UNVISITED LONDON TQ0689: Bayhurst Wood(Hillingdon) The northwest tip of London is substantially undeveloped and remote from major transport links - two facts intrinsically intertwined. A few buses thread along rural lanes but there are multiple 1km×1km grid squares most Londoners will never see, let alone set foot in. Over the years I've ticked off a few by circumnavigating Ruislip Lido, walking the London Loop and exploring Newyears Green, but I'd never before ventured into the hinterland between Harefield and Ruislip.
It'd all be different if I'd ever taken the plunge and walked the Hillingdon Trail, a 20 mile waymarked route from almost-Heathrow to nearly-Rickmansworth. I've seen the brown signs several times but never taken up the challenge of walking the lot, let alone risked subjecting you to a week's worth of peripheral rambling reportage. So I've put that partly right by walking section 5, which used to be section 4, between Ruislip Lido and Harefield parish church. And it was lovely, and it was remote, and it was very woody, and in what follows I'll let you know which bit finally ticked off TQ0689 for me.
Section 5 begins beside Ruislip Lido, or rather just behind the Water's Edge restaurant which means you might never see the water at all. It costs £5.49 to fill yourself with a fried breakfast or a roast dinner before you go, departure time depending. Instead of following the usual daytripper circuit the Hillingdon Trail heads off through a gate into Poor's Field, a heathland remnant where cattle graze in summer, so expect cowpats on the path and half a dozen chewing heads watching your initial progress. It's not long before the path bears off up to another gate into the first of what's going to be a heck of a lot of woods, indeed the first half of the walk is almost entirely shady. Here it's mostly beech with very little groundcover, but later expect substantial oak and coppiced hornbeam too.
These are Ruislip Woods, a four-part forest with an acreage larger than the City of London, and also the capital's first National Nature Reserve. We're currently in Copse Wood, which I can confirm from broader exploration prior to starting this walk is worthy of broader exploration. At this time of year the rhododendrons are mute, the pebbles underfoot are dry and the tiny objects falling from the trees are probably premature acorns. This is not the year to come brambling, the berries looked uncharacteristically shrivelled. Also I can confirm that the Hillingdon Trail is very well signed - not 100% so that you'd never get lost but with a very commendable volley of brown signs, orange discs and arrowed stumps.
Duck's Hill Road is the first of just two roads that need crossing on this walk because this is a seriously off-grid section, but Hillingdon council have provided a pegasus crossing so that's easy. Ahead lies Mad Bess Wood, a nominal mystery so ignore those legends about the ghost of a headless horsewoman. Several dogwalking tracks diverge from the car park so try to pick the right one as you aim for the brackeny path straight down the centre of the wood. It's long and undulating and dappled and increasingly far from anywhere, so I was surprised to pass a retired couple who looked like they were walking the Hillingdon Trail in the opposite direction. Mostly it was just me and the squirrels, though.
I was also following the trail via the instructions in a pdf, and was occasionally confused when it suggested taking a different route to the obviously-signed path I could see in front of me. Not to worry, they soon ended up in the same place, in this case a beechy glade with a mud-banked channel weaving through. Alas earlier this week that channel was entirely dry, just a pebble-bottomed ditch topped with yellow leaves that'd normally have fallen in two months later. The pipe-masquerading-as-bridge which directs the trail out of the woods is currently entirely unnecessary, although I imagine in winter many of these tracks are an absolute quagmire.
Breakspear Road North is the walk's second and final road, and briefly crossed, although the hike up the drive to Bayhurst Wood Country Park is considerably longer. It says a lot about the expected clientele that a sign at the entrance says "this park opens at 9am" by which they means the car park opens at 9am, but the odd pedestrian is welcome any time. Bayhurst Wood is an approximate circle half a mile in diameter and the obvious way to cross it would be to follow the track along the northern perimeter. Instead the Hillingdon Trail goes all out to divert to the far side before returning over the central summit, because experience beats practicality, so expect to spend half an hour here.
A ramshackle lockup with bolted windows turned out to be a proper municipal throwback, a set of long-disused public conveniences, although I'm not sure how many visitors would ever have risked it. Opposite was a retro-style board with pinned tiles illustrating five Birds To Be Found In The Country Park, including jay, nuthatch and treecreeper, not that I found any here. Instead I listened to the birdsong and the low hum of something I assumed was distant traffic until I got to the far side of the wood and spotted a feverish HS2 worksite across a field. My assault on the central hillock was eased by a mossy bench, and interrupted by a dour dogwalker with a border collie and a superfluous umbrella. [→TQ0689] My descent of the northern slope was comparatively gentle.
Here for the first time I caught a glimpse of rolling countryside, in this case featuring a tractor flattening crops around the base of a pylon and a very wide mansion on a farflung hill. A pleasingly thorough information board celebrates the heritage and wildlife along this stretch of the Hillingdon Trail, erected back when it was still numbered section 4. And yes that was a segregated cycle path on the other side of the fence, part of a 2km circuit called the David Brough Cycle Trail, because sometimes it's ramblers and horseriders that bikes need protecting from. My map told me to look out for Tarleton's Lake Nature Reserve, but where that supposed feature rubbed up against the path all I saw was a parched marshy hollow.
Ok, that's the woodland (mostly) done, it's a lot more footpathy from here on. I was surprised to get stuck behind a horserider mounting her steed via a set of steps provided for just such a purpose, and even more surprised when a man emerged through a gap in the hedge in light sportswear, mid-conversation on his phone. I'd assumed this was the middle of nowhere but it's actually the fiefdom of Breakspear House, the 17th century mansion I'd spotted earlier, since subdivided into multiple luxury hideaways. The footpath keeps a necessary distance round the back of some stables, emerging to climb the edge of a field with an ever-improving view, [←TQ0689] which is best from the very top.
I couldn't work out what the distant towers to the right of Bayhurst Wood's green hump might be, maybe RAF Northolt, but the micro-thin blur beyond could only be the central Thames basin. Planes were visible landing at Heathrow, and taking off the other side before veering round and passing almost overhead. And in the near distance was the brown scar of HS2, its workforce messily transforming large tracts of farmland most Londoners will never miss. It wasn't a classic panorama but it was extensive and unfamiliar. The stile into the next field proved to have a wobbly step, which thankfully was more disconcerting than disastrous. And then followed possibly the prettiest bit of the walk, the path hugging a hedgerow around a single field with a lone tree marooned in the middle.
The final descent was through another strip of woodland, across soil that shouldn't yet be covered in leaves past damp depressions that should be ponds. The walk's first nettles, thistles and crabapples intruded at the foot of the path. Here it's best to divert into the pristine churchyard of St Mary's, Harefield's oldest building, which apparently contains "a spectacular collection of fine old monuments" except it was locked. Instead I made do with the differently spectacular sight of a bank of war graves in the Australian Military Cemetery, the last resting place of 111 ANZAC soldiers who died in a temporary hospital up at at Harefield Park. The Hillingdon Trail is full of surprises, and a heck of a lot of trees.
