Pete's Walks - Amersham Old Town and Little Missenden(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.
The path then went slightly left across a ploughed field - the path hadn't been re-instated, but there were a few footprints I could follow (including my own from this morning). The path went just left of a small copse in the middle of the field, then continued to a corner of the field where it entered a wood. Here I was initially in West Wood, but at some point in the hundred yards or so I was in the wood it became Coleshill Larches. The path then continued alongside a hedgerow on my left and after a third of a mile or so brought me into the village of Winchmore Hill, opposite the Methodist chapel. I turned left, and after a hundred yards came to a crossroads where I turned right. I followed this road, with a playing field to my left, until I reached a seat on the right where I stopped to eat my packed lunch (if I had a list of the sites where I have most frequently stopped for lunch on my walks, this seat would at least be in the top four or five places).
The path from Coleshill to Winchmore Hill (the people you can see have gone slightly wrong, the path goes across the field to pass left of the copse on the right)
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The path from Coleshill to Winchmore Hill
The path from Coleshill to Winchmore Hill, in West Wood
The path from Coleshill to Winchmore Hill
The path from Coleshill to Winchmore Hill
Winchmore Hill (I followed this road to a seat (to the right of the road), where I ate my packed lunch - it's a spot I've had my lunch break many times before)
Lunch over, I forked right across the grass to the right of the road (aiming just right of a brick bus shelter) to reach another road. Across this a footpath continued between hedges (there were allotments over the hedge on my left), and then I went straight on across an arable field to reach a wood, Tragoe's Plantation. The path continued just inside the wood, which at some point became Priestlands Wood. On leaving the wood, I went slightly right, crossing part of a large arable field. The path then went a short way between bushes and a garden hedge on the right, continuing down a gravel drive between several properties to reach a road in Penn Street. I crossed over and visited the war memorial on the green (a stage in the Chiltern Heritage Trail guidebook ends at the memorial), then returned to the road and followed it beside the green on my right. At a road junction I turned right, following the road (again beside the green) to reach an entrance to Penn Wood.
Near the start of the path from Winchmore Hill to Penn Street
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The path from Winchmore Hill to Penn Street
The path from Winchmore Hill to Penn Street, just inside Tragoe's Plantation
The path from Winchmore Hill to Penn Street, now in Priestlands Wood
The path continuing from the woods to Penn Street
Penn Street, after I turned right at the road junction by the end of the green
A couple were having their photos taken here by a professional photographer (I guess they'd just got engaged), and I noticed an interesting line of fungi here too. The Chiltern Heritage Trail takes the left-most of two paths here, and I now had a very pleasant half-mile stroll through the attractive wood. The autumn colours on the trees were pretty good, but a lot of trees had obviously lost a lot of leaves in Storm Brian last weekend, so the colours weren't quite as spectacular as they might have been They were still good enough for me to want to stop and take a photo every few yards anyway!
Line of fungi near the entrance to Penn Wood
Penn Wood
Penn Wood
Penn Wood
Penn Wood
Penn Wood
Penn Wood