You don’t need a reason to go for a walk in Epping Forest – ‘the people’s forest’. Just grab a copy of Buxton and an OS 174 map and off you go. I headed for Loughton where there’s a fetching new sign on Station Road (in the thumbnail above) – be great to see more of these around the forest fringe inviting people to abscond into the woods. Up the steep slope that leads to Loughton Camp then on to High Beach and down across Honey Lane Plain to the thatched stone cattle trough that I’d seen in J.A Brimble’s London’s Epping Forest. A light drizzle started to fall, so I headed back the way I’d come over down past the Kings Oak and Loughton Camp arriving in Forest Road in the last of the light.