Ten of us met at Hadley Wood train station and thought of Geoffrey when I pointed out the memorial plaque to Sir Nigel Gresley, designer of the famous ‘Flying Scotsman’ and ‘Mallard’ locomotives who used to live in Hadley Wood. 

The walks programme said that we were going to follow the course of the brook as closely as possible and there were a few comments about the rare glimpses of the Salmons Brook. But we saw its course from the distance and crossed it a few times. Although the brook has been known to flood parts of Enfield, today it was dry or very shallow.

The walk began in the affluent streets of Hadley Wood and then continued in the valley of Monken Maid Brook and along the fields of Plumridge Farm. We followed the gravel track of one of the Enfield Greenways lined with young trees. We had our picnic in the shade before going up Cuckolds Hill. As we descended, we could see the mast at Alexandra Palace and London’s skyscrapers. We walked along the Ridgeway, passing Chase Farm Hospital, went through woodland, the fields of Vicarage Farm and scrubland before reaching the air-conditioned Jolly Farmers pub where we had a welcome break from the heat – and a drink.

We continued our walk along residential streets, making a short detour to see Salmons Brook before it entered the Enfield Golf Club and we lost sight of it. We met the brook again in Cheyne Walk Open Space which also serves as a flood relief basin. We followed Cheyne Walk (named after the same Cheyne as in Chelsea) with ‘Arts and Crafts’ style houses. We reached Grange Park station where the group went south, I went north and the Salmons Brook continued its meander under the railway line. Look out for the second part of this walk on the next programme.