The Spyride

I sometimes suspect that Network Rail has a specialist unit that monitors the CTC rides list and then plans engineering work to disrupt it. This time they pulled off a new trick. Due to timetable changes the riders arrived early! I’d planned on the basis that people would be arriving on the train from London at 10.24 and so arranged to a meeting time with Spokes of 10.30. However they arrived at 10.11 before most of the Spokes riders were there. The necessitated an impromptu coffee stop at the Junction Café near the station to keep people warm.

Once we had all joined up we had 17 riders in all who went on the planned coffee stop at Café Amici in Croxley Green, too much of a caffeine feast for some people. The ride proper got going up through, Wippenhall Wood to Chandlers Cross and then to Belsize and Flaunden. All the time we were climbing gradually to the top of this part of the Chilterns.

We stopped at The Green Dragon in Flaunden for lunch. Guy Burgess often stayed in the village and was a regular drinker at this pub. One day the landlord noticed Burgess in deep conversation that another man he did not recognize. Days later the papers were full of details of the defection of Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean to Moscow complete with photos and the landlord recognised who the other man was – more details here.

The Green Dragon now serves Thai food and had a table reserved for us. Nice food and quick service – I’ll be back. After lunch we returned to Watford via Sarratt, which is the  home of the training school for agents in John Le Carre’s novels. We were going mainly down hill now and made it back to Watford in time for the 15.17 train.

My thanks to Dennis Fitton for acting as backstop and the all those who marked the junctions on a twisty route.

My thanks also to Tom and Ian for acting as backstops. Their job was essential as the route twisted and turned through the City and along the south bank of the Thames. Riders do need to get into the habit of looking behind at turns to check that the riders behind can see them.

For a 1* ride, it was well attended with over 20 joining the ride at either St Pancras or London Bridge. We followed a labyrinthine route I’d learned from my days at City University and once over the river followed LCN 4 to the museum in time for the descent into the former entrance lobby to Brunel’s Thames Tunnel. Most of us chose to go down it though some preferred to visit the nearby Decathlon store instead. This was the first tunnel under a river and pioneered many of the methods use in subsequent tunnels. It made possible the building of the London Underground and similar metro systems elsewhere. The tunnel is still is use today as part of London Overground.

We had a problem with lunch. Due to the numbers at a popular spot on a Sunday I deliberately gave riders the choice of three places near the museum to eat. One pub was very slow and took one and a half hours to feed those who went there. As a result it was after 1500 before we got going again and we only just got to the café at Surrey Docks Farm in time to get teas and coffees. I narrowly escaped lynching when we found out that they had run out of cakes.

It was dark when we started off again but we were rewarded with some spectacular views across the Thames of Docklands and the City all lit up. We got back to St Pancras at 1815.

The New River in Enfield

Our first country estate was Forty Hall, built by Sir Nicholas Railton between 1629 and 1636. He was a wealthy City Merchant who became Lord Mayor of London. He was a puritan and an opponent in parliament of Charles I. The house is normally open to the public and has a cafe. Sadly, due to renovation work the house was closed with a refreshment van replacing the cafe. The ride decided to wait for coffee until our next stop, Myddleton House. This is now the HQ of the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority. Last time I was there it looked rather neglected but some Heritage Lottery money has been well spent on restoring the garden laid out from the 1890s onward by Edward Bowles. There is now a small visitors’ centre with a cafe where we stopped for coffee.

Myddelton House

Forty Hall

After coffee we rode to the King and Tinker for lunch. Usually this pub is very busy on a Sunday but we got there early and were all able to sit together for lunch. Replenished, we rode though our third estate, Whitewebbs. The present house was built in 1791 and is now a Beefeater Carvery. The land round it was bought in 1931 as park and some if it has become a golf course. We passed though the Rectory Lane bridle way and up a long hill to our last estate, Trent Park. This was once part of Enfield Chase, a royal hunting park until 1777. Part of it was given to Dr Richard Jebb, a doctor who saved the life of King’s brother at Trento in northern Italy, hence the park’s name. Eventually it passed into the hands of the Sassoon family and later, during the Second World War, was used for the  interrogation of prisoners of war including Rudolph Hess. The house is now part of Middlesex University and most of the surrounding grounds are a county park.

Trent Park Mansion

Trent County Park

After tea at the park cafe some of the North Londoners broke off to return home and the rest of the ride returned to Enfield Chase station for the trip back into town. Thanks to Colin for a learned and interesting ride.

After lunch at The Swan [efficient service and good value] we went on to our main destination, Shaw’s Corner, the former home of George Bernard Shaw. His CTC membership card, bicycle and exercise bike are all preserved. In the garden was a display by the Veteran Cycling Club. To my mind the most impressive machine was a Clement from about 1905 with front and rear suspension. Clearly there is nothing new under the sun when it comes to bicycle design.

After that there was tea and coffee at the nearby Brocket Arms. A threatening sky meant that we headed back to Welwyn Garden City by the most direct route. In spite of the modest mileage it was already 16.30 when we got back to the station

We left Welwyn GC by the cycle path through Sherrardspark Wood, part of the Sustrans Great North Road route, passed through Ayot Green, Ayot St Peter and on through Kimpton Mill to our coffee stop at Emily’s Teashop at Whitwell. This is a well known cyclists’ hangout. On Sunday mornings about 70% of their customers arrive by bicycle. Spare inner tubes are on sale with the tea and coffee and cycling magazines are in the magazine rack.

From then it was along Lilley Bottom and on to lunch at Lilley Arms, also well known to cyclists. It is one of the few country pubs with both cycle racks and a hitching rail for horses. We discovered that there was a local flower festival on the church and some of us went to admire the displays. We climbed up to Great Offley and followed the ridge overlooking Lilley Bottom. Hertfordshire had never looked lovelier. The sun shone, bluebells formed a carpet of blue in the wood and we had some fine views.

We rode though King’s Walden, returning to Whitwell to visit the shop at the watercress farm and to return to Emily’s Teashop before the ride home to Welwyn GC. By this stage some were beginning to get weary, the pace slowed and we got separated at the final roundabout to Welwyn GG. Thanks to mobile phones we linked up again and people caught the 17.28 train back to London.

After Tongham we continued to Runfold and then began the return run on National Cycle Route 22 back towards Guildford. We had a late lunch at the Seale Craft Centre and tea at the café at the Watts Gallery after visiting the extraordinary art nouveau memorial chapel nearby. After that there was a very steep climb up to the Hog’s Back to pick up a track along the ridge and steep descent into Guildford.

There are a few photos in the gallery.

It was a good start to the year for the ‘Little Green’ on Sunday with 13 riders turning out, ten at Finsbury Park and three having already joined the train at Kings Cross. Along with veterans such as Sue Dorey and John Ackers we welcomed several newcomers.

I had opted to head west of the A1(M) hoping that the slightly more open roads here would be in better condition than among the high-hedged lanes of east Hertfordshire.

So we were soon heading through Old Knebworth to Codicote, and onto one of the classic Little Green routes along Lilley Bottom. The first mild weekend for aeons had brought out many cyclists and we encountered two club runs, numerous solitary riders and even a bunch of about ten off-roaders gathered at a farm gate. Indeed two-wheeled traffic far outnumbered motors, and the only thing to spoil the bucolic scene was the roar of a couple of Easyjets in final approach to Luton airport.

At Lilley it was apparent that while the majority were keeping together well, we had the usual stragglers, and we split into two at this point – my partner Rachel stoically shepherding the gruppetto through Hexton and Higham Gobion towards lunch.

Into a headwind, the main field splintered entirely as we approached Pirton, but all managed to find their way into The Fox for a selection of roasts, soup and sandwiches. It was a timely stop as the only real rain of the day passed briefly over while we were in the pub.

Post lunch we headed towards Hitchin, where the two slowest members chose to head for the station there. The remainder continued on a rather more coherent run-in to Stevenage on lanes via Gosmore and St Ippollitts. With good timing we picked up the slightly delayed 15.40 train for town.

A good (if grey) day out for January with 48 km covered.

The ride covers the five churches north of the Thames designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor [1661-1736]. He was from humble origins in Nottinghamshire. He was for many years Sir Christopher Wren’s assistant before becoming an architect in his own right as well as collaborating with Wren and Sir John Vanbrugh on Greenwich Naval Hospital, Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard.

We met at King’s Cross and then followed a route taking in St George in Bloomsbury, St Mary Woolnoth in the City and Christ Church, Spitalfields. Here we stopped for brunch and looked round Spitalfields market. The service had ended by this time allowing us to go inside the church. Then it was onwards through Fournier Street, once a centre of the Huguenots, across Brick Lane, now a centre of the Bangladeshi community and then south toward St George in the East in Wapping. The exterior of the church is much as Hawksmoor designed it. Sadly the interior was gutted by an incendiary bomb in 1941 and a small new church was built inside the original exterior in the 1950s. Our final stop was St Anne’s in Limehouse. We were in luck. The church was supposed to be locked but someone had forgotten so we were able to go in and have a look round.

We came back along the Thames Path, enjoyed a brief rest at “The Prospect of Whitby” and then looked at St Luke, Old Street, which was designed by Hawksmoor and John James. They had the forethought to position it just up the road from “Look Mum, No Hands”, a cyclists’ cafe from which the ride dispersed.

If anyone missed this ride it is being repeated as a Barnet Cyclists event on Sunday 16 January. Meet outside suburban platforms 9-11 at King’s Cross station at 10.15.

Thanks Alison for a nice ride.