12:07pm Monday 4th March 2002
This has three different starting points and at its longest (10 miles) runs from Monken Hadley Common to the Lee Valley Leisure Centre.
The trail follows the course of the brook from its source in Hadley to the Lea Valley at Picketts Lock, Edmonton. The route passes through parkland, woodland and surburban streets with a lot of historic interest and is in three easy stages.
Start point A: Bakers Hill, near to Monken Hadley Common, is the beginning point for walk A. This section of the walk is not suitable for wheelchairs as it covers rough ground within the Common. The path comes down to meet the rest of the trail at the top of Baring Road.
Start point B: The information and toilets centre within Trent Park Country Park. This section follows a route through the park and down to Cockfosters Road where it passes onto a short section of the footopath through Monken Hadley Common (Games Road) and to the meeting point at Baring Road.
Start point C: Cockfosters tube station. Follow Chalk Lane around until it again meets the trail through Monken Hadley Common (Games Road) and to the meeting point at Baring Road.
From Baring Road, the trail follows the route of Pymms Brook.
Monken Hadley Common once formed part of the Enfield Chase hunting forest, which covered 8,000 acres of land. It was divided up into enclosures in the 18th century, although landowners exercised their right to graze livestock on the common until 1925. Woodland now covers much of the common and it is an excellent area for bat spotting.
From Baring Road head towards the Victoria Recreation Ground and then onto Park Road before turning into Crescent Road and following along its length until Brookhill Road. Here you will pass Pymms Parade, where once a gate across the road marked the boundary between Hertfordshire and Middlesex.
Take a sharp turn into Cat Hill before crossing into Oak Hill Park and walking down Brookside, where you will be able to see the brook itself on your right hand side through this old river valley. The park was opened in 1933 and the woodland forms part of a Local Nature Reserve. There are two waymarked trails through this wood (available from Barnet Council).
Continue to follow the route of the brook along East Walk and into Brunswick Park down Waterfall Walk. Brunswick Park is named for the small weirs which cross Pymms Brook. While walking through the park you can also pay a quick side visit to the Great Northern Cemetery, (which used to have its own station receiving funeral trains), built after a health review in 1861.
Crossing the road out of Brunswick Park you enter Enfield and Southgate, named because it was originally the south gate into the Enfield Chase.
The route here passes under the Piccadilly Line viaduct and then enters Arnos Park. This park was covered by hornbeam coppice woodland during Tudor times and in 1590 it was the scene of a witch hunt. Since then the park has had a more relaxing history. Bowes Brook joins Pymmes Brook here. You can end the first section of the walk here at the Arnos Grove tube station.
For the second section of the walk continue through Arnos Park, walk up Wilmer Way and cross to the right into Powys Lane past Broomfield Park, where there are toilets and an information centre. Broomfield Park has four lakes which were originally fishponds for the convent which used to be here. It now has a scented garden with Braille signs. This section of the walk ends near Palmers Green railway station where Pymmes Brook meets New River, which supplies London with 180 million litres of drinking water every day.
Section three of the walk passes through most of the suburban areas. From New River walk along Oakthorpe Road and cross the North Circular Road into the parkland alongside the brook again, following Tile Kiln Lane through the parkland and underneath the roundabout junction with Gt Cambridge Road past Millfield House. This property used to be a school for workhouse children. It is now an arts centre.
After the allotments you will cross Tanners End and enter Pymmes Park. There are more toilets, an information centre and refreshments here. There is a boating lake here which was created in the 1920s.
From this point on Pymmes Brook is culverted underneath the suburban streets almost until it enters the River Lea. The walk heads along Park Road and up Fore Street before turning into Plevna Road and then alongside Salmons Brook and onto Montague Road.
It then turns right down Picketts Lock Lane and into the Lee Valley Regional Park where it ends at the visitor centre.
There is also a walk around the Lee Valley Regional park, which stretches alongside 23 miles of the River Lea and is nationally important for nature conservation.
Barnet Council's recreation department has an excellent illustrated leaflet of this walk in much greater detail. Ring 020 8359 4433.
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