Great Chishall and Chishall Common

Counties - Cambridgeshire and Essex

Elevation – 146m and 147m

Date – 24/07/2021

Distance – 11km

Elevation climbed - 111m

Starting this adventure, I'd hoped to have company on as many tops as possible, whilst knocking off boring ones solo. The idea would be that I could combine County Topping with seeing mates in different parts of the country, as I had with Billinge Hill. That's all well and good in theory; the problem is that my mates tend to like a drink, and see a visit from me as an opportunity to get some beers in.

I'd decided that visiting Roger on a Friday night meant I could knock off a couple of tops en route, then bring him along the next morning to provide me company as we bagged a couple more. Unfortunately Roger's legendary hospitality had meant a 3am finish, a surfeit of passionfruit martinis, and a hangover of epic proportions, all of which meant is was gone midday before we drove the other side of Royston into south Cambridgeshire to begin our next excursion.

We parked in the pleasant village of Great Chishall, which is probably only known for its possession of the County Top. Around a k from the car park we found it; or at least we thought we had. This video suggests the top is next to covered reservoir, but standing next to it it seemed obvious that actually the rise was in the field and lane next door. We were joined at the reservoir gates by a couple who, astonishingly, were also County Toppers, drawn to Great Chishall by the same mysterious magnetism. We swapped Topper stories (theirs were better than mine) and agreed that wandering 50 yards up the lane would see us reach the high point; and so we did.

Hitting that first sweet County Top. Spot the hangover.

Cambridgeshire done, it was into the fields to have a pop at Essex. The countryside of these parts wasn't really known to me; in my head I'd imagined it to be boring flatlands, but actually it was a gentle roll, with fields of yellow corn in all directions, and quite beautiful for it.

"Just like Teresa May"

Walking with Nick in Merseyside and Anglesey a couple of weeks previously, I'd happily let him take over responsibility for navigation, pace-setting etc, but here Roger's painfully fragile hungover state meant I had to do all that myself whilst imbibing copious liquid to repair my own dessicated husk of a body. He never knew, but we took several wrong turns and long way rounds, to the extent we had to leap over a ditch at one point in order to get anywhere near where we were meant to be. Let's hope he never reads this eh.

Keeping us company in the big skies of Cambridgeshire was the IWM airshow at Duxford, with Typhoons (the new jet one, not the WW2 fighter bomber), Spitfires, and a massive Catalina giving us something other than corn to look at.

Eventually we came to the corner of a wood which the OS app told me was the highest point of Essex. We'd done it! In our knackered state it was the equivalent of K2, at least. Roger rewarded me with a secret can of Diet Pepsi he'd been hiding in his rucksack for this moment. God I was grateful.

Another Top falls prey to the ceaseless might of our happy adventurers.

As any mountaineer will tell you, descending is the most dangerous part of any climb. You are summit-happy, tired, lacking concentration...all of which are exaggerated when you've had an absolute skinful the night before.

I was sorely tempted to saddle up this bad boy to take me back to Cambs

We headed back via a posh, ancient residence called Chiswick Hall (with a less-ancient swimming pool and Labrador barking at us) and made the long, knackering walk through somewhat unkept pathways back to Cambridgeshire until we reached the sanctuary of the Pheasant Inn, where Essex's friendliest landlady sorted us out with the nicest shandy I'd ever had. I swore that next time, I wouldn't get absolutely pissed before attempting a double summit. No siree.

Not sure I've ever enjoyed a shandy more