Debden
Forest shantytown motorway throughroute
It's in a promising place, just half a mile from Epping Forest, but Debden is really a life-sapping wilderness. Let's start with the station; it's old, crabby, and much of it looks like scaffolding with piles of bricks dumped in. The station itself is set in a car park about three hundred yards round a bend from the main road. This means you can't see the full horror of the place until you're well inside it.
The skyline on Debden high street (above) was obviously designed by somebody with an imagination lobotomy, or at least somebody fixated on long, brown, smelly and curved items. The street's divided by some equally boring bushes, and the upper floors are all flats. The monotony is only broken up by the 'shopping centre' at the end of the street; the largest shop, a bookmakers, was the only one open at the time of visiting.
Entrance to the corrugated iron shopping plaza is marked by several large rusting green recycling bins, with various wildly unrealistic flyposters including one for something called "The Nookie Club". There's a Wimpy's, which might be a sign of nostalgia but more often than not is now a sign of urban degradation. Outside Sainsbury's there were a group of 12-year-olds in tracksuits talking animatedly about guns, and a fat bloke repeatedly poking himself in the eye. A security guard blankly kept walking in circles, much like that poor mad old polar bear in London Zoo, and it wasn't clear whether he was thinking about harming himself or somebody else.
Magazines out of stock in Sainsbury's, Debden
- Horse And Hound
- Country Life
- FHM
- Top Of The Pops
Even more depression is to be found behind the high street, where, of all things, there's a large car park and several garages bedecked in barbed wire. Buses go through the car park to get to their stops in the shopping centre, and sensibly, only about three people have decided to risk parking here. One quite basic town planning rule that's obviously been forgotten, though, is "never point a sign saying 'Town Centre' towards a closed steel shutter", as illustrated below:
The single "place of interest" marked on the tube map outside Debden station is the theatre in the E15 Acting School, over the hill on the opposite side of Debden. This school, apparently part of the University of Essex, promises 'preparation for careers in theatre, TV, film and radio'. What the teachers do to their pupils in here is obviously very secret as it is hidden by abundant large hedges and warnings of ferocious canines. A peek through reveals a big hole and red and white tape. Most mysterious.
The main road through Debden, which passes next to the high street, under the tube bridge and to Junction 5 on the M11, is very busy, full of cars going as fast as they can through this place, as well as playing host to continually patrolling police cars. A yellow AA sign pointing out of Debden, advertising a "New Golf Game Centre", may give a clue as to where everybody's going with their doors so firmly locked.
Debden is mainly uphill from the bridge, but there's a small part of it towards the motorway; mainly an industrial estate. (Stupidly, if you try to get to the tube station from this side to go towards Zone 1, you have to cross two separate railway bridges.) Clinton Cards and Volkswagen live here, as do an enormous fleet of scary foreign-looking buses. Alas, the estate is being developed and a whole new block of offices for "Higgins Group" is under construction. Higgins Group employees may thank their bosses for building the new offices in a place that's so easy to get out of, but nothing more.
Residents of Zone 6, #10 – Debden
 | Talking to even uglier friend: "Did you 'ear that noise last night? Tphrhrrrrrrrrhhrrrrt! That was me 'n' Darren 'avin a lovers' tiff!" |
Maybe it's the fact that most buildings in Debden are small and flat-roofed, but there's a lot of sky and a lot of forest scenery. A tree grows through the middle of Debden library, while opposite the graveyard next door, three or four residents of an old-people's-home attempt to play darts with no lights on. Perhaps nature is trying to take this suburban mistake back.
Statistics
Time to Zone 1 29mins on Central (Liverpool Street)
Last trains to Zone 1 Mon-Sat 2352 Sun 2305
What to do if you get stuck in Debden after the last train to Zone 1
If you've just missed the last train, you're in luck. A bus from right outside the station (a freaky regional green bus, not a nice London bus), will take you to Ilford for an undisclosed sum at 2357. If somehow you're in Debden because a super-evil alien spaceship dropped you off there, there's a cab firm just inside the station entrance.
