BBC COUNTRYFILE 45May 2014

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A 500-year-old map reveals how a protected valley near London has barely changed since medieval times. But landscape historian Alison Doggett fears the planned HS2 route may destroy a precious link with the past

The tale of The Princess and the Pea springs to mind when delving into the history of a landscape. Time adds layers, like extra mattresses, but you endeavour to discern

the truth that lies hidden beneath them. Occasionally, however, it can be found sitting on

the surface right before you. The way I came across an entire medieval landscape in Buckinghamshire, on the edge of London, was one of those instances.

I was researching the Misbourne Valley, in the Chiltern Hills, a protected Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), when I came across two exquisite old estate maps. They detail the land around the Chequers Estate, the country house

a lost valley?

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A lost vAlley?

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High-speed trail: views from Toby’s Lane stile near Little Missenden in the Chilterns could be drastically altered by the HS2 route. INSET a small section of a 1620 map of Dame Mary Wolley of Chequers’ land, which has changed little in 500 years

BBC COUNTRYFILE 47May 2014

and rural retreat bequeathed to the nation for the use of the Prime Minister. Yet what makes them even more compelling is the picture they paint of the Misbourne Valley. The longest, highest trough running through the Chilterns appears on the map almost exactly as it’s seen today. But the maps were drawn nearly 500 years ago.

The Misbourne Valley has been worked on and lived on all that time but remains recognisable as the landscape depicted in the maps. It’s been carefully tended by generations and protected since being designated an AONB. But its historical significance and safeguarded status appear to be irrelevant in the face of the HS2 rail line, which will run right through the middle of the valley.

The ancient landscapeThe Misbourne Valley was part of the Manorial Estate of Dame Mary Wolley of Chequers. In 1620, she commissioned the talented cartographer Henry Lily to record her land on two handsome maps. In exquisite detail, on parchment pages as large as bedsheets, every field, farmstead, wood and track was drawn, named and attributed to whomever held it.

Studying dusty old maps has its own satisfactions but, for me, greater thrills are had venturing out to see if the features they depict can still be recognised today. Which is why I found myself standing on the valley floor at Wendover Dean,

clutching copies of the maps and staring up at the peppermint-green fields. As the spring-sown wheat and barley took hold and the hedges burst into life, I travelled up and down the valley’s sunken lanes trying to find the best viewpoints.

Marked on the 1620 maps is “the London high way heading betweene Missenden and Ailisburie” and the road remains in exactly the same place today. I followed it for a while and then branched off up the high-sided single track of Bowood Lane. It’s barely wide enough for a car, with grass growing along the middle. Red kites swooped on thermals above and the old maps led me to the boundary of the common fields of Nash Croft, where individual strips of land were situated in a narrow band along the valley floor.

I passed the tiny and ancient Jones Hill Wood (still in the same teardrop shape that appears on the old maps) and, looking down on Durham Farm (Durims), stopped to see if I could match the old field names to the boundaries visible today. The distinctive shapes of Little Barcroft and Great Hartley were easy to make out. In one field after another, I saw that the irregular patchwork stretching up both valley sides bore an astonishingly Ph

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close resemblance to the ancient maps. Those medieval field boundaries have remained stubbornly intact and their ancient names still appear on the signs of the area’s houses, lanes and farms.

On my way home, I paused to admire the hilltop views from Kings Lane. This ancient thoroughfare, its hedges lined with bluebells, is at its most fragrant in spring. Standing under cherry trees in full blossom, I thought about the significance of what I’d seen while wandering through this landscape.

Thanks to the good husbandry of the farmers who worked the land and the sound stewardship of the people who lived on it, the Misbourne Valley looks to us much the same as it did to Dame Mary. But that may not be the case for much longer.

The Sword of DamoclesFor almost four years, a threat has hung over the valley. The proposed High Speed 2 rail link that would run through the Chilterns AONB is set to cleave a diagonal slice across the hillside and impose a string of cuttings, embankments and concrete viaducts upon it. The tiny Anglo-Saxon Bowood and Kings Lanes would be permanently straightened and widened to accommodate construction vehicles, and ancient woodland such as Jones Hill Wood would be destroyed. Farmers who have worked this land for three or four generations, like those of Strawberry Hill and Hunts Green farms, may be forced to cease farming. Opponents to the route have suggested creating a tunnel for the HS2 line instead, but this has so far been rejected, presumably on cost grounds.

Landscapes are granted protected status for characteristics that make them unique. The protection ensures we tread lightly so that we may share the landscapes with future generations, just as past generations shared them with us. We need to

ask why protections on historical landscapes are being overturned. Is this trampling of our rural inheritance part of a bigger picture: a calculated indifference to the value of countryside in the name of progress?

The sun setsAs the days lengthen, it is hard to resist an evening stroll to watch the sun set behind the hill directly over Chequers. How many more times will it set over this unchanged scene? My mind wanders back to Dame Mary Wolley, whose portrait hangs in Chequers’s great hall with its tiny, mournful inscription: ‘One thing is needfull.’ I share a moment of sadness with her as, nearly 500 years on, her splendid landscape may be changed forever. CF

For how long will the sun set over this

unchanged scene?

Alison Doggett lives in the Chilterns. She co-wrote The Chilterns, a landscape history of the region, with Professor Leslie Hepple.

ChIlTErNS CoNTrovErSy – 1970S-STylEProtected status and protests aren’t enough to immobilise infrastructure improvements

The last time a large-scale transport project carved through the protected Chilterns landscape was when the M40 was built in the early 1970s. Then the protected status of the Chilterns AONB was in its infancy and the motorway was being built in sections, initially on the old A40, as the Wycombe Bypass.

Most controversy arose at the Stokenchurch Gap (above), due to the proposal to cut deeply through the top of the chalk hills, bisecting the National Nature Reserve at Aston Rowant. A protest march along the cutting’s proposed path, and arguments for an alternative route or a tunnel, came to no avail and the proposal went ahead. The Public Enquiry rejected claims that the National Nature Reserve could not be damaged under any circumstances.

The natural landscape never fully recovers from such intrusions. The soft white chalk exposed by the cutting is constantly eroding and the bisected downland on the Nature Reserve has left species, such as the dormouse, isolated on the west side.

MappEd ouTOS map of the Misbourne Valley, overlaid with Dame Mary Wolley’s map of 1620, created by the Chilterns Conservation Board, including a digital route of the HS2 rail link, provided by HS2 Ltd.

46 BBC COUNTRYFILE May 2014

a lost valley?

Rail alignment

Extent of cutting

Landscape earthworks

Sustainable placement area

Balancing pond

Land drainage area

Landscape mitigation planting

Woodland habitat creation

Bluebells in spriing: Piper’s Wood near Little Missenden will be partially destroyed by HS2.

aBovE rIGhT A red kite soars over the Chilterns. rIGhT Bowood Lane, which appears

on the 1620 map of the Misbourne Valley

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