 Hello, thank you for joining me. I'm at Brookmans Park Station, or standing just outside Brookmans Park Station, and that was a Thameslink class 700002 heading south. I've come here today to have a look around the village and the park, and we're going to go and look for a rather exciting looking folly. So, oh, and there's an Azuma coming, so let's just see that. Two Azumes, two five car ones together, and then we'll get on with this walk. That was 801-107, 801-108. So, Brookmans Park Station, it's a bit of a later addition to the East Coast mainline. It opened in July 1926. You can just see the little ticket office down there, and then there's the bridge. Unfortunately, it's not disabled accessibility, which is a bit of a shame. So, maybe at some point in the future we'll see this station modernized and we'll have to come back and have a look. But right now, this is the village center of Brookmans Park, so it's quite an interesting village. It's not your sort of really old historical village. As I said, they opened the station in 1926 once the East Coast mainline had already been there for a fair few years. It's quite well known in aviation as a marker point for planes flying once they've left the London airport. They go by Brookmans Park and then they usually go by Clacton as their marking points on where to fly. So, what we're going to do, we're going to go and have a look at an old country estate once we get out the village and then have a look through to find an old folly. So, this is the village center. As you can see, it feels like a typical London suburban village, but we're not in London, we're in Hartfordshire. And as I said, I didn't come by train. I came here in my larder. So, my larder is quite happily sitting here in the village center while we go and explore. It does look nice with all the blossom out on the trees. So, let's just have a quick look across here. Well, this is interesting. So, look, we've got a Russian classic car there and there you have a German classic car. I'll let you decide which one you prefer, both I personally prefer the larders, but I do appreciate seeing any other form of classic car. So, here is, this is called Broadmore Green, this area of the village. There's also a transmitting station. That's the other thing that Brookmans Park is quite well known for. But I'm going to head up there. We're going to try and find what was here in Brookmans Park before this village of Brookmans Park appeared. That's a really cute little estate agents there, made of wood, little village pump. So, I'm going to head off in that direction and let's go and explore a place called Gobien's Park. I just found this little council crest here on this planter. It's interesting, this is Northmines and that, that is the folly we're going to go and look for. But why is Northmines spelt different to Southmines? I really don't know that, so if anyone does know, please comment and tell me, because they're like next to each other. But one spell of an eye, one spell for why. Anyway, this is the church, it's a united reform church. I do quite like this era of church. You know, they're a bit underappreciated, but I think it's only like a little tower on top. So, we're going to walk past the church and keep going and have a look. We're looking for a road called Moffat's Lane and up there there used to be a farm. So, we'll have a look at the old farmhouse because I believe that still stands. One last look at the church and then we're going to carry on to Gobien's Park and find that folly. I've just walked up Moffat's Lane. It's a very residential area, as you can see, but what we're going to find very soon is what would have been here before the railway and before Brooklyn's Park grew up. As you can see, it's quite a normal width road. It starts to narrow here and takes on more the feel of a country lane with a lot of houses. Probably looking at these, there must have been one property here. They've demolished it and built for perhaps in the 1980s at some point. Have a look at this building ahead of us though. You can see it looks so much older. Well, it is so much older. This would have been here before the railway because this building here is the old Moffat's Farmhouse. So, imagine this would have all just been rural land. So, there's been a farm here, Moffat's Farm, and then there was the Gobien's Park. And there was another estate where a man with a similar name to Brookman lived and that's where supposedly Brookman's Park comes from. See how suddenly you've got an older wall and there's your old farmhouse. So, this is what would have been at Brookman's Park before the railway. And up here, it looks like there's an old chapel up here. I'm not sure. Anyone wants to know. Oh, yeah, just so you know, Moffat's Farm. So, yeah, not a farmhouse anymore. A much older house in a residential area. But that would have been here way before the railway. So, this building here to me looks like it's possibly an old chapel going by the windows. And clearly, it's a fair bit older than any of the other buildings. So, anyone knows more about this or this little chapel. Do let me know. Then just up here behind these trees, there's a few more older houses. But soon, we're going to find our way into Gobien's Park. And we're going to go and find a site of the old mansion before walking down through the valley to look for that folly. I'll just let you see that old chapel. I've now come into Gobien's Park. Now, this would have been a big country estate. It would have been, the house would have been about here somewhere. You actually see there's a slight flat bit and a bit of a drop. So, I'm kind of guessing a bit the location, but it must have been around here somewhere. What happened was though the other estate in Brooklyn's Park, which is a mile or so, that way, the people who lived there, they acquired this estate and they were jealous. So, they demolished this house, but then their house burned down as well. So, there's now no country houses left here. But at least we have got this really nice park. We'll follow on down to the lake. And then down beyond the lake, there's the Ray Brook, which is the river we're going to follow to try and find this folly. So, this lake must be maybe fed by a spring that then goes down into the Ray Brook. So, I'm going to keep walking on down towards the lake. I've made it down to the lake. So, imagine once, probably all these trees along here weren't there, and the house would have looked down, crossed their gardens onto the lake. And this would have been the centrepiece of the estate. And looking across the lake, you'd have seen the house up there. It's all been very nice and attractive once. Well, it is now, just in a different sort of way. We're going to follow the lake along down there. We're going to find the Ray Brook and eventually make our way up to the most exciting thing on this walk, the Brooklyn's Park folly. We've now reached the end of the man-made lake. What we're going to do now is follow the path down the hill slightly to the Ray Brook. So, a moment ago, we were about there. So, I've just come along near to the lake. We'll follow this path down here. And this is one of those videos where I've literally never been here before. So, as I show this to you, this is my first time seeing it as well. So, let's just see what we find. Oh, yeah, it says, it says, Gobien's Worth Nature Reserve, run by the Hearts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust. So, let's go and see what we find. So, down here somewhere, we should find the Ray Brook. So, my plan is to, well, I can show you from here actually, we'll follow the Ray Brook to about there. You just see there's some well-entonia trees. That's always an indication that somewhere is an old country estate because well-entonia trees aren't native. They wouldn't naturally be growing there. So, someone's clearly planted them when the estate was planned. So, we're just going to see what we can see of that estate, but it's really kind of come on quite a long way and it's turned into this public park it is today. All we've got here is another little pond. I believe from looking on the map, it shows this pond and I think it's a spring and there's another little stream which flows down to the Ray Brook. I assume now there must be another spring up there to feed that lake or maybe it's when they created it, they just built a good enough lining to keep the water in. I'm not too sure on that one. And as we get to here, we've got a very nice old oak tree. So, no doubt that's been here during the days of when this was a country estate and all these hawthorns look really nice with their blossom out. Might as well. We'll keep walking now. I think the Ray Brook is going to be just down here. So, this is the Natural River which they've kind of built the park around really. So, my plan is to then follow the Ray Brook and what we should find is remains of an old bridge part of the old carriageway route in and out this state and then from there we'll be able to walk up to find the main purpose of making this video, this folly. So, we're now coming into another wood and it looks very attractive. As for that pond I mentioned up there, you can just see here. You can see it's not really a stream but there's a little trickle of water just flowing down there towards the Ray Brook. So, it's really nice this woodland here and I can just see a bridge up here over the Ray Brook. I'm not sure if that's actually the bridge I want but we'll go to it anyway. I'm probably going to walk up that way up there. It's a very nice, really attractive woodland. Quite nice and quiet as well. You know, sometimes you go out in these days and there's more people than trees in these woodlands but this is really nice. So, here's the Ray Brook. There's not a huge amount of water in it I expected for it to come down here a couple of months ago all this would have had water in but there's a trickle flowing through or it's even a suspension bridge. I like this little wooden suspension bridge over the Ray Brook. That's really nice. Actually, it's a metal suspension bridge but the handles are teak. Of course, I've done other videos about bridges that haven't been quite successful as this and have a link on screen now to see that. So, here we go. The path that way looks nice though. Let's just go along here and have a couple more bridges but I'm actually heading in that direction but these bridges just look too enticing not to bother with. Now, I'm going to go over here because I have just spotted something through the trees which I keep saying we're actually looking for in this video. We can get to here. Can I show this to you on the trees? You may or may not be able to see just there on the horizon. That's the folly we're looking for but we're going to go up there and have a closer look. So, I've got to go back down through the woods and see what we can find. Come along the Ray Brook little bit further and we have found the remains of an old bridge. You can just see there, there is a little brick arch there. Whether that have been a bigger arch here I'm not sure but you can see an embankment either side. So, during those days when they would have ridden around in their horse and carriages they would have passed over here. Think about it, royalty would have passed over here at some point in the 15th century probably before the folly was built. If you look that way you can just see a slight sort of kink in the land where they would have ridden up across the field out of here. Well, actually if you look down there you can see the foundations of the bridge so they would have continued up there on up to where the Brookmans Park estate was. So, it's a bit complicated how basically two estates have merged and they didn't seem to like each other and they knocked each other's houses down but, well, that's how things were back then. But this year it's a bit like doing an old railway walk standing on the remains of an old bridge that's not going to go anywhere. I believe though it probably only collapsed in the 60s. I've heard it was people who walked across here probably doing a similar walk to what I'm doing although not holding a camera and talking up into the 1960s you could have crossed here but maybe one day a lot of rain came along seems hard to believe now but the flow is quite low at the moment but swept it away, I'm not sure if anyone does know how the bridge got destroyed then do comment and let me know. So, as I said, this is like a little kink and we've gone straight up to where the folly is. So, there's really only one thing left to do now is to all go over another little bridge not quite as exciting as the ones we saw back there, this one's just over a little sort of ditch but to continue through what I think is a really, really nice woodland there's another bridge up there to continue through this woodland over more exciting little bridges, enjoy the walk and then there should be a footpath up there to that folly. Here's another bridge so probably if I've come, as I said if I've come here a few weeks ago there's been water trickling down there So, let's just see if we can get a view of the folly again before we continue on up we might not get a great view through here but you might just get a sight of it for you There we are Let's go and have a closer look So, I did say we would leave the woods and go up to the folly we're going to do that very soon and here, here's those Wellingtonias we could see from further back directly that way and just see the folly in the distance but as for the bridge I was talking about I think that was perhaps just a little a state bridge, the one back there used by farmers because here I know it doesn't look that much here actually, talking of the trees that's either a Wellingtonia or a Redwood these ones, a few of these they're all coniferous trees and none of them will grow here naturally they've all been planted this is the bridge so, we will go down in a moment you can just see the bridge there you can see the flints just here so probably what would have happened was it would have had obviously a parapet each side of the bridge oh, in fact look at that there's fallen over there that is the pier at the end of the bridge imagine a pier there a parapet with flint in to the other side and another pier let's go down and have a look I'm sure this woodland is going to look really really nice in a few weeks time when all the bluebells come out but from standing up here we get a really nice view of the bridge let's go down and have a closer look the river is quite narrow down there so what I should do is, today, but it seems like such a hot spring day that I didn't wear well another indication of it being a country state is there's a few little parodidendron plants there which as nice as they look they are an invasive species there we go, across the river by jumping across here's the bridge look at that very nice reflection see the trees on the other side so, I think this time if we all leave towards this time I'll actually go and find this folly but I'm really pleased to have found this bridge so intact, it's very ruined and rustic looking but it still does the purpose that means you can walk from one side of the river to the other which is obviously what it was designed to do so, that would take you on up to the old Brutmans Park and this is the bridge I can just see where the folly is up there so let's finally go up there and find the Brutmans Park folly I've walked on up from the woodlands I don't think the camera is going to pick it out but that noise you can hear it's a little micro light flying above so we're almost at the folly so, down there that is where the Ray Brook was you might just see the micro light there we go, the little micro light so, the Ray Brook was down there and it was all part of the garden designed by Charles Bridgeman he was a bit like Edvillity Brown, a bit of a person, he designed lots of gardens with streams and follies et cetera but now we've effectively left the estate we're here, up on Hawkeshead Road right on the very edge of Brutmans Park there's another little residential area up here and it's on this green in front of us, where this folly is which we've come all the way from the railway station and where I parked my car over on Broadmoor Green to see this I had actually planned this to be a not particularly long walk and I was going to get in the car and go and do another walk today but I've decided that I've done quite a lot today it's been a pretty long walk so if you are thinking of coming here be prepared to have a good long walk it's not the sort of place you could just pull your car up here and have a look, if you want to see some of the the parkland like I did which I really recommend and of course you could come by train because I've basically got to walk all the way back to the railway station anyway so if you're in London you can come up and do this day out, that's for the folly well there it is so it's built in the 17th century local rumour has it there's a farving between every piece of brick I'm certainly not going to get chiseled and start chipping away to find out there's a lodge house on the other side that's quite interesting looking building but yes supposedly between the bricks there's a farving, I don't know how true that is look at that what I don't know is I don't think from looking at it is there any stairs inside maybe there's just a ladder up each side great to go up there though you must get some fantastic views and go around from the top I've seen no pictures of it in the 1920s it had all ivy up it and it wasn't looking great and by the 1990s it was cracked and the arch was actually starting to collapse and it was all held up with scaffolding and accros but then they restored it and now it looks great it's a Gratostar listed building I think it's a really impressive thing see I can just see through there whether the camera is going to pick it out about where my finger is I can just see the masts of Brookmans Park Transmitter Station so from the folly at the top end of the Gobians Park estate I hope you enjoyed this video, thank you very much for watching please do feel free to like, subscribe and comment and you know why not get in your car, come on the train and do this walk for yourself it's a very very pleasant walk thank you very much, goodbye