Mymms Woodland Walk

Distance:	3.75 miles/6km

Route description

A gentle circular ramble from The Black Horse pub in South Mimms

This lovely walk takes you through old Estate Woodlands and across farmland, and at a gentle pace it will take you a couple of hours.

The Black Horse dates back to 1709 when it started off life as The Unicorn. Before that there was a house on the site, and in 1641 the owner paid ten shillings for the vicar of South Mimms to preach the Good Friday sermon in his front parlour. The tradition is continued today in the pub, although the fee obviously doesn’t go as far as it used to!

Much the same could be said of Blackhorse Lane, once part of the main Coaching Road between London and North Wales, and a favourite lurking spot for highwaymen.

At the other end of the social scale was North Mymms Park, a large country estate. The lodge and gateposts mark the southern boundary, and the woodland would have been managed to provide timber – oak for building houses and smaller coppiced hazel for hurdle-fencing and charcoal.

After Cangsley grove the route turns across grazing pastures before coming out onto Love Lane and in high summer the field edges are full of poppies and other wildflowers, relics of a gentler age of farming. On the track back to the woods you’ll also see some strange gnarled trees on the left hand side. These are hornbeam pollards, cut to show the boundary between one man’s land and another in the days before fencing was invented.

Rights of Way symbols you might see

	Yellow arrows indicate footpaths for pedestrian use only
	Blue arrows indicate bridleways for horse riders, cyclists and pedestrian use only
	Red arrows indicate Byways Open to All Traffic (BOAT) for horse riders, cyclists and pedestrians and may be legally used by other wheeled vehicles
	Black arrows indicate Roads Used as Public Paths (RUPP) for horse riders, cyclists and pedestrians and may be legally used by other wheeled vehicles

More about Rights of Way

Maps

This map is based on Ordnance Survey material with the permission of Ordnance Survey on behalf of the controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office © Crown copyright. Unauthorised reproduction infringes Crown copyright and may lead to prosecution or civil proceedings. Hertfordshire County Council 100019606 2004.

The Ordnance Survey mapping included within this web-site is provided by Hertfordshire County Council under licence from the Ordnance Survey in order to fulfill its public function to provide information relating to its activities, services and plans. Persons viewing this mapping should contact Ordnance Survey copyright for advice where they wish to license Ordnance survey mapping for their own use.

See the Ordnance Survey site for more information.

This is is one of a series of walks through the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) supported by the Chilterns Conference.

Please be considerate in the countryside - keep to footpaths, especially through crops, and leave farm gates as you find them.