Horton Country Park

Last week saw another visit to Horton Country Park, one of two open access green spaces near us, the other being Epsom Common. And the Country Park occupying the land which used to be farmed by a farm attached to one of the hospitals in the Epsom Cluster. Back in the days when having long stay inmates doing a bit of light work on a farm was neither regarded as slave labour nor as taking the bread out of the mouths of deserving trade union dues paying farm workers. With an outfit called Hobbledown having a chunk centred on what I imagine were the old farm buildings.

Parked near the converted van - looking rather like a Citroën model H, in black - which sells coffee. Curiously, there seem to be enough people visiting the park who want coffee, for it to be there most times that we visit. People who often have the (to me) curious habit of wandering around the park clutching a paper mug full of cooling coffee. But then, I never was much of a coffee drinker.

Set off on our usual clockwise circuit, on which the first item of interest was this apparently serious gate which appeared to have been rammed in the middle, resulting in damage to all six bars.

Next door a really serious gate. Not sure why such a gate was needed, although there was the odd bit of agricultural machinery to be seen in the margins. Gmaps suggests that the path leads to a microbiology unit belonging to West Park Hospital, which some of us know as the Cottage Hospital.

The pond provided for pond dipping and such like has not recovered to its usual level, despite all the recent rain. From which we deduce that the ground is still pretty dry from the drought in the summer.

We thought we would investigate the path which takes one past some of the Hobbledown fields. Maybe we would get sight of the odd pig. But the first event was the Wellingtonia already noticed at reference 5. After which we found some nilgai (above), some alpacas (below), a few sheep, a goat and a Bactrian camel. Some friendly polo ponies. Some corrugated iron huts - the ones shaped like miniature, old style aircraft hangers - for pigs in the distance, but no pigs.

I was surprised at how much grass there was in the animal enclosures. The grass had not been eaten to the ground and the ground then stirred into mud, something one often sees in fields carrying suburban horses. Maybe proper grass management in action. Perhaps the young lady energetically pooper-scooping in the alpaca enclosure was part of this.

Lots of dog walkers and pensioners. BH well able to hold her own with the doggy fraternity. I made do with the pensioners.

References

Reference 1: https://www.hobbledown.com/.

Reference 2: http://kingsparkcapital.com/news/hobbledown-begins-construction-of-its-second-adventure-farm-park-in-london. From which I learn first that Hobbledown looks to be a creature of private finance, second that the Epsom site is doing well enough for Kingspark to sink more than £10m into a second site on the edge of Hounslow Heath, Hobbledown Hounslow. I have not been able to find out what the use of this land was before, although Google offers the snap above from across the road from them. While the first people who had what is now Hobbledown Epsom probably had long hair, were much more cuddly and sold things like organic turkeys - but I suppose that they lacked the financial and management muscle to really fly.

Reference 3: http://kingsparkcapital.com/.

Reference 4: https://explore.osmaps.com/. An entry point to Ordnance Survey online maps. A point that I have endless trouble finding using Bing. So maybe this will help.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/11/wellingtonia-101.html.