United Kingdom
England
South East England
Buckinghamshire
Aylesbury Vale
Wendover
Dunsmore Village
United Kingdom
England
South East England
Buckinghamshire
Aylesbury Vale
Wendover
Dunsmore Village
Hiking Highlight
Recommended by 29 out of 30 hikers
This Highlight is in a protected area
Please check local regulations for: Chilterns National Landscape
This hilltop hamlet of some 40 dwellings is accessible only by steep, single-track lanes and can be cut off during harsh winter weather. Settlement here dates back to Anglo Saxon times and it is thought that the track through the village was a Medieval packhorse route. Why were the earliest known human settlements in this area, like Dunsmore and Little Hampden, on the hard-to-reach hilltops rather than in the valleys? Part of the reason is probably that ponds could be dug into the layer of clay-with-flints that caps the hillsides to provide a year-round source of water. In contrast, the valley bottoms sit on porous chalk and are almost permanently dry.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunsmore,_Buckinghamshire
nationaltrust.org.uk/chilterns-countryside/trails/the-hampdens-trail
May 4, 2018
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