So I decided on a quick local walk , so a short 20 minute drive saw me parking up in the free car park opposite the Queen Elizabeth Hunting Lodge on Rangers Road,Chingford E4 7QH.
Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge is a Grade II* listed former hunting lodge, on the edge of Epping Forest.
In 1542, Henry VIII commissioned the building, then known as Great Standing, from which to view the deer chase at Chingford; it was completed in 1543. The building was renovated in 1589 for Queen Elizabeth I. The former lodge, now a three-storey building, has been extensively restoredand is now a museum, which has been managed by the City of London Corporation since 1960. Admission is free.
This is a Tudor hunting stand, built for King Henry VIII (the staircase is so wide as he had to be carried up it) so he could watch the hunting in the forest and shoot the odd arrow. Later the sides were covered and it became the building that we see now. It was massively and quite erroneously 'restored' by Victorians, who turned it into a black and white striped chocolate box picture. These 'improvements' were removed a few years back, and the exterior covered in thick authentic lime wash making it look white and ordinary,next to its fabulously mock-Tudor neighbour the Royal Forest. Now the beams are starting to show again like ghosts from the past.The lodge has a various exhibits, including dressing up for the kids, and a mock-up of an Elizabethan feast complete with boars head. You can't eat it, but the pub next door does food. It's free to enter but only open weekends in winter.
I walk across The Chingford Plain. Chingford Plain, is the large open plain that stretches from Connaught Water Westwards behind the Queen Elizabeth Hunting Lodge to Pole Hill, Henry VIII probably created it when he formed his Deer Park briefly in the middle of the sixteenth century, but of course it may have existed previously.In The nineteenth century about 1860 it was ploughed and farmed. The ridges can still be seen on the Golf Course and the Eastern part of the plain.
In 1940 deep ditches and piles of earth were formed across the plain to counter the threat of landings by German Gliders. Also during The War a barbed wire compound was made in the NorthEast corner of the plain to create a dump for unexploded bombs. The fuses were removed of course.
I walk across the golf course after crossing the road. I'm always wary on courses scared of being hit by a stray ball!
Now I'm on a path that leads through Epping Forest and up to Pole Hill.
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| OS Trig Point |
Pole Hill is a hill on the border between Greater London and Essex. From its summit there is an extensive view over much of east, north and west London, although in the summer the leaves of the trees in Epping Forest have a tendency to mask some of the view to the north and west.
The earliest recording of the name is as "Pouls Fee" or "Pauls Fee" in 1498. It is shown as Hawke Hill on the Chapman and André map of 1777. Hawke derives from the nearby Hawkwood. Hawk is the Old English for a nook, cranny or corner and so means wood at the corner of the parish (of Chingford.)
It was named Paul because it was in the manor of Chingford Pauli, also known as Chingford St. Paul's, which belonged to St Paul's Cathedral in London. Fee is from the Middle English fe which means a landed estate indicating it formed part of the manor. After the erection of the Greenwich Meridian obelisk mentioned below, it appears to have acquired the cognomen of Polar Hill, but this soon dropped out of use.
Lawrence of Arabia once owned a considerable amount of land on the western side of the hill and built himself a small hut there in which he lived for several years. Nothing remains today of this structure on Pole Hill. Lawrence's hut was demolished in 1930 and rebuilt in The Warren, Loughton.
The hill stands in Epping Forest at 0 degrees longitude, and 51 degrees 38 minutes north latitude. At its highest point it is 91 metres above sea level. It is chiefly noted for the fact that it lies directly on the Greenwich meridian and, being the highest point on that bearing directly visible from Greenwich, was at one time used as a marker by geographers at the observatory there to set their telescopes and observation equipment to a true zero degree bearing.
On the summit of the hill is an obelisk made of granite and bearing the following inscription:
This pillar was erected in 1824 under the direction of the Reverend John Pond, MA, Astronomer Royal. It was placed on the Greenwich Meridian and its purpose was to indicate the direction of true north from the transit telescope of the Royal Observatory. The Greenwich Meridian as changed in 1850 and adopted by international agreement in 1884 as the line of zero longitude passes 19 feet to the east of this pillar.
At that point (19 feet / 5.8m east) there is an Ordnance Survey trig point placed here to mark the top of the hill.
I walk down through the Forest before turning about and heading back uphill.
After just over 3 miles I arrive back at the Hunting Lodge.
Across the road from the car park is Butlers Retreat. A beautifully restored Essex Barn serving a mixture of hearty dishes and healthy salads alongside the wonderful coffee and cakes. I must visit one day !
