The Corona Walk

This walk is aimed providing some exercise in the self-distancing lock-down environment of the Corona pandemic. The walk is therefore of very modest length and challenge, but I believe it makes up for this in the number of aspects of the countryside that it portrays and that can be enjoyed. These aspects embrace both the natural environment and local history. The walk is linear, so one mile out and one mile back.

Here, framed by the oak, is Downham Church

This short walk is in Essex. It takes place mainly on a spur of high ground, parallel to which is (1) the spur to the west on which Downham Church lies and (2) another spur to the east on which Rettendon Church is situated. The walk is in Essex. More specifically, it starts at the end of Downham Road (Runwell, Wickford) and finishes at the Grange.

Outline Map

As mentioned, this walk is in Essex. More specifically, it starts at the end of Downham Road in Runwell, Wickford with GPS coordinates (0.513828, 51.626335), and finishes at the Grange with GPS coordinates (0.504072, 51.633788).

Note: At the time of creating this page, I have found that the MS_Edge® browser underlines the first GPS coordinate - i.e., here 0.513828 - because it regards it as a Skype® number. Clicking on it will invoke Skype®!! Don't worry!!

The route was derived by hand plotting using the Bike Hike utility on the web. It is of course possible to use GPS devices such as Garmin® or Smartphones in order to gather the "(longitude, latitude)" values which go to make up the plot you see here.

Outline Map of The Walks
Y and X axes are in degrees latitude and longitude respectively.

The map grid scales translate to 1.112 Km per 0.01° latitude and a mean of 0.690 Km per 0.01° longitude, all when using 6371.0 Km as the volumetric mean radius of the earth - as per the WGS84 standard! In Scales, in the Lake District, the longitude scale is less (as expected), with a mean of 0.644 Km per 0.01° longitude; from this, of course, we conclude that in Scales the distance is 26 metres per 0.01° longitude less than in Wickford!

Because we don't live on a flat earth - unless you are a convinced "flat-earther" - maps are inevitably a distortion of what is. In other words, it's all a matter of mapping a curvaceous surface onto a flat surface. We don't want to carry curvaceous representations of the terrain on our walks, do we? In our case, the northern length of our map grid is stretched out by an extra 0.02 %, to make it the same on the page as the length of the southern part of our map grid. Not that much for walking and hiking purposes really! Can't complain!

Height Profile

The heights are those above the mean sea level as defined by the Ordnance Survey® reference at Newlyn in Cornwall. This is termed the "Ordnance Datum Newlyn". Other countries use other references.

Height Profile
X and Y axes are in units of metres and kilometres respectively.

Some Facts and Figures

Here are some "vital statistics" in metric and imperial units. For walks longer than the present one, there are generally differences between start and minimum elevation and between end and maximum elevation. In addition, on longer walks, the total ascent usually exceeds the difference between start and end elevations because of numerous ups and downs between start and finish!

"Walk facts and figures"

Weather & Ground Conditions

It was actually quite muddy on the lower stretch of Grange Lane, so walking boots were needed on all four days. Visibility was reasonable.

The weather figures are derived from: "Time and Date®". I'm not sure how long they will be available on the web site, so the detailed records for February 07-14 are also available here.

Timing and Speed

The length of the walk is 1 mile. If the average walking speed is between 2 and 2½ mph, then the walk - there and back - can be completed comfortably within the recommended 1 to 1½ hours.

Track File

If you are keen to see our walk superimposed on an Ordnance Survey® (OS) map, then you can use the file below to do so. The route was derived by hand plotting using the Bike Hike utility on the web. It is of course possible to use GPS devices such as Garmin® or Smartphones to produce the track file. The data are based on WGS84. Of course, for copyright reasons, I do not show the OS-based maps here.

Here is the Walk.

And Finally - a Matter of Practicality

Any map is an approximate representation of what is. Practicality and scale are relevant considerations. We are not dealing with a planning application calling for detailed spatial descriptions of intricate boundaries. For those in the walking and hiking community, the degrees of accuracy and precision should be just enough to give us useable and helpful knowledge of the terrain about us and beneath our feet. I hope my humble endeavours on this page are in this respect interesting for, and useful to, you my reader!