About the Chiltern Heritage Trail
The Chiltern Heritage Trail is a 52-mile circular walk through a section of the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire. It was created by Chiltern District Council in 2000, with help from The Ramblers, as part of their Millennium celebrations. It visits the towns of Chesham and Amersham and passes through all fourteen parishes within the District. The walk is set amongst the fields and woods of the beautiful rolling Chiltern Hills, and visits numerous picturesque villages, many of which have points of historic interest.
As part of Chiltern District Council’s Millennium celebrations, various artworks were created and located at various points along the route. These included a mosaic, a new Lych gate for a church, wooden and metal seats, and other carvings. Sadly, some of these no longer seemed to be present when I first walked this route in September 2006.
The Chiltern Heritage Trail has now been taken over by the Chiltern Society, who published a new guidebook in 2016 (it can be bought here). The original guidebook published by Chiltern District Council had gone out of print - on on occasion I lent my copy to someone who contacted me via this web site as they couldn't get hold of one. There are a few minor alterations to the route in the new guidebook (which I have tried to remember to mention in this journal).
Approaching Bottom Lane (Day 1)
The area covered by the Chiltern Heritage Trail is on the OS Explorer maps 172 and 181, although the route is not shown as a long-distance path (I know some local maps have recently been re-published, so it may now be on the maps now, although the route modifications made by the Chiltern Society are unlikely to be).
The Chiltern Heritage Trail can be walked in either a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction (it is waymarked in both directions), and can be started and finished on any point of its circular route. However, the guide book starts and finishes the walk in the centre of Chesham, following the route in a clockwise direction. This journal is for when I walked the Chiltern Heritage Trail anti-clockwise in Autumn 2017.
Click here to see a very rough map of the Chiltern Heritage Trail (but only if you have already read my disclaimer and notes regarding maps).