Saturday, 13 April 2013

Walking in the Chilterns

A proper snowflake!
The Chilterns are an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty just north of London.  In fact the Metropolitan underground line (one of my favourite lines) goes all the way north to them.  They have been in the news a bit lately because of the proposed HS2, which is a high-speed railway between London and Birmingham that the government is thinking of building.  The proposal goes right through the Chilterns, in fact right between the two towns we walked from, Great Missenden and Amersham.

Now that's what I call outstanding natural beauty
I'm kind of all for high speed rail, since having spent a year living in France I have been massively spoilt by their TGV system.  And now having been out to the Chilterns I'm not convinced that it really is an area of outstanding natural beauty, since there is already this massive, high voltage power line running through it.  We ended up crossing under this power line 3 or 4 times, it really was a bit of a feature of the walk.  I wonder if they couldn't just set up the train line under this power line, since that part of the Chilterns is kind of already destroyed, and if they just stick in some transformers every now and again then the train already has all the power it needs.

One of the main reasons for doing this walk was that it was still winter and this was meant to be an easier one in winter.  At this point in the year we were sure all the snow was over, it being February, and yet as the train pulled into the station for the start of the walk, it started to snow.  And actually since it was still snowing a week ago, in early April, apparently snow in February isn't that unexpected.

Since it was either snowing or raining on and off the whole day it added an extra degree of freakiness to crossing under these massive power lines.  As you got closer you could swear there was a river or a waterfall nearby, and it wasn't until you were standing under them that you realised that sound was from the power lines.  You don't really expect electricity to make noise.  The other really weird thing was that under the power lines the snow was turned to rain.  I'm not sure what happens to birds if they land on these wires, if they have that effect on snow.  But it kind of puts paid this idea of great natural beauty.  There were moments were I could swear we had wandered into the apocalypse, or had somehow woken up in Fallout, which is a video game set in a post nuclear war wasteland.

St Peter and St Paul's church
Perhaps the people in living in the Chilterns need to get out to Scotland and Wales to see some true areas of outstanding natural beauty, or even the peaks district, if they hate foreigners.  And you know if we had HS2, it would make getting out to the peaks district so much easier.  But then perhaps we were in the wrong areas and maybe there are some truly nice spots in the Chilterns.

This walk was a bit of a church walk, the first church we came across was built mainly in the 14th century and is the Parish Church of St Peter and St Paul.  It is located on a hill outside the town of Great Missenden.  When it was built there was no town, just farms, and so having it on the top of a hill made it a good focal point.  I don't know what the mounds of dirt are on the lawn, but I hope they are mole holes.

Further on was the St John the Baptist church in Little Missenden.  This was an awesome church, and one of the most welcoming ones I've ever seen.  I don't know what the etiquette of churches are, are you just allowed to walk inside them at any time, or do they have set opening hours, or is it trespassing if you aren't of that parish.  So I'm always a bit wary or just walking right into a church.  But this one actually had a sign on the door welcoming people, and asking them to just switch off the lights when they were done.  I thought that was how it should be done really.

St Christopher in Little Missenden
This church was super old, part of it was built in the 10th century and inside there is this massive 13th century mural of St Christopher carrying the Christ child across the waters.  This is a great church, if you are in the area, pop in for a visit.  You can still see red Roman bricks that were used by the Anglo-Saxons in the initial construction.  And the mural is pretty cool.  There is also a mural of the parish, when all the fields were actually given names.  Man, the history in this country!
Snowdrops - not realising there is another 2 months of winter to come
A very attractive graveyard
This church was also pretty because it was surrounded by snowdrops.  They didn't seem to realise that spring was still at least 2 months away, because they were flowering like crazy around here.  It was one of the more attractive graveyards I have seen.

One thing I won't forget about this walk was the incredible amount of mud.  It has been a rather wet winter, and this region seems to have quite clay-ey soils.  At some points I thought I should have brought my micro-spikes along.  You would end up with maybe a kilo of extra weight on each foot just from the mud.  And as you were crossing these post-apocalyptic wastelands at the time there were no trees to bang your boots against.  So you would have to skate across these expanses, as your boots got heavier and heavier until you reached a fence post.

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