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Amersham Circular via Chalfont St Giles Walk

An easy walk along gentle hills above the Misbourne valley to the attractive village of Chalfont St Giles.

Buckinghamshire Chilterns Circular
Amersham Martyrs Memorial Amersham round walk
Amersham Martyrs Memorial

Amersham round walk

Nov-09 • moontiger on Flickr

book3 swcwalks walk36 4087361164

Autumn colours Amersham round walk
Autumn colours

Amersham round walk

Nov-09 • moontiger on Flickr

book3 swcwalks walk36 4087364224

Autumn colours Amersham round walk
Autumn colours

Amersham round walk

Nov-09 • moontiger on Flickr

book3 swcwalks walk36 4087365524

Autumn colours Amersham round walk
Autumn colours

Amersham round walk

Nov-09 • moontiger on Flickr

book3 swcwalks walk36 4086611033

Spindle Quite a fine example. Amersham round walk
Spindle

Quite a fine example. Amersham round walk

Nov-09 • moontiger on Flickr

book3 swcwalks walk36 4086612603

Length 13.5km (8.4 miles)
Toughness 3 out of 10
OS Maps Landranger Map 165, 175. Explorer 172
Walk Notes A pleasant and undemanding Chilterns walk goes out along one side of the Misbourne valley and back along the other. Amersham is at the end of the Metropolitan Line , so this walk can be done with an Oyster Card / Zone 1-9 Travelcard.

Halfway round, there are several possible lunchtime pubs in the attractive town of Chalfont St Giles. A recent walk report on the usual place, Merlins Cave, wasn't particularly encouraging and you might want to try a small pub called the Fox and Hounds on the lane leading out of the town.

In Old Amersham, Seasons Cafe Deli (formerly Carringtons) is worth seeking out for tea; there are also several pubs in this part of the town but nothing much up by the station.
Transport There are two trains an hour from London Marylebone, and four Metropolitan Line tubes an hour from Baker Street to Amersham.
Saturday Walkers Club

Take the train closest to 10:30 from Marylebone or Metropolitan tube closest to 10:00 from Baker Street

Amersham is in zone 9 but check at Marylebone or Baker St. to see if Freedom Passes and over-60 Concessionary Oyster Passes include off-peak trips to Amersham by rail or underground.
Lunch

Lunch options in Chalfont St Giles

Merlin's Cave : High St. Tel: 01494 875101, www.merlinscave.org – mixed reviews in Spring 2013 – good value or ‘ service was very unfriendly and the food was only so so’ and avoid the coffee

The Crown : High St. Tel: 01794 875156, www.the-crown-csg.co.uk – light bar looking out on 2 sides onto street, more up-market – check prices on website – excellent main courses, superb coffee and a few tables outside

The Feathers : High St. Tel: 01794 580705 - bar snacks

Fox and Hounds : Silver Hill. Tel: 01494 872151 on start of afternoon’s walks – reputed not to welcome groups of walkers
Tea

Tea options in Amersham Old Town

  • Seasons Café Deli : 6 Market Square. Tel: 01494 728070
  • Feast : 13 Hill Avenue is another tea option in the street opposite the station but it may have changed its name. Useful if not much daylight left as you get to Seasons Cafe Deli and you don't want to do the last stretch through the wood in the dark.
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National Rail: 03457 48 49 50 • Traveline (bus times): 0871 200 22 33 (12p/min) • TFL (London) : 0343 222 1234

Version

Jan-21 DAC Ros

Copyright © Saturday Walkers Club. All Rights Reserved. No commercial use. No copying. No derivatives. Free with attribution for one time non-commercial use only. www.walkingclub.org.uk/site/license.shtml

Walk Directions

The directions for this walk are also in a PDF (link above) which you can download on to a Kindle, tablet, or smartphone.

  1. Leave Amersham station by the ticket office and turn left to go down to the main road, the A416.
  2. Turn left to go under the railway bridge and cross over the road.
  3. Immediately after passing under the bridge, take the footpath on the right, heading west alongside the railway embankment.
  4. Where a wood appears on your left, turn left and take the left-hand path into the trees, continuing along it for 300m.
  5. Just before the end of the wood, at a path T-junction with houses out to the left, turn right for 50m and then turn left to go out of the wood into a large field. Turn left and follow the path downhill along the left-hand field edge, with Old Amersham downhill away to the right.
  6. In 250m the path curves to the left and passes a memorial to the Amersham martyrs. Continue along the field edge for another 50m.
  7. Turn left onto a signposted footpath and follow it down to the A416; cross over and continue up the footpath opposite.
  8. In 200m go straight across a path junction, then turn right 25m after this into the end of a cul-de-sac.
  9. Follow the road as it curves left and then almost immediately take a path between houses on the right.
  10. Go across a residential road and continue on the path opposite, which soon leads into another short residential road.
  11. At a T-junction, turn left and then bear left onto a footpath (or cut across a small green on your left to do this); this fenced path leads down to a residential road.
  12. Cross the road and turn right for 25m, then turn left down a narrow unmarked footpath which again leads into a short road; continue up to a T-junction and turn right.
  13. In 60m take a footpath on the left and follow this out of the housing estate and down to a main road, the A404.
  14. Cross this main road carefully and take the left-hand of two footpaths opposite through a belt of trees into a large field.
  15. Continue ahead in the same direction as the path, 80°, for at least 600m, across the field and continuing in the same direction across a playing field, past a footpath marker post in the middle of the field, passing large College buildings on your left, up to a small kissing gate in a hedge.
  16. In the next field, do not follow the path along the left-hand field edge but head diagonally across the field, still heading 80°.
  17. In 250m, go through another tiny kissing gate, into the next field and continue along its right-hand edge, 110°.
  18. Continue in the same direction for a further 500m through kissing gates and across a stile, following yellow arrows and passing an industrial complex with tall chimneys on the left. The path continues past a high fence and houses and comes out onto a lane at a bend.
  19. Go ahead across the lane to a sign-posted stile and cross it, ignoring the footpath to the right. Continue along the left-hand edge of a large field and come out at a lane (this is Coke's Farm Lane, named at the far end). Go straight on, along the lane, passing some large houses on the right, to reach a minor road.
  20. Cross this road and turn right along the grass verge and continue along it for 150m.
  21. Where the road bends to the right, just after ‘Oakwell House’ / 'Beechwood Lodge', take a fenced-in footpath, indicated by a foot-path sign above a speed limit sign, going straight on, soon coming out onto a golf course.
  22. Continue ahead downhill and slightly to your left, between the bunkers, towards the edge of some trees, and then along a path into the trees.
  23. Continue along the edge of the golf course for about 1km, on this path just inside the trees, with the course on your right, turning left once or twice as indicated to avoid going onto the course.
  24. In more detail - ignore white arrows left and right but keep just inside the edge of the wood, with the golf course visible to your right. Eventually, the path rises gently past a row of posts with white painted tops until you can see a pylon, about 200m ahead. At this point the path in the wood turns left, but you turn right to emerge from the wood to go downhill on the edge of the course, with a fence / hedge on your left, down to a path into a copse.
  25. Where the copse ends, continue downhill, past a bench on the edge of the last tee and continue downhill to a green golf course sign and a gate out to the edge of a busy main road, the A413.
  26. Cross this road carefully, turn left and after 10m on the wide grassy verge, turn right onto a signposted footpath into a field.
  27. Head slightly left towards a wooden footbridge 100m away (or go round the field edge to reach it).
  28. Cross the bridge and continue along a path between a wood and a fence up to a path junction.
  29. Turn left at the junction onto the South Bucks Way and follow this for about 1km coming out at a house called The Old Mill, formerly Chalfont Mill.
  30. Join a road for a short distance past the mill and then continue ahead for another 600m on the South Bucks Way to reach Chalfont St Giles for lunch [after 7.5km].
  31. Picnics can be eaten by the duck pond, or in the churchyard – through an arch opposite The Crown. Lunch options are listed above - Merlins Cave by the green next to the duck pond, the more up-market Crown or The Feathers next door.
  32. After lunch, the onward route goes along the side of The Crown, steeply up Up Corner, which becomes Silver Hill at the start of a green on the left, on past the Fox and Hounds pub, soon continuing straight ahead on Dodds Lane where Silver Hill forks off to the left and becomes Bottrells Lane.
  33. At a crossroads, continue straight ahead onto a lane, marked as a public footpath, and follow this for 750m as it winds past a few houses.
  34. The lane then bends to the right and goes past the second entrance to Hill Farm House . Ignore a lane to the right and after another 15m, as the lane bends to the left past a metal gate, go straight ahead, to the right of a double telegraph pole on a narrow enclosed and potentially very muddy path .
  35. Continue downhill to a lane and turn right. After about 200m turn right past Upper Bottom House Farm on the left and an Equestrian Centre on the right.
  36. In 50m take the sign-posted footpath on the left which leads through the farmyard of Upper Bottom House Farm, up some steps past farm buildings and then along the left-hand edge of a field, for 25m then turning right to keep to the left-hand edge of the field uphill past a sparse row of trees, up to a dilapidated stile. (The farmer advised me to take a short cut from the top of the steps diagonally up the field along wide cart tracks to the dilapidated stile.)
  37. In the next field bear left to go along the left-hand field edge, veering right at the top to leave the field via a small metal gate, a little way in from the corner.
  38. Follow the path half-right across the next field, heading north and soon going under pylons.
  39. At the end of this large field, by a post with a white-painted top, turn right for 15m and then left to follow the path along the right hand edge of the field, direction 320 degrees, to an eventually visible gap at the corner of the field, with another white-topped post next to it, and then continue in the same direction for another 550m through more large fields to a gate into a wood.
  40. Follow the path through a corner of the wood, still in the same direction, 320 degrees, and emerge then heading diagonally, in the same direction, down several more fields and eventually under the A413.
  41. Go through a small field onto a lane which soon comes out onto the A355 opposite Tesco's (which has a Starbucks coffee shop) and Fox's Outdoor shop.
  42. Turn left and cross over the roundabout road junction to go along Old Amersham's High Street, with St Mary's church visible up ahead on the right.
  43. In 250m, where another road goes off to the left, the onward route is to cross over the High Street and turn right onto a path leading into the churchyard; if you want to stop for tea, cross over the road going off to the left and Seasons Café Deli is just ahead in the parade of shops on the other side of this road junction.
  44. After tea, allowing at least 20 mins to get uphill to the station, come out of Seasons Café, cross the High Street and take the path into the churchyard, passing to the right of the church. In 75m bear right onto a tarmac path, alongside the River Misbourne, up to a path T-junction.
  45. Turn left and then follow the tarmac path round to the right as it climbs, past allotments on the left, through a large open area towards a wood.
  46. Inside the wood, continue in the same direction to stay near its left-hand edge, with a road just beyond the left edge of the wood
  47. As you near the end of the wood, bear right onto a short cut which leads down to a tarmac path at the bottom of the railway embankment.
  48. Turn right and follow this out to the A416, retracing your outward route, left under the railway bridge and turn right up to the station.
© Saturday Walkers Club. All Rights Reserved. No commercial use. No copying. No derivatives. Free with attribution for one time non-commercial use only. www.walkingclub.org.uk/site/license.shtml