A glorious day at Hatchlands Park

Originally built in the 1750’s for a naval hero and his wife, Hatchlands Park has since housed wealthy families, was a finishing school and even a printing press. Now the National Trust owned mansion is a family home containing tenant Alec Cobbe’s collection of paintings and fine furniture.

It’s also home to Europe’s largest collection of keyboard instruments associated with the likes of Bach, Chopin, Elgar and Bizet and the work of architect Robert Adam can be seen in the ceilings and fireplaces throughout the house. The house (and gardens) are open four afternoons a week between April and October with the surrounding parkland and Kitchen Cafe open all year round.

We love Hatchlands Park as it’s local to us in Surrey and with 400 acres of parkland, provides POD with ample opportunities to explore. There are five marked walks available although on this occasion we just headed in the direction that took our fancy.

Although we didn’t intend to go to the cafe first, it does happen sometimes. The coffee and cake at Hatchlands is very good though! After a quick pit stop, refuelled and read to go we spent a short time chatting with the nearby cows before going on our merry way. They were almost close enough to stroke, not that you’d attempt to do that to an animal with horns that’s far larger than you are!

POD loves the Wizard Wix Willow Warren natural playground at Hatchlands but having only been there a few days earlier, we headed in a different direction. We didn’t venture far at that point as there was an event on and POD was really keen to ride a pony.

After a wander and a spot of jumping, we headed back towards the house where the ponies would be. POD waited patiently in the queue, occupying herself with some whinny impressions! You could tell she was excited about getting on the pony as her helmet was swiftly on and she was ready to go in no time. POD got to ride a beautiful little black pony, she loved holding the mane and trotting round with one of the trainers. She seemed quite taken by it, I’m sure she would have taken it home given the opportunity.

There were a number of other activities on the day we were at Hatchlands including children’s trails, crafts in a marquee and garden games. POD rather liked the space hoppers although she probably spent more time rolling around the grass than actually hopping! That said she did have a go on one far to big for her and did pretty well.

With it being such a glorious day, we had a quick lolly break before heading back out to the parkland on the hunt for trees to climb. POD has always been a climber and although a girly girl, she’ll always be the first up a tree. Unless the POD Father gets there first!

There are times she attempts to climb trees with branches that are much higher than her! This beautiful ancient one proved too much of a challenge although she did perch on the convenient little ledge in its trunk for a short time.

But then she found a perfectly felled tree just asking to be climbed. It was enormous so having walked along it, there was only one thing to do – launch herself off the other end. A process, as you’d expect, she repeated several times!

Having spent quite a while climbing and jumping we left the tree and headed off to explore an area we’d not come across before. It’s funny how that happens when you think you know every inch of somewhere!

But just up from the tree we spotted this pond rife with wildlife. On such a fabulously sunny day, it was a great place to sit for a little while and watch the ducks before heading back towards the car.

Hatchlands Park truly is beautiful and we always enjoy our time there. On this occasion, we only decided to go on the spur of the moment. Sometimes those kind of days are the best and this one really was.