Basildon Park – a beautiful dog walk in a period drama set

Basildon Park in Berkshire offers a great walk. The site is owned by the National Trust and there is a Grade I listed building within the grounds. The garden and the park are a dog friendly walk in Berkshire.

Distance	Total Time	Difficulty
5.59 km	01:35	Easy

You probably would not realise whilst walking in the park and the garden, but this place had an important role to play during both WWI and WWII. After World War II, the grounds were acquired by the Iliffe family. Lord Iliffe and his wife dedicated most of their life to the restoration of Basildon Park. Once they had finished with the restoration, they presented the house and the park to the National Trust so it could be preserved for future generations.

I found the house and the gardens absolutely beautiful and can see why movies and TV series are filmed there. If you’d like to imagine yourself in an episode of Downtown Abbey or feel like you’re in a setting of Pride and Prejudice, The Duchess, Marie-Antoinette, Dorian Grey or Bridgerton, this is The place!

The only issue for me was the £15 admission fee. While I agree with the admission fee for well-kept places like many of the National Trust sites, I thought £15 was a bit steep compared to places like Stow Park for example, which has a lower admission cost and more to see and walk. Either way, it was still worth it, as you will see below. The Basildon Park postcode is RG8 9NR.

Don’t forget to check the post notes at the bottom of the page, with maps, a detailed table about the hike and links to everything mentioned in the post.

The Hike

The gang started this hike at the entrance, after walking through the wooden gate, passing the toilets and shop, and through another gate leading us out to a picnic area. The only dog waste bin we found on this hike was just before entering the site.

We followed the path that initially took us through an arboretum where we saw a kids playground area, and after going up a small slope, we got to a narrow road where we turned right briefly and then left towards the mansion.

After checking the lovely facade of the house and taking some pictures, we went into the garden. It was quite a small garden; however, the views of the Thames Valley were great. The garden also has a few statues, and we especially liked the ones with human size dogs protecting the entrance that separates the garden from the park.

We walked through the garden and using a photo we had taken of the map at the entrance, we followed the orange trail into the field, downslope.

This section was very pretty. We still could see the mansion and the gardens on our right. After we passed a couple of houses on our left, we walked towards the woods. To get into the woods, we crossed a gate, and here the trail split to blue or orange. We picked the blue trail and walked through a lovely little path in the woods. The autumn colours were still there but fading now with the approaching winter.

I was wondering about the movies that were shot in the location, as it does feel timeless, and this beautiful landscape takes you straight to a period drama.

The trail is well signed with waymarks initially, however, we got a bit lost after this section and mostly followed the trail using the orange waymarks until we found a red one as per the map. 

From that point, we followed the red trail back to the entrance again.

This hike was pretty, and the autumn colours brought in that dramatic period feel. There were two downsides: having only one dog waste bin at the entrance and the admission fee that was a bit steep.

Cheers,

Ademar