Whitwell to Peter's Green and return
Walked by Sally and Richard, Sunday 24th May 2020
7.9 miles (3 hours 20 mins including various breaks), 3.7 miles progress on Chiltern Way Northern Extension
For photographs taken on this walk click here
This final leg of the Chiltern Way northern extension was an enjoyable and largely straightforward walk, on a breezy day but without yesterday's rain. We completed the walk on the way back from Norfolk to Milton Keynes after our first overnight stop in the flat after two months away because of the Coronavirus lockdown. We were now hoping to be able to get back to the flat every couple of weeks, but we couldn't be sure that this would be possible, so we again shut up the flat for what might be a long time. Unfortunately Richard hurt his back in moving a large plant pot to the car, but fortunately he was still able to walk! I drove the car back to the car park at the recreation ground in Whitwell (TL184209), by an attractive but quite slow route across the Chilterns - this was the first time I had driven in more than two months!
It was just before 10am when we set off walking. From the recreation ground we followed the route of the Chiltern Way as it cut through housing to Horn Hill, then we turned left onto the road and continued to climb to the water tower at the top. A couple of tracks leave the road here, but we took the one that followed the same line on which we'd been walking. I hadn't expected to enjoy this walk much but it was surprisingly attractive, passing through varied undulating countryside, for example with good views to Lilley Bottom. We passed and were passed by occasional walkers and runners, including a family who appeared from a footpath to our left and, after we had passed them with appropriate social distancing, headed back the way we had come. We continued straight ahead, though the track turned a gentle corner so we were now heading south-west rather than west. We descended towards Whitewaybottom Lane on a track which someone had dug ditches either side of; we couldn't work out why, but there were also poppies coming into flower by the side of the track. The track the other side of Whitewaybottom Lane climbed again then, at a hedge boundary, we turned left. It wasn't clear which side of the hedge we should be on - we opted for the far side, but at the point we turned right to cross a crop field we realised that the official route had been on the other side of the hedge. Another couple of walkers were coming towards us across the field. We used the opportunity to swap from Ordnance Survey Explorer Sheet 193 to Sheet 182, then headed across the field.
We reached a minor road and turned left onto it, then right onto another track. From here there was a good view of the water tower in Peter's Green, and as we descended along the field edge, the view was enhanced by a colourful bank of purple and white flowers. We could see a family of walkers heading along a path at the far side of the field, roughly at right angles with ours, and heading towards the same corner. Who would get there first? (they did!). We passed the walkers before the corner then turned right to go the way they had come. We climbed slowly to Peter's Green. We'd intended to go all the way to the road so as to be sure of passing the pub and emerging at the point where we passed through Peter's Green on the main route of the Chiltern Way in September 2019. However the route of the Chiltern Way Extension was clearly signposted as turning right before the road, so we went this way, passing behind the houses whose frontage are on the road. Various paths headed left to the road, but we carried straight ahead, expecting to reach the minor road we had taken out of the village in September, but unfortunately there was no immediate exit from the field here, so we had to continue to a break in the hedge before walking back along the road.
We reached the signpost where we'd noticed the route of the extension last time we were here. Now we turned left, and found a bench on the Green near "The Bright Star" where we stopped for lunch. The lockdown had not lifted sufficiently to allow pubs to open, and we noticed that the pub sign "now open 11 to 11" had been altered to Not open 11 to 11", which was a bit sad. Another sign (presumably from before lockdown) told us that they had loo roll in their toilets - ah yes, memories of the early stages of the pandemic when panic buying led to a global shortage of toilet paper. There are still some shortages (especially flour) but there are now plenty of loo rolls! After lunch we noticed a signpost indicating that the correct route of the Chiltern Way Extension left the village along a footpath that looked as if it was going into someone's garden, but emerged back where we had been behind the houses. We hadn't noticed the sign in the opposite direction, but at least we got it right in this direction.
We retraced our steps, but after passing the water tower in Whitwell we stayed on Horn Hill to the bottom of the hill, rather than cutting through to the recreation ground, then we turned left for a short distance on the road towards Lilley, so as to be able to look at the watercress beds which we'd noticed from the car. Then we returned to the car and drove home to Norfolk.
