2nd December
It’s been a few weeks since we were last out walking. As if to make up for it, this is a long walk. We’re filling in the area between Chesham and Berkhamsted. In my mental map these towns are far apart…one is on a quiet branch line at the end of the Metropolitan Line and the other on the West Coast main line. In reality, it’s a matter of miles. Nevertheless today they seem to be separated by plenty of hills and valleys.
As we leave Cholesbury the rain is billowing across the Common. Thankfully, by the time we approach Berkhamsted the weather has improved and candyfloss clouds chase us across the fields. Turning south we strike out for Whelpley Hill and Bovingdon. We’ve been through Whelpley Hill before and once again we walk through the middle of a mobile home park for the retired…unnoticed and unremarked, high house prices and poor pensions are quietly changing corners of the Chilterns.
Bovingdon airfield really is a desolate place. Left over from WW2 bombing missions, today the airfield looks tired and unloved. It’s best know as the home of car boot sales, a massive hanger in which Dancing On Ice is filmed and a rather foreboding prison. Thankful to leave it behind, we turn for home by way of Ashley Green and a long walk along the edge of White Hawridge Bottom. It’s mid-afternoon by the time we wearily trudge into Cholesbury, a 14.4 mile tour of the Chiltern dry valleys, near Chesham.
Cholesbury & Whelmley Hill picture gallery (more pictures on Flickr):
Distance: 14.4 miles ; Difficulty: Moderate
Coordinates for Postcode: HP5 2UH
Cholesbury walk profile
Where Angells Tread! 