Pete's Walks - The Chiltern Way
If you are considering walking this route yourself, please see my disclaimer. You may also like to see these notes about the maps and GPX files.
Day 13 1/7/05 Penn Bottom to Burroughs Grove (7.8 miles each way)
Parked in small car park in Crown Lane, Penn Bottom.
This was a much nicer walk than I’d expected. Looking at the maps in the guidebook, I thought long stretches of this walk would be through built-up areas on the outskirts of High Wycombe, interspersed with the crossings of several major roads. It was nowhere near as bad as I’d feared, and was a very enjoyable walk. Rather than the built-up areas, what was really noticeable about the walk were the numerous stretches through a variety of woodland, far more than on any other walk so far. The woods included some of the beech woods that the Chilterns are noted for, in particular between Loudwater and Flackwell Heath.
Again, I was fortunate with the weather. It was cloudier and greyer than the previous night’s forecast had suggested, but it stayed dry apart from a few spots of rain for a minute or so as I was getting back to Sheepridge, and then rained again briefly as I drove home.
The walk started along a lengthy farm track through fields, strangely diverting into a wood for a couple of hundred yards before returning to the track and on to the village of Penn. From there, more paths through a wood and a meadow led to the hamlet of Penn Beacon (like Ivinghoe Beacon, etc., named after the beacons prepared for the Spanish Armada). From a field path near there, a view opened out over Burnham Beeches all the way to the North Downs, which appeared as a grey shadow on the horizon. More paths through fields and woods led on to Wycombe Heights Golf Course (two 18-hole courses and a par 3 course, set on a very steep slope - looked a really good place to play golf!), through which the Chiltern Way descended to Loudwater. Here it crossed the two branches of the river Wye, and then took a steep path up through beech woods to go under a tunnel below the M40 and on to Flackwell Heath. From there, a field path led downhill to Sheepridge, a hamlet with a few houses and a pub. A narrow path between fences led on from there, and then after crossing a grassy meadow, the longest stretch of woodland walking so far began. Bloom Wood was a real pleasure to walk through as it contained a variety of different trees rather than being similar throughout. A very steep descent led to a lane, which was followed for about 300 yards, before the woods were entered again before another lane and a field crossing led to Burroughs Grove.
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View over the Wye valley towards Flackwell Heath from the golf course (photo taken 20/04/07)
I considered also doing the unofficial short-cut, mentioned in the guide book, which is basically just a crossing of the A404 dual carriageway, but when I got to the side of the road and saw how busy and fast the traffic was, I decided that it would be silly risking my life crossing it just to turn round and do it again. The road was pretty much like a motorway, and the gap in the central reservation didn’t look a very safe place to stand while waiting to cross the other carriageway.
Today was a ‘low energy’ day. Although I was quite keen to do the walk, right from the outset I felt like it was harder work than usual. I have days like this occasionally, for no apparent reason, it’s probably just psychological. At 15.6 miles, it was slightly longer than most walks I’ve done so far, and with time lost due to going wrong in 3 or 4 places (just due to carelessness, and never having to retrace more than 100 yards or so) it was lunchtime almost as soon as I turned round at Burroughs Grove. I usually like to have made a decent start on the return leg before stopping for lunch. So I had a long walk in the afternoon, but I managed it OK, despite struggling a bit on one or two uphill sections.
The journey home took an hour, whereas after the previous walk (where the journey was a similar length and 90% the same route) it had only taken 45 minutes. The difference was that I was travelling 30 minutes later, plus the fact people tend to finish work earlier on a Friday, which meant that I hit the ‘rush hour’ and the traffic was really bad through Amersham and Chesham. Unfortunately, it’s probably going to be the same for the next few walking days as well.
Total distance: 94.4 miles each way (very close to half-way!)