I always feel when I am there that I have stepped back in time. Just fields and woods and cricket pavilions and people being sporty. I kind of expect a group of 1930s la-di-dah hoorays dressed in perfect period sports' whites, laughing and joking carrying tennis racquets and cricket bats, to skip past me at any my minute. It also reminds of when I was a child and I used to go on expeditions on my bike finding alleyways between the houses in Hornchurch that I though no-one else had a clue about. (Which reminds me, back in the 1970s there used also a disused row of lovely old houses in what is now Torrance Close at the north end of Harrow Lodge Park near Hornchurch Swimming pool – sadly now gone.)
The path between Crouch End Playing Fields starts at Park Road, passes some interesting wood carvings, and very quickly forks. The right hand path takes you directly across Wood Hill and into Queen's Wood which must be the loveliest bit of woodland in North London.
But Queen's Wood can also be reached without crossing a road by taking the longer prettier route accessed by the left hand fork which takes you right around the back of one of the cricket fields (there are three, yes, three cricket pitches, and lots of tennis courts) into a little wooded area, through a tree-bordered glade, back onto a wooded path and then through an old iron fence into Queen's Wood via the south east corner where it joins up with The Capital Ring.
From there... just keep walking...
