Buckinghamshire/Hertfordshire: Chesham Bois to Sarratt: Chess Valley

5 September 2011         Mainly on OS Explorer 172 Chiltern Hills East

Length: All day

This walk follows part of the Chess Valley Walk and is focused around the formerly vibrant watercress industry along this stretch of the River Chess and other water plants.

          We parked on the north side of Chesham Bois Common SU964992.  This is close to the well-vegetated pond which had water mint Mentha aquatica, common and lesser bulrush Typha latifolia & angustifolia, tall stems of common club-rush Schoenoplectus lacustris (sometimes confusingly referred to as bulrush), hemp agrimony Eupatorium cannabinum, purple loosestrife Lythrum salicaria, greater spearwort Ranunculus lingua, water-forgetmenot Myosotis scorpioides, fringed and white water-lilies Nymphoides peltata and Nymphaea alba, ivy-leaved and least duckweeds Lemna trisulca and minuta, water plantain Alisma plantago-aquatica, and what looked like water-primrose Ludwigia grandiflora.  (After considerable rain the water-level was high and we would have needed waders to have approached this plant closely; water-primrose is an invasive alien aquatic.)  The Chilterns generally, being on chalk, have relatively few wetlands, so that even common water-plants are infrequent in the region.

Chesham Bois Common Pond

Common Club-rush

From the pond we walked west along the road to where a footpath crossed.  Here we turned right through another small section of the Common (which is mostly wooded) with plenty of invasive cherry-laurel Prunus laurocerasus, mostly young trees, but a few older sycamore Acer pseudoplatanus, ash Fraxinus excelsior, and oak Quercus robur.  At a small lane two tracks continue through the housing, a footpath and a bridleway.  We took the first which leads west of the other track.  Large gardens running down to the path on the left still contain some large beech trees Fagus sylvatica surviving from former woodland.  On the right eventually is woodland, part of the Chesham Bois Woodland complex of several separately-owned compartments, this part being secondary woodland.  All the woodland is on clay-with-flints.  There were parasol mushrooms Macrolepiota procera and common puffball Lycoperdon perlatum along here, and two jays called raucously before flying over.

          Eventually the housing on the left ends and we entered Hodds Wood (Woodland Trust, open access), the only compartment classified as ancient.  It was once owned by the DuBois family who received the woods and the manor in the 13^th century from the Bishop of Bayeux.  The ground-layer is sparse but includes woodruff Galium odoratum and yellow archangel Lamiastrum galeobdolon, wood melick Melica uniflora and wood millet Milium effusum. 

Hodds Wood

The trees are again mainly beech, but there is also an under-storey of holly Ilex aquifolium, gooseberry Ribes uva-crispa and English elm Ulmus procera and a few trees of ash and wild cherry Prunus avium.  Common early autumn fungi were beginning to appear, including red-crack bolete Boletus chrysenteron, stump puffball Lycoperdon pyriforme, and lilac bonnet Mycena pura.

          While the main footpath goes straight downhill diagonally through Hodds Wood, we took the small path off to the left, parallel to the fence separating off gardens along the south side of the wood.  After about 90 metres there is a forked whitebeam Sorbus aria tree a few yards back on the right.  Not only does this appear to be the only whitebeam in this wood, but it is also celebrated as Britain’s tallest at 23m high.  The girth is not especially remarkable, so it looks as though it put all its efforts in trying to outreach the surrounding young beech to get to the light. 

The whitebeam tree in Hodds Wood (centre)

Close-up of trunk from first fork

Canopy of whitebeam (the leaves appear darker than the translucent beech leaves)

It is flourishing, however, and underneath there were plenty of fallen orange berries among the grey-backed leaves to help confirm that this is indeed a whitebeam (as the first leaves are so high as to be difficult to see) and that it is fruiting freely.  

Fallen fruit and leaves under the whitebeam

Another indicator is the distinctive pale bark with small lenticels, unlike the long horizontal lines across cherry or the longitudinal pale streaks on hornbeam Carpinus betulus, both of which are frequent among the surrounding trees.

          From here we carried on along this path until we came to a bank and ditch crossing, this marking the western edge of the wood.  This can be followed downhill either along the bank or beside it, without much difficulty apart from having to push occasionally through a little holly.  It is marked by a distinctive line of trees – cherry, hornbeam, a single oak and elm.  Deciding the species of elm is always difficult.  In this case it is described on the Woodland Trust website as the possibly native English elm Ulmus procera, although some of the leaves (and the paucity of lower branches) might correspond to Dutch elm U. x hollandica.  A leaf to the right of the photo below is more of the rounded procera type, the others more like hollandica, but there is no access to higher boughs to obtain a more reliable sample of leaves.

Elm leaves

At about 50 metres down along this bank we came to a pair of standing elms, the largest 3m in girth, one of the rare survivors among mature elms these days that has not succumbed to Dutch elm disease. 

The surviving large elm trees (centre)

The old boundary bank and ditch with base of largest elm

There are old stumps that may represent others that met their demise, but the species still survives as abundant suckers along here and throughout the wood.  Mines in the elm leaves were those of the micro-moth Stigmella ulmivora. Near the elm tree is a small plaque dedicating this area of the wood to Bob Glenister 1929-1997.  Bob was warden of the wood for the Woodland Trust and a member of the Chesham & District Natural History Society.

          Where the bank meets a broad path we went right and soon regained the original footpath.  This path leads down to the north-west corner, where it meets remnants of the boundary bank again.  Here the path leaves the wood down large stone sills, where a plaque celebrates the martyr Thomas Harding, a Lollard who was sent to burn at the stake in 1532 for his religious convictions.  (Although a spectator killed him with a blow on the head from a wooden stake before the flames caught him.)  The Chesham-Amersham-Chalfont area was at that time a centre for Nonconformity.  A primary school in Chesham is named after him. 

We did not carry on along the footpath here, however, but took the wide path to the right (unmarked on the OS map) which leads along the north edge to a gate into the cemetery at the north-east corner.  We went through here to the road below, turned left under the railway bridge and right along Bois Moor Lane, along which were hedgerow cranesbill Geranium pyrenaicum and, just before the bend, grey-bracted hawkweed Hieracium sublepistoides.  At the bend itself a footpath descends to begin the Chess Valley Walk, which we now followed for the rest of the morning.  While the river is interesting, the walk is often a considerable distance from it and one only occasionally gets access to the riverbank, so the botanical interest is very limited most of the way, largely through improved grassland and plantation-type woodlands.  The reason for the paths being distant from the river is the wide flood-plain where regular inundation would frequently prevent passage.

          After one field, from which the line of the river is visible only by the line of willows, the path leads along a lane right beside a section of the Chess.  Here there was watercress Rorippa nasturtium-aquaticum, lesser water-parsnip Berula erecta, chalkstream water-crowfoot Ranunculus penicillatus, gipsywort Lycopus europaeus, water mint and water-forgetmenot. 

Lesser water-parsnip

Chalkstream water-crowfoot

Near the corner of a T-junction a large poplar stood by the river, its young shoot leaves conspicuously long.  Looking up we could see the more usual triangular leaves, although still longer than most poplars.  This was western balsam poplar Populus trichocarpa. 

Leaf of western balsam poplar (underside)

Leaf of western balsam poplar (upperside)

Below the tree were the huge summer leaves of butterbur Petasites hybridus.

          We turned left at the junction and went up the road past a waste disposal site and a sewage works to the path off right through the fields, by Blackwell Farm (a cluster of soapwort Saponaria officinalis here), to the corner of Frith Wood.  Here we passed a grove of hornbeams Carpinus betulus and then a mixed plantation with a good deal of spurge-laurel Daphne laureola.  The Chess Valley Walk was now approaching the little village of Latimer, a centre for occurrences of Hertfordshire puddingstone, fragments of which we saw as we walked the trail.  The puddingstone was formed by the cementation of Eocene deposits by water percolating through chalky lenses, in the same way as sarsen stone, with which it often occurs.  Whereas sarsen was formed from a fine sandy substrate, puddingstone was formed from pebbly riverine deposits and therefore consists of pebbles (of various sizes according to the nature of the river flow in different places) cemented together.  In section this produces an attractive stone with circular patterns.

Puddingstone

The trail eventually follows a lane down to Latimer church, away from the main village but close to the former manorial Latimer House.  On the left-hand side of this lane are some fine old beeches, and at one point a large old oak on the right.  After the church the trail leaves the road again to descend to the river, where the bank-side vegetation included, most of the way along, the invasive but colourful orange balsam Impatiens capensis.  

Chess Valley near Latimer

Orange balsam

The trail leaves the river-bank again to cross a road and continue some way above it again.  In a hedge-bank above the path along here is a tomb which marks the underground vault containing the remains of Sir William Liberty, 1725-1777, who owned the estate in this area and preferred to be buried on family land.  He was a brick-maker, a relative of the London Liberty family which founded the famous store.  His mansion on the hill above the grave has now disappeared.  The following boundary is marked by two large old ash-trees growing side by side.

          As one approaches Chenies Bottom the trail descends to the river flood-plain and the streams on the right are full of watercress.  Along the road past here, the third wetland meadow before the wood provides botanical relief from the previous pastures, containing large blue patches of devilsbit scabious Succisa pratensis, pink-purple common knapweed Centaurea nigra, white sprays of meadowsweet Filipendula ulmaria, yellow flowers of common fleabane Pulicaria dysenterica, lesser spearwort Ranunuclus flammula and greater birdsfoot trefoil Lotus uliginosus, gipsywort, the grey leaves of marsh cudweed Gnaphalium uliginosum and a few pink stars of common centaury Centaurium erythraea. 

Devilsbit scabious with knapweed

Meadowsweet

Greater birdsfoot trefoil

Common fleabane

The coppery-shining small shield-bugs Eysarcoris venustissimus, both adults and earlier instars, were crowded on their food-plant, hedge woundwort Stachys sylvatica.

Eysarcoris venustissimus

At the end of this field and below the wood is the entrance to Frogmore Meadow, a nature reserve of the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust.  This had similar flowers.  Earlier in the year it would repay exploring for other plants like marsh valerian and sedges.

          Shortly after the wood the path returns to the river itself, with causeways to help one across the water-meadows towards Valley Farm. 

Oak at Valley Farm

The river, as is typical of chalk streams, has remarkably clear water with the river-bed readily visible.

River Chess opposite Mount Wood

River Chess near Valley Farm

At last we came across a surviving watercress farm, with its extensive beds, and we bought a large £1-50 bag of freshly-gathered fronds for our tea*.  This is the last surviving watercress farm on the Chess, and indeed in the whole of the Chilterns.  In Victorian times many farms here supplied large quantities of watercress to London via the Metropolitan Line at Chorleywood.

Watercress

Commercial watercress beds

The trail then reaches a road and turns right down a small lane to Sarratt Bottom and then follows close to the river once more. 

River Chess water meadows, Sarratt Bottom

Here there is alder Alnus glutinosa, one old specimen having several tiers of alder bracket Inonotus radiatus.  These are young specimens – they later turn almost black.

Bracket fungi on alder

There are also other mature trees along here, especially oak and ash.

Old oak and ash near Church End

We passed by the first footpath up the hill to Sarratt church and went on past some large ash and oak trees and flooded meadows to the next footpath on the left up a steep grassy slope with field mushroom Agaricus arvensis.  At the top this path enters Church End, past Sarratt church, and led us to a good lunch spot at the Cock Inn, where we enjoyed friendly jovial service.

After lunch we crossed into the graveyard where mouse-ear hawkweed Pilosella officinarum was flowering, although there were no uncut areas.  A mass of tall heather completely covering one grave turned out on inspection to be Cornish heath Erica vagans, the brown anthers protruding characteristically from the massed pink, and some white, flowers.  There were numerous toadstools near a birch tree – brown birch bolete Leccinum scabrum, blusher Amanita rubescens, and the dark grey-brown slimy waxcap Hygrocybe irrigata.  The Church of the Holy Cross has some structures dating back to the 12^th century and was built on a Roman burial ground.  Some puddingstone is incorporated in the base of its walls.  It featured in the film “Four Weddings and a Funeral”.  

Sarratt Church

From here we returned down the hill to the Chess Valley Walk.  Returning west to where the first footpath to Sarratt church came off, you can leave the Walk again and cross the river by a footbridge, passing across the water-meadows and streams to a wood opposite.  Here we took the right-hand, more northerly, path that leads to Chenies.

          At Chenies we crossed the road and a small village green with a decorative village sign of the kind we have encountered most frequently in East Anglia. 

To the left an unsurfaced track leads past the school to both Chenies church and the manor house, sometimes open to the public.  Both church and manor date back to at least the 12^th century, although oldest current structures are 15^th century.  The church wall has an attractive chequered pattern, with much wall-rue Asplenium ruta-muraria and a cluster of trailing bellflower Campanula poscharskyana. 

Church wall, Chenies

Other wall-denizens here are hart’s-tongue fern Phyllitis scolopendrium, pellitory-of-the-wall Parietaria judaica.  To get around the manor at the end of this lane we had to turn right after the church, passing between brick walls of the church and the estate until we reached a dark beech-wood with no ground flora.  Here we turned left and the path emerges into a bridleway proceeding due west once more.  This bridleway continues for over 3km going almost due west and is easy to walk and follow.  As it passes playing fields at Little Chalfont the boundary of West Wood displays an old embankment crowned by many large formerly laid trees.  Like most Chiltern beech-woods on clay, the woods along this route are botanically poor.

          Eventually the bridleway leaves the woods and runs past Raans Farm, and over a railway line.  Just after this we turned right up Quill Hall Lane.  This can be followed around the edge of Amersham past the eponymous farm to a bend where it turns westwards, becoming Chestnut Lane.  This took us all the way back to Chesham Bois Common, where a track took us further west through the woodland and eventually led to a path going north into the open grassland part of the common and our starting-point.

* Recommended recipe ‘Lockett’s Savoury’

Lightly toast two slices of bread per person.  Remove crusts.  Lay generous portion of watercress on each.  Then add a layer of fresh pear slices and finally cover with slivers of Stilton.  Cook in moderate oven for about 5 minutes (until the cheese melts).  Season generously with ground black pepper and eat immediately.  Cider or port both go well with this.

Buckinghamshire: Little Hampden to Cadsden II: Chiltern Escarpment

2 September 2011                  OS Explorer 181 Chiltern Hills North

Length: All day

Most of the botanical interest in this walk is in the afternoon, crowned by the sight of one of Britain’s rarest flowers, but you also get a bit of history along the way!

          We parked at the end of the Little Hampden Road, opposite what used to be the Rising Sun SP857040.  A little way back down the road is a path on the right past some houses and into a large arable field.  Here we turned left and followed the field hedge.  House martins were gathering on telegraph wires as a sure sign of autumn.  Further down the hill the path goes through to the other side of the hedge by another arable field which has more native annual cornfield plants such as common poppy Papaver rhoeas, dwarf spurge Euphorbia exigua, sharp-leaved and round-leaved fluellen Kickxia elatine and spuria, and small toadflax Chaenorhinum minus. 

Poppies

Green-veined whites were flying early, just after 9am, as it was already promising to be a sunny day.  At the bottom of the hill the path goes through a strip of woodland to Hampden Bottom Road, which we crossed to walk up Glade Road. 

By a bend and road junction one can see The Glade itself, a long open avenue framed by trees leading to Hampden House. Here we were in the middle, able to look both ways.  To the east we looked towards the old lodge where the avenue begins, and where the main flanking trees are large common limes Tilia x europaea and sweet chestnuts Castanea sativa, the oldest planted some 400 years ago.  A footpath allows these to be visited if wished: there are certainly some impressive specimens, along with a large oak Quercus robur that is probably even older. 

The Glade, looking east

To the west the view extends to the house itself.  There is no track along here, only grassland, and the avenue may have been as much for the view from the house as for vehicular access.  

The Glade, looking west

There are similar avenues extending star-like from the house, one of which we were shortly to walk along.  The story goes that Queen Elizabeth I stayed at the house and complained that there was no view because of the woods, so that overnight, while she slept, an army of workmen felled trees along The Glade so that when she awoke she had an open view from her bedroom.  This has perhaps too much of the Brothers Grimm about it, but the avenue certainly dates back to about that reign, when there was a general craze for creating such vistas around country mansions and for planting exotic trees.

Continuing up the road we passed Oaken Grove on our left.  There are no old oaks left, having been replaced by beech Fagus sylvatica and fir plantations in the 19^th and 20^th centuries (and possibly earlier).  A couple of men were collecting seeds from the abundant foxgloves Digitalis purpurea here, presumably for commercial sale.  (The wood belongs to the Hampden Estate.)  Some young oaks grow near the edge further up the hill, planted in the last 20 years or so, and many more can be seen from the path going back into the wood from the road-bend at the top, so it looks as though the Estate is attempting to return the wood to one of largely oak and so live up to its name after felling many of the beech and pine. 

Young oak plantation, Oaken Grove

Beech logs, Oaken Grove

Some false deathcaps Amanita citrina were just emerging as a further sign of autumn, and a green-grey lichen Cladonia coniocraea on rotting logs was conspicuous with its tall fruiting stalks or “podetia”.

Lichen Cladonia coniocraea

A forestry track off on the right took us closer to the south edge and provided access to two ancient tumuli, about 4 metres high and 30 metres or so across, designated Ancient Monuments.  They were built on top of, partially destroying the Iron Age Grim‘s Ditch.  This still extends on either side of the tumuli along the edge of the wood, so they are presumably later in date. Various speculations are that they might be Norman fortifications or late medieval post-mills.  The latter theory is supported by the fact that the first mound is hollowed out at the top and the second has a cross-cut, suggesting that there used to be machinery installed upon them.  The first has a broad “causeway” providing access to the top from the west.  A similar mound marked on the OS map immediately south of Hampden House is known to have been a post-mill.  If they were windmills then this implies that Oaken Grove would not have existed at that stage, or would have ended further north, to provide open space around them.

Mound in Oaken Grove

We returned along the path to the road and followed it from the bend along what was the line of Grim’s Ditch, now of course obliterated by the road.  The purpose of the Ditch, which extends for miles and must have been a mammoth undertaking (literally?), is thought to have been a tribal boundary marker, but the chieftains at this time must have been very powerful to have garnered such a workforce.  The road continues along this line through a crossroads and then, as a private road with public footpath access, through a gate into the grounds of Hampden House itself.  Along each side of the approach to the gate are series of stones made of local sarsen (Denner Hill stone) and puddingstone (see the walk for 2/5/11 for more on this local geology)

Puddingstone

After the gate and lodge the road is lined by an avenue of old sweet chestnuts, oak, common lime, ash Fraxinus excelsior, red-flowered horse-chestnut Aesculus carnea, and London planes Platanus x hispanica, the latter unusual as a rural planting. 

Avenue

of trees to Hampden Church

Old London plane

The road passes by the church of St Mary Magdalene, parts of whose present structure date back to the 13^th century.  As usual in those days the church was built near the manor house and quite far from the main village.  Going left into the churchyard we immediately came to an uncut area with tall herbs of common knapweed Centaurea nigra, hogweed Heracleum sphondylium, meadow cranesbill Geranium pratense, hoary plantain Plantago media, and (a rare plant in this region) common bistort Persicaria bistorta, whose pink spikes were still flowering. 

Great Hampden Church & uncut meadow area

Bistort

Meadow Cranesbill

Hoary plantain (ribwort plantain behind)

Meadow browns were enjoying this late summer nectar-source.  In the cut areas parrot waxcaps Hygrocybe psittacina  were just emerging; later in the autumn this turf has a good variety of fungi.  

Parrot waxcap

There is a large family grave occupied by descendants of the intermarried families of Douglas, Oliver and Ercolani, the latter associated with Ercol furniture formerly manufactured in High Wycombe (with beech supplied from around Hampden).  By the west wall of the church is the Hampden family grave plot, which includes the famous John Hampden of Civil War and “ship money” fame, and his son Robert.  Other interesting graves include one where the headstone is a simple granite boulder and another where it seems to show a man carrying a lamb, perhaps the grave of a shepherd.

Granite boulder headstone

Shepherd’s? headstone

Leaving the churchyard we continued west past later buildings used as offices (with a bed of round-leaved mint Mentha suaveolens and Jerusalem sage Phlomis fruticosa well-naturalised here).  

Tachinid fly Echinomya fera on Round-leaved mint

Jerusalem sage

The grounds of Hampden House include on the right a large cedar Cedrus libani . The garden also has a ha-ha along one edge. 

Cedar, Hampden House

The architecture of the house itself is described as ‘Strawberry Hill Gothic’ after Walpole’s house, but is earlier in date. 

Part of Hampden House

Past here there is an avenue of oaks, some with sticky knopper galls (made by the gall-wasp Andricus quercus-calicis). 

Knopper galls forming on acorns

The road then becomes an un-surfaced track and for the first time we could see Grim’s Ditch on the right-hand side running through a belt of old beech with some oaks and the odd sweet chestnut.  The main path here is a bridleway. It is better for walkers to follow an informal side-path which runs along the ditch itself.  The ditch is still very marked but it must have been particularly impressive when first built, before the embankments had eroded and the ditch began to fill with soil. 

Grim’s Ditch

Standing and fallen dead wood here makes a good habitat for invertebrates and fungi.  Among the latter at this early date were common cavalier Melanoleuca polioleuca, tan ear Otidea alutacea, and southern bracket Ganoderma australe on the base of trunks, whose light cocoa-like brown spores float up and cover the fungi and their surrounds.

Where the ditch suddenly turns left in a right-angle we left it and followed the bridleway onwards through Kingsfield Wood, largely conifer plantations and then deciduous woodland with the typical grasses of Chiltern woods – wood melick Melica uniflora, wood millet Milium effusum and wood barley Hordelymus europaeus.  More acidic clays, however, are dominated by tufted hair-grass Deschampsia cespitosa with its narrow dark saw-toothed leaves.  There are a few patches of wood-sorrel Oxalis acetosella and yellow pimpernel Lysimachia nemorum, the latter’s bright yellow star flowers particularly welcome in drab autumn.  Leaving the wood the bridleway follows between Sergeant’s Wood and an arable field, with frequent musk mallow Malva moschata and a Sherard’s downy rose Rosa sherardii, its red oval hips on glandular stalks still crowned by the brown remains of the sepals. 

Sherard’s downy-rose

At Green Hailey Farm the path turns left to the road, where we turned right and just after a road junction entered Brush Hill Nature Reserve (Wycombe Council management) on the left where there was an information board and lots of invading small balsam Impatiens parviflora, which from the evidence of these walks we have taken this summer has become a seriously invasive species.

We took the path on our right, initially parallel with the road. It took us through the wood and into an area of grassland with meadow puffballs Vascellum pratense, and lots of late summer colour with abundant eyebrights Euphrasia nemorosa, dwarf thistle Cirsium acaule, harebell Campanula rotundifolia, small scabious Scabiosa columbaria, plus occasional musk thistle Carduus nutans and wild mignonette Reseda lutea, and the three knapweeds, common, greater Centaurea scabiosa and chalk C. debauxii. 

Harebell

The flowers were attracting late butterflies like brimstone.

Brimstone on small scabious

At the north end of this grass slope a path (Ridgeway/Icknield Way) leaves the reserve and re-crosses the road to woodland with a chance of a good view of a nuthatch at the top of a tree making a persistent loud call, and past bitter poison-pie Hebeloma sinapizans toadstools emerging in the grassy edge.  The wide path continues to Whiteleaf Hill and the chalk cross (described in our 1/7/11 walk), from which we turned right (still following the Ridgeway path) through Giles Wood and descended to The Plough at Cadsden.

View from Giles Wood

After lunch we left the pub north along the road for a very short distance before a path led off to the right through woods into the Grangelands reserve (BBOWT).  Here we immediately saw a profusion of light blue harebells, as at Brush Hill, but it took us a little longer to focus on the even greater profusion of diminutive purple autumn gentians Gentianella amarella which dotted the turf throughout and were difficult to avoid trampling away from the main path.  They were popular with the bees, who often led us to the open flowers.  

Autumn gentians, Grangelands

With these, and sometimes confusable, were tiny clustered bellflowers Campanula glomerata, dwarfed in the grazed turf, and most quickly told from the gentians by the conspicuous white style.  

Clustered bellflowers

There were also carline thistle Carlina vulgaris, small scabious, dwarf thistle, yellowwort Blackstonia perfoliata, common centaury Centaurium erythraea, rock-rose Helianthemum nummularium large thyme Thymus pulegioides, basil thyme Clinopodium acinos and squinancywort Asperula cynanchica.  The eyebrights here included both the common and the larger-flowered chalk (Euphrasia pseudokerneri) species with hair-tips to the leaf-lobes. 

Chalk eyebright

Many shells of Roman snails lay around.

On the far wide of this chalk slope we picked up the Ridgeway again across a footpath in a deep hollow way and around the western fringe of the Pulpit Hill woodlands (also BBOWT).  There were still plenty of autumn gentians and there was the usual chalk scrub fringe of wayfaring tree Viburnum lantana, hawthorn Crataegus monogyna, dogwood Cornus sanguinea, privet Ligustrum vulgare, whitebeam Sorbus aria, whose fruits were now mostly red, and the odd juniper Juniperus communis. 

Juniper

Whitebeam

Privet

We followed the Ridgeway trail right, up Cradle Footpath, but diverted on the left to climb first to the top of Chequers Knap with its wide view over Aylesbury Plain below the hills and down to the grassland of Chequers reserve (BBOWT). 

Cradle Footpath

View from Chequers Knap

We continued on the Ridgeway across grassland and into a wood and then up another grassy slope to its crest, where we turned left along a more minor footpath.  This follows the fence-line to the far corner of more grassland.  On the slope to the left we found many more clustered bellflowers and rock-rose, among which were sprouting some brown birch bolete Leccinum scabrum, usually associated with birch (of which there was some not too far away at the wood-edge), but perhaps here linked to the rock-rose.

Brown birch bolete

The path goes through a kissing-gate and crosses a private track to continue through woodland.  At this corner was a small group of box Buxus sempervirens, an outlier of the box-wood we were approaching.  A sparrowhawk glided overhead.  After the wood the path crosses more grassland before entering Ellesborough Warren, famous for its wood of dense old box-trees.  

Edge of box wood

Old trunks in the dark interior

The only other shrub seeming able to compete here was elder Sambucus nigra. 

Elder in the box wood

The path gives a good view of the box, which may be native here, although its lack of many associated species and restricted distribution perhaps argue for an early introduction in late medieval times when foreign shrubs and trees were often planted on manorial estates (here on the Chequers Estate).  The age of some of the trees and coverage of a wide area show that it has at least been here a long time, and this is possibly the finest example of a box wood in Britain.  The box supports a few special species, such as a leafhopper specific to it, and the epiphytic moss in the following picture, an Orthotrichum, apparently tenellum, slender bristle-moss, normally found on ash and elder in this region but sensitive to pollution.

Epiphytic moss on box twigs

The path continues from the valley of Ellesborough Warren up along the grass slope of Beacon Hill, again with much clustered bellflower, common eyebright and rock-rose.  Descending north of the crest of the hill gives a good view to the right of the monument on Coombe Hill, our next destination.  First of all we had to go down into the village of Ellesborough in order to walk a few yards to the right along the road to gain the footpath that would take us east on the other side of Beacon Hill. 

Approaching Edlesborough

This footpath comes off opposite the church along a track, from which it diverges to the left after a while, through the hedge and across a very wide field of oil-seed rape stalks.  At the road we turned right and then took a track to the left by Coombe Hill Farm.  This goes straight up the steep slope of Coombe Hill, without interruption, hesitation or repetition, at about 45°, so steep that we often had to zigzag across the wide path in order to relieve the strain on our taut calf-muscles.  At last we came to a small path leaves the woodland for an open slope where we could throw ourselves down and recuperate among the grassy anthills.  It was still a steep climb up this slope, but at least we could take it easier looking at the flowers, mostly ones we had already seen today (rock-rose, harebell, eyebright, large thyme, dwarf thistle), but also plenty of devilsbit scabious Succisa pratensis.

At the top of this slope is a new enclosure where we found another botanist already searching the turf.  We eventually found the one flowering plant of fringed gentian Gentianella ciliata that was on display today. 

Fringed gentian

Fringed gentian

More than one fringed gentian is seldom seen and in many years, or on the wrong day, or when overcast conditions prevent the flowers opening so that they become effectively invisible, none are seen at all.  We felt ourselves very lucky to have encountered one today and one, moreover, in very fine condition, its gentian-blue petals with their eponymous ragged fringes, a single flower to a single stem, was a sight to make us forget our creaking legs.  We have often searched here but only seen it once before.  In the last season the National Trust, which owns this land, have at last put a simple fence around to facilitate controlled grazing.  Flowers occur in different places at different times, so that there may be dozens of plants, each flowering only occasionally.  Perhaps more directed management will help them to flower more often – after all, more than one flower is needed for fertilisation and spread.  This is the only site for fringed gentian in Britain, discovered first of all in the late 19^th century by a lady whose record (even though it included a pressed specimen) was rejected by the dominant male botanists of the time.  It was only rediscovered and confirmed from the same site late in the 20^th century to become accepted as part of the British flora and simultaneously become one of our rarest plants on a par with lady’s slipper orchid.  We hope our close admiration of this one beautiful specimen helped to make some amends for centuries of unjust neglect.

Eventually thirst began to reassert itself after our exertions in what was now a hot sunny afternoon and we walked on across the Ridgeway Path (which follows the crest of Coombe Hill) to the car park where there was a welcome ice-cream van and cold iced-lollies.  We then returned to the Ridgeway and went south all the way through woodland to the centre of Goodmerhill Wood.  Here the Ridgeway turns right to go down the hill and we went left along a footpath to the east side of the wood, past more yellow pimpernel.  Where the path encountered a bridleway we turned right along another footpath going up a gentle slope towards Chisley Wood.  This leads eventually into the Icknield Way and the start of Little Hampden Common.  There are two routes south from here, one outside the wood and the other through it.  We took the latter, past some old beeches, oaks and sycamores, many pollarded or coppiced from the time when this was open common-land with scattered trees. 

Old pollards, Little Hampden Common

Old sycamore, Little Hampden Common

It is now much darker with dense young trees and it would be nice to see many of these removed to return to more open conditions.  This path led directly to our parked car.