Upminster has a windmill. The windmill, a tall white smock mill built in the 1800s, stands on a hill above the town and is open to visitors on some days, and the sight of it among suburban roofs is oddly cheering.
After a ride along the Chilterns ridge and the Thames valley, the end is a very different landscape. The roads here are flat and fast, with long straight sections and roundabouts, and the countryside is open fields, small woods and the occasional lake. Thames Chase, a community forest being planted across the area, gives a green setting, and the paths and lanes through it are quiet. The surface is usually good, though heavy traffic on the A127 and M25 can disrupt things.
The area was once fairly empty, with farms and scattered villages, and the arrival of the railway in the nineteenth century turned Upminster into a commuter town. Bulphan has a quiet fen-like character, with drains, flat fields and old farmhouses, and its church is worth a look. The soil is heavy London clay over gravel, so the fields stay wet well into spring, and the ditches hold water and the odd heron. Old maps show how thinly settled the district was before the commuter railways arrived. Cranham has a pleasant green and an old village church.
Fuel is available at Upminster, which has stations and supermarkets, and the town has a small centre with cafes and pubs. A weekend market on the green offers fruit and snacks. The Tube and rail station connects the town with central London, which is useful for tired riders. If you want a short quiet loop before going home, the lanes around Bulphan and Orsett are less busy on Sundays than anywhere nearer the A13.
Come in the late afternoon, when the light is long and the fields are gold. It is a gentle end to a day, with a mill on the skyline.