TADS #64:Enfield to Broxbourne (or Lee Valley Orbital).

I probably should have called Saturday's TADS walk from Enfield to Broxbourne something like Many Rivers to Cross rather than the more prosaic (but, in my view, mellifluous sounding) Lee Valley Orbital but, never mind names, the walk was a rather delightful one spent in good company and, mostly, in good countryside. There were only five of us in attendance so it was easy for us all to sit round one table and chat together - which we did A LOT!

 

I'd risen early and walked down to Honor Oak Park station, stopping to chat with my friend Bec who was taking her baby Etienne to mini-athletics (Etienne was engrossed in a Peppa Pig video on a mobile phone), and took the Overground up to Whitechapel. Walked from there to Bethnal Green and hopped on another part of the Overground up to Turkey Street, passing Tottenham's impressive new stadium.

I met Dave Fog on the train and we arrived first at the Best Cafe. Pam turned up dead on 11am (the agreed time, she's punctual that girl) and Adam and Teresa weren't far behind. I had egg/beans on toast and a can of orange Fanta. It was good and the general consensus was that the brunch had been a success all round. They were a friendly bunch too in the Best Cafe. The only downside was that Shep, who had been hoping to join us, had not been able to make it.

Which meant that there was a Venn diagram between the Tadley contingent (3) and the PRS/ex-PRS contingent (3) with me the man in the middle. On leaving the cafe, we took a path down the side of the Albany Leisure Centre into Albany Park (which, according to the sign below, once - somewhat oddly - belonged to Cambridge's Trinity College).

Albany Park was green and fairly empty and we soon picked up the Turkey Brook (a Lee tributary which starts in Potters Bar. Hertfordshire) where we spotted a heron and a red kite. Later on in the day we'd seen plenty of waterfowl (Egyptian geese, moorhens, swans, and a solitary cricket) but sadly none of the otters that are reputed to live in the Lee Valley. I've never seen an otter in the wild (and I don't think many have) but it did make me wonder how I'd seen a toucan, a Jesus lizard, and a crocodile before an otter.

Crossing a train line we came to the first of those many rivers of the day - or a sort of river - in the form of the River Lee Navigation, a canalised river that flows from Hertford Castle Weir and was created from 1767-1771 by Thomas Yeoman and Edward Rubie. The bits of Enfield I'd seen before were not the prettiest (the pubs weren't very appealing last time I visited) but down by the river it was a different scene.

There was an impressive Dutch barge moored up, Enfield Lock (and the house that stands by it) looked impressive in the autumn sun and who could argue with a road called Swan And Pike Road! Which we picked up once we'd crossed the Lee Navigation before then crossing the Lee itself. Or indeed Lea. Some of us had walked a more southerly stretch of the Lee back in 2019 and there's more information about that river on the blog relating to that walk.

A pretty Nissan Figaro, a nice - if small waterfall - and we were on Enfield Island Village with its very impressive architecture. It soon became apparent that these buildings were most likely where the Lee-Enfield rifles (the standard service rifle of the British Armed Forces between 1895 and 1957) must have been built. Bar for some waterfowl, it was quiet and peaceful now. I wonder what happens in these buildings now? Luxury flats? Small start up firms?

Through a pleasant housing estate, we entered into a seemingly unnamed green space (with some pretty impressive pylons - I do love a pylon) and there into Gunpowder Park. Enfield's military history making its prescense felt again. On top of that we had now left London and were in Essex where we would remain until very nearly the end of the walk before crossing into Hertfordshire.

We crossed the River Lee Flood Relief Channel and then the Black Ditch. The Lee and its multiple tributaries are hard to get your head around and that's before you get to all the reservoirs, lakes, and ponds that make up this part of the Lee Valley. Some of the names are great, some merely descriptive:- Hooks Marsh Lake, Police Pit, Seventy Acres Lake, East Lake, Nazeing Marsh Lake, Dragonfly Pond.

Just after the Black Ditch we reached the edge of Waltham Abbey and passed through another housing estate, down Deer Park Way, round a couple of roundabouts, past a massive Sainsbury's warehouse and under the M25 (as is traditional on the October TADS walk) before heading over the Cobbins Brook (yep, another one - and, no, it's not the last) into Waltham Abbey itself. A pleasant little town I'd never visited before. Perhaps because there an no rail links. The nearest being in Waltham Cross, three miles away.

Waltham Abbey is, of course, most famous for the abbey where Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England is buried. There's a surprisingly modest memorial for a such an important historical figure and even that may not mark the exact spot of his burial. I guess after having lost, and lost his life, in the Battle of Hastings, the Normans weren't keen on celebrating him.

We stopped in the wonkily half-timbered Welsh Harp pub for a couple of slurps (I took a Madri) and a talk about music, kids TV shows of our past, cancel culture, and various other subjects. At one point a DJ, soundchecking for the evening's party, treated us to a somewhat overload (for that time of day) blast of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons' deathless classic December 1963 (Oh, What A Night).

The Abbey itself, full name The Abbey Church of Waltham Holy Cross and St Lawrence, has been a place of worship since the 7th century but it's an impressive hotchpotch of architectural styles now - although mostly 12c Norman architecture. As ever we didn't have time for as long a look around as I might have liked (we need to keep moving) so once I'd impressed Teresa with my knowledge of apses, transepts, naves, and chancels we moved through the Abbey Gardens, looked at an impressive sculpture of a monk (he's heading up this blog) and crossed the B194 into Cornmill Meadows.

Where we picked up the long and straight Meridian Line, Waltham Abbey (as a mosaic in the town itself proudly boasts) being on the prime meridian. We knew for certain we were directly north of Greenwich. Cornmill Meadows was pretty quiet and fairly easy to navigate. We saw a few dog walkers and, just after the New Hill Clay Pit, we took a sharp left turn which took us along the side of a ploughed field.

It felt, at times, like we may have erred off the path - but we hadn't. Soon we came to Fishers Green Lane where we admired a pretty house with a finely mown lane and wondered about some contraption that looked like a baddie robot from an early Dr Who. We crossed over the Flood Relief Channel and the Navigation and from Cheshunt Lock onwards it was straight and flat until almost the end.

Which made it easy and as the golden hour was coming on us made, I think, for some great photos - even if bladders were being tested by the earlier two pint mistake (for some of us). Teresa and I walked up front and I got to catch up on her family news (and her some of mine) which was nice. If there's a lot of 'map' reading involved I find I'm sometimes too busy to chat to people so I enjoy these easy bits for just that reason.

It's good to mix it up though. Canal boats lined the Navigation (unsurprisingly, and including one called Llangollen reminding me of one of my favourite places in the world and the venue for the TADS 2021 two-dayer) but the highlight was surely when a small boy warned us of 'monsters' ahead. These monsters were ones him and his family had drawn on the pavement and they were great. The kids too were utterly adorable. Our smiles widened and then widened even more when I pointed out we were reaching the final pub stop.

Just where the Lee and the Lee Navigation split (they're always splitting up and getting back together, they're like that annoying couple you know) we reached The Crown on the edge of Broxbourne. A sign said that "muddy paws and boots" were welcome so we knew it'd be our kind of place - and it was. We even saw a dog in a pram there.

But it was a quick stop before heading into Broxbourne proper. On the Wikipedia page for Broxbourne it claims, under the Notable residents section, both Ray Clemence and Pat Jennings (a popular place for goalies) as well as Gillian Taylforth, Christina Chong, Charles Deville Wells (aka 'the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo), and another footballer in Osvaldo Ardiles who I think we can be sure was not born there.

With a population of just over 15,000 it's not a big town but it seemed a pleasant one. Its name is believed to derive from the Old English words brocc and burna meaning Badger Stream (no, like the otters, we didn't see any badgers) and it grew around inns that were built on the Great Cambridge Road.

We crossed back over the Lee Navigation, the Lee itself, and - one final river (that isn't really a river but certainly behaves like one) - the New and up to Gulshan Indian restaurant on the High Street for some Banglas (oh, Shep, you really missed out) and, for me, a paneer shashlik and paratha. Teresa ordered some tarka dall for the table (which nearly made up for the lack of otters) and Adam's dansak looked pretty hearty.

We'd arrived earlier than normal in the curry house and that was just as well as it said on my phone, incorrectly we later found out, that the last train left for London not long after nine. So we hotfooted it back to the station (Adam and Teresa back to their car, they'd driven up and parked in Broxbourne before taking the train down to the start). Dave F, Pam, and myself jumped on a train, Pam hopped off at Tottenham Hale, the Daves at Liverpool Street. I walked to London Bridge, took a train to Peckham Rye, and a bus home. 32,850 steps notched up and, far more importantly, a great day had.

Thanks to Adam, Teresa, Pam, and Dave Fog (extra thanks to Pam for some of the snappage on here and Adam for the mappage) for what Pam, quite correctly, called a "mellow, laidback, companionable and sunny Autumn day". That's what TADS is all about. Friendship, not division. Next month we're back for this tumultuous TADS year's season closer Dulcit Amor Oppidi, a walk from New Malden to Clapham. A walk that usually doubles up as TADS' early Christmas party! If you can't make that we start next year in February with a walk from Ash Vale to Farnham. I've not even come up with a name for that one yet but it'd be good to see you there.