[Picture: The home of Foxe the martyrologist at Waltham]
CHAPTER II. A RAMBLE TO EPPING FOREST AND HIGH BEECH.
FROM Foxe’s house it is a pleasant walk to Epping Forest and High Beech. The way is by Farm Hill (almost opposite Foxe’s house) to Brookside, thence sharp to the right over the bridge, and up the hill by the old windmill for a little more than half a mile, to the hamlet known as Honey lane, where the margin of the fine old forest, the heights of which will have been viewed on the way, opens out. We turn up by the covered well and trough into Honey lane itself. Those who may prefer to ensure a right direction may keep to the roadway, which strikes up the hill through the forest, and, bearing sharp to the left and right respectively, leads direct to High Beech. It is more pleasant, perhaps, to wander through the woodland, and such as would prefer to do this may strike across the plain to the left of the bridge over the stream, following the line of the watercourse, then, taking a break in the thicket that will be found, a clear way called the Verderer’s Path will soon be entered. Pursuing this to the right (south), we come out at the top of the hill in Honey lane, near a cyclists’ caution board, and the way to High Beech, the spire of the church being clearly noticeable, is then straight along the road. Many a charming peep over the Lea Valley will have been enjoyed on the way, but from High Beech Plain a panorama of superb beauty is opened out to view. Those who have hitherto regarded the home counties of Essex, Middlesex, and Herts as poor, flat, and featureless parts of our England will be agreeably surprised at the rich beauty of the landscape which this view of the Lea Valley affords.
It was a scene that the late Lord Tennyson, who resided for some years at Beech Hill Park here, which lies a little to the west of the King’s Oak Inn, loved and admired, as he also reverenced the ancient town and minster of Waltham. It was the sonorous bells of Harold’s church that inspired the beautiful lines of “In Memoriam”:
His noble drama of “Harold,” too, doubtless owes its inception to the poet’s residence in and intimate connection with this locality. High Beech church lies a little beyond the King’s Oak Inn and the plain; it is a modern building in the Gothic style.