08 Mar 2025: Goffs Oak

This was a circular walk from Goff’s Oak S to Whitewebbs, NE to Cheshunt, then W to Goff’s Oak.

The usual stats:

Event led by Martin T.
Attendance: 13 men.
Distance: 11.5 miles (18.5 km).
Altitude per GPS: low 269ft (82m), high 544ft (165.8m), climb 711ft (216.7m), descent 741ft (225.9m).
Time: start 11:19, end 16:35 (sunset 17:53), lunch 40 minutes, other breaks 56 minutes.
Speed: moving arithmetic average 3.13mph (5kph).
Terrain: road edge, pavement, track, field, field edge, railway (!), woodland,
Weather: mainly clear skies, occasional cloud, temperature up to 16°C, southerly wind ~3mph (4.5kph).
Number of sewage works: 0.
Number of churches: 3.
Number of golf courses: 1.
Number of Waitroses (London only): 0. Enfield counts as London. There’s no Waitroses on the Hertfordshire part of the route, in spite of this being in the posh bits of Goffs Oak (map of Waitroses). The nearest Waitroses to any part of this route are in Enfield and Broxbourne.

Points of interest

Sopers Farm Viaduct, or Soper’s Viaduct. The junior sister to the Digswell Viaduct, the Sopers Farm Viaduct was built in the 1910s as part of the extension of the Great North Railway to Cuffley.
Whitewebbs Wood. An old manor wood, dissected ownership over the years, had numerous brushes with other historic events, including a brief stint as a water course loop of the New River. An incomplete history.
Flash Lane Aqueduct, a Scheduled Monument. The aqueduct is a C19 multi-span bridge and cast iron aqueduct, which once carried the New River over Cuffley Brook. The trough is cast in four ‘E’-shaped sections, sealed with lead – great for drinking water! - bolted together and bolted again onto deep side plates, 2.5cm thick. The aqueduct became necessary upon the straightening-out of the water course of the New River in C19.
Cheshunt Cemetery, 1885, extended in 1929, 1968, 1992 and 2014. Seems to be a popular place. ParksHerts.
Diverse architecture: property bling in Goff’s Oak, property warehouse in Cheshunt.
Small town suburbia feel.
Bishop’s College, the home of Not-Quite-Yet-London Borough of Broxbourne. The oldest part is C18, with some 1930s extensions, a grade II listed building. Super-glued onto the side of it is some monstrous carbuncle of the 1980s, hopefully a grade zero unlisted sort-of-building.

Churches:

Golf courses:

Crews Hill Golf Course. In spite of being in London – the London Borough of Enfield, to be precise – the club says of itself, “ranked one of the top 10 courses in Middlesex” and “With easy access from road or rail, we are ideally located being just a short distance from London.” Middlesex ceased to exist in 1965, becoming a ceremonial county. Up to date marketing, then!

7 members joined the optional pub stop at the end of the walk at the Prince of Wales, a McMullens pub.