Burnham Beeches, Chilterns

Start: The Beeches Eco Café, Lord Mayors Drive, Farnham Common SL2 3TE. Grid ref: SU 954 850

(S/E) From the café, walk back along the entrance road and take the path on the left just before the height barrier. Follow the path into the wood and down to cross a small wooden bridge. Climb up the path to a crossing track at the top.

(1) Continue in the same direction for 400m as the path runs alongside a lane, Egypt Lane (B). Where the path joins the lane, continue past the bends in the road to a wide track opposite the entrance to Egypt Wood and The Stray. Turn left along the track for a few paces and bear right to continue beside the lane to the entrance to Egypt Wood Cottages.

(2) Turn left through the gate, follow the concrete driveway past the houses and go through the gate directly ahead into the wood, Egypt Wood. Stay in the same direction through the wood for one kilometre, ignoring permissive paths to the right and left, to a junction of tracks. Bear right, then left through a shallow ditch and continue uphill. At the T-junction, turn left and immediately right, eventually leaving the wood through a gate. Keep straight ahead to the left of the hedgerow, pass through two further gates and continue to a lane.

(3) Stay ahead along the lane, pass the turning to Beaconsfield and continue towards Burnham and Taplow. Soon after passing Boveney Wood Farm, turn right on a bridleway and remain on it to enter the car park by the former Jolly Woodman pub.

(4) Take the second bridleway on the left, the one just before the road. Cross the lane and continue ahead for 70m to the second crossing track just before the overhead cables.

(5) Turn left along it to join a section of both the Beeches Way and Shakespeare’s Way, which the route will follow until Victoria Drive in Burnham Beeches. It then continues across (C) Littleworth Common and through a wood to the car park of The Blackwood Arms. Cross the lane to the path opposite, go through the gate, ahead between the fences and through a series of gates into a wood. Stay ahead through the wood, go past a gate and cross the lane into Burnham Beeches.

(6) Continue on a wide track and go past the bollards onto Morton Drive. Continue ahead, turn left along McAuliffe Drive and soon on the left is the site of (D) Hartley Court Moat.

(7) Return to McAuliffe Drive and turn right to the T-junction. Turn left along Halse Drive and follow it for 700m down to its junction with Victoria Drive.

(8) Turn right along Victoria Drive for 600m to a major junction and turn left steeply uphill to the top.

(9) Ahead is the fencing that surrounds the (E) Seven Ways Plain hillfort. Turn left, initially with the fence on the right, and follow the track, ignoring all tracks to the left and right, for c560m to a sharply angled track on the right. Turn right along it and go through the gate to a surfaced track and then a wide driveway.

(10) Cross both the surfaced track and the wide driveway to a pond, Upper Pond. Turn right on the gravel path to Middle Pond.

(11) Turn left past the end of the pond and the information board, proceed uphill and along the walkway. Keep straight ahead for 400m to cross a surfaced driveway and continue for a further 100m to where a track joins from the right.

(12) After a few metres turn left on a wide track and directly ahead on the wooden walkway. Go through the gate at the end. Turn immediately left and along to meet a surfaced driveway. Turn right onto it, go past a barrier, then turn immediately right to return to the visitor centre and the end of the walk. (S/E)

"We hope you have enjoyed your walk. Please remember to rate the walk and add comments. We are interested in how we could improve the instructions or the route and would like to hear about any issues with paths on the walk."

Terrain: A mixture of paths, tracks, lanes and drives. A few muddy sections after rain.

Start & finish: The Beeches Eco Café, Lord Mayors Drive, Farnham Common SL2 3TE. Grid ref: SU 954 850

Food & drink: The Beeches Eco Café (information point and toilets) and The Blackwood Arms at Littleworth Common

Parking: Lord Mayors Drive, Farnham Common SL2 3TF. Grid ref: SU 956850. Fees apply

Local transport: For local bus services please check www.traveline.info

(A) Burnham Beeches National Nature Reserve and site of special scientific Interest is one of a number of open spaces, parks and gardens in and around London owned and managed by the City of London. It covers 540 acres. Originally for sale as ‘land suitable for the erection of superior residences’, the Beeches was bought by the City of London Corporation in 1880 to protect it as a public open space and wildlife reserve. There has probably been woodland on the site since the retreat of the last Ice Age, but today’s landscape was created by people and the area has been inhabited since as early as the Iron Age.

Wood Banks and associated ditches can be seen on the walk. These were constructed in medieval times to separate woodland areas under different ownership, and helped prevent animals from straying from the pastures into the woods.

(B) Egypt & Egypt Woods: Egypt has been described as a few cottages dating from the 17th century. Its name could have come from gypsies who lived in the Woods some 500 years ago and were known as ‘Dukes of Little Egypt’. The Woods have been owned by the Portland Estate since 1948. They’re part of the Burnham Beeches NNR complex and a candidate Special Area for Conservation (SAC). They contain a mixture of ancient woodland and former common land, with numerous ancient trees and very high biodiversity levels.

(C) Littleworth Common is an SSSI of 40 acres, with valuable habitats of lowland heath, ponds and woodland. It was once part of a much larger area of heathland covering South Buckinghamshire.

(D Hartley Court Moat also known as Harlequin’s and Hardicanute’s Moat, is a Scheduled Ancient Monument dating from sometime between the 12th and 14th centuries. A farmstead would have been built inside it. The outer ditch and bank round the moat might have been topped by a wooden fence. The people living in the farm would have cultivated the land between the moat and the outer ditch and bank.

(E) Seven Ways Plain is a hillfort that has a series of earthworks dating between the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age (8th to 5th centuries BC). In 2019 the Chilterns Hillforts Project carried out a community archaeological dig on the bank and ditch running into Seven Ways Plain. Nothing conclusive was found to help establish how old the feature is – it may be an Iron Age linear earthwork, but it may also be part of the boundary of a medieval deer park.