The introduction of line names on the Overground is sure to bring sightseers to Havering to see what the Liberty line is all about. So here's my tip-top tourist guide to help you find the finest places in the locality, some of which are actually rather fine.
10 things to see on the Liberty line
1) Visit Romford
This historic market town marks the western end of the Liberty line. You could watch the greyhounds at Romford Stadium, explore the exhibits at Havering Museum, shop til you drop at the The Liberty Centre, banter with the traders at Romford Market, watch the latest movie at the Vue Cinema, ride the Lodge Farm Park Miniature Railway, cheer on the Raiders at the Sapphire Ice and Leisure Centre, pay your respects in Coronation Gardens, track down the helipad at Queens Hospital or meet Santa in the grotto at Romford Shopping Hall. But all of these are covered in my post 500 things to see on the Elizabeth line, and rightly so, so let's move on to the second station on the line...
2) Enjoy Emerson Park station
Lovers of peace and quiet should make a beeline for the least used station on the Overground network which is Emerson Park. Step-free since the earliest days of the network it's accessed via a long ramp into a sylvan cutting where a single railway track pauses by a rustic platform. You could almost be in the countryside sometime in the 1950s were it not for the giant orange roundels. While you're here look out for the unstaffed cabin, the dangling litter bags, the electronic board pointlessly displaying departures for the next two hours, the grit bin and maybe a passing fox cutting across the tracks. Specific Liberty line signage is only evident on the line diagram between the card reader and the help point. Also don't forget to smile at the Dangleway advert on your way out because transport white elephants need to stick together.
3) Shop on Butts Green Road
You're not going to be short of places to eat, drink and buy motorbikes as you exit the station. Shish Meze restaurant awaits your custom at the top of the ramp, a plush hideaway for skewerlovers, whereas those with less spicy tastes will find more traditional pasties and sticky buns at the excellent Godfreys of Hornchurch. Pride of place in the centre of the traffic island goes to The Chequers Inn, a homely local dating back to the 19th century offering occasional live music and a dartboard. Across the road is The Hop Inn, a much-loved micro-pub and self-confessed lager-free zone which won the coveted title of UK Cider & Perry Pub of the Year in 2022, so probably go there instead. After all that drinking a bag of chips from Oh My Cod! will slip down nicely, and Bestway Motorcycles has you covered if you don't want to leave by train.
4) Grab a seat at the Queens Theatre
The striking brick building on Billet Lane is the QueensTheatre, Havering's premier arts venue. It's been on this site since April 1975 after its previous incarnation was demolished to make way for a new road scheme, and was officially opened by Sir Peter Hall with a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. Its latest big production is Cinderella which'll be starring nobody you'll have heard of from now until January. Even when there isn't a show on the cafe in the foyer is very popular and helps give the interior that baked-in smell of coffee and carpets. Look out for the panto costumes at the far end, or if retro orange lettering is more your thing head outside and admire the signage above the wheelchair ramp.
5) Step back in time at Langtons
OK, this is genuinely worth a visit. Langtons is a Georgian manor house set in four acres of ornamental gardens complete with lake, swans, orangery and bath house. Rebuilt many times by many owners, including a sea captain, a Huguenot silk merchant and a coal haulier, it was eventually bequeathed to to Hornchurch Urban District Council in 1929 on the condition that the building be used for council purposes and the grounds remained open to the public. Havering council thus wring every last penny out of the place for hosting weddings and the like, and local people walk their dogs round the lake and feed the ducks and drop into Liana's Tea Shop for a hot beverage, well chuffed to have one of the borough's finest properties on their doorstep. Humphry Repton did the landscaping and there aren't many places five minutes walk from an Overground station that can boast that.
6) See the Ice Age end at Hornchurch Cutting
The last big ice age had to end somewhere and scientists have determined it ended here in Hornchurch. Glaciers from the frozen north pushed their boulder clay as far as the electricity substation round the back of St Andrew's church, this marginally further south than similar icy lobes that reached Bricket Wood and Finchley, thus marking the furthest extent of any Pleistocene ice sheet. This geological extremity was first discovered when navvies were digging the Hornchurch Cutting, which it used to be possible to walk across via a zigzag level crossing but they closed that for safety reasons so the best view is now from the former road bridge by St Andrew's Park. It's not a very good view, sorry. Perhaps best ride a train through the cutting instead, because the most incredible thing on the Liberty line are the glacial deposits that mark our climate's last upward inflection some 450,000 years ago.
7) Shop til you drop on Hornchurch High Street
You might think that that Hornchurch High Street would be best served by Hornchurch tube station but not so, Emerson Park's runty halt is marginally closer. This means you can enjoy such high-class high street stores as Cardzone, Molly's Florist and Stunning Nails, not to mention Greggs, Lidl, Peacocks, Boots and Poundland. The shop window at Best Sellers (est 1977) is currently full of kitsch gingerbread soldiers and reindeer cushions, while £19.99 Christmas trees are already on sale at the Öncü Food Centre. Bodybuilders should instead flock to Healthy Wheys, the weight loss and testosterone centre, while for zingy prawns it has to be The Giggling Squid in the middle of the traffic island. But don't go any further south than the Sutton Arms because if you reach Euronics you've entered the catchment area of Hornchurch station and we're not going there.
8) Ramble round the top end of Harrow Lodge Park
Only the top end falls within our remit, for reasons previously referenced, but that's enough to enjoy a tiny slice of Havering's largest urban park. The cricket pavilion dates back to 1960, four years before the opening of Hornchurch Swimming Pool which in 1987 was redeveloped as Harrow Lodge Leisure Centre. All this used to be the Manor of Maylards Green and Wybridge, as you'll learn if you read the considerable backstory on the park's information board. To one side is the River Ravensbourne, not the significant south London gusher but a minor dribble that feeds into the Beam which you likely haven't heard of either. You might see it better on the other side of the road amid the allotments, but don't feel you have to go and look.
9) Delve deeper into suburban Emerson Park
It would be a shame to come this far and not explore the suburb the station is named after. A few broad avenues were built to the north of the railway line around 1900, sufficiently widely spaced that each house could be awarded a plot of one acre. The story since has been the relentless infilling of the space between these houses with more houses and additional cul-de-sacs, but it still feels lightly packed and these remain desirable streets. The original builder was called William Carter and the estate is named after his son Emerson. The old manor house (called Nelmes) survived until 1967 and was replaced by a neo-Georgian development but if you walk to the end of The Witherings you can still see part of its moat and a 16th century outbuilding. Another cluster of whitewashed cottages survives on Wingletye Lane, by which time you're very nearly in Upminster...
10) Visit Upminster
This historic town with medieval roots marks the eastern end of the Liberty line. You could climb to the top of the smock mill in Windmill Field, visit the Tithe Barn Museum, shop for soft furnishings at Roomes, attend a home match at AFC Hornchurch, enjoy the borders in Clockhouse Gardens, grab a pint at The Junction, see the church where the speed of sound was first calculated, walk the River Ingrebourne, explore historic Corbets Tey or chow down on a Grillhouse Stack at Wimpy. But all of these are covered in my post 1000 things to see on the District line, and rightly so, so best focus instead on taking the Liberty.
