please empty your brain below

You're doing great work DG - I learnt about these orbitals from your blog and I hope others do too.

Perhaps a new walking group to expressly walk these routes would help? Re-treading the paths each month, with interested parties able to join when they wish?
Such walking groups already exist, e.g. http://www.capitalwalkers.org.uk/walk-with-us.html

The issue isn't keeping the paths well-trodden, it's keeping them well-signed.
What surprised me is how much of the Loop has 'decayed'. I've found several points to be nigh-on-impassible. Section 21, just outside Havering-atte-Bower has a dilapidated, partially-collapsed bridge that also has vegetation growing over it so is getting dangerous, forget difficult, to cross. The local landowner has let the land overgrow, too, obscuring the route in parts, and has also grown their field across the route of the path, forcing you to go round. In several places, I've found myself fighting through thickets and brambles - this is on the main route a London strategic walk!

One thing that does quite annoy me is that most of the local nature reserves the route passes through don't have the Loop on their map or information boards. This is a great shame as these are just the sort of places I've found myself "navigationally challenged", and it'd also be a great advert to get people doing the walk.
The phone no. looks like 01707 to me which I think is the code for Welwyn Garden City.
All of the former (superior in mapping, if not in typesetting and branding) walklondon London LOOP leaflets can be found here:
[former leaflets]

Of particular note is the overview PDF which is essential and was never replaced:

[overview pdf]
Did you print out and complete the certificate?

http://content.tfl.gov.uk/london-loop-certificate.pdf
I've started walking these this year (although in order, and combining some of the sections into longer routes). So far I've done Erith-Kingston, and even at this stage there have been parts that we're confusingly or just wrongly signed, along with almost impassable sections (a bit of route past Surbiton Raceway left me with a *lot* of nettle stings on my arms and legs!). However, most of it has been good quality, and it's getting me to explore parts of London I never would have gone to normally, so in that respect it's doing its job. (Shoutout by the way to Colin Saunders' excellent guide book, which has clear instructions combined with OS maps and things to see en route as well.)
Another feature that dates the information board is the lack of a website or email address.
@Mike: I think DG meant to reference the 0181 number for Barnet Council (at the end of the "Is there a guide" paragraph), but mistyped it as 0171.

dg writes: Dammit yes, thanks.
@Travelling Man: To deal with nettles and brambles I always carry a pair of secateurs in my back pack. They’ve been invaluable on certain parts of the London Loop, especially when I’ve been wearing shorts.
Been doing the LOOP for the last couple of years myself, mainly just on afternoons during the summertime and am doing section 19 next Sunday. I think it was DG that warned that the website was going down so I was able to grab all the leaflets before they disappeared forever but between them and the rapid increase in vandalism of the neglected signposts it's getting easier to go astray, doing section 18 a few weeks ago there was, admittedly a car boot sale taking up a field that we needed to cross but once we got around that there were no signposts or clear directions from the leaflet where to go because a large barn that we were supposed to pass had been long demolished.

Has anyone else done the Waterlink Way? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterlink_Way) I walked most of it a week or so back. It suffers a bit from starting in Bromley, who obviously don't give a toss about it, but once it crosses into Lewisham it's going through some charming parks and greenspaces alongside Bellingham and through Catford up to the river front. I don't know how new it is but I'm guessing fairly as there's no proper consolidated website for it.

dg writes: Coincidentally, the Deputy Mayor for Transport was out walking the Waterlink Way today, so maybe there is hope...
I walked most of the route (Kingston to Enfield Lock) in 2002 and then did Enfield Lock to Chingford in 2005. Never got round to finishing it but hope to one day.

Btw didn't the 020 codes arrive in 2000 not 1999?
Having completed my own circuit last summer (in strict order), I recognise these frustrations - though even now I marvel at the genius of the route planners who in places managed to conjure the illusion of rurality from some distinctly unpromising raw material.

Despite the quality of the leaflets, taking an OS map is vital insurance against occasional ambiguity of instruction as well as of failure of waymarking. Even that though is not foolproof - I found a couple of places where the OS was just plain wrong, including a right of way market across a lake - http://www.privatetactician.com/2016/05/london-loop-18-and-19-enfield-lock-to-chigwell/ (though they have since sort of corrected that one).
The London Outer Orbital Path, or LOOP” – or, as the backronym fades into the mists of time, the unredundant “London Loop”.
Out of all of the 16 years I spent in London, the London Loop was my favourite London experiences. On average, I walked a section every month and it took me a year to complete the whole thing, starting in September 2013 and finishing in 2014. I still have fond memories of walking through ancient forests, marveling at picturesque villages and enjoying the history along the way. If I ever return to London, I plan on walking the whole thing again, but in counter-clockwise direction. If anyone's interested, I documented the whole thing: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fallstreak_holes/albums/72157635973199473
I'm in Barnet and there's a sign posted route "Barnet Millennium Walk". It sadly seems to have fallen by the wayside in the way you predict the other routes might.

I have a pretty good idea of where it goes from some guesswork and seeing the markers in various places, but I can't actually find a guide for it anywhere. (Admittedly I've not tried that hard to research it yet.)
The London Loop also had volunteer stewards, I was the one for section 24 along the Thames from Rainham, although the scheme was only implemented a short time before the Walk London funding started drying up.
Coincidentally I've started walking sections of this.

Yes, sometimes there are markers missing, and the odd bit is overgrown, but overall I tend to see it with a half full glass, as I never realised many of these places on the walk existed.

I found the TfL leaflets (plus google maps on my phone) sufficient to keep me going in the right direction










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