New Forest and Solent Easy Ride

A 257 km loop

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Why this ride

Scenery first, traffic last, with checkpoints that make sense on a bike. 257 km round from Ewell - plan on about 5 h 21 of riding. On the way it passes Brentford, Scenic stretch in Watford and near Hatfield. in Cobham is the high point. Long stretches are under trees.

Roadbook

1. Fuel stop in Ewell fuel

   Fuel at 0 km.

2. High point in Cobham pass

   You top out here; the road stops climbing.

3. Brentford finish

   Brentford is where the River Brent and the Grand Union Canal meet the Thames, on the western edge of London, and for centuries it was the first important crossing west of the capital. It is a busy, mixed place of new riverside apartments, old pubs, warehouses and roads, with Kew Gardens just across the water and Syon Park, the London home of the Dukes of Northumberland, next door.

   It is a place with a long story. Julius Caesar may have crossed the Thames near here in 54 BC, according to local tradition, and in 1642, during the English Civil War, the Battle of Brentford was fought in its streets, as Royalist troops attacked the town on their way to London. In the nineteenth century the waterworks at Kew Bridge pumped water to West London with giant steam engines, and the old pumping station now houses the London Museum of Water and Steam, where some of those engines are still run on certain days. Brentford Football Club, after more than a century at Griffin Park, moved in 2020 to its new stadium beside the railway.

   The finish here usually comes off the M4 or the A4 Great West Road, the road that carried traffic west from London and was lined in the 1920s and 30s with grand Art Deco factories, the so-called Golden Mile. Some of those buildings survive, others were lost. Coming from the New Forest or the south coast, you may instead come in through Richmond and over Kew Bridge, which is slower but far more pleasant.

   The riding at this end is pure city. Expect heavy traffic at almost any time, frequent lights, buses and cyclists, and be ready for the Ultra Low Emission Zone and the many cameras that cover the main roads. In return, there are lovely river views from Kew Bridge, and the canal towpath and the riverside walk at Strand-on-the-Green, with its old pubs and cottages along the water, are pleasant places to walk off the ride.

   Brentford has fuel, food, shops and everything else, and good train links to central London. Take a moment by the river at the point where the Brent flows into the Thames: the swans, the boats and the green of Kew on the other bank make a peaceful end to a long day.

4. Scenic stretch in Watford scenic

   Scenic stretch in Watford, about halfway.

5. Photo stop near Hatfield photo

   Photo stop near Hatfield sits at 147 km, about halfway.

6. Near Stanford-le-Hope, on the way back swim

   Down where the Thames widens into its estuary, the Essex shore becomes a strange, flat, huge-skied place of marshes, sea walls, container cranes and old forts, and Stanford-le-Hope sits just back from it. The town is a commuter place of nearly thirty thousand people, but a few minutes' ride south the land opens up into creeks and mudflats where the river meets the sea, with ships gliding past towards London.

   There is no polite way to say it: this is not swimming water. The estuary has strong tides, deep mud that can trap a person and heavy shipping traffic, and swimming here is dangerous. Come for the space and the light rather than a dip. Thurrock Thameside Nature Park, built on top of an old landfill site, has views across the estuary and lots of birds, and at East Tilbury, Coalhouse Fort is a Victorian gun battery built to defend the river, with marshes and beaches of shingle around it.

   The history here is about the river as a gateway. Tilbury Fort, further west, is where Elizabeth I gave her famous speech to her troops in 1588, as the Spanish Armada approached. The writer Joseph Conrad lived in Stanford-le-Hope for a time in the 1890s, and anyone who has read Heart of Darkness will remember how it begins, with men on a boat in the Thames estuary at dusk, looking at the lights of London. Today the vast DP World London Gateway port dominates the shore, its cranes visible for miles.

   The roads are a mix. The A13 is a busy dual carriageway linking London to Southend, quick but dull. The smaller roads around Horndon on the Hill, a pretty village with an old woolmarket and a good pub, and Langdon Hills, where a country park rises to one of the highest points in south Essex with views over the estuary, are much more enjoyable, with short climbs, gentle bends and green views.

   Stanford-le-Hope has fuel, shops and cafés, and Basildon, a few kilometres north, has everything else. On a summer evening, when the tide is out and the mud gleams, ride down to the river's edge and watch a container ship slide past. It is an odd and beautiful sight, and it shows you how close London still is to the sea.

7. Food stop in Gravesend food

   A break here at 220 km.

8. Back to New finish

   Ewell and Cheam are two of the old villages that London swallowed in the twentieth century, on the border between Surrey and the capital, with Nonsuch Park between them. That park holds the secret. In 1538 Henry VIII began building a palace here, meant to be so grand there would be none like it, and he named it Nonsuch. It was never finished in his lifetime and was demolished in the 1680s after Charles II gave it to a mistress who sold the materials to pay her gambling debts. The site was lost for centuries and was found again by archaeologists in the 1950s, and the park remains as a wide expanse of grass and trees, with the old mansion house of a later era at its edge.

   Ewell itself is older. The Hogsmill river rises from springs in the village, and its clear water was enough to power mills for centuries. The village has a few timbered cottages and a pond, and the parish church tower is a medieval survivor. Nearby is the great racecourse on Epsom Downs, where the Derby has been run since 1780, and its grandstand is visible from the surrounding roads.

   For a rider, this is the last leg. The A24 and A217 lead north through a long run of suburban streets to the city, and the lanes toward Banstead and Tadworth offer a little more interest, with brief runs of hedgerow and open downs. Crowds appear on Derby day in early June, when the roads are closed or heavily congested around the racecourse, so check first. Otherwise it is steady, calm riding with little excitement.

   With forty thousand people in Ewell alone, plus Cheam and Sutton close by, everything is easy. Filling stations stand along the A240 and the Ewell bypass, and there are plenty of cafés in the village and in the big shopping streets. A bike can be parked in Nonsuch Park for a modest fee, and a short walk across the grass is a decent way to loosen up before the final push home.

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