The best running trails around Bradenham

Some great roads and trails around RAF High Wycombe, great little coffee shop close by too

This is a lovely woodland: lots of paths (wide, very easy to run on), intersecting in many places. There are also a few small ponds that are quite picturesque. It's just a lovely place to be.

This sarsen stone was dug up in nearby Great Close Field and placed here to mark the dawn of the third millennium.

For some reason they don't do visits. You can still admire those old planes at the entrance

By the 1970s the original Bomber Command bunker was becoming too small to host modern communications and information systems, and was inadequate to give protection against modern conventional bombs, let alone the nuclear, biological or chemical threats that existed during the Cold War. In 1979 it was decided to build a completely new facility, designed to withstand large shock loads, and to enable 'closed down' for several weeks. This new Strike Command Operations Centre, colloquially known as 'The Bunker', is situated on land leased from the National Trust beyond the Second World War bunker that was mentioned at Point 5. Considerable care was taken to replace natural flora and to continue existing hedgerows over the completed earth covered site. Work was started on the site in May 1982 using a temporary access road through Park Wood from the widened A4010 north of Bradenham village. The track you are about to cross is all that remains of that temporary access road. The RAF began using the bunker in January 1989. https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/chilterns-countryside/trails/bradenham-beech-woods-and-bunkers-trail

adjacent to the carpark, is an area of permanent grassland rich in flora and fauna, which is now in the care of the National Trust. The Trust successfully re-introduced the rare Duke of Burgundy butterfly here in 2011 (full name: His Grace the Duke of Burgundy Butterfly, Hamearis lucina). Considerable work has been done to ensure the habitat at these sites is suitable for the butterfly's lifecycle. This is a great local conservation success story for a species which on a national scale is one of the most rapidly-declining butterflies in the UK. https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/chilterns-countryside/trails/bradenham-beech-woods-and-bunkers-trail

Archaeological Surveys undertaken in Park Wood have revealed a fascinating past for this quiet area of deciduous woodland. Lynchets and banks within the woods give evidence of ancient field systems which may date back to the late Iron Age/early Roman period (or they may be medieval). In the beech woodland opposite the pond is evidence of a late thirteenth/early fourteenth homestead in the woodlands and in Tudor times (1485 – 1603) the woodland was a deer park. Much of Park Wood was converted to beech woodland from the late 18th until the early 20th century to cater for the High Wycombe furniture industry. Associated features include sawpits, tracks and charcoal burning platforms. https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/chilterns-countryside/trails/bradenham-beech-woods-and-bunkers-trail

You are now very close to RAF High Wycombe at Naphill. During the Second World War, this site was chosen by the War Ministry as a secret location for Bomber Command. In addition to a range of surface buildings, which were designed to look like a country village from the air, a network of underground tunnels was constructed allowing staff to move between buildings without surfacing. A stairway led 17 metre down to the large concrete box that was the Operations block: the key building in the complex. The roof slabs alone were over 1.5 metres thick overlaid with ballast, another 60 cm of concrete covered with a 1.3m cushion of earth and another 1.5 metre layer of reinforced concrete extending way beyond the walls of the building. This “burster slab” would ensure the detonation of any bomb in the event of a direct hit. Last of all came a considerable depth of earth mounding, on top of which were laid grass turfs. There are very few surface features, other than a series of cylindrical pill boxes built at the corners of the plot. From the first pillbox, if you walk about 20 metres up the track parallel to the fence, to a second pillbox, you may glimpse the green doors, which are the entrance to the wartime bunker. Return to the first (lower) pillbox to continue the walk. https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/chilterns-countryside/trails/bradenham-beech-woods-and-bunkers-trail Naphill: Proposed Underground Operations Centre HL Deb 25 March 1982 vol 428 cc1130-44 1130 § 8.23 p.m. §Lord Brockway rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will reconsider their intention to establish a bunker at Naphill, Buckinghamshire, on National Trust land. § The noble Lord said: My Lords, I make no apology for initiating this debate. The proposed bunker at Naphill—or "operations centre", as the Ministry prefers—is not an isolated or incidental nuclear project. The Ministry itself says that it is probably the most important construction for many years. It is part of a massive co-ordination at High Wycombe of the headquarters of not only British but American and NATO defence. Indeed, it is not too much to say that this picturesque town in the valley of the Chilterns will be the defence centre for Britain and a large part of Europe if war occurs..... https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1982/mar/25/naphill-proposed-underground-operations