Pete's Walks - Chesham Vale and Chesham (page 1 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.

Google map of the walk

I did this walk of about 7 miles on Saturday, 25th November 2017. It was the seventh and last of the seven walks I will do along the Chiltern Heritage Trail. I had the same problem as I had when I walked the Chiltern Heritage Trail in 2006 in that there was nowhere convenient to park in Chesham Vale, where I got to on my last walk, so instead I parked in Ashley Green and started by following the route from there back to Chesham Vale. It was almost 10.10am when I turned round at the end of a track in Chesham Vale, opposite the Black Horse pub (grid reference SP 963046) and started off back towards Ashley Green. There were paddocks to the right of the track initially, before it ran for a while with stout hedgerows either side. The track then turned right, going fairly gently uphill. It soon passed some nice beeches on my right, but generally this bridleway ran between hedges containing much holly. The bridleway turned left near the top of the slope, before going right to reach Flamstead Farm. Here it turned left, soon running between holly-infested hedges again to finally end when it reached Hog Lane in Ashley Green. I turned right, and followed the lane to reach the main road through Ashley Green.

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The start of the bridleway from Chesham Vale to Ashley Green

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The bridleway from Chesham Vale to Ashley Green/p>

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The bridleway from Chesham Vale to Ashley Green

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The bridleway from Chesham Vale to Ashley Green, approaching Flamstead Farm

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The bridleway continuing from Flamstead Farm to Ashley Green

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Hog Lane, Ashley Green

I crossed the road and took a stony track crossing the green the other side, which passed a wooden shelter on my left. The track continued between two houses, then the footpath left the track by going half-right through some low bushes. It then ran between fences for several hundred yards, before following the left edge of a meadow. On reaching a path junction in a corner of the meadow, I forked half-right, following the edge of the meadow a short distance before the path crossed a huge arable field – as usual, the path hadn’t been re-instated after ploughing and I just had to make my own way across, aiming just right of a tall electricity pylon. As I neared the pylon I could see the gate in the far hedgerow that I needed to get to.

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The shelter on the green, Ashley Green

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The start of the path from Ashley Green to Whelpley Hill

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The path from Ashley Green to Whelpley Hill

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The path from Ashley Green to Whelpley Hill

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The path from Ashley Green to Whelpley Hill, where it had not been re-instated (i aimed just right of the pylon in the centre of the photo)

The path then went half-left, rising uphill diagonally across a huge and irregularly shaped paddock. It passed the end of a row of trees on my left about halfway up the slope. Beyond the gate or stile (near a large tree) on the far side, I reached a bend in a bridleway where I went straight on (rather than left). The bridleway ran between hedges for a short distance, then passed Sale’s Farm on my right – the map shows a bridlway junction here but I didn’t notice it, I just went straight on along what was now a footpath, across a very large ploughed field (tractor tracks showed the way across). The path then ran a few hundred yards between fences to reach a mobile home park in Whelpley Hill. The path went straight on here, crossing two or three streets between the mobile homes to emerge by a road junction.

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The path from Ashley Green to Whelpley Hill, in the large paddock

The path from Ashley Green to Whelpley Hill, in the large paddock

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The path from Ashley Green to Whelpley Hill, passing Sale's Farm

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The path from Ashley Green to Whelpley Hill, continuing from Sale's Farm

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Looking back along the path from Ashley Green to Whelpley Hill, from near the mobile home site

The path through the mobile home site at Whelpley Hill