May 5, 1996: Wendover to Tring Station

Our progress on the Chilterns Hundred route over for the day, we could now descend from Wigginton to Tring Station.

Eight days after resuming our progress on the Chilterns Hundred walk, The Lees and I set out again – this time to do an eight and a half mile stretch of the route from Wendover to Tring Station.

I chose a Sunday morning of a Bank Holiday weekend, and I was joined at about 9:00 by a group of sullen French girls at Paddington as I sped east on the Bakerloo Line. I was again quite early at my post on the Amersham platform of the Metropolitan Line at Baker Street: the station seemed almost deserted on this day and the trains ran far less frequently. I had time to advise a North African woman on how to get to Camden Market. I was beginning to worry that the Lees would miss the hourly service to Amersham when they appeared at 9:26. Ten minutes remained before our departure and the Lees used this to purchase bottles of Evian and candy bars. Tosh was already armed with the Sunday Times.

There was much less school chatter this day, probably because we had exhausted most topics last time. When we got to Amersham, slightly late, there wasn’t time to buy Wendover tickets in the booking hall, but I soon noticed that our shuttle was a pay train anyway and we had soon purchased tickets for the second stop on the Chiltern Line’s service to Aylesbury – Wendover.

At 10:35 we got off the train and headed for the loos. So did about twenty geriatric walkers who were assembling for a group expedition. They couldn’t quite believe that we were not part of their collective, but at about 10:45 we marched past them and out to Wendover’s high street, where we turned east. I could see the clock tower – where we were directed to turn north on the A413. In a block Wharf Road lead us up to a narrow passageway down to the Wendover branch of the Grand Union Canal – which we were able to follow for most of the morning.

The day was not nearly as sunny or warm as a week ago. I wore my new black sweatshirt all day and the Lees kept their jackets on – but walking was pleasant and the skies were bright most of the time, though there was little direct sun. The trees were still in blossom and even in eight days many had come into leaf, so that we walked embowered along the towpath, sampling the aquatic life and taking it very easy. Mallard ducklings had just hatched and they paddled along the bankside with their moms. Moorhens, with their characteristic red faces, sailed about with the swans while a heron stared at us across the water. There were a few other walkers around and the occasional cyclist, but we had much of this scene to ourselves a good deal of the time.

We had to climb up to a bridge at Halton, changing sides from the north to the south bank, passing some MOD playing fields, and drawing opposite a formerly flooded site that had inconveniently drained into the living room of one of the Rothschilds. Gliders were swooping overhead and occasionally the trees parted for grand vistas of the plains to the north.

I had timed our arrival at the New Inn on the A41 just right; for it was just turning 12:15. Unfortunately I had not counted on this establishment closing its doors for good – so there we were: hungry and thirsty and the next pub almost an hour’s walk ahead!

There was no remedy but to keep walking along the canal. The Lees got out apples to munch and Tosh gave me a Lion bar. To make matters worse, the huge rambling contingent from Wendover was now on our tail. Tosh wanted to outspeed them but Harold wanted to let them pass, and he prevailed. Tosh was certain that they would all line up ahead of us at either the loo or the bar of the next pub, but I assured her that it was unlikely we would stop again at the same place. Under any circumstances they disappeared to examine the site of an old moat and we were able to overtake them after five minutes. The next worry was the weather. “I bet it’s going to rain, Daddy,” a little boy was delightedly predicting to his father as we neared the Drayton Bridge. In fact things were darkening for a while but, in the event, no moisture fell on this day.

There now followed a complex routing in which Jimmy Parson’s guidebook still proved its reliability (New Inn notwithstanding). We had to head south from the bridge and climb up a lane on which a Golden Retriever farm had produced a great crop of barking offspring. Then, after passing through a farmyard, we used a series of stiles to climb a hill, pass behind a barn, and reach the B488 road. Some walkers were leading a sheep dog down the hill as we climbed up and at the stile onto the motor road we met a couple with two gigantic shaggy Alsatians. “Will you have to carry them over the stiles?” I asked. “I hope not,” their master replied, “they weigh 110 pounds.” Fortunately the dogs managed to slip under the lowest rail of the fence.

Across the road our continuation was masked by a black taxi. The driver, who had his young son with him, said, as we climbed the stile, “You could always take a cab.” Tosh questioned him about pubs: the first we would encounter served only sandwiches, the second, The Bell, was described as “troubled,” and we were directed to a third. I was leading a fairy rapid charge, not wanting to arrive too late for the food service wherever we ended up. We crossed a large field and climbed the bars of a metal gate into a housing estate. The Lees admired everyone’s tulips and deplored the pedestrian architecture as we walked left on Buckingham Road, turning right on Miswell Lane and left on a footpath past a recreation ground to Christchurch Road.  On the playing fields two youngsters were wrestling as the older and bigger demanded an apology from the younger and smaller: “See this ring, if you don’t apologize, I’m going to dig it into your head.”

On Christchurch we turned south and walked up to Tring High Street, where our pub search began in earnest. I wanted to try the Indian restaurant but the Lees persisted in their quest for a pub; we passed the troubled Bell and tried the Rose and Crown, which advertised “bar snacks,” but these consisted of a set Sunday lunch for £13. We felt quite out of place among the gentry who were foregathering for this feast and the waitress took pity – by directing us down to the roundabout and the Robin Hood pub.

We settled down to a nice lunch next to the fire (I had to take my sweatshirt off). Harold and I had sole and chips and Tosh had ham and eggs (hold the burger). There was even time for some coffee, thanks to the efficient service. Furthermore, though my feet were a bit hot and my legs a bit sore from the rapid pace of the last hour, we now had only three and a half miles to go. The Robin Hood was a nice enough place – though there were too many smokers; also, I never like a “No Dogs” sign on a pub which has its own mutt – who was slowly making visits to each table for a friendly pat.

We had to retrace our steps to Akeman Street before turning off and heading in a southerly direction past the Rothschild zoo and onto a sculptured bridge over the A 41(M) on our way to Tring Park. Now began the only sustained bit of uphill for the day, but the ascent wasn’t too steep or too long. We entered woodland and approached an obelisk (a temple peeked at us down a lane), climbing straight up to the top of the hill and an exit from the park. I recognized the corner, for the private road we had now reached was one I had used almost fifteen years earlier – when I was completing the next to last day of my walk on the Ridgeway.

Here we abandoned the Chilterns Hundred route for the day in order to follow the countryside commission path to Tring Station. I told the Lees the story of my missing the last bus from Wigginton that November in 1981, when, in desperation, I had improvised an unplanned continuation to Tring Station. The route was aggressively waymarked with new Ridgeway signs and I didn’t have to consult my old guidebook, which I had brought along. I could see that we had a good chance to make the 3:37 and so, once again, I picked up the pace. The walk was downhill and I could remember many of the views over in the direction of distant Ivinghoe Beacon. There was again a marvelous footbridge over the A 41 Motorway. We reached the valley bottom and approached the station with some ten minutes to spare.

Unfortunately the ticket office was closed and we had to buy tickets from a machine that rejected our paper money on a number of occasions before choosing to reward us with a bit of pasteboard. A local girl with a mobile phone in one hand advised us to persist. I suggested we travel only as far as Harrow & Wealdstone, the northern terminus of the Bakerloo line. Tosh had a tube pass, as did I, and the difference between H&W (£4.80) and Euston (£7.10) seemed to justify this strategy.

At Harrow and Wealdstone we didn’t have too long to wait for our tube train and I said goodbye to my friends as I left them at the Maida Vale stop; I was home at 5:00, much earlier than expected.

To continue with the sixth day of our walk you need:

Day 6: Stokenchurch to Princes Risborough

To continue from Wigginton you need:

Day 7: Wigginton to Great Missenden