Matching Green#

Sun Aug 3 18:58:47 2025

Topics: motorbike ride-report 100-parishes

I've ridden this route three times. The first time I started out following a Kurviger round trip route and then I was having so much fun on the B184 that I refused to take the left turn that Kurviger wanted me to take[*], and instead I followed signposts for a while. When I got home I spent some time with a map and an open tab on Google Streetview and figured I had approximately ridden Abridge - Stanford Rivers - Chipping Ongar - Fyfield - some Rodings - Hatfield Heath - Matching Green - ("Watery Lane, narrow road with gravel in the middle) - Moreton - Bovinger - Tyler's Green - North Weald - Epping and then home, and and almost all of it - all the bits that weren't Epping rush rour - I would have gladly ridden again. A lot looked vaguely familiar (although backwards) from riding the Dun Run, albeit it didn't look that similar because daylight.

After the second time around - a bit faster, because I had no wrong turns or need of pulling over to look at the map - I looked at the Hundred Parishes website and found I'd passed through at least one of the place on their list, so I decided to ride the whole thing a third time and inaugurate the 100-parishes topic.

Seen through the windscreen of a parked motorcycle, an expanse of tufty grass with trees in the distance. The sky is blue with fluffy clouds This is the green in Matching Green. It has

lots of grass
trees
a pond: very little water currently, no ducks that I saw (I may have missed them)
a cricket pitch and pavilion

The green is overlooked by thatched cottages and a pub. There are traditional stripey signposts in the area

a large pond, looking quite dry: the mud bed is visible in the foreground

Single-storey wooden building with a sloped tile roof, at the boundary of a cricket pitch. it's surrounded by wooden benches

Photos are of the cricket pavilion, if that's the right word, and the weathervane on the roof, depicting a man with a scythe and what appears to be (but probably isn't) a walking frame. weathervane, pointing to the south. the figure is a bent-over hooded/cowled man holding a scythe

Side view of a stationary Honda CBR600F in red/white/blue My motorcycle is not thematically appropriate to the "green and rural" theme in this thread but I am going to include this photo anyway (1) to show I was there and didn't lift the pictures from the internet; (2) because it is IMO a very pretty motorbike.

[*] https://tueb.telent.net/w/jiq1UZs4mc38mSeuB9N1wS this is what Kurviger wanted to save me from.