Sometimes you just want to go for a nice walk, nothing too taxing, bit of heritage, proper healthy, municipal-focused, hilltop views, football-related, flying balls, disused railway bridge, a bit of a stroll, won't take long. So here's a Healthy Heritage Walk from Barnet borough council, nowhere near enough to make a day of it but a nice walk all the same.
Having recommended that you might like to try walking a London borough walk I though it was only right to pick one myself and give it a go. I plumped for four-star borough Barnet and one of their seven Healthy Heritage Walks, conceived as a joint project with the Ramblers and the Institute of Tourist Guiding. Each features a map, a multi-page script with full directions, a Spotify playlist featuring the aforementioned script and a Google map of the appointed route, which is a pretty good going for a council resource. I picked a part of Barnet I was relatively unfamiliar with because it's always good to explore. And what I discovered was that the first kilometre was great, the second, third and fourth a bit of a slog, and the fifth didn't go as planned.
The Hendon to Mill Hill walk starts at Hendon Town Hall, which is both an obvious and a self-centred location for a borough-produced walk. The building's typically Edwardian, having been built in the era when local government was proudly emerging, and is also flying the Progress Pride flag because Barnet finally has a Labour council and it's June. The walk notes remind us that Margaret Thatcher was at the count here when she became Prime Minister in 1979, also that the adjacent fire station is from 1914 and the library from 1929. The peculiar statue outside resembling a giant drill bit is called Family Man, was unveiled by Mrs T in 1981 and celebrates the twinning of Barnet with the municipality of Ramat Gan in Israel. The other imposing municipal edifice is Hendon Technical Institute, later a founding part of Middlesex University, now the main campus of Middlesex University so potentially abuzz with students. If pre-walk reassurance is what you need, Hendon Library has toilets and the Costcutter across the road has water and snacks.
Once upon a time this was a quiet hamlet called The Burroughs and just up the lane was the village hub of Church End. That'll be why there's still a bank of 300-year-old almshouses along here, still providing accommodation for 16 needy persons over 50 years age, with one of those lovely old plaques above the door whose verbose wording kicks off with the phraſe "Theſe Alms Houſes were erected Purſuant to the laſt will of Robert Daniel". Turn the corner, very much avoiding the Barnet Wellbeing Centre, and lo the whitewashed walls of a medieval church. This is St Mary's whose tower is topped by a dazzling lofty weathercock, or more precisely weatherlamb. The walknotes recommend going inside if possible to see the 12th century font and the grave of Sir Stamford Raffles, but I'd turned up as Sung Eucharist was turfing out so it didn't seem appropriate. Instead I headed round the back as directed to see the grave of Herbert Chapman, Arsenal's pioneeringly excellent manager in the 1920s and 1930s, whose career was sadly cut short when he died of pneumonia aged 55.
The pub outside is The Greyhound but was built as Church House, a place for parish meetings. A blue plaque confirms they've been held on this site since 1351 while a blackboard confirms they now sell Double Salami pizza. Nextdoor is the oldestdwelling in Hendon, a 17th century farmhouse, which from 1955 to 2011 housed Church Farmhouse Museum. Alas the council flogged it off at the first sign of austerity, much to the fury of many, so to see it still has a Barnet Property Services To Let sign out front suggests that wasn't a great decision. And beyond that is a footpath entrance to Sunny Hill Park, formerly Church Farmhouse's farm, and it was here my antennae really picked up because I'd never been before. It's big too, a 55 acre sloping tongue with uncut meadow, ridged peak and lower cafe. Pause by the tree with a bench and soak in the view, suggested the walk, and hell yes.
"From here it is possible to see across the valley to Harrow and Stanmore" says the rubric, and they are indeed the undulating woody peaks of Middlesex on the horizon. It then waxes lyrical for five paragraphs about the foreground because this used to include Hendon Aerodrome, a place of considerable aerial importance, but alas all this is now dominated by the boxy upthrust of Colindale. It's grown so much since this script was written in 2019 that you can no longer see 'the distinctive yellow roof' of Hendon Police College, not unless you shift to a completely different viewpoint, only an intrusion of semi-affordable brick vernacular.
You may be unnerved to discover that we're not yet even quarter of the way through the walk, after all my lengthy description thus far, but the good news is that the remainder's far less interesting so I can be briefer.
Kilometre 2: The walk now retreats all the way back to the park entrance, past the back of the churchyard and round the back of the Barnet Wellbeing Centre. It then follows a back alley rather than pass the multitude of takeaways on Church Lane before emerging partway up Parson Street.
Kilometre 3: Near the bottom of the hill you can't quite see Hendon Hall Hotel, a neoclassical mansion whose greatest claim to fame is that it was the hotel where the England football team stayed the night before the 1966 World Cup Final. Since the walknotes were written it's become a luxury care home, complete with '66 Bar and Lounge', so is even harder to see. The Brutalist block of flats in front with its jaggedy concrete profile is Hendon Hall Court, another 1966 triumph. Crossing the busy A1 is no fun, as if a pedestrian crossing were an afterthought, then turn left at North Hendon Synagogue into full-on suburban avenues.
Kilometre 4: Ooh, an unexpected bridleway. This is Ashley Lane, an ancient roadway once used by a fleeing Cardinal Wolsey, now preserved as a half mile strip of ancient woodland across the middle of a golf course. The gentle climb is shady and pleasant, if you don't mind repeated passive aggressive signs warning that unauthorised access onto the course by pedestrians, bikes and drones is strictly prohibited. At the far end is the back entrance to Hendon Cemetery, a multi-faith site since 1899 and the burial place of Lynsey de Paul, also absolutely no dogs permitted.
If you've bothered to schlep this far the final 15 minutes through Mill Hill promises more. Sanders Lane should lead to an old arched bridge over a disused railway, just beyond Mill Hill East, except the path has been fully blocked off with a sign saying 'Footway closed'. This is bloody annoying because there's no other easy way round, hence the local petition which in effect says for God's sake please reopen Sanders Lane. The cause is a structural defect discovered in March 2023 which created "an immediate safety risk", and Barnet council have only recently confirmed that their preferred solution is to entirely demolish the 145 year-old bridge and instead add a footpath at cutting level, with work starting next month. I was thus forced to walk up the road and then return along the actual disused railway, which to be fair was vastly more atmospheric, plus I got to see the doomed bridge from below just before it vanishes forever.
The walk ends by climbing Bittacy Hill onto the site of the former Inglis Barracks, the enormous camp where every WW1 soldier who signed up for the Middlesex Regiment did their training. All that remains today is the officers mess, a long brick building at the brow of the hill, every other space having been swallowed up by swirling townhouses and other semi-upmarket housing. With crushing inevitability the mess has been subdivided into further flats and become Officers Mess House, now fronted by a private garden and numerous signs warning anyone with a vehicle of a potential £100 parking fine. It's no longer the climactic end to the walk that the originators planned, or indeed saw six years ago, and I think what I'm saying is maybe just walk the first three quarters of a mile. Or go do the Totteridge walk instead.
