Chiltern Hills

The Chilterns are a chalk escarpment running about seventy kilometres from the Thames at Goring to Hitchin, covered in beech woodland planted and managed for the furniture trade at High Wycombe, where bodgers turned chair legs on pole lathes in the woods themselves. The most visible thing about them now is overhead: red kites were persecuted to extinction in England by 1871 and survived only in mid-Wales, and between 1989 and 1994 birds from Spain were released in the Chilterns; the population has grown into the thousands and they are now a constant presence over the hills and the M40. The Ridgeway national trail runs along the scarp. Chequers, the prime minister's country residence, is in the hills and closed, and Roald Dahl lived and wrote at Great Missenden.

What you actually see

• The red kites - a reintroduced population now numbering thousands.
• The beech woods - hangers planted for the High Wycombe furniture trade.
• The Ridgeway - a national trail along the chalk escarpment.
• The bodger tradition - pole-lathe chair turning done in the woods.

When to go

April to June for bluebells, which carpet the beech woods, and September to November for autumn colour, which is what the Chilterns are known for. Kites are visible year-round and are most active in the morning.

Honest expectations

The hills are crossed by the M40, the Chiltern railway and the HS2 works, and the noise carries a long way in the valleys. Feeding red kites is discouraged and has caused problems in villages where they now mob picnics. Bluebell woods get very busy on spring weekends.

Nearby

The Ridgeway runs southwest to Uffington; London is forty minutes by train.