Tourism

Navigating around the roads from Sainsbury, Lakeside and Ikea you would seldom suspect a natural network of gorges is just beyond a a lip of cliff face. We have written extensively about these gorges but feel its better to feature one at a time as they all feel quite unique and offer a different experience each time.
Lions gorge is accessible from Grays almost by foot if you were quite devoted. But we recommend driving to this spot RM20 4YE (end of Mill Ln). Lions gorge is the one that's popular with the fisherman, they even have little purpose built jetties for this, and as you descend from the main road down to its lake side you can see that this is the more secluded and less visited of the gorges, not because its not lovely and endearing, far from it. But because its the shortest of walks given that one side of the lake is actually not accessible. Also you have that sense of sinking in the earth as the surround cliffs loom above you while the lake signs assure you of more or less certain death to anyone foolish enough to venture into its icy depths. This maybe contributing to the negated factor.
Its history is the same as the other gorges in that it grew out of the chalk mining industry from the 18th Centry and that the area thrived from, but in this gorge there is less of a industrial sense to the place given that its by far the more forested of gorges and feels like it has been this way for many hundreds of years (its only looked like this since the 1900s). Its not just for fisherman though and like the rest of the gorges we highlight it here as it is a gem of natural beauty that makes the area unique.

Postcode: RM16 6GX (Philip Sydney Rd), RM20 4YE (Mill Ln) or park on Devonshire Rd.