The Roding Valley Way is an intermittent north-south route which generally (but not entirely) follows one of London's major rivers. The River Roding Path is a better attempt to track the riverbank but not necessarily in an all-weather surfaced manner. I walked a mix of the two at the weekend on a muddy hike between Ilford and Debden, and today bring you the delights of the five miles I didn't blog about yesterday.[12 photos]
The split-level multiplex where the M11 meets the North Circular is more familiarly known as Charlie Brown's Roundabout (named after a pub landlord, not the Peanuts character). The river Roding flows apologetically through the melee and is crossed sequentially by two motorway onslips and two motorway offslips. These do something strange, combining into two separate carriageways rather than coalescing as one, for reasons I'll explain in the next paragraph. The sensible cycle route deviates to one side while a more challenging footpath sticks to the river, facing off against a flank of prewar terraces on Chigwell Road. Two final pylons fizz alongside before transferring their power underground. This loveless spot is of course where Redbridge chooses to hide its Reuse & Recycling Centre because council tips and riversides often go together.
Rather than carry on round the back of the tip I instead stepped under the northbound motorway into a most peculiar nomansland between the carriageways. It's just over half a mile long and about 150m wide, if you don't mind me mixing units, crossed only by a slabby concrete track approximately halfway. All the rest is low levelscrub with unkempt trees and bushes, plus a single footpath winding up the centre, with traffic far enough to either side that wildlife can almost ignore its presence. The reason this undeveloped tongue exists is that it was meant to form an even more massive Woodford interchange where the M11 and the M12 both fired off into the Home Counties. The latter motorway was never built, for reasons you can read about in detail here, but the M11 still leaves space (between and beneath) for its slip roads to feed through.
Where the carriageways rejoin I eschewed the safe-but-dull pavement-pounding option and returned to the riverside via a floodable subway. The dogwalkers of Woodford Green often bring their hounds to walk this brief but accessible stretch, evidence suggests, although its skanky bench may be better used in the summer. At the foot of Snakes Lane a Tudorbethan shopping parade offers safe food options including a pizza takeaway called Eatalian, and a coat of arms reminds passing drivers that this hounded spot was once sylvan Woodford Bridge. I was unnerved that the local flood gauge goes up to 4m, and relieved that the current water level hadn't even hit 50cm. All seemed straightforward on the last haul towards the Greater London boundary, which is where I ignored the footbridge across to Ray Park because I wanted to stick by the water, and that may have been a seasonal error.
What followed was a path in various states of quagmire, ranging from "hang on this is fine" to "sheesh my boots may not recover". Positive aspects to the walk were that the river was always close, the motorway had finally veered off and the blackberries must have been great in the summer. Alas being winter the brambles were merely creating a thorn hazard while simultaneously narrowing the path to force every traveller's footsteps to coincide, so rather than watching the wildlife I had to watch my feet. Only once did I slide and very nearly slip, which would have looked proper messy on the train home later, but thankfully I righted myself before any damage was done. When I finally escaped it had only been three-quarters of a mile of mild peril but had felt much longer. Thank goodness the London/Essex boundary isn't always this precipitous, I thought.
Relief came beneath a railway viaduct intermittently crossed by Central line trains. Here a temporary bridge crosses the Roding leading to a proper path through one of the arches which opens out onto a rugby ground. On my visit, rather than any scrummage taking place, a few small dogs frolicked while their owners had a nice chat. The Underground's least used station is only a short walk away, indeed so close that they actually called it Roding Valley (although Redbridge station is technically closer to the river). Local infrastructure is now under the control of Epping Forest council which means wider sturdier paths to follow, which was a relief even if the river now felt more urbanised. Beyond the second set of allotments the path gave out altogether and a chain of road walking followed, offering the opportunity to pass judgement on home decor in Buckhurst Hill while skirting a chunk of private land.
The Roding finally gets its mojo back beyond Roding Lane while flowing through extensive flood meadows, A lot of this has been repurposed as sports grounds, which is the default for a lot of the lower valley, but here it manifests as publicly accessible grassland. This allows the river to meander in a semi-natural state for a mile or two, which made a pleasant change and offered the choice of sticking to its banks or cutting corners and walking direct. The good people of Loughton have this meadowed fringe on one side of their suburb and Epping Forest on the other, which may explain the prices of their homes. Just one footbridge actually crosses the river, built at the behest of former district councillor Charlie Moull, but expect no escape from the nature reserve on the far side unless you continue to Chigwell.
After the final recreation ground the land became scrubbier and the river a little more shielded. It was here, beyond a kissing gate, that I met my nemesis in the form of an approaching off-leash pit bull. I steeled myself as it stopped at its master's side, fixed its gaze straight ahead and then suddenly launched forward. "He's a friendly one," said the owner a few seconds too late to be reassuring, indeed the dog hurtled straight past, but this is not the mental state in which I like to end my walks. The Roding made its last appearance in a strengthened channel at Loughton Flow Gauging Station, then bore off towards M11 junction 5 and rural anonymity. It's a lot harder to follow upstream of Debden thanks to golf courses and particularly farmland, miles and miles of it all the way to the source alongside Stansted Airport.
The Roding is a mighty significant Essex river but at its mightiest on its despoiled journey through outer London, as is best seen along the Roding Valley Way. Which could have been a lot worse.
