn’s café at the sports ground for a bit of refreshment before the main walk.

Leaving the café, we turned left onto a footpath which passed the scout hut, turned left into a field, then immediately right round the edge of the field, then headed up towards a children’s play area. Tempting though the zipwire looked, we kept on through a couple of fields to reach the A414 near a bridge over the Roding. Crossing the road, we roughly followed part of the Essex way, but keeping nearer to the river than some of the official path. After crossing several bridges, mainly over dry tributaries and having covered about 3 miles, we elected to stop for lunch, using a bridge as a bench to sit/relax on. I was asked how far it was to the pub and estimated about 1-1.5miles or ½ hour. After lunch we carried on heading roughly north over a couple more bridges till we came to footpath signs marked ‘Fyfield’ and joined the Three Forests Way to head south to High Ongar and The Forresters Arms pub. On the way some fields were fairly recently ploughed so we had to go round rather than across them. In doing so we saw a sign for a Care Home up the road - the final line of which was ‘No Exit’ which was a bit ominous. Further on we saw something white near the hedgerow, some thought it might be a skull, my thought was an ostrich egg, but no it was a giant puffball mushroom. Probably the first time any of us had seen one. We were also glad we hadn’t waited for lunch as it had taken about another 1.5 hours to reach the pub, probably nearer 2 miles, where we had more liquid refreshment, then did what Google maps said was about 1.25 miles in ½ hour back to the car park, where a sign showed we were near the site of the old Motte & Bailey Ongar Castle.

The weather had started dull and there were a few spots of rain as we finished lunch, but towards the end of the walk the sun was coming out. So a pleasant walk with good company.

The length of the walk was approximately 6.5 miles.

Richard, 23rd September, 2025