Pete's Walks - Chesham Vale and Chesham (page 2 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.
I went straight on down the road ahead of me, for about a quarter of a mile. Almost opposite the gate for a property named Meadow Cottage on the left, I took a footpath on the right that followed a left-hand hedgerow past a number of paddocks. The far end of these paddocks is the site of an iron-age hillfort, though it’s hard to make anything out, perhaps just a slight embankment. In the corner of the paddocks the path went through some trees for a few yards, then set off across a huge arable field. I was glad there were again tracks showing the way, as the Chiltern Heritage Trail guidebook warns that the path isn’t always re-instated and I remembered having to follow the edges of the field when I came here in 2006. On eventually reaching the far side of this enormous field, close to the buildings of Moor’s Farm, I turned sharply left along a bridleway. This initially ran between tall hedgerows, then had a hedge of mature trees on my left and a wire fence on my right. After several hundred yards I reached a minor road, the B4505.
The road through Whelpley Hill
The start of the path from Whelpley Hill
The path from Whelpley Hill, starting out across the huge arable field
A couple of trees in the huge arable field - I was just struck by how one had kept so many more leaves than the other
The bridleway from Moors Farm
The bridleway from Moors Farm
The bridleway from Moors Farm, heading to the B4505
I crossed over it and turned right for about 50 yards, before turning left onto a bridleway. I didn’t recognise this bit of the route at all from when I did this walk in 2006, I remembered a short section of old road here – in fact, having read the old guidebook when I got home, my memory was correct for once, it’s just that the old road has been completely taken over by brambles and other undergrowth. I soon went past a turning for a bridleway on the left, then went straight on when the path went between two metal posts. I kept left when I then came to a fork (the right fork is the continuation of the old road, but again there was no evidence of it), the bridleway now following the bottom of a valley with fields to my left and a wood on my right. After almost half a mile I came to another fork where I went half-right, this bridleway rising gently uphill into the wood. Near the top of the slope I came to another junction where I stayed on the bridleway as it turned right. After another quarter of a mile or so, I reached a road in Ley Hill.
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The bridleway from the B4505 to Ley Hill
The bridleway from the B4505 to Ley Hill
The bridleway from the B4505 to Ley Hill
The bridleway from the B4505 to Ley Hill
The bridleway from the B4505 to Ley Hill, after I forked right
The bridleway from the B4505 to Ley Hill, after it turned right at the top of a slope
The bridleway from the B4505 approaching Ley Hill
I crossed the road and turned right – there was a complicated junction here, where three or four roads meet the one I’d just crossed at a bend. I had to cross each of them to reach the start of Kiln Lane. In 2006 the Chiltern Heritage Trail went right after a few yards, but now it continues the whole length of Kiln Lane. It soon left Ley Hill and entered Cowcroft Wood, running through the wood for several hundred yards and then turning right along a surfaced lane on the far side. I went past a church on my right, and then after a hundred yards or so turned left onto a footpath (this is where the new route rejoins the route I walked back in 2006 – I had difficulty following the old route through Cowcroft Wood in 2006, so I think the change is an improvement).
Kiln Lane at Ley Hill
Kiln Lane in Cowcroft Wood
Kiln Lane
Kiln Lane in Cowcroft Wood
The church at Tyler's Hill