The Ultimate London Walk – Section 2: High Barnet to Woodside Park  New Walk!

Below High Barnet are its playing fields stretching down to the Dollis Brook – a stream that will be a long-term friend of this walk. It’s Green Belt land which football wants to nibble a stadium out of. Cross it to follow the brook into meadows where there used to be a sewage works. Yes, such riversides do exist. Once polluted, now pleasant it has a revitalised housing estate next door to match. Cross the brook into the patchwork of ancient hedgerow patterns that enclose Totteridge Fields, hay providers for the horse-drawn city.

Emerge in Totteridge the village with its tithe barn that 200 years ago did holy duty when the next-door church was being rebuilt. Don’t miss the yew, maybe London’s oldest tree, before disappearing down the lane to Darlands. Darlands, a land London left behind. Here’s the erstwhile country estate of Copped Hall laid out in the early 19^th century by landscape designer Humphry Repton. Overgrown, its shape is still apparent as you plunge from its hilltop view to the secreted lake below.

Finish with more water – the pond bordering two 17^th century farmhouses. In case you were wondering – yes this is Greater London.

IT ALL COMES DOWN TO THE GUIDING

N.B. On the Sunday walk, Ann will be joining as a second guide.