Chenies

19th June

One of us is obsessed with counting steps now our walks are measured by Fitbit. In truth it’s been a while since it was as simple as just ‘going for a walk’. What with charging phones, GPS and camera batteries (and spares) as well as planning the walk for GPS and sat nav it’s become quite a logistical exercise…

We’ve walked around Chenies many times before but this route is new (map). We descend to the Chess watercress beds before climbing the other side of the valley to Sarrett. The sun is out at last and the views of the Chess Valley look timeless. Skirting around the back of Sarratt we walk on to Flaunden. There are parts of this walk which could have jumped straight out of ‘Goodnight Mr Tom‘. At 4 miles we pass The Green Dragon in Flaunden. This would make a great place to break up the walk but we press on with a Father’s Day visit to Grandad planned for later that afternoon. Returning along the Chess we pass the tomb of William Liberty, hidden amongst the long grass. A member of the family of Liberty’s of Regent Street, he was buried here in 1777 in sight of his mansion (now long gone!). The steep climb up to Chenies passes The Manor and we’re back to the car, 2hrs 50mins in total.

In case you’re interested, 16,559 steps equates to 7.7 miles…and we’ll definitely do this walk again sometime!