Horton Country Park

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About
Gallery
Parking
Poo bins?
Self-guided walk

About

Between Epsom, Ewell and Chessington, Horton Country Park is a local nature reserve covering 150 hectares, parts of which are used as a golf course, a children’s adventure farm (Hobbledown) and an equestrian centre. It’s a patchwork of fields, hedgerows, woods and ponds and considered to be of great wildlife and historical interest.

Horton was a medieval manor in the parish of Epsom. ‘Horton’ is an old English word meaning ‘dirty place’, with the name bestowed upon the area by its dissatisfied tenants due to its underlying clay soil causing very wet and muddy conditions during the winter.

The area was bought by the London County Council in the 1890s and used as the site for a series of large psychiatric hospitals, which had their own farms. In 1973, a couple of the farms – West Park Farm and Long Grove Farm – were purchased by Epsom & Ewell Borough Council to become Horton Country Park.

There are six ancient woodlands across the site, which have been continuously wooded since at least the Middle Ages – Great Wood, Pond Wood, Four Acre Wood, Butcher’s Grove, Stone’s Copse and Long Grove Wood.

There are 11 small ponds dotted around too, including a large one known as Meadow Pond, which was created in 1986 by damming a stream. It is a popular feeding spot for swallows and swifts in the summer, as well as attracting dragonflies, water boatman, water scorpions, frogs and toads not to mention moorhen, coot, little grebe, herons and kingfisher. Field Pond, which is fenced off, was probably a watering hole for cattle in the past.

This leaflet, produced by Epsom & Ewell Council, has more information about the country park and a map of the site.

Word of warning: there are a couple of shooting clubs/bird shoots not far away. Their websites say they are only open/running shoots on the second and fourth Sundays of the month but I have been here on a Saturday before and heard the popping of guns in the distance so bear that in mind if you have a jittery dog.

Gallery: What’s it like here?

Parking

Park in the free car park for the country park. This has a large picnic area that has brick BBQs you can use.

Poo bins?

At the car park and one at the start of the walk

Self-guided walk

Here is a Footpath app route from the car park that goes around Horton Country Park. Also on AllTrails. It passes the pond, cuts through the golf course and you can see the golf course lake – and here is a slightly longer version of the route (on AllTrails) that includes two optional detours into smaller wooded areas: Castle Hill Nature Reserve and Pond Wood.

Length: approximately 3.3 miles/5.3 km without the two extra detours, or 4 miles/6.5 km including them
Terrain: Most of this walk is along surfaced paths. There are some sections through grassy fields that can be quite waterlogged and boggy in the colder months of the year. Some of the mud on the paths can be wet in the autumn/winter/spring.
Stiles/kissing gates? No stiles, no kissing gates

Route overview - no detours — *Route overview – no detours*

Route overview - with detours — *Route overview – with detours*

With your back to the main road, walk to the rear right hand corner of car park and take the path between the two white bollards behind the wooden sign for the 8.5km Chessington Countryside Walk (a bit too long for greyhounds!) and the Thames Down Link (a long-distance footpath from Kingston upon Thames to Box Hill & Westhumble station, which passes through the park).

Pass through the gap in the wooden barrier at the end next to the green poo bin and turn right. Walk to the side of the metal vehicle gate and continue straight ahead across this cross paths. Pass a faded green sign on the right for the polo club car park and then a metal vehicle barrier to head down a wide surfaced track with fields to the left and Epsom Equestrian Centre and Polo Club on the right.

Pass the sign for the polo club car park — *Path from the car park*

Continue straight when you get to the junction with a path to the left. Through the hedge to the right are the fields of Hobbledown, a children’s farm centre, and you may see a variety of animals, including donkeys, grazing here.

When you reach a finger post on the left, which points to a path on the right to McKenzie Way, continue straight again. Immediately after that, there’s another finger post and path to the left, and it’s straight here too towards Chessington Road.

You’ll pass a small building on the right, which is set back from the path. This used to be part of the Long Grove Hospital complex, which closed in 1992. When the complex was demolished in 2006, this building was retained and converted into a bat roost for European Brown Long-eared bats. There’s an information board to tell you about it with loads of facts about bats. There are 17 species of bats in the UK. but the most commonly seen at this country park (aside from the Brown Long-eared ones) are Pipistrelle, Daubenton and Noctule.

Ignore a little path that heads off to the right under the branches of a tree as the main track curves to the left. When you reach the finger post pointing to the right towards Horton Lane, continue straight/bear left. Just after this, there’s a stone structure and some railings on the left. A short way on, turn right and go through a large gap between wooden barriers opposite a tall marker post. Ignore the smaller path of the two paths here (the smaller one furthest to the right) and take the larger one through the trees and out into a grassy area.

Turn right through the gap — *Stone structure and railings*

Pass through the gap in the hedgerow at the end, ignoring a gap to the right. Go straight through this next grassy field and through another gap in the vegetation ahead. The grass path forks here, and you want to bear left so that you pass a wooden bench, which is in front of big tree.

Go through the next hedge gap and continue straight through this next field, which has a large pond on the left at the end. This is Meadow Pond.

At the T junction straight after Meadow Pond, turn left and follow the path round to the left, ignoring a metal gate on the right. Walk over an overflow channel then alongside the golf course with its pond, which is visible over the fence on the right.

Cross straight over the golf course access path to the 6th and 11th tees and follow the main track around to the left and up a short, steep incline. Turn left at the top and stay on the main tree-lined path, ignoring all others that go off to different parts of the golf course. This main track follows the route of the old Horton Light Railway Track, which was operational between 1913 and 1950 and used to supply the hospitals with goods.

*Main tree-lined track was Horton Light Railway Track*

You stay on this main track for a fair old way way now. Ignore the lower boggy path that goes off to the left and the paths to the left and right shortly after it next to a marker post. Keep straight on at the cross paths by the next finger post.

Ignore the next path to the left and you’ll come to a path on the right just before a bench on the left. This heads into Castle Hill Nature Reserve and you may want to head in here for a wander through this ancient woodland’s little paths to the stream and back again. Castle Hill has earthworks, which were probably formed by a medieval hunting lodge or an old fort.

If you do go turn right into this reserve, take the first right and then almost immediately left. Then follow the little path around the perimeter of the reserve, alongside Bonesgate stream, which is a tributary of the Hogsmill River that is, in turn, a tributary of the River Thames, and it will wind back to the main track, where you turn right.

If you don’t want to explore the nature reserve, just continue straight on the main track.

On the main track, presently there will be metal railings on the right. Stay on it, ignoring the mud path off to the field on the right, and then go straight over at the next cross paths in the direction of the blue arrow that has no destination accompanying it. Ignore any little mud paths off the main track now.

Pass an information board advising you that you’re in Four Acre Wood – which, in the spring, boasts a carpet of bluebells, wood anemone and celandine – and keep straight ahead/bear right at the next junction where there is another path heading off to the left by a metal gate.

Stay on the main track for a long way now, ignoring any paths off either side until you come to a finger post on the right pointing to Pond Wood path. You may want to detour off the main track here and follow the little path that does a single lap of this little wood as it has a cute little stream in it and a nice pond, which was restored in the 1990s.

Pond in Pond Wood — *Stream in Pond Wood*

If you do turn right into Pond Wood, take the first right when you enter the wood, then bear left at all other forks to follow a loop through the wood that brings you back to the main track, where you turn right.

If you don’t want to detour, just keep straight on the main track.

On the main track, keep going straight. Just after you pass a fenced off pond on the right with a no dogs sign (Field Pond), you come to a junction of paths – turn left here.

Pass fenced off pond on the right — *Pass fenced off Field Pond on the right*

Follow this track to a large junction by a metal vehicle barrier. You may recognise where you are from the start of the walk. Turn right down the side of the metal gate and then left at the green poo bin. Take the path from the bin back to the car park.