Chesham Riverside and Woodland Walk: full route

Waypoint 1 – Chesham Moor swimming pool was erected in 1912. Upgrades were carried out in 1933 and 1964. It is spring fed.

Waypoint 2 – The Metropolitan Railway came to Chesham on May 15th 1889. It was originally planned to extend the route to Tring. In the 1920s and ’30s it was used to carry freight from Chesham including wooden goods and watercress.

Waypoint 3 – The gate into the woods is the place where Thomas Harding, Chesham’s martyr, was arrested in 1532. He was a nonconformist, the last of the local Lollards and was burnt at the stake. Hodds Wood and Great Bois Wood are ancient deciduous woodlands owned by the Woodland Trust. In the past, strip woodland, roundalls or clumps known as beech hangers were either purposely planted or incorporated into the landscape and remain today on the hillsides in many parts of the Chiltern Hills.

Waypoint 6 – The lakes are old worked out gravel pits. Canon’s Mill got its name because it was owned by the canons of Missenden Abbey. Last worked in 1937 and demolished around 1960. The River Chess is a chalk stream. These are rare habitats only found in southern England, northern France and New Zealand. The Chess has some of the purest water of any such streams as it emanates from the many groundwater springs along the chalk outcrop in the slopes of the ‘dry valleys’ that run down into Chesham. The Chess is also unusual in that it takes its name from the town.