River Chess — Local services in Three Rivers

We started the Chess Valley Walk at Chesham at around noon on a Saturday in mid-October aiming to finish at Rickmansworth. The walk was very enjoyable and relaxing - you will completely forget that, in fact, you are still in (Greater) London. The walk became a little bit uncomfortable as soon as we passed the M25 London Orbital Motorway and had to follow a very narrow and eerie path that lasted for, what felt like, an eternity and only opened up close to Rickmansworth. Personally (and in hindsight) I would suggest you either start much earlier than we did - both in terms of season and daytime - or you do the walk the other way round, thus concluding in Chesham. If you strictly follow the path you will only occasionally see the river itself, so plan ahead and take your time for the occasional detour to get closer to the water. Also keep in mind that there is no easy way to stock up on water or food along the way. We bought our snacks in the surprisingly large Sainsbury's in Chesham. If we had started earlier we'd have turned the walk into a pub crawl (highly recommended as there are some pubs along the route, albeit not immediately on the Chess Valley Walk itself). All in all it has been a lovely experience to visit London's countryside and we'd much recommend it to anyone who is interested in an amateur hiking experience. (Don't forget to bring appropiate footwear - it can get rather muddy at some points). As virtually anywhere in the world, signposting is pretty bad at times, so use any help you can get (google maps, official flyer,...

Chess Valley Walk: a 10 miles (16 km) hike highly recommended if you live in London and would like to spend some time outdoors in nature. The walk starts in Rickmansworth and ends in Chesham, both serviced by the Metropolitan Line in about 1 hour travel from the city centre. The trail is signedposted and very easy to walk! It took us about 4-5 hours at a leisurely walking pace. So it can be done in half a day easily. The first quarter of the trail has some roads, car noise, and a M25 crossing: so not the best but then it gets much better. In some bits you walk along the river and it's nice and clean. The best part is in Latimer with lovely cottages and right after Latimer where you have a beautiful view over the river, the valley and fields. I recommend taking the little detour to Chines which is a lovely village with...

today we visited a wonderful place. there is such beauty here. On the way, we met a wonderful couple who helped us understand where our path is. we are very grateful to them, they are so friendly. it was difficult to find parking. a lot of private land and territory and a park. but it did not show us in the phone. how wonderful and beautiful it is here. We were happy here. everything is so clean and calm. One thing we did not understand. The moving river is also private and you cannot sit near the river or go into it. we did not understand this. but it's great here. it is worth coming back and enjoying the beauty of nature again. what a wonderful nature. I want more open access to the moving...