The contrasts of this leg – woodland and wasteland and fine-living-town were striking. It could seem like dipping in and out of different worlds, all in the same county.
Resuming where I finished the last leg, in Potters Bar, I soon realised that my backpack was too small to carry my jacket and the day was far too hot to consider wearing it. A few adaptations later, it was firmly strapped outside the backpack.
Potters Bar is not a massive town; just the right size to do its job as a northern sentinel of Middlesex. Its northernmost streets graze the border of Hertfordshire and, as it merges into Little Heath, trespass across it. Off the main road then, I turned down Quakers Lane, a narrow, straight residential road which emerges on the Great North Road, the A1000. (A few yards north of this point, at the county border, is a neglected coal post sitting against a fence.)
Opposite is a small park, Morven, owned by the National Trust, which I crossed, ignored by the brown cow and her calf grazing there. Then onto the B156 eastward and Coopers Lane Road, which leaves the town eastward. Soon the lane follows the county border. There is a bridleway on the south side of the road, running parallel to it for a long way. Here I had a poignant time as I fell into conversation with an elderly man with a subtle German accent walking the same way. He told gently his life story, starting with his escape from Germany in the Kindertransport. There are today few living threads linking us so directly to that unimaginably horrible time, and I feel privileged to meet one first-hand.
Out of the woods and onto the pavementless road, I turned on to Cattlegate Road, that leads into Crews Hill, a place of garden centres and little, odd shed-based shops, and round the corner onto Whitewebbs Road. South of Whitewebbs Road is Whitewebbs Wood, where I hoped to walk on a parallel path, but it petred out. If you can find the way through, do. I found another after a bit of roadwalking. (Also on the road I came across the ‘Whitewebbs Museum of Transport’, that I had never heard of. It looked intriguing; built in a building that once served the New river Company, though quite a way from the New River.)
At its end, the road comes to the new Tottenham Hotspur training centre which was besieged by Korean schoolchildren (I am told that is a common sight) at Bulls Cross.
I entered the conurbation; the last of the Middlesex countryside behind me, or so I assumed. At the New River the urban sprawl suddenly hits. The path was closed, but would not have got me anywhere had it been open. The A10 shortly after can only be crossed at a subway. I then walked up to the M25 (which happens to run along the county border here) but there was no way though to the east, so back the A road. I managed to find a sports field for a quick lunch. Then I looked at the map. The M25 goes underground, but I could not see what is on top, so i went to look, and was delighted to find the Holmesdale Tunnel Open Space – a long, linear park made simply of the space above the motorway. I could walk on top of the M25, and the county border, as far as the A1010; then back onto roads.
The A1055 is not an inspiring road; just a bare utilitarian thing stuck between the motorway, the marsh and an industrial estate. The I spotted, opposite an entrance to te estate, a gate opening onto Rammey Marsh. The Marsh is the last of Middlesex on the Middlesex Greenway, which I walked in 2017, so I crossed into a hidden wild corner of the county, eventually emerging at the River Lee Navigation, and the county’s border with Essex.
I followed south, on the towpath (and the Middlesex Greenway) to Enfield Lock. Opposite, on the Essex bank, was once the Royal Small Arms Factory, where Lee-Enfield rifles and Bren guns and Sten guns and much more were made. Today it is a modern development – Enfield Island Village. Between the channels of the canal and the river is a terrace of Victorian houses, Government Row, so I went along it. The back onto the canal towpath.
To the east is a string of large reservoirs, all along the Lea Valley, with the Essex border winding through them on the old course of the Lea. It is a long path. One foot in front of the other, and on you go. Though deep in the urban sprawl, this is a green haven. There are glimpses of parks. The canalside itself though a concrete creation of industrial will, has been recolonised by nature so you might almost imagine you are by the river in places.
Then I came to a horror: in the near distance high towers of grey concrete rising out of the ground. As I drew closer I could see the whole landscape had been taken over by some horrible development: it looked as if someone had scattered concrete seeds, that had sprung up ugly stumps. Eventually it took over both sides of the canal and both sides of the North Circular Road, and I found a sign giving an explanation: this is a new heat-and-power plant for London. From what I understand, it is a vast scheme, that aims to take unused taxpayers’ money and recycle it into consultants’ wages.
Leaving that behind me I forged on. I saw a family standing on a bridge looking back at the blasted landscape and cooing at how charming it is. Puzzled, I climbed on the bridge, and saw a family of ducks; nine tiny ducklings trying to climb on their mother’s back. Nature can overwhelm any effort of man’s.
Continuing south along the canal I came to Tottenham Hale, now repackaging itself as ‘Hale Village’ and coming upmarket. Here I stopped for the day and found the station.
See also
- Middlesex Border Walk – Staines to Hatch End
- Middlesex Border Walk – Hatch End to New Southgate
- Middlesex Border Walk – Southgate to Potters Bar