“Despite a lifetime in Surrey, I knew nothing of the history of this lost estate with its tunnels and wonderful architectural features.” “Beautiful views and so much history.  A real hidden gem.” “Thank you SHS! Yet another really interesting event.”

These were only a few amazing comments from our lovely members.

Gail McKintosh, the Deepdene Trail Activity Plan Coordinator, talking to the Society members at the Dorking Golf Club.                                                                                         

Gail took us to a guided tour around the magnificent gardens.

The gates of the Mausoleum were opened for us!

The walk in the afternoon took us all the way to Betchworth Castle.

“The feedback is very positive; interesting and useful course. Thank you very much!”

“I want to travel more and walk in other countries and needed to understand how to read maps.”

The course started with a theory class.

After lunch we had a practice session under the rain.

The first picture shows Dominic North, who works on behalf of Croydon Council for conservation of the Happy Valley area of chalk grassland that we’re in, he also does public events like this on their behalf but turned up for SHS that day.  We’re standing in Happy Valley and after that walked towards the sites where the Downlands Partnership graze their conservation sheep to help manage the grassland to encourage greater diversity of the chalk-loving plants and stop the invasive scrub from taking over.

The photo with sheep would be Sean Grufferty, Downlands Partnership shepherd who looks after the sheep on this site on behalf of Croydon Council.

Farthing Downs is managed and looked after by City of London Corporation who own this bit of land for public access, to provide open space for the people of London to get out into the countryside.  They have many other sites around the outer edge of London. The pictures don’t show Farthing Downs, but our walk took in both sites.

Diane Cooper, our walk leader for the day