The date on the photo is 21 August 2022. It was a Sunday. We started out at Gate No.84, Earl’s Path north, and headed down the Green Ride into the forest. It’s a steep hill but always steeper coming back. Continue reading “Gate No.84”
Gate No.84
Tag: Epping Forest
A Summer Walk In Epping Forest (3)
There are some great old oak trees at Hollow Pond. Here’s one with a cave in its roots, just fit to crawl into. In my dreams. It was the last day of July and we were on a walk down memory lane. In the early 1980s Sue had an Acme house (Acme Housing Association helped artists find short-life living and studio space in what were essentially licensed squats) on Fillebrook Road in Leytonstone, now under the M11 link road. Continue reading “A Summer Walk In Epping Forest (3)”
A Summer Walk In Epping Forest (2)
It was a Monday morning in June and we were at Butler’s Retreat for a spicy shakshuka breakfast. It’s my favourite and always a great way to set you up for a good walk. But sadly it was off the menu so we settled for the much more prosaic scrambled eggs on toast. Rambled legs on toes. Continue reading “A Summer Walk In Epping Forest (2)”
A Summer Walk In Epping Forest (1)
We began on Golding’s Hill, at Broadstrood car park, where we met a man and a woman with a dog and a parrot. They were celebrating the parrot’s first birthday by taking it for a walk in the forest, in a transparent backpack with good views of the trees. We wished it many happy returns, then stretched our wings and flew off down the hill, along Green Ride. Continue reading “A Summer Walk In Epping Forest (1)”
Stone Tree Forest Sea
A Tree For Jazmin Velasco
Early last Sunday morning, 20th June, I went to the forest. It was quiet and very green. There was no-one else there. Rain was falling on the Lost Pond. Under the trees there was just a gentle rustle in the leaves. And a luminous light off the water. I was in a green church full of birdsong. Continue reading “A Tree For Jazmin Velasco”
An Easter Sunday Walk
This is the cricket ground at Roebuck Green, Buckhurst Hill where we started from. Maybe I should’ve titled this post Walking With Shadows, I was so taken with them that’s almost all I photographed, they were so strong and well-defined. It was a bright Sunday and for once, instead of avoiding the busier parts of the forest, we just dived straight in, choosing to follow the wider paths. Mostly it was not too crowded. Continue reading “An Easter Sunday Walk”
A Good Friday Walk
For the first time in months we slipped out of the house and into the car and drove to the quietest part of the forest. There were distant sounds of dogs barking from the kennels over the fields and the woods were a chorus of all kinds of birdsong (this place is noted for nightingales) but there were no other people, so that counts as quiet. Some parts of the forest can get overrun, especially on a holiday weekend, but this is not one of them. All day we saw only two other people and they were on horseback. We were the only walkers. But we met many trees. The first was this broken tree, with half of its crown folded and fallen upside down to the ground, its branches radiating all around like an asterisk or a baptismal cross, symbolic of life, death, rebirth and regeneration. It’s a sign of Easter. Would it be renewed and resurrected by the time we returned? I hoped so. Continue reading “A Good Friday Walk”
By Our Selves
Toby Jones, Andrew Kötting (as a straw bear) and their merry men revive the wanderings and wonderings of Northamptonshire peasant poet John Clare, on a quest “for scenes where man hath never trod”.
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Toby Jones, Iain Sinclair and Andrew Kötting (dressed as a Straw Bear), made a five-day walk from Epping Forest to Helpston in Northamptonshire, following in the footsteps of the poet John Clare. Clare’s delirious march is the spine of the project. A great English pilgrimage, a self-enacted novel in the tradition of Pilgrim’s Progress.
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A film by Andrew Kötting, with Iain Sinclair, Freddie Jones, Toby Jones, David Aylward, Eden Kötting, Simon Kovesi, MacGillivray, Alan Moore and many more.
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By Our Selves / Andrew Kötting
Walking In The Woods (3)
This green cathedral is at Jacks Hill, Epping Forest. It was October 2020, the last time it was safe to go walking in the woods. The Covid beast has been at large and we’ve all been advised to stay at home. But deep in the forest, away from the crowds, is perhaps the safest place to be. I’m writing this in late March, the sun is shining outside and I am missing the trees. Continue reading “Walking In The Woods (3)”