Fifteen ramblers met at Chorleywood station on a sunny afternoon.  Among our number we welcomed members from Hertfordshire and Surrey groups.  We set off by skirting the southern edge of the Common before taking one of the village’s pleasant residential roads towards the Swillett.  From there the landscape opened up to reveal a blue sky with fair weather clouds, trees newly in leaf and open pasture land.  We dropped down to Bullsland Lane and headed south towards Newland Park and our first sight of bluebells.  A mild and rainy winter followed by a warm, frost free spring has given us some fine displays of this lovely spring flower this year.

 

We stopped briefly in Newland Park.  The Newland Park estate was owned by the Harben family before the First World War.  Although very wealthy, the owners had radical political views and supported the suffragettes.  Indeed some suffragettes were given the chance to recuperate in the big house after periods in prison and forced feeding.