Burnham Beeches

Burnham Beeches has a wide variety of habitats including ancient woodland, heathland, bog, grassland and wood pasture.

It has been designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest because none of these habitats are very widespread in Buckinghamshire and they need to be protected.

Burnham Beeches is famous for its ancient beech and oak pollards. These trees were used for firewood centuries ago and are now 450 years old. Rather than cut down the whole tree, local people only cut the upper branches so that it would re-grow and provide more firewood in later years.

If you ever visit Burnham Beeches look out for big trees like the one in the picture that have many branches coming out of the tree trunk at the same point

Burnham beeches is owned and managed by the Corporation of London

Some species that can be found in the woodland are:

• Beech
• Oak
• Bluebell 
• Dog Violet
• Green Woodpecker
• Adder
• Fox 
• Muntjac deer
• Foxglove
• Fly Agaric
• Sulphur Polypore
• Great Spotted Woodpecker