Visiting Bradenham in the Chilterns Countryside

Ancient woodland on the Bradenham Estate

The wider estate consists of farmland and woodland including Bradenham Woods and The Coppice, a large area of ancient beech wood which is considered among the best in the Chilterns. The woods contain archaeological evidence of people using the land over hundreds of years, such as charcoal burning and field boundaries.

Explore Park Wood

Park Wood is another area of ancient beech woodland on land that used to be the deer park for the medieval manor house. Grimm's Ditch, which runs through the north-east corner of the wood, is one of the few intact parts of an Iron Age boundary feature that can be seen across the Chilterns. The woodland is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest and Special Area of Conservation.

Visiting Bradenham with children

If you're visiting with children, there are a number of geocaches hidden around the estate, and there’s plenty of space to have a picnic and fly a kite in the fields behind the village.

Bradenham wildlife

The woodland floor throughout is covered in flowers such as dog's mercury, primrose, sweet woodruff, wood anemone and bluebells.

There are pockets of good quality chalk grassland along the south-facing valley slope below the woodland edge. Chalk grassland is a nationally threatened habitat, and some scarce plants grow here, including juniper and fragrant, bee and fly orchids. It is also home to a number of butterflies, notably attracting the small blue and the Duke of Burgundy.

Walking on Bradenham estate

There are lots of well-walked trails through the beech woods, wildflower meadows and picturesque village of Bradenham. The estate extends along a valley, so it's hard to get lost as you can always head down the hill and find your way back along the valley bottom. Here's a good walk that takes in much of the estate: Bradenham beech woods walk