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WALK 3

Epping Forest from Chingford

Start/finish Chingford station (TQ 391 946) Distance 5½ miles (9km) Time 2½hrs Maps OS Explorer 174, Landranger 177 Refreshments Station House pub and cafés in Chingford; Royal Forest Inn and café by Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge Parking Bury Road car park, E4 7QJ (TQ 394 949) Local group Friends of Epping Forest www.friendsofeppingforest.org.uk

Epping Forest sits on a slowly rising gravel bank between the rivers Roding and Lea, and stretches from the inner London borough of Newham in the south to well into Essex in the north. It’s been an essential place of rural escape for east Londoners since mid-Victorian times. This walk skips both sides of the present London boundary, and shows off a wide range of its habitats – pond and stream, wood and clearing, bog and plain.

At Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge

From the station turn right, then take the second left into Bury Road, and in 60 metres go half-right on a path waymarked for the London Loop. At the next waymark take the rightmost of two paths heading slightly uphill. If starting from the car park, turn half-right from the signboard at the back of the car park, and in 100 metres take the rightmost of the two paths heading slightly uphill.