Greyhound approved walks in and around Surrey
The historic village of Ripley has existed since Norman times and was first recorded in documents of around 1200. It developed with the establishment of Newark Priory and, during the Tudor period, became very prosperous as a place to stop on the (now A3) road between London and the rapidly growing naval town of Portsmouth.
Chantry Wood, just to the east of Guildford town centre, sits on the same greensand ridge that forms part of the North Downs as neighbouring St Martha’s Hill (Walks with Rena post here) and comprises 80 hectares of woodland and grassland.
Ashtead Common, owned by the City of London Corporation, is regarded as a prime example of relic wood pasture, valued for its historic landscape and important habitat. Its 495 acres are a mosaic of woodland, grassland, scrub and various wetland habitats including ponds, streams, ditches and springs.
Shalford's water meadows were once farmland used for growing hay and grazing cattle. They are a reminder of the area's once "intensive" farming history (although clearly not intensive by today's farming standards). In the Middle Ages, ditches and channels were created in natural riverside meadows and then deliberately flooded to turn them into water meadows, a practice imported from Europe. How very international.
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.
Wisley Airfield is a former wartime airfield located alongside the A3 in the Parish of Ockham near Wisley. Bolder Mere is a typical Surrey woodland lake with a fabulous wetland clearing along the southern edge where you may well spot dragonflies and damselflies.
Ockley is a small village in the south of Surrey and home to Vann Lake. This eight-acre man-made lake is thought to date from the mid-18th century, when a forest gill was dammed to form a ‘hammer pond’ to power a mill that was never built. It is surrounded by Ockley Woods, a 57.8-hectare (143-acre) ancient woodland and a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest.
The name Headley, ‘Hallega’ in old English, means a clearing with heather. Headley, to the south of Box Hill, can trace its origins back to the Saxon age, when it was part of the Copthorne Hundred and used by commoners for grazing animals and collecting furze, bracken and firewood.
Kenley Common comprises chalk grassland, wildflower-rich meadows and ancient woodland. RAF Kenley is the most intact airfield associated with WWII's Battle of Britain.
Norbury Park is a 530 hectare historic parkland comprising mixed wooded and agricultural land, which was alluded to in the Domesday Book of 1086. Grade II listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens, it occupies mostly prominent land reaching into a bend in the River Mole and is part of the Mole Gap to Reigate Escarpment Special Area of Conservation.
Walks with Rena 