To Chorleywood West from Penn Bottom
Walked by Sally and Richard, Saturday 24th October 2020
9 miles (4 hours including lunch break), 8.9 miles on route of Chiltern Way
For photographs taken in this walk click here
After yesterday’s enjoyable walk on the Chiltern Way, we were keen to fit in another leg before the hour change tonight. Limited daylight was not likely to be a problem today, but the weather might be. There was a small amount of light rain forecast for this morning, but much more for later this afternoon, so we decided that we wanted to have finished walking by 2.30pm and set off appropriately early. We were slightly delayed by an accident on the M25 which had closed the motorway just past Junction 17, where we had been directed to leave in any case. Fortunately we were close to the junction as the road was being closed, so we weren’t caught up in a long tail-back (though I’m sure we’d have been directed off at the previous junction had more time elapsed). Even more fortunately, given we needed to turn right at the roundabout at the top of the slip road onto a single track road with passing places, the vast majority of the other traffic turned left. A few vehicles came our way so we drove through the lanes to Chorleywood West as part of a stream of vehicles, so I’m glad I wasn’t trying to come the other way.
We parked one car in the same place as yesterday, on St Peter’s Way at TQ016960, and drove together in the other car via Amersham and the A404 to Penn Street and thence to a little car park just south of Pennhouse Farm at SU922939, right by where the Ordnance Survey map marks “Penn Bottom". It started drizzling on the last few miles of the drive, but it was clear from the outset that this was absolutely glorious rolling Chiltern countryside, with lovely autumnal colours. We had decided to walk today’s leg in reverse because of uncertainty over parking at this end, but there was space for us in the car park.
It was still slightly drizzly as we set off, but it didn’t come to much – the path was pretty muddy in places, which always slows us down, though overall we made good progress. We were initially following Chiltern Way signs, but also several of the numbered walks on the Penn House Estate. The Penn House website describes it as being located in one of the prettiest parts of the Chilterns and on the basis of what we saw today I wouldn’t disagree, though that is perhaps why we saw rather more other people than you might expect, given the weather. We passed through Branches Wood and continued to Gawde Water, a little pond not marked on the map, but with an information board, then cut across open ground to the village of Winchmore Hill, where a group of people were doing “boot camp” type exercises on the green.
We left Winchmore Hill and continued through another area of woodland and a particularly muddy stretch of open ground to the next village, Coleshill. We crossed the A355, which was quite a challenge as the road was busy. We said hello to three walkers who had stopped for coffee then we walked across a delightful stretch of rolling countryside, with Hodgemoor Woods to our right and construction work for HS2 to our left; IMHO this is a colossal waste of money and is damaging this beautiful landscape unnecessarily – though Richard pointed out later that at least they are putting the line in a tunnel through the North Chilterns (I think he may also have made some comment about the Government having been forced to do this because of the number of Tory MPs living in the area.)
We crossed a little sunken track, waiting for two men who were coming the other way, and in the following stretch we passed or were passed by several runners. I’m not sure why the runners, who were in separate ones and twos, should be so much concentrated in this area, perhaps they were training for an event of some sort, or perhaps it was just that we were getting close to Chalfont St Giles.
Close to Chalfont St Giles we might have been, but the route doesn’t go straight there! Instead we turned left onto a narrow and rather muddy footpath along a hedge boundary, which was particularly muddy as we passed a herd of cows, some of which were grazing in the field to our right, some in the field to our left, and some on the path. We continued straight on, descending to a belt of trees where we turned right, on a route now shared with the South Bucks Way. We were now running parallel with the River Misbourne, just to our left, and at Chalfont Mill we watched a car going through a ford.
The route eventually brought us out in the centre of Chalfont St Giles, a pretty place, even if it is more town than village. (In that respect, like the “village” in which I grew up in Cheshire, now in Trafford, Greater Manchester). There were several benches on the Green by a row of shops, and we stopped here for lunch, being amused/annoyed by a car parked just behind us whose engine was left running for much of the time we were there. My sense of direction had got itself in a right muddle so it was a good job that Richard was with me to prevent me heading off in entirely the wrong direction. The right direction was along a path past the Church, which had been just behind the row of shops we were sitting by. As we left Chalfont St Giles we passed several friendly walkers, some of whom stopped and let us pass, then we stopped to let past a group of walkers who were heading down a narrow passageway. The main body of the group were extremely polite and grateful (as is usually our experience, especially this year when everyone is trying to keep a reasonable distance from others). However, two female walkers ambling along some distance behind the others and deep in a conversation about which school a child was attending us, completely ignored us. If that was you, please learn some manners!
To the east of Chalfont St Giles we encountered another construction site for HS2, which we skirted round. Then we found ourselves on the grand approach to Newland Park, home of the Chiltern Open Air Museum, but we turned left just through the gate on an (unusually) unsignposted path which headed across open ground with woodland to our left and in front of us, with views to the buildings of the Open Air Museum to our right.
We reached a path through Newland Gorse, passing a friendly couple of dog walkers, of whom the woman obviously walks more slowly than the man! Then we continued through woodland to the delightful sunken track of Shire Lane. We turned left along this, past Philipshill Wood where there were a number of walkers and a number of parked cars, then straight ahead (now on the tarmacked Old Shire Lane) to the outskirts of Chorleywood West where we turned left past some enormous houses to the point where we had left the Chiltern Way yesterday, and walked the short distance to the parked car.
Our timing had worked out well. After the drizzle at the start of the walk it had stayed dry until a few minutes from the end when there were a few spots of rain, but it rained heavily as we drove back via Aylesbury to Milton Keynes. As I write this leg up on 1st November 2020 having just returned home from a week of helping with our new grandson, it appears that our timing last weekend was also good on the bigger scale: the UK is about to enter another lockdown, so we have no real idea when we'll be able to get back to either the Chiltern Way or to see Bertie and his parents again.