IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Lower Road, GERRARDS CROSS, SL9 0PZ

Carved stone post by the A413, in parish of Gerrards Cross (South Bucks District), Amersham Road; just North of turn to 'Over The Misbourne' road, opposite start of old Amersham Road, North of railway bridge, on cut grass verge, at edge of ditch, on East side of road. Amersham limestone square, erected by the Wendover & Oak Lane turnpike trust in the 18th century. Inscription reads:- (LOND)ON (19) IVER PARISH Buckinghamshire HER. HER Number: 1421300000 https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=MBC32780&resourceID=1024 Milestone Society National ID: BU_LC19

The line was a very late addition to the national railway network, only being completed in 1906 as a joint venture by the Great Western and Great Central Railways. This is the view from the side of the Mill Lane bridge over it, looking towards Gerrards Cross station.

This part of the River Misbourne was experiencing extreme low flows when this photograph was taken in the spring of 1997. The river here dried out for several months later that year, becoming dry from source downstream to the discharge point of Gerrards Cross sewage treatment works. Native white-clawed crayfish (Austropotamobius pallipes) were regularly seen in the Misbourne here until the channel dried in 1997. A short reach of the Misbourne here was one of the last places they could still be found across the home counties - from where they are now almost certainly locally extinct. The invasive North American signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus) is now abundant within the Misbourne, as elsewhere across much of southern England. The spread of this species has eradicated populations of native crayfish as they carry a lethal fungus and outcompete the smaller native species. Although signals first became established within Shardeloes Lake and the upper Misbourne during the early 1990s, the native crayfish population downstream was protected by the isolation caused by a lengthy intermediate section of river that remained perennially dry during this period.

The line was a very late addition to the national railway network, only being completed in 1906 as a joint venture by the Great Western and Great Central Railways. This is the view from the side of the Mill Lane bridge over it, looking towards the viaduct crossings of the A413 and then the M25.

Although a private road, this is on the maps and accessible to all traffic. I used it once as a short cut from Denham and found it a farm track going through a field and farm, almost unmade in places and definitely not to use again.