6:15 pm: between Moor Park and Northwood
The rain eased off a little after my late lunch. Behind Bushey Heath a path runs out across the open space called Merry Hill, with far views over the valley southwards with barely a house to be seen. Whatever your ideas of this congested part of our county, there is its natural state still to be found.
Eventually though it drops down to Carpenders Park, where the habitations of man begin, then it is along the road some more, compassing round Carpenders Park and South Oxhey, where the route heads south to the path along the county border, watched and occasionally followed by curious horses. Then through Nascot Wood and Oxhey Wood, where I followed an unsystematic westward path, to hit the exactly right spot.
At the end of the wood begins the path known locally as just ‘the Boundary Path’, which runs for two miles along the border of Hertfordshire with Middlesex, cutting between houses, even across roads, turning from a narrow, muddy path to a broad, clear one almost randomly, with great oaks or their stumps all along the way, suggesting it was once an estate boundary path. Here then I came to the railway line and called it a day, just over ten miles from the finish where I began. That is for tomorrow.
See: Hertfordshire Border Walk
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Loved reading your write-up; I organise an annual trail race in Merry Hill, as it’s right on my back doorstep. It’s a lovely little patch of nature right on the outskirts of London – glad to hear you enjoyed your brief time there.