Pete's Walks - Circular walk from Chesham (page 4 of 6)
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.
Just before the road turned right, I took a bridleway on the left that would take me to the valley of Flaunden Bottom (to my left here was Flounden End Farm, but Flaunden is the spelling for the village, valley and everything else so named hereabouts). The bridleway soon turned right and followed a fence on my right for about half a mile, before continuing between a hedge on the left and a small wood on the right. Beyond the wood it continued between neatly-trimmed hedges either side, very gradually descending into the valley of Flaunden Bottom. The bridleway turned left, immediately right, and finally left again just before it reached the road that runs through the valley. I turned right, and followed the road southwards along Flaunden Bottom.
The start of the bridleway to Flaunden Bottom
The bridleway to Flaunden Bottom
The bridleway to Flaunden Bottom
The bridleway to Flaunden Bottom
The bridleway to Flaunden Bottom
The road along Flaunden Bottom
After about a quarter of a mile I turned left along a bridleway that went uphill between paddock fences either side to reach Long Wood. It carried straight on through the wood, still quite steeply uphill. On the far side of the wood I went straight on where another bridleway came in from the right, following a now level track between a mature hedgerow on my left and a wire fence. I soon reached a track junction where I turned right along a byway, which ran southwards between hedges either side to reach a crossroads of rights of way on the edge of Balwin's Wood. Here I went straight on through the wood, now on a bridleway. It was about half a mile of almost imperceptible descending to the other side of the wood, where the bridleway turned left along the edge of the wood then curved right and dropped gently downhill to the bottom of the Chess Valley.
The bridleway to Long Wood
Long Wood
The bridleway continuing from Long Wood
The byway after I turned right, heading to Baldwin's Wood
The bridleway through Baldwin's Wood
The bridleway through Baldwin's Wood
The bridleway continuing from Baldwin's Wood down into the Chess Valley
The bridleway continuing from Baldwin's Wood down into the Chess Valley
I turned right when I reached a bridleway T-junction, and followed the new bridleway along the ever charming Chess Valley, passing the isolated tomb of William Liberty in the hedgerow on my right, with the remains of the old Flaunden church hidden in bushes across the pasture to my left a little further on. After almost half a mile I reached a minor road on the edge of Latimer, where I went a short way right and then turned left at the triangular green, where I stopped on a seat to eat my lunch.
The path through the Chess Valley
The path through the Chess Valley
The path through the Chess Valley, approaching Latimer
The triangular green at Latimer