Pete's Walks - Chesham and Chesham Vale (page 3 of 3)
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.
I then passed Sale’s Farm on my left - somewhere here the path became a bridleway at a junction (that I failed to notice). I went straight on, the bridleway soon running between tall hedges either side so that I had no views at all. Where the bridleway turned right, I went over a stile on the left, and went half-left across a huge paddock that occupied most of a hillside. The path initially aimed to pass just left of the end of a line of trees, then continued downhill in the same direction to reach a gate in the hedgrow at the valley bottom. The path then crossed another huge arable field on the opposite hillside – as seems normal here, there was no sign of the path so I headed just left of an electricity pylon and then headed towards the rightmost of some treetops I could just see at the top of the slope, As I got nearer to the trees and the slope levelled out, I saw that in fact I needed to go a little further right than the trees (I spotted a white-topped post). The path then followed the edge of a meadow down to a corner, where I went left at a path junction to continue along another side of the meadow with another hedge to my right. Beyond this meadow the path continued between fences either side past another field on my left. Through a kissing-gate the path then ran a few yards through bushes to a roughly surfaced track, where I went a short way left to reach the green at Ashley Green.
The bridleway continuing from Sale's Farm
The path to Ashley Green crossing the very large paddock
The path to Ashley Green crossing the very large paddock
The path to Ashley Green crossing the large field where it hadn't been re-instated - it goes just left of the pylon, then aims just right of the tree-tops on the skyline
The path to Ashley Green
The path to Ashley Green
The shelter on the green at Ashley Green
Note: I had parked at Ashley Green this morning (as there was nowhere suitable to park in Chesham Vale, where I got to on my previous walk along the Chiltern Heritage Trail), so I walked the section I am about to describe then, before turning round and following the route clockwise back to Chesham.
I crossed the main road that runs through Ashley Green (from Berkhamsted to Chesham) and went down Hog Lane. After two or three hundred yards I turned left down a bridleway, a Chiltern Heritage Trail sign pointing the way as usual. The very straight bridleway ran between tall hedges with much holly in them for a while, then continued between fences separating paddocks to reach Flamstead Farm, where it turned right. It soon turned left, running between hedgerows once more, before turning right and slowly dropping downhill. It passed a nice group of beeches on the left just before reaching the bottom of the slope, where it turned left. It then ran between more hedges and then fences for a few hundred yards before ending when it reached a lane in Chesham Vale, opposite the Black Horse pub.
Hog Lane, Ashley Green
The bridleway from Ashley Green to Chesham Vale
The bridleway from Ashley Green to Chesham Vale, approaching Flamstead Farm
The bridleway from Ashley Green to Chesham Vale
The bridleway from Ashley Green to Chesham Vale
The bridleway from Ashley Green to Chesham Vale
The bridleway from Ashley Green to Chesham Vale
The bridleway from Ashley Green to Chesham Vale
The bridleway from Ashley Green to Chesham Vale
This was a good walk, on a cold but otherwise very nice late November day. There were a few small ups and downs, and a good mix of woods and fields, with just two or three villages visited. The section through Chesham was very brief, having been shortened since I did this route in 2006 (when the start and finish of the Chiltern Heritage Trail was at the other end of the High Street). There were a few nice views, though the best were probably those looking back over Chesham from very near the start of the walk.