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Where to Ride: Essex - Leisure
The Flitch Way
Words and Pictures: Hugo Gladstone
It's a bright sunny February morning when I meet my sister Ruth outside a pub called the Flitch of Bacon in the small mid-Essex village of Little Dunmow. It's an unusual name for a hostelry, but then they pursue a pretty unusual tradition around these parts. Here, in a ceremony that's been going since the 12th century, married couples who could prove their devotion to each other have been rewarded with a flitch - i.e. half a pig cut long ways. It is possibly from this procedure that the term bringing home the bacon is thought to have originated.
As well as this cosy little drinking hole, the tradition has also given name to the local rail trail that runs just to the south of this quaint village. Formerly part of the Bishop's Stortford to Witham line, this section was closed to passenger services in 1952 and shut down altogether a couple of decades later.
Cars parked and bike assembled, Ruth and I pedal south down a lane past bright thatched cottages. Where the road crosses the former railway, we take a path that lowers us onto the bed of the old track and turn east in the direction of Braintree. Once past a messy diversion around a travellers' camp, the track opens up ahead of us cutting a straight line across arable farmland.
For much of its length the track is flanked, not so much by cuttings, but by thick hedgerow. Spotting a rabbit, a squirrel and a selection of birds, Ruth is impressed by the array of wildlife scrabbling around in the bushes.
My response is that I see these things nearly every time I go out on my bike. I've even lost track of the number of occasions I've spotted fox and deer during the last year. Sightings are still always a privilege, but cycling -especially away from the roads- is such a good way of seeing nature.
As the trail approaches the A120, the fine grit surface gives way to tarmac and the trail is elevated over the dual carriageway on a long arching steel bridge. After picking up momentum on the down ramp, we hurtle along a leafy corridor and past the old booking room at Rayne complete with platforms and level crossing gates. We continue on -past the back of houses, schools and playing fields- towards the end of the redundant section of line in Braintree. I want to see how cleanly this trail links with the active remainder of this railway. The answer is pretty neatly. The trail comes to a stop at the town's station's overflow carpark. Beyond it are railway buffers and then the tracks curving off towards the London-Norwich mainline connection at Witham. I also spot a black and white cat strolling down the platform.
"If you want, you can get the train up from London to Braintree, ride the Flitch Way and then get another train back to London from Bishops Stortford," suggests owner Robert Branch when we retreat to the Booking Hall Cafe at Rayne's old station. The one problem with this, he acknowledges, is that you have to take to the roads at the Bishops Stortford end, including a busy junction over the M11. Personally I'd go for an out and back option but there are plenty who've passed through his cafe who haven't.
"I had an American stop here who was on his way to Berlin," Robert explains. "He was making his way to Stansted to catch a flight there.".
Turn off at Takley and the rail trail connects tidily with the airport (which also has its own station and is another option for making a round trip of the route).
"Another chap in his 70s was riding from Wales to Moscow," Robert continues. "He'd come this way en route to Harwich where he was going to catch a ferry to Holland."
But most of Robert's clientele are local. "We get really busy; in the summer it's like the M1 out there," he says. "We have 11 or 12 picnic tables out and they all get full."
Flickr Image Gallery
Even today on this early February lunchtime, trade in the Booking Hall Cafe is brisk. We choose to sit outside in the sun at a table on the platform. Inside, the railway chic and roaring open fire are equally alluring. Although bacon is off the menu today, we order sandwiches and tea followed by delicious slices of homemade chocolate cake and baked cheesecake.
When I return inside to pay, Robert hands me a business card - one of the niftiest designs I've ever seen. It's laid out on the familiar orange and green background of a network rail ticket. He also shows me to a little museum in a backroom and recalls a bit more of the railway's history.
According to some of his more senior regulars, the station down the old line at Easton Lodge was built so Edward VII could discreetly visit one of his many mistresses. It sits just across the road from a derelict gate to the grounds of a stately home and although it was -bizarrely enough- later used as a banana depot, there are few good reasons for it to have been located there otherwise.
Throughout his life Edward was known to have had affairs with dozens of women - including a well-publicised nine year fling with the local lady of the manor. Whether the station was built entirely for his benefit remains debatable. But of Edward's many visits to the area, we can safely assume that none of them were for him to be awarded the flitch of bacon.
Trail notes
- From end to end the Flitch Way totals about sixteen miles in length.
- At Great Dunmow, midway along the trail, cyclists have to leave the course of the old railway and follow roads through the town centre. It can be fairly busy and is probably best avoided if just riding a section of the trail.
- Towards the Bishops Stortford end, the Flitch Way passes along the edge of Hatfield Forest. This is an ancient hunting ground with some marvellous old trees that are over a thousand years old. Cycling is permissible on some of the forest paths.
Map
See Flitch Way route on Map My Ride.
Links
Flitch Way Map and Leaflet (an old map that doesn't feature the new A120 but is still quite usable)
