29/08/20 - Chiltern Chain Walk - Stage 8 - Chenies

Distance - 12 Miles

Geocaches - 1

Walk Inspiration

Previous Stages - Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3, Stage 4, Stage 5, Stage 6, Stage 7

The only thing I know about Chenies, is that it's the one place you can get a drink if you are walking the Chess Valley, as long as you are happy to add a mile diversion.

With this knowledge in mind, I start Stage 8 of the Chiltern Chain Walk from the Red Lion. A fine looking pub, that I later find to be enforced by one of those perfectly scary landladies.  Never before have there been so many pub rules to follow - and although similar in many establishments, there is no national standard.  Even expert pub tickers need to learn as they go along.

Mein Host today was especially keen to ensure that I had plastic funds to support any future transaction and to avoid unnecessary touching of her door knocker.

Post Walk Refreshment

Of course, this comes after the walk - another lengthy section of Chiltern lovliness of ancient green lanes, chalk stream valleys, wild woodland and pretty villages.

Chenies itself has some architectural wonders - a manor house and a church are passed as I take myself to the river Chess for a repeat walk along the valley floor.  The two horses I met on the last leg greet my arrival, with one of them dropping the biggest fart heard this side of Christmas day afternoon.  Who knew horses fart?

Chenies Church

Chenies Manor House

The River Chess

I've found that the Chilterns are smashing to walk but offer few things of interest.  This is true again on Stage 8, where it all been delightfully dull.  What can Chalfont St Giles offer a struggling blogger?

It's a choice between the cottage where Milton wrote Paradise Lost or a Good Beer Guide 2020 entry.

Merlin's Cave will not remain long in the memory, even if it does have one of the best pub signs that I've stumbled across.  A Charles Well's Gastro pub - where my chaperone and table server was that sure I would want his food that I was thrice offered a menu.  He could not quite get his head around that someone would only want a St Austell Tribute.

Only one way to enter, around the back

Pub Sign par excellence 

A climb through what passes as a Buckinghamshire housing estate, a skirt around Newland Park and then Shire Lane takes me back to Chenies - never feeling more little Englander when the final yards take me along the boundary of an in-flight game of cricket.

And what fine collection of Pub Snacks the Red Lion has.  Somehow, I managed to resist the "Filthy Chips" - Cheesy Chips with added onions.