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This Week's Walks - Archive

Please see the Saturday Walker's Club This Week's Walks page.

This is an archive of walks done by the Saturday Walker's Club. You should only need to use this page if the SWC website is down.

Wednesday 29 May 2019

Wednesday walk Beaconsfield Circular - Gentle hills, Milton's cottage and a Quaker hamlet

Book 1 Walk 10 - Beaconsfield Circular

Length: 19 km (11.9 miles)  Shortcuts available en route
Toughness: 4 out of 10

London Marylebone: 10-13 hrs   Aylesbury service
Arrive Beaconsfield: 10-40 hrs

Return: 15-59, 16-06, 16-28, 16-36, 17-04, 17-10, 17-31, 17-38, 17-59,
18-29, 18-45, 18-58 hrs and so on.


It is some time since this very pleasant walk had a mid-week outing, so let's give it a spin today. The walk might be long(ish) in length but the going is not too demanding and it is easy to maintain a pace of 3 mph without over exerting oneself.
The terrain is varied with woods and open fields and some gentle inclines to keep you awake without subjecting you to the more challenging hills in the northern part of the Chilterns.
Approaching lunchtime you come to the western outskirts of the village of Chalfont St Giles (I must desist from calling it Chalfont St Doodah). Heading downhill towards the village you come to Miltons cottage on your right-hand side. It is well worth a brief visit. Further along you come to your suggested lunch pub, the much improved Merlins Cave.  There are other eating establishments and a good deli for picnic provisions in the village - please refer to the Directions.
After lunch you follow the dried-up River Misbourne in a southerly direction over farmland and grassy fields for more than a mile before your way swings west, to soon re-enter woods. You then have a bit of road walking before you arrive at the Friends Meeting House  (worth a visit) with its burial ground, which you walk through. Continuing up the road, gently uphill you pass the Mayflower Barn on your right-hand side You then come to the village of Jordans, which has a village store for refreshments. You can end your walk nearby by heading for Seer Green & Jordans railway station. Otherwise, your route takes you over a golf course before you return to the eastern environs of Beaconsfield, Tea options are noted in the Directions.
Today's walk is a clockwise walk. Mid-week walkers who enjoy playing with hand-held gizmos might like to take on today's challenge - following the route in an anti-clockwise direction. I've done this once - it's quite tricky, but enjoyable !
T=1.10
Walk Directions are here L=1.10

1 comment:

Marcus said...

Two came by car, most of us were on the scheduled train, and one joined us at the lunch pub - in total we numbered a baker's dozen n=13.
As for the weather, it was w=warm-and-dry-in-the-morning-wet-all-afternoon. The countryside was green and lush, the route was mud-free, and we observed some wonderful displays of buttercups and oxeye daisies in the meadows after lunch. Lambing also starts later in the south Chilterns - and we encountered some youngsters in the afternoon, always a nice sight. Lunch at Merlins Cave was very good. Five of us dined and everyone else joined us at a large table for drinks. During our enjoyable lunch break the weather had turned, from a gentle drizzle as we approached Chalfont, to light but steady rain, which necessitated the donning of waterproofs for the afternoon leg of our walk. One in our group bade farewell to us as he headed for Chorleywood, leaving the rest of us to negotiate the main walk. No-one complained at the wet weather as we were all aware we needed rain in southern England - and much more than we encountered during our walk. The rain freshened the air and we all enjoyed our walk over meadows and through more woods and finally over a golf course as we approached Beaconsfield. We found a tea shop in the town still open (just - most tea shops bizarrely close at tea time !) and although the staff were none too pleased to accommodate eight damp walkers, they warmed to us as we partook of their excellent cakes, tea and coffee. Methinks our total spend made it worthwhile their staying open for us. The railway station was a few minutes walk away and we had a short wait of fifteen minutes before our train arrived to whisk us back to London. During the journey we enjoyed some good robust banter on Brexit and the Tory candidates for the PM's job, slagging off most of the rum bunch - all good stuff ! - and a good way to end a most enjoyable day's walking in excellent SWC company.