This was a most enjoyable ramble. It was picturesque, challenging, interesting and a thoroughly good fun day. We started off from the car park into lovely old woods into an area known as Sheepleas. This covers an area of 270 acres and has been added to over the years, and it is now managed by Surrey Wildlife Trust and the Northern and middle sections were once part of the West Horsley Place estate, while the southern section was part of the Lovelace Estate. We were led by Peter, a guide for Horsley Countryside preservation Society, who do tremendous work in the maintenance of the woods and the beautiful Lovelace bridges that form an integral part of the walk that we did. As you will see they are very attractive bridges, built largely for their ornamental contribution to the woodland by the then owner. There were some difficult tracks and paths, with some deep gorges that have been made by the rain water flowing through. At one point there was a tree fallen across the path, but Peter, our guide, just happened to have a saw on him and the men got to work and sawed away until the tree was removed and we could continue. The best bit was a really steep, and I mean steep, slope – with Robin crouched at the bottom catching our faces as we made the descent down it, at first glance it looked too scary to tackle, but in our usual exemplary way we did it!! Thought Robin very brave to trust us to swerve in time to miss him I must admit. The wild flowers, and associated insects and butterflies, were beautiful, such a good time of year for them at the moment. All the time we had good rapport and at the end some of us went for a cup of tea in the local garden centre to recover! A super day, thank you Peter and Robin.
This was a most enjoyable ramble. It was picturesque, challenging, interesting and a thoroughly good fun day. We started off from the car park into lovely old woods into an area known as Sheepleas. This covers an area of 270 acres and has been added to over the years, and it is now managed by Surrey Wildlife Trust and the Northern and middle sections were once part of the West Horsley Place estate, while the southern section was part of the Lovelace Estate. We were led by Peter, a guide for Horsley Countryside preservation Society, who do tremendous work in the maintenance of the woods and the beautiful Lovelace bridges that form an integral part of the walk that we did. As you will see they are very attractive bridges, built largely for their ornamental contribution to the woodland by the then owner. There were some difficult tracks and paths, with some deep gorges that have been made by the rain water flowing through. At one point there was a tree fallen across the path, but Peter, our guide, just happened to have a saw on him and the men got to work and sawed away until the tree was removed and we could continue. The best bit was a really steep, and I mean steep, slope – with Robin crouched at the bottom catching our faces as we made the descent down it, at first glance it looked too scary to tackle, but in our usual exemplary way we did it!! Thought Robin very brave to trust us to swerve in time to miss him I must admit. The wild flowers, and associated insects and butterflies, were beautiful, such a good time of year for them at the moment. All the time we had good rapport and at the end some of us went for a cup of tea in the local garden centre to recover! A super day, thank you Peter and Robin.