We managed to pick another sunny day to go exploring on Saturday! Sheepleas is a place I had googled a while back, but we'd never gotten round to visiting. It is in West Horsley in Surrey, not too far from Leatherhead.
It lies on the chalk slopes of the North Downs covering about 270 acres with woodland and meadows. This is what attracted me to visit Sheepleas in the first place, it is part of the Corination Meadow project, set up by the Prince of Wales to select a wildflower meadow in each county, this project was initiated to highlight the fact that so many of our wildflower meadows have been lost in the last 60 years. It is hoped that green hay and/or seed can be used for the restoration of other sites and the creation of new wildflower meadows in Surrey.
We parked at Green Dene (free parking), the car parks are off the A246: By St. Mary's church (KT24 6AP), Shere Road (KT24 6EP) and Green Dene.
There are white arrows guiding you through the woodland, which we decided to follow (highly unlike us!). There are fallen trees for the kids to climb on.
I know there are a couple of meadows in Sheepleas, and I'm not sure if we found the main one, but the one we headed to smelt strongly of herbs, and there were tiny wildflowers everywhere. We saw loads of butterflies and grasshoppers!
Following the pathway back to the woods, we found loads of tiny wild strawberries and we picked a handful and ate them.
Keira loves taking her camera out when we go exploring!
On the way back to the car park the kids decided to pick up lots of pine cones, apparently they are making bunting with them?!
So, there we go another cheap day out, we think it will be a great place to go shrooming in the Autumn!
Linking up with Country Kids at Coombe Mill.