The Chess Valley

This is one of three weblog postings about the events of one day: Friday 6 November 2015. The other two postings are À la recherche du temps perdu and Friday 6 November 2015.

The River Chess is a chalk stream rising in the Chiltern Hills, Buckinghamshire, in southern England, running south eastwards into Hertfordshire. Its sources are some springs in Chesham, and the river ends just south east of Rickmansworth at its confluence with the River Colne. Over its short 18 km (11 miles) length, it falls only 60 metres. (In contrast, the River Thames falls 110 metres, the River Wear: 340 metres; and the River Severn: 610 metres.) The River Chess is fed by groundwater held in the chalk aquifer over which the river runs: when the water table is very low, the river can disappear in places, and not reappear until the groundwater has been adequately replenished. For much of its length the River Chess runs through or close to the Chiltern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The valley through which the River Chess runs seems to me to be far too wide and deep to have been created by the existing river, and my guess would be that it was carved by glacial run-off towards  the end of the most recent ‘ice age’ about ten thousand years ago. An undemanding extended walking route, called the Chess Valley Walk, mostly utilising footpaths and lanes, roughly follows the line of the river through the valley from the source of the river in Chesham to its confluence with the Colne.

It wasn't cold, but the sky was leaden, and a light drizzle was lubricating ground, grass and leaf, when I joined the Walk from a network of paths crisscrossing Chorleywood Common. The approach involved a descent into the Chess valley through an autumnal beech wood. The browns, golds, yellows and pale greens, mostly leaf litter, were a riot familiar to Gerard Manley Hopkins. Being the fag-end of the year, much of the vegetation, weeds such as coarse grasses and nettles, was already rank and overblown, some of it yellowing or turning grey. Perhaps there was the smell of leaf mould. A grey squirrel was noisily ferreting around among the leaves. A rabbit skipped silently out of sight. An untidy snap and clatter of feathers on twigs signalled the panicked flight of a wood pigeon. Rooks, magpies and jays called obscenities at each other. However, behind the alarm calls of blackbird, blue tit and robin, and not entirely unlike my tinnitus, was the constant sibilant roar of traffic on the M25 that was finally stilled only later, at the furthest extent of my walk.

On reaching the valley floor, I turned north. I could not yet see the river. Whilst the path ran fairly straight, with such a slight gradient, the river meandered around the valley floor, sometimes dividing into several channels, and so wandered away from the footpath. An interpretation board described some of the flora and fauna of the valley, including about the water voles (Ratty, from The Wind in the Willows).

As I walked on, still unable to see the actual river, I noticed a footbridge, almost completely obscured from view by vegetation. I experienced what I often experience when walking in the countryside: a desire to 'learn the landscape' by following every path. Discovery and the possibility of adventure beckoned. I was reminded of Robert Frost’s yellow wood. Unlike Frost, however, I chose the path muddy with the imprint of boot and paw.

Immediately before the next footbridge, the footpath finally approached the riverbank and showed me the river for the first time. The place was not especially pretty, but could have been a delightfully peaceful place to sit for a while, reading, writing or simply contemplating. A meander had carved out a broad shallow bay that formed a natural paddling pool. Out in mid-stream, river weed quivered inviting fingers and hands to explore its texture and movement. Had the weather been an order or two of magnitude more pleasant, I should not have hesitated to unlace my boots, peel off three pairs of socks, roll up my trouser legs, and paddle on the flinty gravel in the flow of the water as though I were four or five years old once again. Two aspects of the scene did not match the visual memory from my childhood: there was no backdrop of trees, and there was no road bridge a short distance downstream. However, the obviousness of this as a safe place for young children to paddle suggested that I had indeed found the place that I sought.

A woman and her dog arrived, and in my mind's eye I put back on my socks and boots. The dog was in the water without hesitation. I went to stand on the footbridge, over the middle of the river. The water was so intensely clear that had it not been for the surface reflection of lowering clouds, one might have been forgiven for being uncertain that an alternative dimension existed beneath that surface. As though disturbed by an eddy of moving air, the water rippled: a brown trout glided by silently heading downstream. My eye was then caught by a flash of movement upstream. The iridescent turquoise of a kingfisher darted up from the water to sit on the branch of a willow. The action was happening a hundred metres upstream, but by the time I had relocated myself for a better view, the kingfisher was gone. I began to have a sense that the valley, its river and its inhabitants might be willing to reveal something of themselves to those who trod lightly.

The rain subsided as I walked on. Initially close to the banks of the river, but getting gradually further away again, the footpaths crossed soggy fields, ran through woods, and at one point skirted a substantial marsh or bog. The path seemed to be heading out of the valley. What I had missed, it transpires, was the sign to cross the river on that first footbridge, and to follow the Chess Valley Walk along lanes to the east of the river. It was this latter route that I adopted on the return leg.

I was utterly delighted to discover a watercress farm at Moor Lane, Sarratt Bottom. There is something wonderful for me about watercress beds with sparkling water flowing over biscuit-coloured flinty gravel, contrasting with bright, chlorophyll-green leaves. I felt a sense of peace in proximity to its freshness and cleanness, not unlike proximity to a waterfall. I crossed the footbridge to the east/north side of the river. A sign read "Fresh Watercress", so I felt authorised to approach the farm buildings. Just before the first building was a metal cabinet with sliding glass doors, sellotaped to the front of which was a notice that read "Bags of watercress £2. Put the money in the blue box." Relieved to discover that I had £2.00 in change, I popped four 50p coins in the blue box and helped myself to a bag of watercress. The bag was river water cool, and the watercress it contained felt firm and substantial, not like the bags one buys from a supermarket. Considerately, the farm owners had placed two garden benches on the bank overlooking the river. It had started to rain again, albeit lightly. I retrieved the heavy duty carrier bag I had packed in my knapsack for this purpose, spread it out on a seat, and sat on the bench in the drizzle, eating my sandwiches while listening to the bubble and rush of the water. A small weir created a tiny waterfall downstream, although nothing that would trouble a trout. Upstream the river ran over a gravel cascade, producing a gentle sibilance. I wondered whether to get out my umbrella. An aeroplane from a different world moaned overhead, and a chainsaw whined somewhere in the distance. I realised that I could no longer hear the M25.

While gazing abstractedly upstream, I saw the flicker of movement, and the tell-tale iridescence of another kingfisher. I was watching it sitting on the handrail of the footbridge. Every so often it would about-face and I could see a blob of dark red plumage, then it would turn back and become a sliver of turquoise once more. From time-to-time it would dart into the river, and quickly return, but each time to a different place on the bridge. I realised that I was being permitted to witness the quiet charm of the Chess Valley and one of its residents.

I walked a little way further upstream along a footpath that was partially board-walked. This was the Chess Valley Walk proper. At a place where the river bent sharply away I stopped to survey the view. With its woods and fields, a valley and a river, footpaths and footbridges, its birds and mammals, this was an environment in which I should be happy to linger and to revisit. However, it was time to turn back towards Chorleywood Common.

I became aware of a disturbance of rooks. Where I live in eastern Kent, such a disturbance is typical when a buzzard is wheeling overhead. I looked up, and there was indeed a raptor, in fact several. However, unlike a buzzard with its rounded, owl-like wings and convex tail, these birds were leaner, more angular and with a pronouncedly forked tail: red kites. There were at least two adults and several juveniles. Although flying immediately above me, as well as over the neighbouring field, settling in a tree, one even landing on the grass, I was not certain that they were aware of my presence. I was treated to a remarkable display of aerial acrobatics. Their agility was stunning and mesmerising, and I was captivated. I rued not bringing my video camera.

The muddy lanes that speeded me back to Chorleywood were sparsely populated with pleasant rural houses. They were neither country palaces of the nouveau riche, nor tumbledown cottages, just ordinary nineteenth century and twentieth century houses in a delightful location. No doubt too remote for the taste of most people, and maybe considered impractical for full engagement in modern life, these properties spoke of a quieter way of being not unlike life in parts of the North Downs of eastern Kent.

As I climbed up out of the valley through the beech woods back onto the Common, I could feel green tendrils tugging gently at my wrists and ankles. I was already yearning to return.