May 12, 1994: Amersham To Seer Green
Milton’s Cottage in Chalfont St. Giles
In his excitement over the prospects of a long-delayed country walk, our dog Toby jumped sideways over the end table and broke the ear of one of the little plaster Schnauzers – which was sent hurtling to the floor at his feet. His excitement continued on the tube ride to Marylebone Station, during which he kept up a steady litany of squeaks, and when he saw my walking companions, Tosh and Harold, he was quite beside himself.
Tosh was already in a dither, having lost her gloves on the underground ride. “This is because she was so preoccupied with her newspapers,” Harold suggested in exasperation. Tosh, for her part, was determined to remedy the loss – which might be keenly felt on such a cold morning. She marched up to the Asian girl in the coffee kiosk and abruptly demanded, “Did you wear your gloves to work this morning.” She received a stammering, uncomprehending response – the girl clearly thought she had been approached by a nutter – but Tosh was actually offering to buy these items on the spot. Having made no progress here, my colleague tried the grocery market and when our 9:07 train pulled away she was plotting a raid on the shops of Amersham – still in search of a substitute.
The trip lasted only thirty-six minutes but in that time we managed to bring Harold up to date with the latest crises in our lives as faculty members at the American School in London. The sun was shining, though it was still windy and a bit chilly when we left Amersham Station. There was a garden supply store around the corner and Tosh darted inside looking for work gloves, but I soon spotted a camping store two doors away and the Lees entered its luxurious interior. I took Toby, strapped into his purple harness, across the street so that we could stand in the sun. The Lees joined us here and then went into a newsagent for some snacks. At 10:00 we were ready to return to the precincts of the Belly Buster sandwich bar and to he station again in order to head out on Chiltern Avenue.
A Chilterns Hundred was a one hundred mile circular route devised by Jimmy Parsons and described in a little guidebook published by the Chiltern Society and the Thames and Chilterns Tourist Board. (Some of the route was later incorporated in the far grander Chiltern Way.) I had xeroxed the first two pages of Parson’s booklet, adding 25% to the page size in the process, and I kept these slips of paper in my blue sweatshirt stomach pocket while the first of three Ordnance Survey maps was crammed into my map case. The instructions proved quite useful, although there had been some changes on the ground since publication of the booklet in 1988, six years earlier, and – in any event – I was enjoying the challenge of following a non-waymarked route once again.
We passed a number of civic buildings and front yards as we headed north and then, at a t-junction, turned right on Woodside Road, passing a number of quite attractive older properties. As the road dipped again under our railway line we waited patiently in the face of cars whizzing at us from many directions before crossing over and heading due north again – on Raans Road. The last of the traffic was left behind as we passed the farmhouse at Raans Farm, where some curious llamas came trotting over to have a look at us. It hadn’t been too many months since we had seen these beasts in another field near Wilmington on the South Downs
When we reached a wood I was able to let Toby run free while we followed a bridleway through trees that still showed no signs of leaf. It was somewhat muddy underfoot, especially since the Forestry Commission had left a lot of branches on the track, but we managed to keep reasonably dry as we reached a road and continued forward. Here we began to look for a descent into the attractive valley bottom on our left, but we never spotted the promised wooden steps that were supposed to help us in our descent. Nevertheless I determined that there was a useful path heading in the right direction so we followed it down to the grassy bottom – wonderful views of a pink farmhouse framed by flowering trees and yellow daffodils beckoning us forward.
After crossing a road at the bottom we continued north over a farm bridge with lovely vistas in all directions: the pink house behind us; an attractive weir on our left; stately Latimer House on the hill above us; and the River Chess bubbling away on our right. I hung my pack on a picket fence and took several photographs before be began our ascent up a road (no longer “stony”) alongside Latimer House. At the top we turned right to descend through attractive Latimer Village, with its mini-green and war monument, before turning right and heading back to the river. To reach the margins of the Chess we were invited to climb a stile embedded in a huge muddy pool; we climbed the fence instead. Toby rushed ahead looking for suitable sites to pee; on the featureless greensward there weren’t many options and he often went considerably off-route to use a telephone pole.
Again views were magnificent, but they were mainly confined to the wooded hillsides across the river and to Mill Farm ahead of us; even the nearby river was not visible most of the time. We paused for a moment at the grave of a local brick manufacturer and entered the precincts of the farm. Members of the resident family were being bundled into a car as we passed the stables. A German Shepherd had something in his mouth, and when I got close enough I could see that it was a doll baby. Later he dropped this toy in a pile of horseshit and pissed on it.
There was a very attractive waterside cottage on the road, with heather in bloom – which surprised me. We crossed the Chess for the last time and again waited patiently to traverse the busy B485. We darted onto a footpath on the opposite side, but here there seemed to be some ambiguity over which of two proffered routes to take uphill. I chose the right hand one, but I suspect the left-hand one would have been even better. We had a short steep climb and emerged at the northeast corner of Chenies Manor. We passed along two sides of this very attractive structure, gradually obtaining views of the church tower on our left as we headed away from the prescribed route and into Chenies village itself – in search of a pub. Tosh had naturally been bugging me for the better part of an hour about our arrival time and I had declined to state the exact distance in miles, yards, and feet. “Noonish,” I had predicted. Now, as we approached the Bedford Arms, I held up my wristwatch for her to see. It was 11:59.
Tosh went inside to see about dogs. They were not welcome – in case they bothered any of the diners. There were no diners. Tosh took an instant dislike to the barman when he spoke harshly to an underling, and she was not mollified when he arrived with our g&ts on a tray as we sat at a chilly outdoor table in front of the pub, trying to convince ourselves that there was still some warmth in the sun. I never took off my blue coat – celebrating its 20th year of service – the entire day.
We did not linger for long, especially as the noontime crowd began to park at our feet, and soon we were retracing our steps through the village and using a road to continue up to the A404. Again we had a long wait before we were able to cross safely into the arms of a hedged path that descended past a field full of horses toward a railway underpass. Toby disappeared on this stretch. I had thought he was up front with Tosh, but just as I was noticing his absence he emerged from the rear, climbing down a bank after having pursued something of interest.
We decided to look for a lunch spot in the dry leaves beyond the underpass, and we found a spot reasonably sheltered from the breeze. I ate my egg and my Mexican tuna sandwiches, purchased the day before at Chow’s on Maida Vale Parade, and Toby had a hardboiled egg and some biscuits. A large Golden Retriever came over to investigate us and Toby chased this dog in circles around our group until his owner succeeded in getting his attention. Again we did not linger for long and after a few minutes we packed up and headed along a track past a livery stable and out to more whizzing traffic on the outskirts of Chorley Wood. We used sidewalks along Chalfont Lane (where one house, Inverarnon, reminded my of my Loch Lomond trek in 1991) and turned right on Shire Lane. On Old Shire Lane we began to see many signs (“Have you contributed yet?”) that local people had put up in an effort to save the Philipshill Wood. This we passed on our right as we descended to another valley bottom.
There were some route-finding difficulties here. I had not wanted to purchase a fourth OS map and for a mile or so we were off-map. The guidebook directions were out of date and there was no stile to climb on the right, nor did we discover a fenced-in path. A lateral path clung too close to the valley bottom instead of continuing in our westerly direction, so after Tosh had explored it a bit I suggested a direct assault on the hill in front of us, using a little gate to begin an ascent on a narrow footpath uphill. We emerged, as I had hoped, at a corner of the Chiltern Society’s Open Air Museum, which was closed. There were a number of ambiguities here too but I continued moving us forward towards the entrance. We emerged near the gates of Bucks U (not mentioned in the guide), where we turned right and found the entrance lodge, which was mentioned in the guidebook.
Here we found a path in a narrow strip of trees and headed northwest, passing several roads and beginning a descent into the valley of the River Misbourne. After emerging from a strip of houses along the A413 we could see Chalfont St. Giles, our next target. The river did have a bridge, but this was reached only after wading through a wide stream, from which Toby had a drink. We passed the church and emerged onto the village high street. The OS map, which was once again operative, had indicated that there was a public house in the village. On the high street I could see at least three. We crossed to the other side and Tosh tried the down-market Crown, which had no objection to accommodating one tired Schnauzer. We each had a half pint of lager while someone fed the slot machine as the rugby match rumbled above our heads – unwatched by any of the other puffing denizens.
As we climbed the high street after this bit of refreshment, Tosh was growing increasingly anxious about seeing Milton’s Cottage. I warned her, when we drew opposite, that I would hate to miss a train and wait around for an hour because sight-seeing had been added to the itinerary, but nothing could restrain her from a look inside. I sat on a stone wall near the Milton restaurant (Milton being a cottage industry hereabouts) while the Lees had a brief peek around.
Soon they emerged and we headed up a metaled path (me trailing sadly on all the uphill bits) to the site of a playing field – where a football match was in progress. We continued along the edge of the fields, past a bowling green, and descended on a track into a large green hollow. Orchards accompanied us on our right and we angled around the edge of the trees and emerged on the road at Little Bowstridge house.
I knew the next stages would be difficult to follow and so I paid special attention to the advice in the guidebook. There was no stile on the right to ignore, no crossing fence and no barrier stile, though there was a path on the ground to follow in the indicated directions. I could see ahead of us the pylons of the power lines that were to serve as our guides later on, and this was reassuring. As we neared a pylon I did find two adjacent stiles and followed directions to climb over the left hand one. This put us into a paddock and I put Toby on lead – he had to remain on it for the rest of the walk. The guidebook asked us to head half left under the power cables and this we did, heading for a stile in the distance, but a man, emerging from the house of Whan Cross farm, imperiously pointed at another corner of the field as the continuation of our route.
We crossed very close to some horses but Toby behaved himself and we emerged onto the farm access road where there were inviting path signs which I knew to ignore completely, turning down the road to the next pylon and entering a field on the right for a route across several fields in the direction of Jordans Village. We reached a motor road at a junction, and, ignoring the road opposite into the village, turned left, past the Old Quaker Guest House, heading downhill on the road verge. Now we had to forsake the prescribed route for the day as we turned right in the valley bottom and headed north toward our railway halt.
We paused once for a last quiet forest pee. The day, which had become increasingly cloudy, had defied predictions of late afternoon rain and produced twelve miles of wonderful, much needed walking, beautiful to the end. The Lees were some distance ahead of me and the straining dog as we turned left and headed up to the Seer Green Station. There was no ticket seller – we had tried to get returns at Marylebone but they had been unhelpful. The consequence was that we had a free ride – also of thirty-six minutes duration – back to London, with no guard or ticket-taker in sight, had we wanted to buy tickets at the end.
As Toby and I emerged from the tube at Maida Vale we spotted Dorothy, getting off the same train. Toby was caked with mud and, as this hardened between the pads of his feet, he began to limp. So he had to have a bath (as least he hadn’t rolled in any cow flop today) that evening. I waited for mine until the next day and that is when I noticed, for the first time, that I was coming down, once again, with shingles.
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