My task today (well, technically yesterday) is to find somewhere in London none of you have been. That's a public space, a visitor-friendly location, somewhere anyone could go but I'm hoping none of you have. The place I picked is 120 acres in extent and even has a car park so it's by no means unvisited, indeed I saw five people there yesterday. But only about 2000 people are going to read this post today and many of you don't live anywhere local to London, so I've got my fingers crossed that this out-of-the-way location is off your collective radar.
It is of course on the very edge of the capital, and on one of the furthest-flung edges at that. It's in Havering, because of course it is, because that's probably London's most easily avoided borough. It's immediately alongside the M25, so a heck of a lot of you will almost have been but haven't quite. A London bus stops about 15 minutes walk away but it's highly unlikely you'll have got off at the right stop and walked up the right street across the right dual carriageway up the right lane to the right spot. Also the place I visited only came into existence 20 years ago, so that should exclude anyone chirping up and saying "yeah, I spent my childhood there snaffling blackberries".
The place I'm thinking of is east of Upminster, so if you've never ventured beyond the end of the District line you've never been. The place I'm thinking of is best reached from Cranham, or you can walk in from Great Warley, and if neither of these places sound familiar then my bet is safe. The place I'm thinking of is woodland with a public footpath winding through it, and a lot of you like rambling and cycling so it's not impossible someone's been. But I'm hoping that because I'd never considered visiting before then neither have you, so let's see if that pans out.
I know I'm setting myself up for a fall. Someone out there is already reading this and thinking "oh yeah" and by quarter past seven there'll be an anecdote in the comments about how they went that way on a walk from Brentwood last summer or how they take their dog up there every morning. But by my calculations only 1 in 2000 Londoners live in Cranham and fewer than 2000 Londoners read this blog every day so I reckon my odds are good. Watch me be proved wrong.
Join me on a visit to Folkes Lane Woodland, which you'll find beyond Upminster just to the north of Cranham [OS map][map]. It consists of a sweep of young forest on a pronounced slope threaded with all-weather paths and grassy tracks. Before the 1980s it was remote farmland but then the M25 carved through, loudly, just to the north of junction 29. Then in 2002 the Forestry Commission bought up four adjacent arable fields with the aim of creating new woodland, which is something they've done a lot in this area under the 'Thames Chase' umbrella. 90,000 trees have since been planted here, once weedy saplings but now young and thrusting (and mostly of a similar immature height).
The best way here by public transport is to take the 248 or 346 bus to 'as far north in Cranham as you can', then walk north off the estate towards the A127. Take your life in your hands crossing the dual carriageway because all that's provided is a gap in the central reservation, then continue cautiously ahead up pavementless Folkes Lane. You may need to dodge lorries brimful with aggregate, a just-purchased motorhome or a 4×4 off to the playbarn, the M25 having severed all other access routes from a dogleg of local businesses. The most defensive of these is the Abattoir and Farm Shop at Berendens Farm, a halal despatchery that's felt the need to erect a sign saying 'No protestors beyond this point'. Fret not, the first gate into the woods is just up the lane on the left.
Well this is very pleasant. A cinder track bordered with long grass wends uphill between wedges of thick diminutive forest. The grass is alive with ragwort and butterflies, or at least it is at the height of summer. Don't think of wandering off into the trees, they're quietly fenced off, except in places where wildlife crossing the slope has made a break. The ascent continues with narrowing views back across the Thames Valley (I think those tower blocks are in Dartford), then blinks out as the trees close in. And if you keep climbing you'll eventually reach the crescent path where the land falls away to reveal a fabulous vista across the entirety of East London.
I think this is London's easternmost hilltop at 80m above sea level. It didn't used to be a summit, it was merely the brow of a ridge before the M25 added additional contours through a scraped-out cutting. I love a good viewpoint so I took a seat at the burnt-out picnic table and attempted to identify the shapes on the horizon. Some council blocks in Harold Hill... the dome of a shopping centre in Romford... the upthrust of Stratford... the entire spiky silhouette of Docklands and the City. I'd even remembered to bring a pair of binoculars so I could enjoy the skyline more precisely. I stared for ages, then unwrapped a Penguin biscuit and read a chapter of a trashy novel to extend my panoramic stay a little longer.
Just as I was revelling in not having seen anyone for half an hour a cyclist rode by, and I'm very much hoping they're not a regular reader of this blog. I also passed one man being walked by a dog and another man enjoying his lunch from the comfort of a white van in the car park, but they were very much the exception. A brambly track found me disturbing several small birds. A bridleway tracking the edge of the motorway proved troublesome underfoot because the mud had dried in clipclopped lumps. A shadowy path scattered with acorns and tiny apples reminded me that the seasons are changing. And I eventually located the end of the footbridge that crosses the M25, stepping out of the protective shield of the ULEZ into the poisoned air above an eight lane motorway. If you can stand the noise then the best southward view is from here.
On the far side of the bridge you enter Essex, because like I said this really is the very edge of London. A footpath tracks the top of the cutting until it can rejoin what used to be Berendens Lane before the M25 severed it. That used to be all you could access but a large sign beyond the hedgerow reveals that the barleyfields beyond are about to get the same treatment as Folkes Lane Woodland. 250 acres of Hole Farm went up for sale in 2020 and were bought by National Highways to facilitate construction of the Lower Thames Crossing. They're not carving it up, they're planting 150,000 trees to create a new amenity with a visitor centre and using it as mitigation for the loss of ancient woodland elsewhere. But 40 acres of Folkes Lane Woodland are sadly due to be despoiled to allow for the diversion of a high pressure gas main, so if you want to see the summit at its best then best come before that starts.
Assuming, that is, you've never been here before. Which I'm very much hoping nobody has.
