Forest bathing in Buckinghamshire

The Chilterns give Buckinghamshire its woodland: beech on chalk, with a thin, open canopy that lets bluebells carpet the slopes in spring. Burnham Beeches near Slough is the famous one, ancient beech pollards cared for by the City of London. Wendover Woods above Aylesbury is Forestry England's largest site in the Chilterns, a mix of beech and conifer on the county's highest ground. Black Park near Iver is a flatter, sandier country park of Scots pine around a lake, and Cliveden near Taplow has steep beech hangers running down to the Thames.

Forest bathing here is slow and quiet, two or three hours mostly spent still, with simple invitations from the guide to notice light, sound and texture, and usually tea at the end. The Chiltern beechwoods are at their best in late April and again in October, and the sheltered valleys stay usable through winter. Each guide's profile gives their own dates, venues and prices.

Wendover Woods is the easiest starting point, with a large pay and display car park, a cafe and surfaced trails near the entrance, and Wendover station a mile and a half away. Burnham Beeches has free parking and level paths around the old pollards.