Pete's Walks - Chenies and Latimer (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.
I did this circular walk of about 4.6 miles on Sunday, 30th January 2022. It was a new route for me, including one or two paths I'd never walked before.
From the village green in Chenies (Grid Reference TQ017984), I set off about 11.25am and began by following a footpath along the drive to Mountwood Farm (this starts on the opposite side of the green to the gravel drive going to the church and Chenies Manor). After following the very straight drive eastwards for almost half a mile, the path skirted round Mountwood Farm and then I turned left (through a wooden kissing-gate in a hedge) onto a path I'd not walked before. This crossed a paddock or pasture to reach Mount Wood, bearing slightly right on entering the wood and gradually dropping downhill into the Chess Valley.
The start of the drive to Mountwood Farm
Approaching Mountwood Farm
View left across the Chess Valley
The path passing Mountwood Farm
The path after I turned left immediately after Mountwood Farm
The path descending through Mount Wood
The path descending through Mount Wood
On reaching a path T-junction at the bottom of the slope I turned left, immediately leaving the wood and reaching a bend in Holloway Lane, where I turned right. I'd not walked this short stretch of the lane before, which soon brought me to a footbridge over the charming River Chess.
This where I left Mount Wood, and turned right along Holloway Lane
Holloway Lane
The footbridge over the River Chess
The River Chess, from the footbridge
Looking right from the footbridge (there are commercial Water Cress beds where the buildings are)
View left from the footbridge
Across the footbridge, I turned left along a path that headed west along the valley, with the first section on a boardwalk (there was still a little frost here, though it felt much warmer than the forecast 5-7C). After a quarter of a mile or so I passed a couple of information boards for the Frogmore Meadows nature reserve (I remember unsuccessfully looking for a particular type of orchid here one time), and then went through a small bit of woodland.
The path heading west along the Chess Valley, towards Frogmore Meadows nature reserve
An Oak tree, by the path heading west along the Chess Valley
The path heading west along the Chess Valley
The path heading west along the Chess Valley