Walks

Walks other people have made

Ours are not the only ways round. These are the waymarked routes and organised walks on and around the estate, run by the councils, the Ramblers and parkrun. We describe them in our own words and link to their own pages, and we do not publish their maps or route files.

The London LOOP and the Circular Walk

The London LOOP, a 150-mile walk round outer London, crosses the fields on Section 14 of 24, Moor Park to Hatch End.^13,731,747 It enters by a green metal barrier on Sandy Lane, near the Sandy Lodge Lane junction, and leaves by a kissing gate onto Ashburnham Drive.⁷³¹ Expect rough paths and grass that can be very muddy.⁷³¹

The waymarked 4 km South Oxhey Circular Walk also crosses the site.¹³ On the council's map it runs up past Big Wood, along the northern edge and down the Green Lane side, then loops back through Oxhey Woods.¹³ The county council's Oxhey Woods leaflet maps only the part in the woods.³⁰⁷ The council's 2024 to 2029 plan also proposes a fingerposted route round the old golf holes, pencilled in for 2025 to 2026, though we have found nothing to say it was ever put up.¹³

The county council still publishes the circular walk, as a 2.5 mile route of about 90 minutes through Oxhey Woods and out on to the hills of the old golf course.^748,749 Its leaflet says there is no one starting point, because most people living in South Oxhey can walk to it, and that the green and white discs on posts and lamp posts mark the way where the woodland paths are not on the map.⁷⁴⁹ One stretch, through the estate streets, is marked as the part most easily managed with a wheelchair or a pushchair. The rest is woodland track and grass.⁷⁴⁹

Other walks near by

Three waymarked routes run inside Oxhey Woods itself: a Long Walk of 4 km, a Short Walk of 3 km and the sculpture trail.^38,307 The sculpture trail is a circuit of one kilometre from the car park, on a firm surface, and the district council says it suits wheelchairs, pushchairs and anyone less steady on their feet.^306,750

West of the estate, the Hampermill Walk is a 2 mile circle to Hampermill Lake, taking in the Colne valley and part of the Ebury Way, the old railway between Watford and Rickmansworth.^748,751 It takes about an hour.⁷⁵¹

Walks you can join

Hertfordshire Health Walks meets at All Saints Church in Gosforth Lane on Monday and Wednesday mornings, with walks graded from about 20 minutes to two hours.⁷⁵² The walks are free and led by volunteers, and walkers register once before their first one.⁷⁵² The timetable asks people not to park in the church car parks.⁷⁵² An evening walk from the Oxhey Woods car park appears on the same timetable, but only with dates that have passed.⁷⁵²

The Watford and Three Rivers Ramblers put on a full day's walk most Saturdays, and shorter ones in the week, some of them starting here.⁷⁵³ Their programme is on the Ramblers' website.⁷⁵³

South Oxhey parkrun is a run rather than a walk, but walkers are welcome and there is always a tail walker at the back. It starts at 9am every Saturday on the fields, and Visit and look for describes the course.^724,737

Guided walks

Oxhey Library has run history walks round the estate. On 15 June 2010 a walk leader took two groups round the first house handed to a tenant in the 1940s, the site of Oxhey Place and Oxhey Chapel, with ten people in the morning and three in the afternoon.⁷⁵⁴ A walker on one of them, who had lived on the estate for more than thirty years, said the hour taught her things she thought she already knew.⁷⁵⁵

Weekly health walks began on 21 March 2012, organised by the Countryside Management Service and led by local volunteers, meeting at the Bridlington Road end of the precinct at 1pm on Wednesdays.⁷⁵⁶ Seventeen people came on the first health walk, which crossed Hayling Road onto the playing fields, went through a small wood, passed the Pavilion and came back along Prestwick Road.⁷⁵⁶ They still run, from All Saints Church rather than the precinct.⁷⁵²