Finishing our starry eyed trail from the previous week, we decided to return to Borehamwood just to finish our tour. To see the Stars beneath our feet at Borehamwood station and to read the rest of the plaques, in the High Street, which we missed the previous week. Our walk for the day began in Stratfield road, amidst a group of unassuming flats. Why would a block of flats be so interesting? For any movie buffs, one of these flats was used for filming locations for Stanley Kubrik’s “Clockwork Orange”.
This Sunday stroll was to take us away from the glorious Borehamwood and out into the Countryside. Firstly, the trail was to take us down the Furzehill Road. Pondering as to why this road was rather long, I have discovered that along with Shenley Road (where the Studios reside), Allum Lane (which we walked last week), Barnet Lane (which we were about to encounter) and Theobald street were all created as a result of the “1776 Enclosure Act”. This act divided up Borehamwood Common, which was approximately 684 acres in size, between the various landowners of the era, including the Church and included these new roads to be laid out! I was glad, however, to discover a small public footpath which was to take us away from the walking the road, to our chosen destination – Barnet Lane.
The footpath was shaded by trees and made the walk very dark and not particularly inviting :-(. Although it is a nice short woodland walk, I think I would have much preferred to have walked in the meadow which ran alongside the path, sadly it was behind a fence. The trail took us through the wood and out into the open, but even then the path was not really looked after. It was really difficult to walk through the tall weeds and brambles that had grown up either side of the path, such a shame really! Despite the fact that I do not like walking along the pavements, suddenly the road that we were walking parallel too looked very appealing to walk along! Luckily this part of the path was not too long and it brought us out in the road and the next path which was in “Woodcock Hill Village Green”. As we started to cross the green, I was so glad that I had my walking boots on as the path was really muddy and the ground was sodden. Although it is hidden under all that green grass! –
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| From 2012 – 08.07.2012 – Borehamwood – Edgwarebury Walk |
As we turned the corner from the field, much to my surprise we had discovered yet another beacon! It was good to see that this beacon had been lit for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee :-). So now I have found my 9th Beacon during my walks and only 3,491 to find across the Globe! So far I have only found Beacons in this Country, I will need to walk further afield to find more. Most of the beacons that I have found have been along the coastline, whereas this particular Beacon has been located on a hillside and once it is lit, I can imagine it could be seen for miles around.
Woodcock Hill’s visibility had not gone unnoticed in years gone by. During the Napoleonic Wars, a temporary hut was stationed here which housed a “Shutter (Optical) Telegraph system”. The Optical Telegraph was developed by Lord George Murray, who was actually a Anglican Cleric when he created it in 1797! The tower stood 30 foot (~9 metres) high above the hut, with 6 shutters and could transmit 64 coded messages. At the time the shelter was built there was a clear line of sight to St Alban’s Church which had another tower to transmit messages along the “Semaphore Line”. It seems the British Admiralty at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, had a number of these Semaphore Lines across the country, the one we had stumbled upon would have eventually stretched all the way to Great Yarmouth in Norfolk.
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| From 2012 – 08.07.2012 – Borehamwood – Edgwarebury Walk |
We were a little unsure where the path went from here as the path seemed to run out at the information point! We decided to take a short cut we found before the information board into Barnet Lane. It seemed like the correct path to take, despite there being no footpath signs, as plenty of people had been using it! Now that we were in Barnet Lane, we found that we had joined up with the London Loop. Somehow, I thought that we may came across it at some point in our walk! Whilst we were walking along, we noticed some very odd looking brick structures in the farmers field. In fact these strange structures are nothing more exotic that are just air tunnels for the train tunnel that we were now walking above! These brick buildings is the only evidence the Trains were under our feet!
Our walk continued along the Lane, whereas the Loop took a turn down “Deacons Hill Road”. Barnet Lane seems a lovely place to live and in fact, we found out that the Director Stanley Kubrick, who I mentioned earlier, actually owned a couple of the hourses in this very road! However, our walk was now to take us away from “Barnet Lane” and was to take us through “Edgwarebury Lane”. As we started along the Lane, we immediately took a short diversion to look at the beautiful “Edgwarebury Hotel”. This lovely Tudor house was built during the 16th Century and the first known resident of “Edgwarebury House” was Commander Sir Tim Dawson BT, of the Royal Navy in 1540. It remained a private residence for many generations of the Dawson family. However, during the 1930’s the house was turned into a private club and in the 1960’s it was then changed into a hotel. It has been used in many Elstree TV and Film productions, one Classic film would have been the 1968 Hammer Horror, “The Devil Rides Out”. The Hotel has had guests which has included Peter Sellers, Tom Cruise, John Cleese and Stanley Kubrick.
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| From 2012 – 08.07.2012 – Borehamwood – Edgwarebury Walk |
The lane took us alongside the hotel grounds for a while, and it really did us a lovely view. The lane suddenly felt like came to a end, however, this was for cars and not for pedestrians. The next part of the walk was restricted to car traffic as we were to cross over the M1 on a bridge! I am unsure as to why the bridge is no longer used by cars, perhaps it is not deemed strong enough? Once we were on the other side, it really felt we were in the countryside. As we followed the lane around, I realised that the lane had brought us to “Bury Farm”. I had only just blogged about the Farm last week! It is nice to see that the farm which was established in 17th Century, is still going to this day 🙂
We hurried our walk slightly as it started to rain, it was here that the lane suddenly came out in to suburbia. As the rain began to subside, we turned off the road into “Edgwarebury Park”. This park was created in 1932 by two councils after purchasing it in two parts in 1929 and 1932. The earliest reference to this land is in 1216 when it was formerly within the “Manor of Earlsbury” domain, somehow the area was transferred to the ownership of “All Saints College Oxford” at one point! Walking through this lovely park, we discovered a beautiful rose garden which had been planted for Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee 🙂 Her Majesty even had her own collection of roses here, but sadly I could not capture any in bloom 😦 I did see the official of roses of our Commonwealth Team – how nice to see they have survived all our rain!
We left the wonderful flowers behind and walked out of the park and on towards Edgware where we were to finish our walk. Just before we did, I made one last discovery, a original gas lamp? Well I think it is, please let me know what you think?
For all the photographs that I took during the walk, I apologise for some of the photos as some of them have raindrops on them! :-
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| 2012 – 08.07.2012 – Borehamwood – Edgwarebury Walk |
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