 Hello, thank you for joining me on this lovely January morning. I mean, Chawleywood in Hartfordshire. This is Chawleywood Village Centre down here, and what we're going to do in today's video we're going to go up to Chawleywood House, and we're going to go and have a look around the grounds there. It's a country state about a mile from here. There's quite an interesting walk to get there. It involves going down a couple of rather unusual public footpaths. Now I've commented on this before. One thing I like about Hartfordshire's public footpaths is it tells you where they go to, and sometimes it tells you the length. Now this one takes us from the Village Centre up towards the Tube Station or the London Underground Station on the Metropolitan Line, also served by Chawleywood Railways Services. So we've got to go up all these steps. Now it's quite unusual because it takes us through the station. So I'm not entirely sure where the public footpath technically starts and finishes, because it means you can walk on the station platform itself. The down platform doesn't have any ticket barriers. We'll see that when we get there. But one, not entirely sure, is it technically a footpath or could London Transport, if they wanted to, stop you walking through? Anyway, there's never any problem walking through there. This is Station Car Park. This is Lower Road Shops down there. So I think tentatively the footpath ends here, but as you can see there's this hatched off area for you to walk across. And then you get to here. This would have been the Good Yard. So the railway station opened in July 1889, and there'd been a Good Yard up here. It's about 1966, and then it closed. So when we get to here, look, it does say private footpath for the use of railway passengers only. Today we're not actually travelling by train, but I've walked through here many times before and never had a problem. I think you can see some people who were ahead of me, they'd done their shopping. They had also walked through here, so I don't think it really mattered. I think this is possibly my favourite station on the Metropolitan Line. It's such a nice country feel. The old signal box down there, they're going to make that into a museum, is to have a model railway. No doubt we'll come and do a video on that. And then there you go. Here's the view of the station. So when they do steam on the Met, it's uphill that way. So I've stood here and seen a steam train come through here. They're really working hard. I don't think I've actually got any video of it, unfortunately, because when they last did steam on the Met, I was either not available, or I wasn't making videos. So I don't actually know if I've got any footage. But here it really is a really nice station. So as I mentioned, this is the down line, and then that's the up platform. So the up platform does have a set of ticket barriers, but that's only for the up platform. Anyway, we're going to go down here now. This will take us to the other side, and then we'll be able to continue on our walk. Another nice thing that's down here, we've got these old postcards, various old postcards displayed all the way down this underpass. So as we come down here, we'll go up to the other side and when we get across the road, there's another unusual public footpath that'll take us up to Chorleywood Common. And then we'll cross Chorleywood Common, which is a really pleasant walk, and we'll get to Chorleywood House. So this is a walk you could do. If you live in London or Ralesbury or wherever, you could come here on the train and do this walk. It's a really pleasant walk. So as we come up here, there's more of these postcards, some really nice old ones, one advertising Q Gardens there. Someone I've never been, I really should go there. And then here, we've got leaflets on display for the Buckinghamshire Railway centre, which, of course, was part of the best part of why I'm further up. And here it says about friends of Chorleywood Civil Works, how they want to create a small museum with railway memorabilia and have a working model of the station. Really looking forward to see that happen. So we come to here, and we're now at the front of Chorleywood Station. So in there is the entrance to the up-platform. Now, interesting thing here, well, of course, see that? That used to be the Sportsman Hotel. It's now offices downstairs and flats upstairs. There's two public footpaths. We're going to be up this one in a moment. See, it says, link to the Chess Fully Walk, that's a video for the future. It's 142 yards to Chorleywood Common. That's up the steps. I just want to show you something down here. It's funny, it's because there's two public footpaths that go virtually, well, they go exactly to the same place. There's this one as well, which is just here, behind this building. And that one there says Chorleywood Common, 170 yards. So this is the slightly longer one, but they, as we'll find out in a minute, they do join up up there. That's Public Footpath 042. I want to see which one the other footpath number is. So yeah, this is the area outside the front of the station. It's funny in a way how the main station building is on the side that the village isn't. You have to drive down there. That'll take you round to the village. So we're going to go up through the Sportsman Hotel's grounds, which is not hotel tour anymore. It is all flat, but it's Public Footpath 043. And as I said, they both say Chorleywood Common. I wonder which one is the one that goes all the way through. We'll find out when we go up the steps. So we'll make our way up here. So as I said, it's a bit of a different public footpath from the one we've just been on. This one definitely is a public footpath. As I said, the railway is slightly arguably isn't actually a public footpath. Come up here and we'll be in the courtyard of the flat. So yeah, Old Sportsman Hotel. I think when it closed as a hotel, they built various flats in the ground. The other footpath would have come to just there. So if I went back down there, come back down to where we were at the station, we're now going to follow the drive out of the Sportsman Hotel. And that takes us to Chorleywood Common. So you can see the older builders there. Seems funny, the old building standing nicely. The more modern flats, they've got scaffolding on them anyway. So at least they kept it up the line. The next station, Britonsworth, they used to be a really nice one hotel called the Long Island Hotel. In the 90s, they spent all this money on it, built massive extension, and then they demolished it all. And the original plan was to keep the original hotel and do something a bit like this. And they began demolishing it in about January, I think 2015. And then in the summer, the site was there, the hotel was still standing, but all the extensions have been demolished. And then they went and demolished that as well. So Britonsworth lost its hotel, at least with Chorleywood might not have a hotel, but the building still stands. So we get to here, you see, they can't have full gates because they've got to protect the access for pedestrians walking the footpath, which we've just walked up. And then across the road is Chorleywood Common. I suppose Sportsman Hotel, I suppose you've got a lot of golfers standing there perhaps. And there should be a footpath sign somewhere. It's called Betraman Gardens now, named after John Betraman. Oh yeah, there's a footpath side, the other side of the road. So as soon as we get across the road, we shall have a look for which number the footpath is. It's always the way, quiet road, the only one that's lost it with a camera, suddenly every car comes along. Oh, so it's a footpath for 042. So it's the one with the steps, but it's the one that goes all the way through. And as I say, it says, link to Chess Valley Walk. We'll do that in the future, because I have done it before, it's a really nice walk. I'd like to do a video on it. We come up to here, we're just coming into the car park of Chorleywood Common. It's starting to get a bit muddy looking, but funny, there's a larder park there, that's my larder. My wellies are in the boot. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to put my wellies on and we're going to go for a walk across Chorleywood Common to find Chorleywood House. I've now got my wellies on and we're going to walk across Chorleywood Common. So it's a very pleasant walk for a very nice day like today. Now on the Common, as we cross it, we'll see some quite interesting sculptures made of wood. So I'm going to point out some of them to you and then we'll eventually get to Chorleywood House, which is right on the other side. So it's an interesting place, because it's a golf course and a common. I have done videos here before. I did one where we were looking into the possibility of was there ever another rail halt between here and Rickmansworth. And I think we kind of came to the conclusion that there wasn't. It's a bit of a legend. So if you want to see that video, have a look at the link on the screen now. That was the other state of the home on that side of Common, Chorleywood House is on this side of Common. So I'm going to walk across and see what we can find. I've come to one of the ponds on Chorleywood Common. It is covered in ice. I'm not going to attempt to walk across it. It probably isn't going to hold my weight. Saying about some of the sculptures you've got along here. There's a nice one there of a giant frog or a toad. So he might be able to jump across the ice, although he's going to do it while he's on camera, but I'm not going to cross the ice. I'm going to head out that way now into the woods and that will take us over to Chorleywood House. And we're now just starting to enter the woods. Once we come into the woods here, we have this tree here and it's called the Memorial Tree. So I think the idea is it's a memorial to various local people with that's what they wish, but have a look at it. There's some more. We saw a giant frog. Well, there's some more giant creatures on it. Look, there's a giant stag beetle. There's a couple of giant butterflies on it. There's a giant woodlouse just there above my head. There's a few giant ants up there. Burnham Beaches is known for seeing ants that are big, but that's like little big ants. These ones are really quite big. There's also a giant dragonfly up there. So that's quite exciting. And it's quite a nice use of a tree. So that's the Memorial Tree. We're now going to leave the grassy area on the edge of the common and head deeper into the woods. So it's a very pleasant walk across the common and we'll soon come, as I keep saying, to Chorleywood House. I now feel like I'm deep in the woods and I always enjoy a walk through woods. It's always so calming and you can just hear the sound of the birds singing. I've seen a few animals though, but not real ones, more wooden animals. Talking of things made of wood, there's this wooden climbing frame, this sort of rustic style climbing frame. Now can I, that looks a bit too slippery. I really want to go on it though, because I'm that kind of person. Probably needs. I haven't, I've only got half my balance because I'm holding a camera. There we go. Yeah, I only got half my balance because of this camera. So I'm holding onto this piece of wood here. But look, it's quite cool. The sort of thing I'd love to have played on as a child. Well, no, I'll rephrase that sort of thing. I love to play on anyway. I'm down here and we're kind of in the middle of it. So yeah, that's quite exciting. I do really like things like that. All it is, I can see a wooden animal. The great thing about these wooden animals is they don't run away. I've had it in the past. I'll be making a video and I'll say all it is a deer, of course it runs away. And then I just like, well, the viewers don't get to see the deer, but we have an animal here, some dogs barking as well, but that's not the animal. So you see, look at this. It's really cute as well. Wooden fox. So it's just like, you can just stroke it and help me run away or bite you or do anything. So we're now coming towards the end of the woods. God, there's a dog going mad. I don't even hear that. Just over there, I wasn't going to go over there on today's video, is the Christ church of Chorleywood. Chorleywood for a long time, the place Chorleywood has existed going back, you know, to Neolithic times. It was kind of on the boundary of the two kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex. So I think technically now we're in Wessex. If we cross the border into Buckingham Shia, I believe the Buckingham Shia border is the old border between Wessex and Mercia. Anyway, over there somewhere behind the trees, there's a cricket club, and beyond it is the parish church, the Christ church of Chorleywood. I understand when they built that, that's when Chorleywood effectively gained independence from Rickensworth and became the village it is today. And then of course the railway came and it grew. And it's now a village of about 11,000 people, very pleasant place to live. So it's in Hartfordshire, but it's on the metropolitan line. Oh no, look at this. We're coming to the main road, but before we get to the main road, I've just spotted some more, something else, another exciting looking wooden climbing frame. Then we'll cross the main road and enter the Chorleywood house estate. I think there's a few of them. I seem to think one of them was almost a bit like a wooden version of Stonehenge. I don't know if I'm quite there about this one, but it's the same idea. Another one has been wooden climbing frames. This is the best thing about coming on a weekday when all children at school, I can just, you know, pay on it. Look, I'm going to go inside it because it's even got like a little archway. Yeah, perhaps I am a bit big to get under the arch, but look at this, it's so cool. I'm not going to walk around the top because I'll probably fall off because it's slippery, but yeah, this is really exciting. I'm talking of, um, we've got two different 90s estates cars on each side of the common. There's my lard on one side. Look, there's an old Volvo parked over there. So I'm going to go over there, through the car park, cross the road and over there, the grounds of Chorleywood house. So here we are. We're now in the parkland of the Chorleywood estate. It immediately has a different feeling from the common land. So where we were, we were over there, said that's the busy road, which we just came across to the commons over there. We're now in the parkland of Chorleywood house estate. You can just see the house through there. I'm going to go around through the bushes this way to the front of the house. So you see the front as, as it sort of appears out of the trees. Now the house was built by a gentleman called John Barnes. Originally this would have just been a couple of farms. He bought the farms and he built the house in 1882. John Barnes was a banker. He also had shares in the Buckinghamshire Railway. So that was the railway line, which ran from Bletchley over to Bambury, Merton Street and to Oxford. The latter section is currently in the process of being rebuilt and reopened as the East West rail line. So I'm very much looking forward to traveling on that when that reopened. So it's quite nice to think this many years on when he lived in his house, he had a railway built and here we are. They're rebuilding that railway again. There's the house. Not sure if I'm going to get through here. I might have come the wrong side. So this was John Barnes house and the only estate. He lived here for 70 years and then it was eventually bought by somebody called Lady Ella Russell. She was a relative of Duke of Bedford. She actually used to live in Woburn Abbey. Somewhere I'd like to go through in the future. I have been there as a child because it's got a safari park in the grounds. They've also got a miniature railway after the miniature bridge episode there one day. So she came from Woburn Abbey. When her father died, she inherited a load of money and with that money she bought Charlie Wood House, which we are just about to see. It's just revealing itself now as we come to the front of the house. So there we go. We'll get a bit closer. It's a very attractive looking house. The sun's shining right on it at the moment. That's probably with the sun sometimes. We'll see it better as we get close. So she built lots of extensions on it. The sun is not being very helpful right now. She built lots of extensions on it. She improved the estate. She made the estate self-sufficient. So it became you know really sort of where it worked basically. She would have had farms and everything and she didn't really have to buy anything in. Now this pond is quite interesting because as well as being an ornamental pond its other function was if there was ever a fire the water could be used straight away to put a fire out on the house. So that's the function of this pond. She also, Lady O'Russell built the sunken garden now. See where there's a chain link fence? Well that's kind of there. I can see the house is better now. That's it's private outside. The house is now flat. The house has had quite an interest in history. So in the war it was used to house evacuees from London and then it eventually became owned by a local council and the council ran it and downstairs there was a library. I think I remember on one of my other videos some people commenting saying they used to go here to go to the library and upstairs were flats and they were said to be some of the most luxurious council flats in the country and then in the 90s the council sold it and it was converted into the luxury apartment it is today. This is the sunken garden which Lady O'Russell had built. Looks like it's been snowing. It is just frost but it's such thick frost that it has the appearance of snow. There are some little steps in the corner. There's a way down there. There's a window cleaner. I'm being super suspicious if I was to go in that way I'd have to walk under a ladder and yeah probably wouldn't have to do anything but you never know. Nice little pavilion there. So we go down these little steps here taking us into the sunken garden. What we'll do once we've done that we'll have a look around the rest of these states. You get quite a nice view of this side of the house here. There are more gardens beyond that hedge but they're private there for the residents of Chorleywood House but it's nice you know that we've got all these gardens that we can come and enjoy. So yeah down to the house. I said there's the window cleaner he's moved his land you know so I'll go out this way. That gives you a nice view of the sunken garden. What we'll do we'll go out here my next place I want to show you is the Dell which is quite an interesting part of the estate. So we go through here and then we'll eventually go down to the River Chess and have a look. I believe she also used the River Chess. I'll get on to that when we get down there but yeah so she really did use the whole estate to its full potential as a dog running towards River Stick. Sorry dog I'm not going to throw a stick for you because I'm in the middle of making the video but you know he's deposited that stick and run off. Can't see much I know because of the sun. Anyway I'm going to continue off down here down towards the Dell. I'm just come over from the house as over there get to a bit of a junction this in itself isn't possibly the most interesting part of the estate but the reason I'm showing this to you is because it gives you an idea. You've got a map here so we've come across there to the house. We're going to head down here now to the Dell and eventually down to the River Chess. If you were to come here yourself you can hear on this post there are some. You can get maps of I've already got one so I'm not going to tell you where you can get your own map of the estate if you'd like to come here so it's quite an easy place to explore. It looks as though you could park here as well if you were to come by car but if you were to come and confer a field by train then I'd say it's a really pleasant walk across the common. Now when you get to here there's footpaths so there's ones going off over there ones go off over there. I'm going to go this way to the Dell because to me this is possibly one of the most exciting parts of the estate. I'm going to go behind here and there's I think this is the Dell Mound so you've got a bit of a mound first and then there's a stream which it's called delete. Elite is a word you get might in mills like the stream that goes into the mill and also I did find out that the building there was a summer house which we saw that was the Tudor style building with red painted woodwork. There was another building which I walked past and did something about I've discovered that was where they I believe generated electricity they actually pumped water up from the chest so this was one of Lady Ella Russell's installations. I think that's good to have on this footpath. The stream must flow down there. I remember from a previous visit there was a pond down here and some more quite nice sculptures so that's what I'm hoping to show you and then finish the video off down by the river Chess so I'm going to go off down there now we're going to go and find these sculptures in the Dell. I'll just come down from the Dell Mound where we're a moment ago and this is the elite now this looks very much like a man made river so maybe as I said I'm not too sure so anyone watching might be able to help me out. I understand the water was pumped up from the chest maybe this was the runoff because no water in it now so maybe it's not a natural stream this was like the runoff to take the water back down to the chest. I understand the area is maintained by the friends of the Chaudywood House and you can see they do a great job of looking after the estate and keeping it this place it is for walk along so this leat flows winding its way down there it reminds me of signs when you go to like the seaside you'll sort of see these gardens and um you'll sort of have these streams and there's not always water in them but a man made stream hard now this is what I was looking for very wintry feeling but here's the pond with ice on again I'm not going to walk across the ice or try and there's some more nice sculptures so I wonder if it's the same person who makes these sculptures who carved sculptures over on the common again expect someone watching would be able to tell me this let's walk around the pond and then after that I'm going down to the chest so it's nice to find this bit of water here let's have a look at some of the sculptures look this is the wizard there's a wise old wizard in the forest reading a book and then look on top of there's a heron up there not a real heron I don't know there's any fish down there on the heron we've got there we've got you can see the wing of a dragonfly the leat does continue on down there as opposed to any runoff I suppose when it rains a lot it flows like a stream there I'm trying to use to be one had like steps going up to a house maybe that one rotted away I don't know I suppose the thing with these they don't always last forever necessarily get to here look there's a rather nice bench with an acorn in the bench an oak tree leaf some more foxes another oak tree leaf and an acorn and then up here has another path going back that way up here is a wise old owl we're now on going down to the river chest something will come down the hill to the bottom of the estate and we're in the chest valley proper there's another one of those those children those signs this is the chollywood house estate footpath 35 strangely they've taped it over but it says footpath 34 to footpath 2 656 yards so you pretty can't read that but I can just see it the way they've taped over so the river chest itself is over there now we'll have to go a bit along here to find it you may be able to hear the m25 so the river chest obviously flows in a culvert under the m25 we'll discover all that when I do a video on the chest valley walk it's something you know I certainly want to do whenever I can't really so the river chest as I said crosses the m25 we have done a video where something else crosses the m25 in chollywood the metropolitan railway if you'd like to see that video have a look at the link on screen now so I go and go under the m25 and see trains passing under I'm now going to continue this way I'm officially on the chest valley walk to go and find the river chest itself so here we are we're down in the chest valley really nice and very wintery feeling down here very frosty and just over there here's the river chest itself which we've been sort of walking through this whole time so this is the chest valley path or chest valley way it's a walk I want to do in the future I'll probably sort of break it up into three parts and do this walk you know in one go we're just coming to the chest now it's a little bay and there's a few ducks I thought they'd all come walking up to me thinking I've got food in which I haven't but look they're all pretty bit scared and they're all you can see them all just swimming off we'll go over to that bridge finish it there so you've got a really nice little bay and river chest and that's the bridge so the chest valley way runs from Ritmansworth to Cheshire and I think when I do it what I'll probably do I'll break it into three sections I'll do Ritmansworth to Chollywood so I'd end up walking back up through Chollywood house funny enough what I've got to do when I finish this video then I was coming over to Chollywood park where I parked and come down here and walk to Ritmans and not to Ritmansworth to Chaleville Latimer again along the chest and up again then finally Chaleville Latimer to Cheshire and I'd use the train in between so we get to here that's the bridge there is a path that continues that way so once I look on the map see where that goes it seems the chest valley walk it's called chest valley walk yeah not way it's just here so it says chest valley walk and there it says Parish Sarat Parish Shriipov so up there on the other side of the hill is the village of Sarat which is also a really nice place nice village to go to that's a video for another day there so this is the river chest there's those ducks once the bridge takes you over the chest it does continue on a boardwalk across an area which probably floods I'd say Sarat's up there so that's looking upstream to Cheshire well that's a video for another day and then that's looking to where we've just come from so I hope you enjoyed this video if you'd like to do this walk for yourself you can see it's fairly easy place to get to so thank you very much for watching please do feel free to like subscribe and comment from the river chest goodbye