A walking event based on life's story

Saturday, August 29th 2020

The Ancestor’s Trail is an annual event, based on Richard Dawkins’ book ‘The Ancestor’s Tale’. 

This year’s Ancestor’s Trail will take place on Saturday 29th August in Epping Forest and the Lee Valley Country Park.  

The trails are of varying length (from 3 to 12 miles), ranging from longer, more challenging hikes to shorter, easier wheelchair-friendly flat-terrain walks.  Walkers will be met at specified times at each starting location and guided by marshals back to the origins of life.  

Most trails begin from train or tube stations and all end near Cheshunt railway station with easy connection to central London.  

The Trail finishes at Cheshunt at around 5 p.m. where tea and cake will be available in a private room at the Maltsters pub.  Drinks will be available throughout the evening.  The pub does not provide food, but they are happy for us to bring our own or order from nearby takeaways. 

There will be a flat fee of just £3 per person (no charge for children).

We look forward to seeing you there!

'Congratulations on this great thing you've created'

Tim Minchin

'A biological pilgrimage in Epping. Quite interesting!'

Stephen Fry

A new version of Richard Dawkins' and Dr Yan Wong's book The Ancestor's Tale, is now available. The book,on which our trail is based, takes us on a journey back through time meeting up with our increasingly distant common ancestors.

The One Zoom allows you to explore the tree of life in a completely new way: like a map, everything is on one page, all you have to do is zoom in and out.