Wild in Herts

Exploring Herts – Letchworth

There is loads to do in and around Letchworth. Plus did you know Letchworth is home to the UK’s first roundabout…! Random fact!

My top favourite places for active fun are:

A visit to Standalone Farm. I spent many days of my maternity leave letting my boys run wild up there!

Splashing in Howard Park splash park in the Summer or scooting around there in the colder months. The park there is fab too, and they have a cafe

Taking a dip in the outdoor pool, in the Summer obviously 😉

A walk around Norton Common. They also have a fab skate park there for all ages

Letting my boys play in the ship play area in the Wynd, Cultivo Lounge or Belisily – Letchworth Kids Cafe is great for a post play coffee or lunch

A cycle around the Letchworth Greenway. A good place to park is the William Arboretum car park. It’s always nice to stop at the The Fox at Willian for refreshments a the end!

Visit to Radwell Meadows (a section of the Greenway). There is a lovely little spot for picnics and a small but well equip play area (better for older children). Lots of paths to

explore and great for children on bikes.

So many great options – so start exploring today!

#Hertfordshire #ExploreHerts #FreeinHerts

Exploring Herts – Ware and Hertford

I went to school in Ware and spent many an evening in my youth going out in Hertford. I think they are great towns with loads of great activities to try!

My tips for active family activities there are:

Walk or cycle along the tow path and see the canal boats
Visit Ware Museum or Hertford Museum, they have good exhibitions of local history
Take a trip out to Bramfield Woods. Love a long walk through there with a visit to a nearby pub afterwards
Spend an afternoon at Hartham Common and visit Leaf Cafe
Visit Three Lakes at Westmill Farm to try one of their many activities
Spend an afternoon at Van Hage. Great free animal enclosure and cafe.
Walk around Amwell nature reserve. Lovely walk and lots to see!
Plan a trip to RSPB Herts & Beds near to Stansted Abbots. Great very cheap and fun day out!
Explore Scott’s Grotto in Ware, v interesting place!
Swim in the outdoor lido in the Summer. There is also a great little park near to the Priory
Head to Broxbourne Woods for the sculpture trail. See my blog for details. The Baker Arms – Bayford is nearby and has a great play area for afterwards
Explore Waterford Heath, lots of paths to explore and not too long a walk
Cycle along the Cole Green Way – a disused railway line, which is great for cycling

Wow what a list, certainly enough there to keep you busy!

#Hertfordshire #ExploreHerts #FreeinHerts

Exploring Herts – Hitchin

Hitchin is my home town and it has so many active activities to offer! There are so many great free or very reasonable outdoor activities to do! With two small boys in tow I have explored most of them many times. I have listed my favourites below:

annie-spratt-40664-unsplash

A trip around Oughtonhead Common. Great for going on a bear hunt with small children. A trip though to the Garden Gate Cafe is a must! Open most Fri, Sat and Sun
Visit to the Hitchin Lavender (in the Summer months (opens from May). There is a fab cafe, playground and they do loads of events
An amble around either Hitch Wood, Wain Wood (Preston) or Wymondley Wood. With a cheeky visit to a pub afterwards
In the Summer Bancroft splash park is great for younger children and great for a picnic and there is also an outdoor pool open from May – Sept
The British Schools Museum often has some fab events on and is super interesting to visit. There is a cute cafe there too.

A bit further out…
A climb up Pegsdon Hill to see the breath taking views!
A paddle (in wellies in colder months) in Barton Springs and then a walk to the top of the hill
Visit to Wrest Park. They have a free playground and you can pay a fee to enter the main house and gardens. We love it there!

Happy exploring!!
#ExploreHerts #FreeinHerts

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

#FreeinHerts

Since starting my campaign I have discovered that there are so many activities to try in our county that are free to do (or very low cost). I have written my top things to try in Hertfordshire, which I hope will inspire you to explore a new area and also save you some money!

Follow #FreeinHerts for a round up. I aim to not spend a penny on weekend activities and just use my guide below to lead our family adventures.

1) Walks in the Woods
We have so much great woodland to explore and I have listed my top few favourites here, which include lots of short sculpture trails. There are masses of activities you can do to keep children engaged in the woods and Woodland Trust has heaps of ideas to inspire you on their website. I recently bought ‘The Stick Book’ by Fiona Danks and Jo Schofield, which also has some good activities to try too.

Ashridge Estate
Northaw Great Wood
Heartwood Forest
Hitch Wood
Broxbourne Woods

2) Free town attractions
Most of our major towns have a museum to visit and most of them are free. My top ones are here. They all have great activities for families in the holidays, so check out their websites for details.

Natural History Museum Tring
Hertford Museum
Scotts Grotto, Ware
St Albans Cathedral
Bishop Stortford Museum

3) Geocaching adventure
Geocaching is a great way to have a great outdoor adventure with the whole family. Basically it is a treasure hunt to help you discover new places. We downloaded the free app from geocaching.com and we were ready to start finding the hidden treasure boxes. The boxes are hidden everywhere, it would seem you are never far away from one! Highly recommend! You may also find some hidden painted rocks on your travels too!

4) Parkrun
Parkrun happens every weekend throughout the country for both adults and children. Its a great way to focus your training by attending an event every week to try and improve your time. It is also a great way to introduce younger people to running and being part of a big group can be really motivating. I have written a separate blog on where they take place. Parkrun blog post

5) Nature reserves and parks
We have so much countryside on our doorstep and since I launched my campaign I have been out and about exploring a lot of it, including a lot of nature reserves and parks, many of which are maintained by Herts Wildlife Trust. They will also double up as great picnic spots when the weather warms up. I have listed some of my favourites:

Cassiobury Park, Watford
OughtonHead Nature Reserve, Hitchin
Great Amwell Nature Reserve
Mardley Heath, Welwyn
Rickmansworth Aquadrome
Verulamium Park, St Albans
Cedars Park, Cheshunt
Fairland Valley, Stevenage

6) Cycling
There are lots of traffic free paths and plenty of disused railway lines around Hertfordshire, which are great places for family cycling. Hertfordshire cycling is on Twitter with regular updates and listed below are a selection of routes to try:

Nickey Line, Hemel Hempstead
Cole Green Way, Welwyn
Alban Way, St Albans
Grand Union Towpath
Hertford to Ware Towpath
River Lee Country Park

7) Other organisations to follow
There are a number of organisations that run free / low cost play schemes and also some that have fabulous ideas for outdoors activities. Here are my top ones all of which are active on Twitter and have websites:

Groundworks East – They run several ‘Really Wild Play’ schemes and worth checking with them for new dates

Herts YOPA 2018 – Aims to make Hertfordshire the most active county by:

increasing physical activity
celebrating what’s already happening
encouraging new programmes and events

Active North Herts
Active East Herts
Active Broxbourne
Three Rivers District Council
Loads of great and many free of low cost activities to try for the young and old.

Herts Wildlife Trust – They manage a lot of the local nature reserves and also hold some great outdoor events for everyone.

Hertfordshire Life – A monthly magazine and website for making the very best of life in Hertfordshire. People, places, food & more. The have great lists of places to visit including picnic spots and walks to explore.

Parks Herts – The ParksHerts Project provides a single web based point of access for information about Hertfordshire’s parks and open spaces.

Woodland Trust – Their mission is to protect and campaign on behalf of this country’s woods, plant trees, and restore ancient woodland for the benefit of wildlife and people. They also have some great activities for woodland walks and nature hunts!

Inspiration in Herts – 5k to Marathon

I love an inspiring story and I am keen to share this one in the hope that it will inspire more people to set new goals and achieve something they never thought possible.

Alex Barnes, Mum to 3 young boys embarked on a running journey last year, she started out taking part in the couch to 5K sessions delivered by Active North Herts and is this year running the London Marathon for Ovarian Cancer Action. I interviewed her to get her top tips on how to get started:

Join a running group / club – this is really helps to motivate you
Take park in a weekly Parkrun to give you focus
Get involved in a run community on Strava
Look up local races and run the route
Have a goal, big or small, by entering a competition
Don’t be scared of what other people think, you are in it for yourself
Take time on the run to gather head space, appreciate nature and do some thinking, it does wonders for your mental health
Start with familiar routes and build up from there
If you are nervous about trying new routes then just run to a destination and back
Make a running plan and stick to it – No excuses!

‘The body achieves what the mind believes’

Alex

I wish Alex the very best of luck with the final leg of her training and will be watching out for her on the big marathon day!

If anyone would like to sponsor Alex then her link is here – she is truly inspirational!

Exploring Herts – Broxbourne Woods

Broxbourne Woods is a wonderful national nature reserve and spans a huge 239.1 hectares. It has various paths from a short 30 minute stroll up to a great full day’s woodland walk. We visited there this weekend and did the sculpture trail. It is a short and very accessible walk, so great for pushchairs, disability and bicycles. It took us about 40 minutes to complete. There is also a great pub called the Farmers Boy nearby in Brickendon, which was a great pit stop for post walk refueling!

We have a few sculpture trails around Hertfordshire, they are great free activities to do as a family, especially with young children. I find that my two boys really enjoy our walks when they have something to new to look for and aim for and Broxbourne Woods is a great example. Heartwood Forest and South Oxhey are others to try in Hertfordshire.

Broxbourne Woods Leaflet

Here are some other great tips from Get Out with the Kids on other woodland activities to try!

Top tips for woodland walks with kids

Happy sculpture exploring!

Sport in Herts – Parkrun

Parkrun organise free, weekly, 5km timed runs around the world. They are open to everyone, free, and are safe and easy to take part in.

The events take place in pleasant parkland surroundings and they encourage people of every ability to take part; from those taking their first steps in running to Olympians; from juniors to those with more experience.

Where do they take place around Hertfordshire?

5km runs

Cassiobury Park, Watford
South Oxhey Playing Fields, Watford
Aldenham Country Park, Elstree
Aquadrome, Rickmansworth
Gadebridge Park, Hemel Hempstead
Panshanger Park, Hertford
Westmill Farm, Ware
Barclay Park, Hoddesdon
Ellenbrook Fields, Hatfield
Fairlands Valley Park, Stevenage
Grange Recreation Ground, Letchworth
Heartwood Forest, St Albans
Verulamium Park, St Albans
Tring Park, Tring
Castle Park, Bishops Stortford

More information: http://www.parkrun.org.uk/events/events/

Junior parkrun – 2k runs (children aged between 4 and 14)

Pinehill Park, Hitchin
Hampson Park, Stevenage
Hartham Common, Hertford
Leavesden Country Park, Abbots Langley
Beehive Juniors, King George V Playing Fields, Welwyn Garden City

More information: https://www.parkrun.org.uk/events/juniorevents/

Exploring Herts – Mardley Heath Nature Reserve

I love to take my children out to local nature reserves and since starting my campaign my eyes have been opened to the huge number of them we have in Hertfordshire. This week we visited Mardley Health near to Welwyn, which is a local nature reserve of 41.1 hectares.

Routes and activities

They have a designated car park on Heath Road for the various trails that go around and through the reserve. We followed the green route that passed through Three Corner Wood and Aunt Wood. After that point we ventured into the middle of the reserve and got a little lost, which is the moment my phone died and with it my OS map app…. We did however make our way through the middle and stumbled across some excellent paths. There are some really steep slopes to the edge of the main path to run up and down and great places for the children (and adults) to explore. We did attempt a Spring themed scavenger hunt, however, with the layer of snow it was a little tricky to find anything on the list!

There are two sides to the reserve and on this trip we only covered half of it, but I am sure the other side offers great walking routes too and a spot for a picnic (when the weather warms up).

Mardley Health Leaflet

Spring-scavenger-hunt-sheet

I will certainly be returning with my family to explore some more, it will be great to see how this wood changes at the start of Spring. If you do visit let me know how your trip goes by using the following hashtags on Twitter:

#exploreherts
#freeinherts

Exploring Herts – Hitch Wood, Preston

Hitch Wood is situated just outside the market town of Hitchin, on the road to St Pauls Walden and Whitwell. It is a truly magical place to explore. There is a marked path to follow through the woods, which forms a loop. There is a small car park for visitors.

Although the woods are best visited in Bluebell season, which is truly amazing, it is also a great place to visit through the seasons. We have played lots of games including going on a bear hunt, den building, mini-beast hunts, hide and seek (always interesting with toddlers) and deer spotting. We have been lucky enough to see the wild deer during most of our visits there and it does make a visit even most special.

Here are some other activities by Get out with the Kids, listing other great ideas to try whilst out in the woods:
https://www.getoutwiththekids.co.uk/activities/doing/activities-walking-woods-kids/

If you are in need to a refuel after your wood activities then a visit to either the Red Lion in Preston or The Rusty Gun always helps! Both are nearby and both have nice pub gardens.

More info:
http://www.hnhs.org/place/hitch-wood-near-hitchin-bluebells

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Exploring further afield – Marston Vale, Beds

Overview

In the early 1990s, the Government designated the 61 Square mile area between Bedford and Milton Keynes a community forest and the Forest of Marston Vale was born.

Activities to do

We arrived at the Welcome Centre and refueled on a cup of coffee and obligatory biscuit for my son! The next stop was a bike ride. I brought my son’s bike with us and hired one at the bike hire shop. The bike hire is really reasonable and the bike I hired was more than suitable for a trip around the lake. There are different routes you can do, but we decided to go around one of the lakes. It is really flat all the way around, so perfect for a young confident cycler. There are benches on route for picnics or refueling young people.

We had a rather cold picnic when we got back from our ride and then explore the playground, just outside the welcome centre. There was a lot of equipment to climb on and I can imagine it would be really great in the Summer.

They have just launched new activity packs, which you pick up from the help desk (these are £5 and you do need to pay for any damaged items). Undeterred by the cold weather we set off on a mini-beast hunt with one of the packs. After a nice wander around on foot exploring the local habitat and turning over a few logs we had to abandon our hunt. This was I hasten to say because most of the mini-beasts had more sense than to be found in such cold conditions.

All in all we had a great day out and there is loads to do. We will be back in the Summer when we can explore further and cycle around the other lake!

More info

Website: https://www.marstonvale.org/
Postcode: MK43 0PR