Epping

Epping seems really far away and doesn't feel like London at all. To get there you even go through a stretch of fields. The town centre, on a little hill, consists of a highstreet typical for english towns. I couldn't find many interesting things there though...however, on the way back to the station I did get a little bit excited about having made it to the end of a tubeline :) (Astrid - January 2005)

HenryDoubleday

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THE END OF THE LINE

“How are you going to get back ?! This is Essex mate not London! There ain’t no night busses round here - there ain’t no busses! On Sunday there’s sweet FA!” Two Pete Docherty clones in flowery Goth attire shuffle about the London Transport Official nervously, before muttering something in response. The disappointment isn’t just theirs; its one in a series for me and it apparently means I ‘m not going beyond Epping.

So why Epping ? Well, it had always had a special allure for me. It was, in my imagination, the ultimate edge of London. There was even a sort of ‘ghost station’ beyond Epping - Chipping Ongar - which used to be part of the Central Line until as late as 1994. Together with Epping Forest’s past, which reaches back to prehistory, this only added to the pleasing linearity of my imagined journey. From the centre of town to the edge of the landscape, to a ’virtual’ edge at Ongar, back through time through the dark historical forest where ultimately at the end of the journey the vegetation would part to reveal grazing mammoths at the primal source…

But on the way, after emerging into the brilliant autumnal sunshine in Central London to find maps and guides to Epping my naive mental constructs were stripped away. Epping Forest was not some vast primeval forest spreading out from the edge of London but a slim finger pointing back at London from Epping. Further disrupting the story line of the journey was the fact that Chipping Ongar, surrounded by dull looking fields, had been established much later than Epping.

At Woodford I discovered the worst disappointment of the day – the tube line to Epping was closed. Stubbornly I decided to take the replacement bus service. More detached houses. A “Beware of Cattle” sign flashed past. Finally the bus coursed down Epping Forests green leafy tunnels, before depositing me in front of Epping Tube station, red brick glowing against the deep blue sky. A big empty car park to one side and a long tree lined road leading to a suburban landscape offer no obvious way on for me or the Goths.

Later, back on a replacement bus hurtling through the dark I am to realise that it’s at this point, when all plans had gone awry that the journey really began. The end of the line elusive and replaced by a strange meandering circular path. The bright sun entices me to walk through Epping Forest back to the previous tube station not realising that the replacement bus there is to take me all the way back to Epping again...before meandering along the tube line back to Woodford station.

Now, walking up the approach road from Epping station, a bridge offers me a view of the train tracks disappearing into redundancy. I walk over a suburban hill with distant views of fields. I enter the forest. Its darkening quickly now and I am very conscious of being in the middle of nowhere in a wood accompanied only by my thoughts, without compass or torch. This is the point in horror films when you shout expletives at the dumb protagonists. Forget those silly intellectual daydreams, now "disappearing into redundancy". This feeling is primal – potentially lost, moving through the depths of an unfamiliar twilight wood…

Alex A.

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