Billericay Eastern Circuit Walk

About trip

http://www.essexpubwalks.com/#/billericay-eastern-circuit/4532687834

With Billericay Station and bus stop as a starting point, head directly away from the station entrance, (with a taxi cab office to the right and a BP garage to your left) until you reach Radford Way – go straight across this road and enter a signposted alleyway. Keep straight ahead - the alley crosses a residential road, then turns sharp left and descends to the edge of Lake Meadows Park. Keep straight ahead, passing a children’s play area and the end of a lake to the right – the path crosses a grassy area then turns right and enters another alleyway, with the embankment of the lake to the right. Keep straight ahead along the alley until it reaches a road (Perry Street). Turn left into Perry Street and follow it down to a roundabout (with a parade of shops on the right). Turn right into Queen’s Park Avenue (3rd exit on roundabout) and walk along the left-hand side of this road. Almost immediately, just beyond some houses (and before you reach a modern church and The Forge pub), turn left down an alleyway (sugnposted 'Footpath 4 - To Rosebay Avenue). Walk along this alleyway to its end – it slowly bends to the right along its length – where it enters the end of a road just after crossing a green (Regent Drive). Walk to the end of this road, at which point you cross a narrow road (Rosebay Avenue) turn left and then almost immediately right onto a path through a wooded area. Head along this path until you reach a track going off right, signed as an entry to Queen’s Park Country Park – see website:                       .  

Turn right here and walk along the path, bearing left (i.e. heading roughly in a north-easterly direction) with a hedgerow to your left and open grassland to your right. Just before the track starts bearing round to the right, at the top of the grass area, turn left through the hedge-line and then right onto a tree-lined track. Follow this track along its length – at one point, it turns sharp-left before gradually curving round to the right. Where this track meets a surfaced lane (leading to a golf club), turn right and follow the lane, through gates, to a road (Queen’s Park Avenue). Turn left and walk along the wide grassy verge on the left-hand side of this road, until you reach a roundabout. Turn left here (signposted to Stock) and then cross the road, so that you are walking along the right-hand side of the road in roughly a northerly direction. Take the second road off to the right (Small Gains Lane), just past the Old Kings Head pub on your left (telephone: 01277 829933), and walk along it – a little way after the Lane turns sharply to the left and climbs for short distance, take the first track off to the right, just past a duck pond. Follow this track along its length, initially passing nurseries to your right, until a T-junction with a narrow surfaced lane (Goatsmoor Lane). Turn left and then right at a footpath sign into the drive to Oak Hall. Where the drive turns left to the entrance to the house, turn sharp right onto a track – the surface now turns to earth. Follow this track south (ignoring any tracks off to the right or left). A short distance after the track turns right then left, it reaches a T-junction with a road (Heath Road). Turn right along the road and then, after a short distance, turn left onto a signposted track. Walk along this track. After around 0.7 miles, after passing an old wooded area to the left (Meepshole Wood) you reach the brow of a ridge and the track starts descending – off to the left there are views towards Wickford. Walk down the track – it enters a wooded area and then crosses a railway line by way of a brick bridge – the track now skirts a wooded area to its right. In a short distance, turn sharp right down a way-marked track, which skirts the bottom edge of this wood, heading west. Follow this track - soon after the point where the edge of the wooded area turns right, bear slightly left and cross a wooden footbridge, then follow along the right-hand edge of a field. Follow the field boundary round to the left, then turn right and continue following the right-hand edge of the field. In the far right-hand corner of the field, turn right (passing a way-mark post) and follow a track through bushes. This leads to a paved track at the entrance to a sewerage works. Follow the paved track ahead to where it forms a T-junction with a road (Outwood Farm Road). Turn right into this road, then after a short distance, turn left down a signposted path, initially crossing a footbridge, which follows the course of a stream to its right. Follow the right-hand edge of two fields until, at the corner of the second field, the path enters a tree-lined stretch. This track leads out into a residential road (Outwood Common Road) opposite a church – this is the south-eastern corner of Billericay.

Turn right and proceed north up Outwood Common Road – eventually, it climbs a hill, crossing the railway via a bridge. Soon after the railway bridge, as the road bends to the right, take an unsurfaced lane off to the left (Break Egg Hill). This runs west along the bottom (southern) boundary of Norsey Wood, a mixed woodland with features that go back approximately 4,000 years (e.g. a bronze age tumulus and an iron age ‘ride’). If you have time, take the Norsey Wood Trail, which is way-marked within the Wood – see websites:                                            and                                      , which have information about the Wood, plus trail maps. This trail and the Wood can be accessed by three separate pedestrian entrances to the wood from Break Egg Hill – one soon after entering Break Egg Hill and the other two a little way afterwards (see next paragraph).

To continue the walk, follow Break Egg Hill along the edge of the Wood - after some distance, it descends steeply and terminates. Here, go straight ahead, down some steps and a slope to a wooden footbridge. Just after crossing this bridge, there is another entrance to Norsey Woods on the right. The track now climbs steadily for some way - part of the way up the hill the third entrance to Norsey Woods goes off to the right, at the point where a wire fence comes in from the right. Keep going straight ahead with this fence to your right - after some distance, the track slowly bears left away from the fence, still climbing. At the top of the hill, you leave the woodland and enter a more open area, with scattered trees and bushes. Eventually, the track enters a narrow road, Norsey Close, by a footpath sign. Turn right into this road, then almost immediately left into Norsey Road. Go straight ahead over a mini-roundabout - the road then descends and crosses a railway bridge, until it meets Billericay High Street at a cross roads. 

To reach the station, turn right and go straight ahead, cross a railway bridge, then turn left into the station / bus area.  

If you want a drink and/or a bite to eat, there are a number of reasonable pubs in the High Street or just off it. Two are immediately to the right as you reach the cross roads - 

The Railway Hotel (telephone: 01277 652173), High Street

The Crown (telephone: 01277 650279), High Street (opposite The Railway Hotel)

Then, proceeding left along the High Street from the cross roads, the pubs are in the following order:

Harry's Bar, 38 High Street

The Blue Boar (J D Wetherspoon) (telephone: 01277 655552), High Street

The Chequers (telephone: 01277 651804), High Street

The Coach & Horses (telephone: 01277 622873), Chapel Street (to the left off High Street by the Chequers)

The Red Lion (telephone: 01277 844910), High Street

The White Hart (telephone: 01277 652323), High Street

The Rising Sun (telephone: 01277 624850), Sun Street (to the left at the top of the High Street).

There are others, but these are further away from the centre of town.