BURNHAM BEECHES  , a wooded

tract of 375 acres in Buckinghamshire, England, acquired in 1879 by the Corporation of the city of London, and preserved for public use . This tract, the remnant of an ancient forest, the more beautiful because of the undulating character of the land, lies west of the road between Slough and Beaconsfield, and 2 M. north of Burnham Beeches station on the Great Western railway . The poet Thomas Gray, who stayed frequently at Stoke Poges in the vicinity, is enthusiastic concerning the beauty of the Beeches in a letter to Horace Walpole in 1737 . Near the township of Burnham are slight Early English remains of an abbey founded in 1265 . Burnham is an urban district with a population (1901) of 3245 . BURNHAM-ON-CROUCH, an urban district in the south-eastern parliamentary division of Essex, England, 43 M . E. by N. from London on a branch of the Great Eastern railway . Pop . (1901) 2919 . The church of St Mary is principally late Perpendicular, a good example; it has Decorated portions and a Norman font . There are extensive oyster beds in the Crouch estuary . Burnham lies 6 m. from the North Sea; below it the Crouch is joined on the south side by the Roch, which branches into numerous creeks, and, together with the main estuary, forms Foulness, Wallasea, Potton and other low, flat islands, embanked and protected from incursions of the sea .

Burnham is in some repute as a watering-

place, and is a favourite yachting station . There is considerable trade in corn and coal, and boat-building is carried on .