April 27, 1996: Great Missenden to Amersham
Steam enthusiasts celebrate their passion at Amersham station
Almost ten months passed between our last South West Way walk, on July 4, 1995, and today’s return to the trail. The Lees had been trekking in Ladakh, but I had not managed to get any expedition under way in my crowded work schedule in all this time. Since we were now scheduled to return to Salcombe in June (and I to the Appalachian Trail soon thereafter) we decided to begin our re-entry to the ways of the walker with a brief seven-mile stage in the Chilterns – technically the last stage of a circular walk that we have been doing non-sequentially.
There was no need for an early start and this was just as well because Dorothy and I had to be at the vets at 9:10 to accompany Toby – as he had the stitches removed from beneath his right ear, where a benign epidural cyst had been removed nine days earlier. Dr. Gordon was very happy with his brave patient – who will be eleven next month. Dorothy was having back problems, so she decided not to accompany us and she continued to stroll homeward after I peeled off to enter the Royal Oak tube stop – at about 9:40. Toby was quite disconcerted by this separation and kept leaping up on the bridge abutment to see what I was doing on the opposite side of the street without him.
I bought a return ticket to Amersham and headed down to the platform. An old bum with a Zimmer frame was making his way down the stairs slowly and I carried his frame for him. A couple with backpacks got on the first eastbound train with me, but we all had to switch to a second train when ours stopped at Edgware Road. Just a short passage separated the Circle Line platform from that of the Amersham train at Baker Street; I was there just in time to see the 10:06 depart, though the Lees had not yet arrived (we had specified 10:20) and I had now a considerable wait. A rugby final was taking place in Wembley that afternoon and the St. Helens supporters were good naturedly singing their songs at rivals across the tracks. I consumed a Twix. It was fun to watch the massing of the crowds as the trains pulled in and out, a West Indian voice advising everyone which trains did and which did not go to Wembley Park. The Lees arrived exactly ten minutes before our 10:36 departure, but Harold used most of this time to buy a ticket upstairs.
The ride to Amersham took about forty-five minutes, with quite a few stops for a supposedly “fast train.” “We’ll stop after this ride,” Tosh assured Harold as she was about to launch into the usual school gossip. “No, you won’t,” Harold demurred, “but that’s all right.” In the event, since Tosh and I rarely see each other these days, the school chatter lasted for hours. At Amersham I bought tickets for Great Missenden, used the loo, and –without much hanging about – we then rode the one stop to a station we had used many times on our walks. Today we had timed things just right; we could get in a good three miles before reaching our noontime pub.
There were a few wispy clouds in an otherwise empty blue sky, with a light breeze and balmy temperatures in the 60′s when we set off at 11:40. It was heavenly to be outside, especially since the trees were all in blossom, pink, white, and plum, and the bluebells were beginning to appear as well.
We turned into the High Street and headed south; we had never been through the village before and found it quite enjoyable to weave in and out of the Saturday strollers. We turned left at Church Street, heading east, and I had to look closely at the guidebook when the road forked, since the left hand continuation seemed to go under the bypass road and I knew we had to go over it. We reached the church and passed around the right side, greeting a photographer who had brought his tripod with him in order to get some shots of the rolling green hills that stretched away in all directions.
Our first ascent brought us steeply up one of these hills as we headed in an easterly direction toward a high stile dominated by the electricity pylon towering on the horizon. The stile put us out on a farm road and was immediately matched by one on the other side. Harold put on some sun cream while Tosh and I inched our way forward, heading almost due east on the flattened hilltop, across more stiles and along a hedge, emerging finally on Hyde Lane – where we turned right to reach Hyde Farm. Hyde Farm West was an elegantly restored flintstone country residence, meticulously landscaped and very attractive in its setting. “How many people do you suppose live here?” Tosh asked. “I don’t know,” I replied, “but I’d like to be adopted.”
We turned left at a farm track and descended to a dip in the road, where another walker and his dog greeted us after descending from the very hill we were soon to climb. We followed the edge of a coppice (still not in leaf) round to the right and, having reached level ground again, rejoined our original track for several twists and turns along the edges of woodland. There was a nice stretch of downhill here, but eventually we had to climb upward for a short while before again plunging downward to emerge from the woods and cross a footbridge over the railway line. “The pub’s in the next paragraph,” I advised my troops. Another field had to be crossed before we were at the edge of the roaring A413 and It took us quite a while to find a space in the traffic. After crossing we used another footbridge, where some picnickers were ensconced, and soon joined the road through Little Missenden, another charming village. It was 1:00
When the parked cars thickened I announced we must have found the first of the town’s two pubs – and there it was, the Red Lion. There was a huge crowd bellied up to the bar and it took us quite some time to get our drinks and order our food. One of the serving wenches was from New Zealand and the English could not resist correcting her pronunciation of Cheeedahr. The Lees wanted to sit out of the brightness (each wore a pair of sun-glass/goggles that even the sherpas had envied), so we sat down next to a window, with three complaining ladies on one side and a glossy black Labrador on the other. The ladies were complaining about the slow food service – it took over half an hour for anything to arrive and the Lees had a second drink (I nursed my pint) and Harold even got us peanuts in the interim. He and I had fish and chips and Tosh a bacon and egg burger; she was nonplussed when it arrived with a real burger supporting the other ingredients – since no one was ordering British beef these days.
As it turned out, we were served before the three complaining ladies got their ploughmans – I figure the bargirl buried their order when they had too much to say about her pronunciation of Cheeedahr. Even the Lees realized that there was no hope of getting any coffee this side of the millennium and so, after an hour in the place, we decided to continue through the rest of the town, past the more sedate Crown, and onto a series of field paths that bordered a stream. The waters thickened at the eastern end and we passed the lovely Shardeloes Lake, where coots and swans sailed the calm surface. “I’m glad to see the developers haven’t gotten here yet,” Harold said.
When our track ended at a stile onto a busy road the Lees paused to have some water while I looked at my map in puzzlement. I couldn’t find any evidence on the OS map for this stretch of tarmac and the guide only mentioned something called Cherry Lane. But from a little higher elevation I could see exactly where we should be heading and a look at the compass confirmed that we couldn’t continue on our side of the road without straying too far to the south. So we crossed over to the other side, keeping our easterly line, and the guidebook directions started to make sense again as we edged past allotments, paddocks, and back gardens. Obviously my map was so old that it did not contain any evidence of what must have been a new bypass road. I’m glad I had my compass – always a surprise where you will find such an object useful.
At the end of the lane we reached Old Amersham and headed north, past St. Mary’s Church and over a footbridge, with many strollers about, and a bridge that spanned the tadpole-filled Misbourne – where we turned right. A last ascent climbed in a diagonal fashion uphill toward a white stone monument in the distance. When we arrived at this spot we could see that it was a monument to Quakers who had been burned at the stake here in 1506 and 1521. (In two cases the martyrs’ own children had been compelled to light the flames – a nice touch that.)
A little more uphill put us into a woodland. We should have descended from this point directly to Station Road, but we were seduced by the lovely path and walked too far to the north. As soon as we emerged, however, we could see an underground train on a siding and soon we were descending Station Road, passing the Bellybusters sandwich shop and pulling into Amersham station at 4:00.
We didn’t have too much of a wait. The Lees departed at Harrow-on-the-Hill and at Wembley I was re-joined by a remarkably docile and good-natured rugby crowd. At Baker Street I switched quickly to the Bakerloo Line and by 5:30 I was approaching home after a heavenly day, one that had been a marvelous re-entry to the life of the trail.
For those who want to continue with the fifth day of our walk you need: