April 2, 2009: Lacey Green to Kingswood
The Rising Sun, Little Hampden
For the second day of the 2009 walking season Tosh and I returned to the Chiltern Way, a route that we had last walked on May 31 of the previous year. Linda arrived to take charge of Fritz at about 8:00 and this gave me almost an hour to make my preparations on a day that promised afternoon sunshine and temperatures in the upper 50’s. I left the house, therefore, at 9:00 and made my way to the Maida Vale tube stop. Expecting a more challenging terrain today, I carried my walking stick from the outset. It was still quite chilly so I wore my rain jacket as well.
I could already see Tosh waiting for me near the ticket booth as I exited the underground at Marylebone Station. We now joined the queue. It lengthened considerably behind us as that lady and I flashed our Freedom Passes and Senior Rail Cards at the clerk; confusion followed when it was discovered that Tosh’s version of the rail card had expired last August. Our tickets to Princes Risborough secured at last – this must have been good news for those who followed us in the line; there was only one window open today.
Tosh settled in for coffee and croissant at a little table and I wandered off to buy some snacks and use the loo. How Marylebone Station had changed – with its Japanese eateries and International Cheese Centres. I remember when you couldn’t buy a bun here on a Sunday morning.
We took the 9:54 and after about fifteen minutes (about the time we passed a Wembley Stadium where, last night, England had defeated Ukraine 2-1) I took out the mobile phone to secure the services of Village Cabs in Princes Risborough. I had taken their card upon reaching this station last May and so, after our arrival at 10:38, we headed over to the nearby office and got in a cab for our return ride to Lacey Green’s Whip Inn.
Fog was still clinging to the surrounding hills but our cabbie agreed that much better weather was expected and so we were soon back at the pub where we had broken off the last time we had walked this route. I tightened my boots, rolled up my pants legs, lowered my compass and whistle around my neck and, at 10:45, looked for the stile adjacent to the bus shelter around the corner. We climbed the stile and began our day.
The way forward, a fairly level stretch, brought us by the local windmill and over a number of stiles as we headed northeast (the dominant direction today) through three fields. More field crossings followed, all very easy – with paths evident even in empty fields, many of which had been recently ploughed. Eventually we sloped off to the right to enter a belt of trees sheltering Grim’s Ditch, the ancient earthwork that we had encountered on many a walking expedition. Our path now led us out to a road in Lily Bottom and, after a jog past a rural cottage, into Monkton Wood.
Our route in the woods soon reached a gap in which power lines were making their way in our direction and we walked beneath them on paths that were often a bit wet and rough. Tosh and I were keeping busy with ASL gossip, making a comeback after years in which our retirement had left us with little to digest in this area, with special concentration on President Obama’s recent visit to our old place of work. Now we reached a crossing road and continued forward on another, passing through the hamlet of Redland End.
More walking next to Grim’s Dyke carried us through Kingsfield Wood, where we became heavily dependent on yellow arrows painted on accommodating trees as, without much evidence of a solid pathway, we turned half right and passed through Barnes’s Grove and thus out onto a large expanse of open field. Here too there was a useful path as we headed in a more easterly direction, gradually approaching a lovely stately home, Hampden House. This orange-colored edifice was obviously the seat of a manor of great distinction, with additional interesting outbuildings and even a church nearby. Tosh stayed behind for a little privacy as I stood at the gate onto the property, trying to figure out why the map showed us turning left in front of the mansion. In this fashion I discovered a stile with a Chiltern Way marker that I had walked innocently by; when Tosh caught up we were able to use it to turn north, continuing on a path that brought us into Lady Hampden’s Wood.
A steep descent now began on a track through these woods and thus we were able to reach the valley floor, Hampden Bottom, which we crossed in a northerly direction as well, emerging on a busy road and crossing with care. Our route now took us through a tree belt called Coach Hedgerow, with the first real ascent of the day ensuing. Tosh got well ahead of me here and waited for me at a spot where the path headed on into Widnell Wood – but we were asked to forsake this for an easterly trod (in stages) up a steep valley side and into a plantation. At the top of our climb we emerged into a field – where a permissive path around the perimeter had been agreed by Sir Leonard Figg, the president of the Chiltern Society himself. Tosh, knowing we were required to go around the field corner, wanted to take an inviting shortcut across the ploughed earth, but I demurred, saying it was rude to do so after Sir Leonard’s concession – and reminding her that there was no certain way of telling if this was actually our route. So I headed for a grassy corner, turned left and in thirty yards came to a turnoff into more woodland. Tosh’s path would not have brought us here and the lady had the good grace to admit this.
We were walking along paths in Warren Wood, again often rough and wet, but they soon merged with a green lane leading back to civilization; a track now lead forward to the village of Little Hampden, where I had promised a lunch stop. This required us to forsake the Chiltern Way for a bit and to head north for 350 yards on tarmac; soon we could see the Rising Sun pub and I warned Tosh that, while walking the Chilterns Hundred in 1994, we had been here once before and that I remembered spirited objection to our boots on this occasion. Sure enough a large sign confirmed the ban on these essential items of walkers’ wear, and a Slavic maiden now appeared at the door to point out the elasticized bits of blue plastic that we would have to put on over our boots before entry. It was 12:45 and we had walked four miles in two hours.
I told Tosh that the recent uphill struggles had made me feel as though I really deserved my pint of lager. I also ordered a pint of bitter shandy for my partner and we each studied the menu in the next room. The Rising Sun obviously prided itself on its food and it was busy, even on a Thursday. We sat at an unreserved table and had an excellent lunch. I had the scampi and chips and Tosh the fishcakes. Unusually, she ate every one of her chips – they were so good. At the bar the proprietor was offering ham and cheese or cheese and tomato paninis. “Can I have one with ham, cheese and tomato?” a pretty blonde customer asked. We were at table for about an hour and at 1:45 we were ready to push off for the next section of our walk. I seemed to keep pretty good track of my walking stick – which I again found quite useful today.
We now returned to our turnoff and headed east, joining the South Bucks Way for a while. We entered woodland on Little Hampden Common and began a descent to a valley bottom – where a hedge on our right became, at the half way point, a hedge on our left. This also signaled another uphill section – there were far more of these in the afternoon sequel. There were also many more stiles (often in rather rickety shape) and one of these was used to enter Hampdenleaf Wood, still on a rising path. We entered a field at the top, the roof of a cottage serving as the focus of our attentions over on the right. Two stiles had been provided to get us into a lane here but we spotted a way to use only one, on our left. The lane brought us out to Cobblershill Lane in the hamlet of Cobblers Hill.
We crossed the lane and followed a track past a cottage, soon entering a gateway that introduced us to a path in a tree belt, where a gradual descent began. After several minutes, however, I began to worry that anticipated landmarks were not making their appearance. I pulled out the compass (which I consulted on a number of occasions today) and this confirmed my suspicions: we were heading off at far too southerly an angle. So I called Tosh back and we had to walk back almost to Cobblers Hill. Here I could see that the guidebook instruction to look for a CW turnoff “just past” a much-extended cottage should have actually read “just opposite.” The gateway we had used had beckoned us forward along the South Bucks Way; now I could see the CW turnoff opposite the cottage. (This spot, like the one at Hampden House, would have benefited from an arrow on the right-hand side of the path.)
We now wound our way through Cockshoots Wood, where we shifted pathways several times in order to approach a field on our right. A descent began and the path became a kind of sunken lane before we reached the bottom of the wood. The way forward, in more open country, kept us moving over a variety of surfaces until we reached a bridge over the railway line we would eventually use on our return journey. The parkland fields ahead contained some interesting dark brown sheep, even some new lambs. The stiles seemed to be multiplying and I was finding it a great strain to get over these on my tired legs. At last a stile put us out on the A413 at Wendover Dean. We crossed the highway gingerly and turned north; there was no CW marker at the next turnoff, Bowood Lane, but I trusted the guidebook and so we headed east on this, soon reaching Wendover Dean Farm. I couldn’t spot the antique shop whose car park we were supposed to cross but I nevertheless persisted in using a nearby style as we began what would clearly be a major ascent ahead. Stiles served as major barriers on either side of a narrow lane that we had to cross in order to reach Durham Farm. It was while I was struggling with the first of these that I casually mentioned that I no longer felt that eleven and a half miles was possible for us today.
I had hoped to reach Wigginton today, for I knew that here there was a pub that remained open all day, and it is always nicer to have such a spot available when you are waiting around for a taxi at the end of a day’s walk. Tosh had been resistant to these plans from the start – for a number of reasons. Son Timothy was arriving for a visit tonight; she really needed to practice her clarinet for a recital on the morrow; and she had promised some Wendover friends that she would bring them along on a walk when we reached their part of the world and we would soon have passed this by. So she was delighted by the notion that we would shorten today’s activity: we still had work ahead of us anyway.
We were now standing in the junkyard of Durham Farm (euphemistically described as a “storage area” in the guidebook) and there was some ambiguity about how to proceed. Tosh wanted to turn right but I suggested a half left ascent to a beckoning stile and this proved to be the way to go. A steep ascent then lead up to a hedge stile at the top and here we stopped to puzzle out the way forward. The space in front of us was a recently ploughed hillside with no path in evidence at all. Our instructions called for a half left approach, with a white cottage on the skyline serving as a guidepost. This object could not be seen yet and so we had one of those route-finding moments in which everything seemed to conspire against us: a steep ascent, a grudging surface, and no visible object to orient our efforts. There was a kind of tractor tread in the chewy dirt and we tried this for a while, though it soon gave out. We could see the white cottage by this time, or rather two, and I opted for the left hand one as we laboriously churned our way uphill. A Labrador was excited by our visit and I disdained a direct approach through his backyard, circling a garage and pushing open two rusty gates to emerge on a lane where I could see CW signs at last.
We crossed Kings Lane and moved forward again across bare fields, though someone had ingeniously erected the suggestion of a way forward by implanting pairs of thin tree limbs at distant intervals so that if you walked between them you could approximate the required line of march. A grassy crop break was then our clue to advance in the direction of a lightning damaged tree; here we encountered some locals out for walks on their own – with much conversation of the pleasant spring weather. We tuned away from our path here, walking behind some derelict farm buildings to reach the car park of the Gate Inn at Lee Gate. There was no chance that the pub was still open at 3:45 but, for that matter, there didn’t seem to be much evidence of a pub at all here; just a giant car park and an old sign, with the remaining structures seemingly devoted to new purposes.
Promising Tosh that we hadn’t far to go now, we crossed the road and turned left on Furze Field Lane. Already we could see the cottages of Kingswood ahead of us. We crossed several more fields and entered a lane that brought us out to the village of Kingswood, with the Old Swan pub on our left. It was 4:00 and, I estimated, we had covered eight miles today.
The pub was obviously still in business, though it was also closed. There was a picnic bench out in front and I sat down here to have a look at the Wendover taxi numbers I had brought with me (I had ones for Tring and Berkhampstead as well, never having determined for sure where we would end up today). I dialed a number on my mobile but their was obviously no network coverage at this point, and I had no better luck as I wandered around a bit, phone in hand. I wasn’t too worried as I had spotted pub staff out behind and knew I could always throw myself on their mercy. Tosh, meanwhile, produced her own mobile phone and succeeded where I had failed (Orange beats Vodaphone). A cab was soon on its way and after twenty minutes or so the ubiquitous Asian driver pulled up. At first he wanted us to put newspapers under our boots (the fastidious Chilterns) but we assured him that they were quite dry.
At 4:30 we pulled up at Wendover station and, after a clerk finally showed up at the window, we purchased our tickets for Marylebone. They were much cheaper than the ones we had bought this morning and this is because our train would soon reach Amersham, an outpost of the underground system and the beginning of the free zone for us pensioners. Our train was on time at 4:42, though it was often crowded. A family opposite were on their way to see a performance of Oliver. Toby, about ten or so, was asked what French words he had learned today. “Poisson,” he replied. “What does that mean?” “I think it’s a kind of parrot,” was the response. “Are you sure it isn’t a chicken?” another adult added helpfully.
We passed opposite the other side of Wembley Stadium as Tosh departed at Harrow-on-the-Hill. I had to stand for much of the underground journey back from Marylebone, arriving home at 5:55. Fritz was returned to me an hour and a half later. I was tired, hungry and thirsty but this had been an excellent outing and I was already figuring out what the next stage should be.
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