Buckingham: Market, History and Walking Routes

Buckingham combines a long market tradition, a museum about the town’s history and a variety of walking destinations. When planning your trip, you can choose between culture, signposted or app-guided routes, and parks with rivers, ponds and wildlife. If you’re looking for a hotel in Buckingham, these specific highlights can help you organise your stay around the experiences you’d like to enjoy locally.

Market and Local History

Buckingham Street Market takes place on Tuesdays and Saturdays; check the date before you travel. The twice-weekly market tradition dates back to 1554. The market therefore offers both a specific day to visit and a connection to the town’s history.

Buckingham Old Gaol houses a registered museum covering various aspects of Buckingham’s past, including its military history. Visitors can also explore the cells where poachers, drunks and, occasionally, murderers were held. A visit therefore links the broader history of the town with the specific subject of imprisonment in the past.

Access to Buckingham Chantry Chapel is managed by volunteers. Before your visit, contact Stowe Gardens on 01280 817156 to check whether the chapel is open.

Walks and Routes

The Buxplore app offers walking routes in Buckingham, marking notable buildings and places where historic events took place. This lets you plan a walk around historical and cultural destinations rather than focusing only on the route itself.

The Railway Walk follows the route of the former railway and is a straight, approximately one-mile walking path. There are ponds along the way, as well as a variety of wildlife. At the end, on Tingewick Road, you can leave the path and cross bridges and slopes to reach an orchard to explore.

The restored section of the Buckingham Canal follows the Ouse Valley Way walking route. A lock gate is hidden in the woods in Buckingham Canal Nature Reserve.

The routes offer different highlights: Buxplore routes mark historical destinations, while the Buckingham Circular Walk is clearly signposted. The Railway Walk offers another option, following the former railway line for approximately one mile, with ponds and wildlife along the way.

Parks and Nature

At Bourton Park, the river and ponds form a diverse ecosystem home to otters, kingfishers and dragonflies. The paved paths are suitable for running or a longer walk. If you’d like to combine exercise with wildlife watching, this park offers both.

The River Great Ouse is at the centre of Chandos Park, which also has a children’s play area among its recreational facilities.

Heartlands Park contains evidence of medieval ridge-and-furrow field patterns. The term describes the pattern of ridges and furrows in historic fields. The park’s paved paths are accessible to wheelchair users.

Discover more destinations: Botley, Worminghall, Stoke Poges, Weston Turville, Drayton Parslow, Chalfont St Giles, Winslow, Little Missenden.

For the broader travel overview: Buckinghamshire.