The London LOOP. Part XI:Elstree to Cockfosters (Dr. Livingstone, I presume).

If there are two things we've learnt while orbiting the London LOOP it's that you can never be certain exactly what will be round the next corner and that each stage of the 150 mile trek will throw up at least one, hitherto undiscovered, gem - and so it proved to be yesterday when, from the inauspicious starting point of Borehamwood's slightly careworn high street, Shenley Road, we would ascend to the outskirts of Barnet, discover the secrets of the textbook village of Monken Hadley, and descend into Cockfosters, a place that, despite being a Londoner of over twenty-two years standing, I'd never visited before. I'd never even woke up, drunk, on the Piccadilly Line there.

I'd woken (sober), and had risen, at the ludicrously early hour of 4am yesterday morning so, with various chores completed, and even a slight miscalculation on my journey (I'd become so engrossed in a sudoku I missed a stop), I arrived at Elstree & Borehamwood some time before my fellow LOOPers.

Shep was next to arrive so we headed down the aforesaid Shenley Road and settled in at a branch of Wimpy! I had the 'HASH BROWN' veggie breakfast (swapping toast for fried bread - yum), Shep beans on toast, and we used our WhatsApp group to alert the others, Neil, Bee, and Pam on this stage, to our location.

Once the troops had gathered the first stretch of today's walk was a rather steep ascent through suburban piles that seemed to increase in size the higher up we got. This section began along pavements before, after a couple of weird towers with cages atop that we failed to identify, we turned right into a forested area, past a barrier described in the book as "so enormous it could keep elephants out", and into Scratchwood Open Space where Pam managed to lose her camera!

Damn! It was a nice one too, and luckily for her a red one. We retraced our steps back and there it was sitting proudly, undamaged, in the grass. I bet she's glad she didn't opt for a green camera now.

It was a cold day but it was dry and sunny and once we were moving the cold didn't seem to be much of a problem. We descended down through a further woodland, autumn leaves, as they did most of the day, rustling under foot and dappled sunlight permeating the branches of the trees.

The path lead us down to the side of the A1, the busy dual carriageway which connects London with Edinburgh. Here we had to follow the road southwards for some time before we could find an underpass and cross over and follow a parallel pavement northwards. It was not the most inspiring stretch of the LOOP but worse still it was strewn with litter. The laybys were particularly badly affected. Who thinks it's still acceptable to throw their empty beer cans, McDonalds packaging, and general detritus into local beauty spots. It infuriates and the more I go out walking the more it annoys me.

Eventually we left the A1 and picked up the Dollis Valley Greenwalk and passed the Mount Moat Outdoor Centre, conveniently situated near one of Britain's busiest roads. The source of the Dollis Brook is located near here (I can't make claim to having spotted it) and that brook is a tributary of the Brent and, ultimately, the Thames. If you ever get lost in London (and don't have your phone, access to a map, or ability to speak) just find some stream and follow its course. You'll reach the Thames eventually.

We crossed this pretty autumnal area, the trees seeming to lean into us, and arrived on Hendon Wood Lane. Another brief stretch along a road before we turned into Totteridge Fields, a London Wildlife Trust nature reserve that seemed to be more populated by miniature hay-bales, footballers, and dead trees than any animals. We stopped by the football game and watched for a while. Neil and I reminisced about the days we used to play in the fields outside the Skewers Tavern in Basingstoke and wondered if a player got injured we'd get to run on. No. Of course.

The next stage saw us pass through innumerable kissing gates, alongside the babbling Dollis Brook, and with an expanse of greenery to our right. As ever, with the LOOP, it was hard to believe we were in a borough of London. A rusty bronze pole pointed skywards. It looked impressively austere but we had no idea what it was and, perhaps distracted by it and the ever convivial chat, we noticed we'd not seen a LOOP sign for a while.

A quick check of both the book and several different GPS readings on our phones and we crossed a sports field to the egde of Barnet, a place I'd never been to before. I was certain we weren't quite on route but I was also certain we'd not gone too far wrong. A friendly local dog walker was eager to point us in the quickest direction to our final destination (or even Hampstead Heath, not yet that's the next TADS walk) and it was hard to explain to him we weren't taking the quickest route but the prescribed route of David Sharp and Colin Saunders, co-authors of The London LOOP.

We plodded along a reasonably lengthy stretch through the suburban houses of Barnet, it was actually nice to see more modest dwellings - the LOOP does like to show us mansions if it can, and, eventually, came to the former site of the Old Red Lion pub and back on the LOOP having missed nothing more than a diversion through the car park of a table tennis centre,

The Old Red Lion pub was no more and had been replaced by luxury flats. This was the former site of Underhill and perhaps Barnet FC's move was responsible for the loss of business that saw the pub go under. Another phone check revealed The Queen's Arms was a short walk and as we were two-thirds into the walk we deserved a stop.

It was a large pub with a friendly barman, two pool tables, televisions showing various sports, standard pub grub menus, and lots of room for us to sit and rest our legs. It's never going to be a contender for London's best pub but it does a perfectly serviceable job, it seems, for both the local community and a quintet of happy, if thirsty, walkers. I had a Rivertown pale ale.

Leaving the pub behind it was time to climb some more, and then some more, and then just a little bit more. It was remarkable how quickly we left behind Barnet proper. This area was King George's Fields and it was acquired as an open space in 1930 to mark the reign of George V. Through an archway we came to a plateau and looked backwards for views of the London skyline, although we couldn't place which part of the London skyline. Lots of skyscrapers but none that looked familiar.

It'd been the prettiest part of this stage of the LOOP so far but it was soon to be surpassed. As I remarked earlier no stage is without its charms but this hadn't been the greatest until it decided, quite late on, to reveal its sphinx like mystery. The crown in the jewel was the delightful village of Monken Hadley. Who knew the outskirts of Barnet hosted such a gem?

Hadley Green, even in October, looked as if it should have been lit up for Christmas (or, at least, Hallowe'en) and one can imagine a brief pub crawl around the boozers of Barnet after a picnic on the green would be something of a delight. But Hadley Green (probably) has a bloody history. It is the (likely) location of the decisive engagement in the Wars of the Roses. The Battle of Barnet in 1471 which saw Warwick the Kingmaker slain and Edward IV's House of York victorious.

Monken Hadley is a hotchpotch of architectural styles. From the ugly modern houses with signs warning of fierce guard dogs to classical mansions, often enormous in stature, to Sir Roger Wilbraham's Almshouses, founded in 1612 for "six decayed housekeepers"!

Hadley House, the one with the bell turret, is the site of the former home of the Christian missionary David Livingstone. It's where he lived following his first African expedition in the 1850s. Nearby is the erstwhile home of Fanny Trollope (no sniggering, we're not even in Cockfosters yet),  the anti-slavery author, and her more famous, if perhaps less influential, son Anthony whose Chronicles of Barsetshire shone a light on 19c mores but also introduced the pillar box to the UK.

Quaint brick cottages, and the church that heads up this blog, lead you towards a white gate and past a few more houses on to Enfield Chase, a former great royal hunting forest which stretched to Potter's Bar. Elizabeth I and other monarchs killed animals for fun here but as fashions changed the Chase became neglected and in 1777 George III gave in to demands and allowed it to be parcelled off.

Some was sold but local folks managed to secure grazing rights which remain to this day. It's a lovely, quite wild, little stretch full of people exercising their dogs and we walked, occasionally in the wood, occasionally roadside, until we crossed the main train line between London and Scotland and turned right to follow a path down past floral tributes attached to trees and a quite astounding amount of ropes hanging from other trees, often from seemingly impossible heights. There were more squirrels than people around but it seems unlikely they'd have had the opposable thumbs, motivation, or, indeed, inclination to be responsible.

At the bottom we reached a stream which we were to traverse, the book had told us, on a "pompous little four-pillared bridge". We wondered how "pompous" this bridge would be so imagine our surprise when this was what we saw:-

Whatever happened between Sharp and Saunders on that bridge we can only speculate but, to us, there was little pompous about it. In fact its very modest nature was the key to its charm. They've written a good walk and they've written a good book but when it comes to the pomposity of bridges Mr Sharp and Mr Saunders are, sadly, way off mark.

Another uphill path took us out on to the road and the welcome sight of the Cock Inn. A sign outside warned of numerous clothing offences (baseball caps even) that could see you asked to leave after 7pm but there were no other pubs near by so we went in. It was okay. It felt like the sort of hotel lobby you sit in waiting for your friends to come down from their rooms before you head out to somewhere with more character and it piped out insipid muzak but the staff were friendly and I took a London Pride while Bee had a candyfloss Martini, a drink whose existence I had hitherto been unaware of.

With the next nearest ale house the best part of a mile away we stayed for another before completing this stage of the LOOP down a dark alley, past a large church, and in to Cockfosters. It's quite a lively looking area but so the dearth of pubs was surprising. Perhaps that's why local drinkers had congregated at the bar of the Tandoori Nights Indian eaterie.

We went in for food. I had delicious chili paneer, aloo paratha, and a couple of spoonfuls of pulao rice nicked from Pam, all washed down with Cobra lager. The staff were charm personified, the food was great, and the price was bearable. It was so good I totally forgot to take my regulation photo of a half-eaten curry! It may have been over two decades as a Londoner before visiting Cockfosters but it should be much less until the next visit. Stage XII of the LOOP takes us from Cockfosters to Enfield Lock and what's the betting we'll find somewhere as special as Monken Hadley on it? I reckon so.

Thanks to Shep, Neil, Belinda, and Pam for another great day's walking, great day's talking, great day's eating, great day's drinking, and great day's laughing. Let's do it again - before Xmas.