09/01/2014

A walk in the park

What do you do to get over that stuffed, over indulged feeling from the festive season? Take a walk in the park, Bradgate Park that is. Nothing beats going out for a long stroll in the sunshine with your sunnies on even in January. We went on the 2nd of Jan after taking down all the Christmas decs and felt we needed to escape for a breath of fresh air.

Bradgate Park is a former medieval deer park created from the Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire and was first used as an enclosed hunting park over 750 years ago! The park houses the ruins of Bradgate House, a Tudor mansion that was once the home of Lady Jane Grey, who was the Queen of England for 9 days in 1553, don't you know!

Up on the hill also sit the ruins of a Folly we know as 'Old John'. I'm sure you can see what I mean from the snap below when I say it has always reminded me of a beer tankard. When it snows Old John gets everyone out with their sledges, having the time of their lives hurtling down his hill at breakneck speed. We'll be there with ours when the white fluffy stuff arrives. Errr...not that I'm wanting it to snow Mr Weatherman.
It was a beautiful day despite the Harry Potter-esque looking sky over Old John.

I have so many happy memories of this place from my childhood and then teenage years, being taken there for a picnic, playing rounders or football, and most of all with trousers rolled up to your knees, paddling barefoot in the stream with a bright coloured fishing net, trying to catch tiddlers, and trying your hardest not to fall in or get your clothes wet on your parents orders! I remember playing and running through the bracken, scared to death of the grass snakes everyone talked about, and then climbing the rocks as if it were the tallest mountain, with your parents in the background constantly shouting at you to be careful. Well, Mr C and I have done all off the above, including the shouting, with our kids when they were younger. We walked there when they were little bambinos in the pushchair, pushed them along on the trike when their little legs were too tired to peddle any further, (and daddy's back breaking from having to bend to push them all the way back), climbing rocks and running off up the hills on lots of adventures. They loved it too, as I'm sure will their children.
The deer wander freely around the park and sometimes they will hurtle across the pathway right in front of you and everyone watches in awe. I remember being a bit scared of these too when I was a little girl, it's a wonder anyone ever got me there, but little snakes and big deer can be kinda frightening to little people, don't you agree?
Look at this gorgeous majestic creature.
Lots of little Bambi's-not so scary!
It's amazing how they just wander around totally ignoring the vast amount of people invading their home on a daily basis.

We'd only walked half way along the path when it started to get a tad breezy and nippy so decided to head back to our comfy sofa and hot mug of coffee.

Bradgate Park is a truly beautiful, stunning, thought evoking, mind calming place. It's the place every man and his dog, literally, go. It's a place where little un's can go mountain climbing, fishing, running through the bracken 'forests', where young lovers walk hand in hand, you can go to jog, cycle or take a gentle stroll stopping at the cafe on the way. Whatever you want, this place can give it to you, and we are fortunate to have it on our doorstep(well, not quite, we do have a little drive there) to go to whenever the mood takes us.

If you are ever in the Charnwood area of Leicestershire you must pay it a visit, although it gets so busy on the weekend, and the even the day we went I'm sure we drove around the car park a million times for a space. A little tip as well, if you venture off the beaten track, ie, the grass, remember to dodge the deer poo!

If you just want to read up on the history of Bradgate Park click this link: Bradgate Park.org

One thing's for sure, we will continue to visit time and time again, until we're old and gray, with our grandchildren I hope, I actually have this wonderful image in my head right now as I'm typing this post, of me and Nick walking with Thomas and Emily and our grandchildren lagging behind on trikes or running off to explore, hey, we may even be blessed and be able to take our great grandchildren one day too!

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1 comment

  1. Sounds a lovely place, magical.......

    ReplyDelete

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