With just a toe in the Home Counties, and barely a breath in the countryside, Burnham Beeches manages to pack in a great feeling of forested expanse and fresh green air. Even the noise of Heathrow Airport, less than 10 miles away, is lost amongst the ancient boughs of this beautiful wood.
Unfortunately the entire population of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Greater London decided that a Sunday stroll round Burnham Beeches would be just the ticket before rejoining the rat race on Monday. Hey ho.
Thankfully the vast majority of the stockbrokers, pawnbrokers, Henry's and Chelsey's decided that anything further than a mile from the Range Rover would probably require oxygen and a sherpa, and so I found that having passed through the invisible boundary I wandered back into my own world again. Phew!
I don't deal well with crowds, which is why I never go shopping, don't do nightclubs and would never enter a pub with the words 'Satellite TV' or 'Happy Hour Cocktails' or anything else outside! If there's not a whiff of real ale or the sound of ancient and mud-encrusted boots on the tiled floor, I'm not really interested!!
Anyway, having left the crowds behind I found that I had the paths and drives pretty much to myself. A few intrepid dog walkers would venture deep into the woods, but apart from a nod and a "lovely day innit" I was largely left to my own thoughts.
I haven't been to Burnham Beeches since knee-high to a chihuahua, but it's every bit as beautiful and wonderful as I remember. Even better actually, as on this visit I found the old homestead; a moated medieval clearing that had been home to foresters since a very, very, very long time ago!
It tickled me that I was standing where a woman would have stood in the middle ages, looking at the same scene (sort of) and shooing away pigs from the wooden door of her wattle and daub house!
There were several ancient tree stumps across the homestead and I'd love to think that some of these had been saplings when she stood at her door. Maybe her pigs had been responsible for spreading a few acorns about and starting the very trees that I could now see as decaying timber.
The cycle of life was really evident here though, as fungi and new tree shoots jockeyed for space amongst the debris. My reverie was eventually disturbed by a hyperactive Spaniel crashing about the bracken, but the tranquility that I found beneath Burnham's Beeches couldn't be so easily destroyed. A stone's throw from London, but a world away in heart.
Rebecca, x
www.rtphotographics.co.uk
rebecca@rtphotographics.co.uk
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