...and London doesn't get much more peripheral than this. We're on the outer edges of Havering, about halfway between Upminster and Purfleet and a smidgeon inside the M25. It's mostly fields, reclaimed gravel pits and the occasional country lane, and a total public transport desert because hardly anyone lives here. It's also where the Greater London boundary goes on one of its silliestwiggles, abruptly dividing woods and lakes in a haphazard manner, whereas quite frankly the whole area should have been summarily donated to Thurrock.
Postcodewise Rainham is RM13 and Upminster is RM14, and between them they take care of almost all of this end of London. But RM15 for South Ockendon just nudges in and scrapes a couple of corners who best get their post delivered from the Essex side, and that's where I've had to go as part of my quest to visit every postcode district in Greater London this year. One or other would do, which was just as well because one proved very private and the other had lots of bluebells. [map]
I ventured in from Aveley because you can get a bus to there. The town, if you can call it that, has a 12th century church, a Co-op, a couple of bypasses and a fair few housing estates. The northernmost of these is called Kenningtons, named after a medieval manor we'll get to later, and consists of a downbeat maze of mid-50s housing. It's traditional enough to support a pub and a chippy, isolated enough that pensioners eye you suspiciously just for being here, archaic enough that a rag and bone man drove by, and staunch enough that flags drape from windows even when there isn't a Coronation. All of Kenningtons is in Essex, but it also has a park and on the far side of that is a sliver of London RM15.
Kennington Park (no relation) is a former clay pit relandscaped in the 1990s. I don't think it's the clay pit where they found the Aveleymammoth, the UK's largest ever find, but if not it was very nearby. The park is mostly lake with an orbital path where you'll likely bump into static gentlemen with rods, tents and £10 day tickets. According to an old map by the entrance they originally intended to extend the park across the adjacent landfill site but that hasn't happened yet, perhaps never will. I did get as far as the private path to the rear fishing lake and I did meet some consolation goslings, but reaching the London boundary alas isn't possible.
The only way into this splinter of Greater London is up Moor Hall Lane, a private road accessed only from Kenningtons. It leads eventually to a big house, obviously Moor Hall, which pre-pandemic was a flourishing wedding venue and post-pandemic is morphing into an Integrated Therapeutic Learning Centre. Surrounding it, if the signs opposite Londis are to be believed, are lesser Essexy businesses offering bespoke bathrooms, flexible storage and marquee hire. But I didn't want to risk striding up this spike-edged tarmac funnel past sentinel CCTV, so decided that the other chunk of RM15 was a far better option. So I walked north...
Seen on the way
• An Electric Blue 22 double decker waiting at its Usk Road terminus.
• Sir Henry's, a 'British Restaurant' in a Grade II* listed building (which just happens to be the original Kenningtons). It boasts 800-year-old timbers, 100 outside tables and a moat. And it's exceptionally Essex, i.e. glam but safe (Monday Steak Night, Tuesday Curry, Wednesday Pie, Thursday Fish and Sunday Roast).
• Belhus Chase, one of a patchwork of interconnected reclaimed open spaces hereabouts.
• The driveway up to Brett's Farmhouse, Aveley's other Grade II* listed building. Just 600 years old this time.
• A cottage with defensive timber gates, a double garage extension and a Help For Heroes flag on a pole in the garden.
• A red admiral butterfly leading the way into young woodland where all the trees are the same height.
• A wooden footbridge over a small stream, which means I'd just crossed...
...into Greater London. The small stream goes by the name of Running Water Brook and ultimately feeds into Rainham Marshes. It was once the southern tip of the parish of Upminster, a peculiarly elongated strip six miles long and one mile wide, and it's that quirk which ultimately created this modern tongue of London poking into Thurrock. Today the southern end is covered by Belhus Woods Country Park, 300 glorious acres of mixed woodland, open meadows and multiple lakes, because it's amazing what you can do with a lot of former gravel pits. And only the country park has an RM15 postcode, nothing further up Aveley Road slips in.
The flank I walked into was quiet woodland with squidgy paths and a silent glade where blossom drifted down like snow. Further in I met the dogwalkers, the multi-generational families and the kids elated to have found the musical-themed play area, all of them off on a mini or maxi exploration according to their want. A spin round the first lake took me briefly into Essex and then back again, because the meandering boundary cuts just as illogically through this park. You can guess which side of the line I met the pug with a red poppy badge dangling from its collar.
I enjoyed reading the signs on the chunky log benches ("Come sit, enjoy the lake where Tish brought Wiggles on their 1st Date"). On Pauline's bench I found a set of laminated postcards left by her granddaughter, which proved to be a candid mix of love and mental health issues. By Joan and Sid's bench I imagined them both holding hands on the edge of the bluebell wood, and inviting later generations to sit in the same place and smile. And I learned that if your bench is deemed unsafe they take it away and replace it with a sign giving your family three months' notice to get in touch, else they'll give your spot to someone new. So much for an everlasting memorial, Essex rangers.
Belhus Woods Country Park is a lovely spot, as the number of vehicles in the car park suggests. It's busy enough to support a Visitor Centre that's open daily (although I noticed they've stopped doing leaflets, it's now all about refreshment). It also has a separate forest complex conveniently located just across the road, which'd be in Essex again, where the bluebells in the ancient woodland were borderline spectacular. Were this far-flung edge of London better known it'd be much more popular, and were it more accessible it might just be better known. Just don't risk walking in from Rainham or Upminster because there are no footpaths and the lanes are all ratruns. This corner of the capital is best reached from outside.
