Pete's Walks- Chenies and the Chess Valley (page 4 of 4)
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.
The path led on to a cottage and continued along its drive to a lane, New Road. The path continued on the other side, along the edge of a field and then bearing half-right past some trees to another footbridge over the River Chess. Across the bridge I turned right, to head back along the other side of the river (this was the second new path of the day for me). The path stayed close to the river and soon ran past a water works on my left. It ended at lane (the continuation of New Road which I crossed a little earlier, but here called North Lane, according to the OS map).
The path continuing after I crossed the lane called New Road
The path approaching the footbridge
The footbridge over the river Chess
Looking back along the river Chess from the footbridge
The footpath going back along the other side of the river
The footpath going back along the other side of the river
The footpath continued across the lane, running along the left side of a long empty pasture beside the river (now over to my right). The path continued on past a marshy area of reeds on my right to return to Sarratt Bottom. At a path crossroads here I turned left - usually when I've taken this path I've then immediately taken a path forking right from it, but today I just kept straight on, along part of the Chiltern Way (the only time I've used this path was when I did that walk in 2005 and 2007). The path ran for some distance through the middle of a long thin wood, then rose uphill through a field to reach another wood, Wyburn Wood. Beyond this wood it ran between a fence and a hedge to reach a road on the edge of Chenies, where I turned right to return to my parked car.
The long pasture, after crossing North Lane (which becomes New Road)
View towards (or over) Sarratt Bottom
Back at Sarratt Bottom, but on the other side of the river - this is just before I turned left onto the path to Chenies
The path from Sarratt Bottom to Chenies
The path from Sarratt Bottom to Chenies
The path from Sarratt Bottom to Chenies
The path from Sarratt Bottom to Chenies, entering Wyburn Wood
The path from Sarratt Bottom to Chenies, leaving Wyburn Wood and approaching the road
Chenies
This was a really nice walk on a beautiful day (ridiculously warm for December!). I think the Chess is the most attractive of the (very few) river valleys there are in the Chilterns and I always enjoy walking here (I'm amazed that it's three years since I've been here). Being a post-Christmas Bank Holiday there were a lot of other people taking short walks, so I saw far more people than I normally do. The paths were a bit muddy in places, but it was only the section after Chenies Bottom that was really a problem (and even there there were wooden fences either side to grab when I slipped). The route was very flat, with only one real uphill which came right at the end, but this was compensated for by the number of good views over and along the Chess Valley throughout so much of the walk.