TADS #70:High Wycombe to Beaconsfield (or Wycombe Wanderers).

Never postpone a walk because of a weather forecast. That's the advice my mate Mark gave me some years ago, kind of - he was actually talking about a BBQ but the same principle applies. I kept it in mind and I try not to, unless in extreme circumstances, ever cancel or postpone TADS walks. Through the history of TADS this has proved to be, more often than not, the correct decision. Yes,we've cut the odd walk short and we've occasionally got drenched to the bone but often these walks are as much, sometimes more, fun than the sunny day walks.

 

A proper walking group walks in all weathers and as this is the 70th blogged TADS walk (and there were about ten before I started blogging) I think we can consider ourselves a proper, if not typical in any way, walking group. In the week running up to the walk I half-expected some drop outs but that quite simply didn't happen and in the end we had a drop in instead. 

Which was nice. As so often, I'd woken early in the morning and was out of the house early too, stopping in Sainsbury's to pick up a copy of The Guardian (£4.20! - that's why I don't donate to their website when I make my regular visits there) and laugh at the 'Babies At War' headline in The Daily Mirror. Donald Trump and Elon Musk, two of the worst men in the world, had predictably fallen out and predictably were calling each other names on their respective cesspit websites.

It wasn't a day to get bogged down in either politics or social media though (if anything, these walks are intended as something of an escape from those things) so soon I was on the Windrush line to Canada Water, change for the Jubilee to Baker Street, and short walk to Marylebone where I arrived with about eighty minutes to spare for the train. When I'm on top of my game (which at the moment, thankfully, I am) I arrive early.

I grabbed a return to High Wycombe, munched on a packet of salt'n'vinegar Discos, chatted briefly to a mendicant, read up on a bit of history about Marylebone station itself, read a bit of The Guardian, and then met with Pam. The two of us hopped on the fast train to High Wycombe (only about twenty-five minutes and only one stop en route - Wembley Stadium) where we caught up with each other's news.

On arriving in High Wycombe, we made our way to the planned brunch stop but Kubik Cafe on the High Street was a big disappointment. No vegetarian options on the blackboard and when Pam asked about veggie breakfasts we were told in no uncertain terms that we wouldn't get one. 

Ah well, there were other options and once we'd met with Adam (who was enjoying two Greggs vegan sausage rolls after a nearly two hour bus journey from Reading) and read some predictably lewd and crude graffiti (every town has it) we repaired to High Wycombe's Wetherspoons where there seemed to be something of a ketchup shortage as well as no soft drinks on tap.

Not to worry. The pub was full of thirsty Warrington Wolves fans who were on their way to Wembley to watch their team in the Challenge Cup final (they'd go on to lose 8-6 to Hull Kingston Rovers, Wigan would thrash St Helens 42-6 in the women's final - both held as one event which I think is a great idea and one maybe football could, but won't, follow) and Pam went up to order breakfasts as Adam and I caught up.

I'd erroneously ordered a small veggie breakfast even though I was bloody hungry. Pam, generous as ever, shared some of hers with me and the two of us enjoyed veggie sausage, hash brown, beans, toast, and fried egg and I sipped on a surprisingly delicious, if somewhat camp. R Whites raspberry lemonade.

Soon enough, Clive, Roxanne, and their friend Julie joined us. I'd not met Julie before (in fact I didn't know of her existence until about half an hour before we met when I received a text saying she'd be joining us) but she was a more than welcome addition to our little (though ever changing in size) walking group. Keen, friendly, and fun to be around. I hope Julie will be joining us again in the future.

We left The Falcon and headed down High Wycombe's pleasant, if unremarkable, High Street. The bad weather, forecast, had not arrived yet but we all felt sure it would soon enough. High Wycombe, whose population is somewhere between 76,000 & 128,000 depending on your source, lies in the River Wye (not that River Wye) valley surrounded by the Chiltern Hills and it's rather pretty when you reach its edges.

We saw some old ruins but I wasn't sure what the history of them was. I do know, from my research, that High Wycombe once featured a Roman villa with mosaics and a bath house and that's in 1086's Domesday Book where it's listed as having six mills. Through medieval and Tudor times, Wycombe's primary industry was the manufacture of lace and linen cloth and the town served as a convenient overnight stopping point on the journey from London to Oxford and indeed from Oxford to London.

The 17th and 18th centuries saw the local paper industry rise thanks to the chalky and clear waters of the Wye being ideal for bleaching pulp. Later the town became famous for its furniture, not least its Windsor chairs. When Queen Victoria visited in 1877 the chairs were arranged in an arch to welcome her. Likely, she was not impressed. She rarely was.

From 1940 though to 1968 (the year of my birth, fact fans) High Wycombe was the seat of RAF Bomber Command and during World War II the US Army's 8th Air Force, known as 'Pinetree', was based here at a former girls' school (with their reputation!). High Wycombe notables include the likes of former Dr Who Colin Baker, James Corden, Jimmy Carr, Leigh-Anne Pinnock of Little Mix, rugby world cup winner Matt Dawson, Roger Scruton, philosopher Karl Popper, Ian Stanley - the unofficial member of Tears For Fears who may have been inspired by his home town on the album Songs From The Big Chair (thanks Clive), the golfer Luke Donald, Terry Pratchett, the actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson, the sculptor and sexual deviant Eric Gill, Heston Blumenthal, model turned actress Jean Shrimpton, the Mitfords, and Benjamin Disraeli, Britain's first and so far only Jewish prime minister.

 

We crossed the Wye (a tributary of the Thames that is just ten miles long and reaches its end at Bourne End) and passed through a green space called The Rye to a larger piece of water, complete with cafe and boats, called The Dyke. We dipped behind The Dyke and walked through a rather pretty canopy of trees with views across The Rye and over to the Chilterns themselves.

When we reached the end of The Dyke we cut through a residential street, Lime Avenue  - a day early for the street party which in true Wycombe fashion featured a "seating area" as well as live music, a treasure hunt, and a Spotify jukebox (whatever that is) - and into another wooded area. A footpath in which we saw no other people although we did briefly see a dog's snout poking under a fence and enjoying a good sniff.

As befits a path that is barely used by the good people of High Wycombe, it was quite overgrown though always manageable. There were a couple of iron bars slightly blocking the path which caused me some anxiety about potentially taking a wrong turn but it seems likely these were employed more to deter cyclists than walkers. We opened up on to a road near an old stone bridge that spanned a small valley full of fly tipped rubbish. It looked like the sort of place where a jogger finds a dead body.

 

Much more pleasant, was the pretty little house nearby with its circular room facing out to the road and better still, for Roxanne and Julie certainly, was an offer of free rhubarb a little down the road. They availed themselves of several stalks and for the rest of our walk we were accompanied by our new edible friends. It had me and Adam reminiscing about the 1969 Eric Sykes film Rhubarb (in which the only dialect is the word 'rhubarb' repeated over and over again) which also starred Harry Secombe and Hattie Jacques (though, not - as we thought, Spike Milligan).

The film was remade in 1980 and this time featured infamous gargoyle lookalike Bob Todd. We reached the inviting looking General Havelock pub but it was far too early for a pit stop so instead we headed into a nearby field, joined the horses, and even took part in some low level dressage ourselves before climbing a steep, but short, hill.

From there we walked for about ten minutes along a ridge, the wind and rain picking up but still bearable, before descending and dipping under a barbed wire fence to exit another field. Athletic Adam climbed two gates to get out instead. Show off.

We were now in the village of Loudwater. Not a big place but one with a nice sign, a model of a tin man (something for my friend Vicki to get very excited about, she LOVES The Tin Man), and home to the HQ of both Costa Coffee and Dreams the bed retailer. As well as the Pauline Quirke Academy (I had to take a photo of the sign and I was very pleased that my mate Rob put an instant 'like' on it when I shared it to Facebook - it's a long story) and Ebenezer House which, inevitably, led to a brief lyrically altered singalong to The Shamen's 1992 pop-rave hit Ebenezer Goode.

And why not? We'd crossed the A40 and passed the former site of The Dereham's Inn (a sign in the window promised it'd reopen in August but it looked years old so who knows) before we started the big climb of the day. I had warned people but it was steeper than I had expected. People started to spread out as is so often the case with both hills and towards the end of walks (or when we're reaching the pub).

There was a golf course (there's always a fucking golf course), there were forested areas, there were soaring red kits in the skies above us, and there was a fairly long canopied stretch. Eventually we reached a road, nice houses, called Beacon Hill before cutting through another path and coming out in the Chilterns proper in the village of Penn (population approximately 4,000) where, legend has it, the ghost of an 18c farm labourer rides around on a phantom horse chuckling.

We didn't see him and nor did we see Mary Berry who, at ninety years old, still lives there and is even rumoured to drink (and no doubt smoke, swear, and start fights) in The Crown Inn. Others who have made Penn their home include the aforementioned Karl Popper (bit of a change from Vienna where he was born), Stanley Holloway, and David Blakely who was fatally shot by Ruth Ellis outside The Magdala public house in Hampstead in 1955. A crime Ellis would hang for. The last woman to be legally executed in the UK.

The Cottage Bookshop in Penn has featured in Midsomer Murders, Nanny McPhee, and even Chuckle Vision but it was The Crown Inn that we made our port of call. I'm off the pop at the moment (for how long, let's see) so I just took a lemonade and Pam had a Beavertown Neck Oil and Roxanne and Clive took local beers that were either brewed on, or for, the pub specifically.

We even sat outside, which I hadn't expected possible with that weather forecast, and Julie revealed herself to be a Crystal Palace fan which will always go down well with me. It started raining a bit and we moved inside but we managed to forgo a two pint mistake and instead, thanks to Roxanne and Clive's largesse, I enjoyed some camembert and bread. It was good. I like cheese. A little too much according to some. As a side note the hand cream in the toilets bore the legend BRAMLEY and as Adam lives in Bramley I felt this demanded bringing to his attention. He seemed less impressed than I was.

All said and done though, The Crown was a nice pub with very friendly staff and a lovely big beer garden. It would be good to spend more time there but once I'd done my regulation spiel it was time to move on. We'd done the toughest part of the walk, broken the back of it if you will, and it was, quite literally - well almost, all downhill from here. Both terrain wise, weather wise, and conversationally!

A few minutes along the B474 before we dipped down into a pleasant bridleway, the weather - remarkably - still clement even if nobody was going to comment on it being a 'flaming June'. It is England in the summer after all. It didn't take very long before we reached the affluent Beaconsfield suburb of Knotty Green and on reaching it the sky, finally, did open up.

Nobody complained. Perhaps the fact we were so near another pub helped. Perhaps the fact that it was such a remarkable pub helped. The Royal Standard of England is believed to be England's oldest freehouse and when you get in there you can believe that claim to be true (Roxanne, understandably, made the point that it's likely other pubs make similar claims).

It's a sprawling place with lots of big, and little rooms. Some booths have velvet curtains you can pull round for privacy, the menu includes 'locally shot pigeon on toast' (at least it's free range I suppose), there's a frankly repulsive meat fridge, repurposed church chairs, rickety tables, beamed ceilings, drapes, welcomes to pilgrims, ale (of course - though I managed to stick to the lemonade), and artworks featuring knights and other pre-Raphaelite adjacent bollocks.

The pub's been used in the films Hot Fuzz and The Theory of Everything and it's said that Charles II once overnighted there with one of his many mistresses. I bet he made use of that velvet curtain and I wouldn't be surprised if he treated her to some locally shot pigeon on toast. He seems the type.

While we were in the pub it pissed it down. Although the thunder and lightning predicted did not arrive the weather was enough for most of the walkers to decide they'd carry on from here to the station and not bother with the last couple of miles. Truth be told, it wasn't a major problem. I'd liked to have seen the more picturesque parts of Beaconsfield's old town but maybe that's another walk for another day.

You can't do everything and I'd had a good one and I think/hope everybody else had to. They seemed to be having fun. Of course, as we walked back to the station (via an aimless meander around the pub's car park and then via some very expensive looking houses) it stopped raining again and was pretty pleasant. Weatherwise, we really lucked out and that's why you should never cancel a walk because of a bit of a drizzle or even a torrential downpour. Stay strong, my walking friends, stay strong.

It didn't take long to get to the station and once there Adam, Clive, Roxanne, and Julie all headed off but Pam and I were determined to have our tea in Beaconsfield so we did a quick recce (the town was pretty empty - probably people put off by the weather) and decided we'd try Los Nomadas Mexican restaurant. Almost a breach of protocol but nobody's gonna tell Shep and I'm sure he won't read this!

Beaconsfield (pronounced Beckonsfield - for some reason) is famed for having the world's first ever model village, Bekonscot (that's pronounced how it's written). Bekonscot opened in the 1920s and, unlike the later Tucktonia, is still open. It inspired Enid Blyton (then living locally) when creating Noddy's home town of Toyland and, later, Will Self in his short story Scale.

Elsewhere in Beaconsfield, one can enjoy Georgian, neo-Georgian, and Tudor architecture. Benjamin Disraeli (whose pile, Hughenden Manor, is to the north of High Wycombe) was once the local MP and Terry Pratchett was born in the town. GK Chesterton and statesman/orator Edmund Burke are buried there while other Beaconsfield notables include Barry Gibb of The Bee Gees, Zoe Ball, murdered Tory MP Airey Neave, Bert Weedon, the American poet Robert Frost, French/Swiss racing driver Romain Grosjean, Beverley Craven, and Zoe Ball. As she grew up in Beaconsfield, perhaps it's safe to assume that her father, Johnny 'Think of a Number' Ball, also once lived there. He's still alive by the way. He's 87 (you know).

Several scenes in Brief Encounter were filmed in the market town and one in the 1965 James Bond film (Sean Connery era) Thunderball. It's also where Tony Blair lost his only ever election. He came third in the 1982 Beaconsfield by-election (he was 29 years old at the time) with the winner being the Conservative Tim Smith, a man later to be caught up in the cash for questions scandal with the egregious Neil Hamilton.

But, of course - as I wrote earlier, enough with the politics. Pam and I shared four plates of Mexican food. Black bean tostadas, charred pepper and mushroom quesadillas, halloumi, and sweetcorn jalapeno. Pam washed it down with what looked a very enjoyable margarita and I took a more quotidian lemonade.

It was all rather lovely. A short walk back to the station, a train full of people buying loads of designer shit at Bicester Shopping Village, and the Bakerloo from Marylebone to Elephant and Castle before, for me, a 63 bus home. The Co-Op was still open so I popped in for cheese, milk, and diet pop. Was home for about 9.30pm, watched the news, uploaded some snaps to Facebook, and was in bed about an hour later where I slept pretty bloody well as I usually do after these walks.

Still managed to clock up 33,003 steps but more than that had a really lovely day with some really lovely people out in Buckinghamshire. Thanks to Pam, Adam, Roxanne, Clive, and Julie for joining me and thanks to Pam for snappage and Adam for mappage included in this blog. Next month TADS are down on the South Coast (Chichester to Bognor Regis via Pagham Harbour) and it'd be good if the big yellow guy could join us but even if it's bucketing down the TADS will be there. It's how we roll.