About my walk
I first walked the Chiltern Heritage Trail in September 2006, but this journal is for when I walked it again in Autumn 2017, when I followed the slightly modified route in the new guidebook published by the Chiltern Society. As with most of the Long-distance paths I have walked, I did it ‘both ways’, each day walking 6-8 miles along the route, then turning round and following the same route back to my car. I thus walked a total of 104 miles, and enjoyed the scenery in both directions. Previously I have always just recorded my walks in one direction (the same one as the guide book), but this time I decided to record them in both directions. This journal follows my progress in the anti-clockwise direction round the route (the opposite direction to that followed in the guidebook), but you can also read my journal covering the route in the clockwise direction. It took me seven days to do the walk, spread between September and November 2017 - there was a gap of a few weeks in the middle caused by a temporary closure of a number of rights of way near Little Missenden (some overhead power lines were being worked on). I followed the example of the guide book by starting and finishing in Chesham.
The seven walks in this 'anti-clockwise' journal are actually in reverse chronological order (so Day 1 was actually the seventh day in 2017 that I walked part of the Chiltern Heritage Trail). On each of the seven days I walked the route, I went about seven miles clockwise, then turned round and did the same section anti-clockwise (except for Day 4, when I chose to walk anti-clockwise first). The clockwise walks followed on from each other (i.e. Day 1 went from Chenies to Chesham, then Day 2 went from Chenies to Chalfont St Peter, etc.). If I put the anti-clockwise walks in chronological order they would be disjointed and wouldn't make much sense as Day 1 would go from Chenies to Chesham, Day 2 from Chalfont St Peter to Chenies, etc).
The byway passing the former ostrich farm, near Chesham Vale (Day 2)
All the mileages I give for the seven walks are fairly rough estimates, based on the figures given in the original guidebook and on the measurements from the Google maps I produced for each walk. My seven walks started and finished in the same places as when I followed the original route in 2006, except that on Day 1 I walked maybe a third of a mile less, finishing where the Chiltern Heritage Trail meets the road through Chesham Vale, and so Day 2 was correspondingly longer.
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).