Sunday 11th January, fifteen of us met by the Visitor's Centre in Burnham Beeches for the second walk of the year. Our number included a few newcomers and a few established members that we haven't seen for a while. New Year's resolutions were discussed, which mostly included taking more exercise.
We set off south-westerly on Victoria Drive and then on footpaths to the edge of the wood. Leaving the park, we continued west along a footpath through Dorney Wood. This was all open fields and the only trees were in the hedges and field boundaries, so it didn't quite live up to its name at first.
After heading north for a while we got to Littleworth Common, and we were back in woodland again. Here we joined a long-distance path called Shakespeare's Way, which connects William Shakespeare's birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon to the modern Shakespeare's Globe in London (146 miles in total!)
We only followed it for a couple of miles, which took us through the wooded part of Dorney Wood and back into Burnham Beeches park. We continued to follow Shakespeare's Way through the park back to the Visitor's Centre, but on the way we stopped to look at Hartley Court Moat.
This is a near-rectangular moat surrounding the remains of an ancient homestead. Historically known as Hardicanut Moat it is named after Hardicanut (King Canute's son, and the king of England from 1040 to 1042 AD). The enclosed homestead was thought to have been one of his hunting lodges.
After inspecting the moat and the accompanying information board, we completed the last half-mile of our walk and arrived back at the Visitor's Centre at around 12:30. Although it had been a bright sunny morning, the temperature hadn't risen much above 5°C so most of us made use of the café for hot drinks and hot snacks before going home.
I recorded our route on my GPS, but somehow managed to delete it before uploading it to the website. Sorry!
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