20. Tring Park, Hertfordshire

This was certainly an episode with a difference - we begin in a Natural History Museum packed with 4,000 taxidermy animals! The Woodland Trust site and museum now share space once owned by the famous Rothschild family who collected stuffed species, as well as live exotic animals that roamed the park. We tour Tring Park’s fascinating historic features, from the avenue named after visitor Charles II to the huge stone monument rumoured to be for his famous mistress. Beneath autumn-coloured boughs, we also learn how young lime trees grown from the centuries-old lime avenue will continue the site’s history, how cows help manage important chalk grassland and the vital role of veteran trees and deadwood in the healthy ecosystem.

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Transcript

You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people, for wildlife.

Adam: Today I'm heading off to Tring Park, one of Hertfordshire's most important ecological areas. It's filled, I'm told, with wildflowers and some really interesting historic features, as well as some stunning views. But first but first, I was told to stop off at the Natural History Museum at Tring, which is really a very, very short walk from the woodland itself. I was told to do that because they said it might surprise you what you find. It definitely did that. Because here are rows and rows of what I'm told are historically important stuffed animals. So I'm at the the top bit of the the galleries here at the Natural History Museum at Tring and well, bonkers I think is a probably good word to describe this place and I mean, I feel very mixed about it. So we're, I'm passing some very weird fish, that's a louvar, never heard of that. But there's a a rhinoceros, white rhinoceros, a Sumatran rhinoceros. There's a dromedary, a camel. There is a rather small giraffe. There is a head of a giraffe. Coming round over here, there is an Indian swordfish from the Indian Ocean. Goodness gracious, it looks like something from Harry Potter. That's an eel, very scary looking eel. And then there is a giant armadillo and it really properly is giant, an extinct relative of the living armadillos, known from the Pleistocene era and that's the period of the Ice Age, from North and South America, that is absolutely extraordinary. And there are some very, very weird things around here. Anyway, that's certainly not something you'd expect to see in Tring. Goodness knows what the locals made of it back in the Victorian ages, of course this would have been their only experience of these kind of animals. No Internet, no television, so this really was an amazing insight into the world, beyond Britain, beyond Tring. There is something here, a deep sea anglerfish which looks like it's got coral out of its chin. I mean, it's properly something from a horror movie that is, that is extraordinary.

Claire: My name is Claire Walsh and I'm the exhibitions and interpretation manager here at the Natural History Museum at Tring, and my job involves looking after all of the exhibitions that you see on display and any temporary exhibitions such as Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

Adam: So this is a rather unusual place. I have only just had a very brief look and I've never seen anything quite like it. So just explain to our listeners what it is that we're seeing, what what is this place?

Claire: So the Natural History Museum at Tring is the brainchild of Lionel Walter Rothschild, who was a member of the Rothschild banking dynasty. Walter Rothschild, as as we call him, was gifted the museum by his parents as a 21st birthday present.

Adam: That's quite a birthday, who gets a museum for their 21st? That's quite something.

Claire: Yes, yeah, so, so the family were a hugely wealthy family and Walter's parents owned Tring Park Mansion, which is the the the the big house next door to the museum, which is now a performing arts school, the land of which was formerly a a big deer park, and the Woodland Trust land and our museum is all part of that sort of estate.

Adam: And so this is a Natural History Museum. But as I was saying, it's not like when I've seen normally. So explain to me what it is that differentiates this from other museums people might be acquainted with.

Claire: So we have over 4,000 taxidermied animals on display from all over the world, some of the finest examples of Victorian taxidermy in the world and you can see everything on display from dressed fleas all the way through to wallabies, large deers, birds from all over the world. It really is an absolutely amazing place.

Adam: I've never heard of the species called dressed fleas. Is that a species or is it fleas which have got frocks on?

Claire: So these are fleas that have little outfits on so our our particular dressed fleas have little sombreros. They're from Mexico dressed fleas. We're very fortunate to have them on display and they're they are some of the most popular things in the museum.

Adam: *laughs* Extraordinary. Yeah, I'll go stop and have a look at those. Now, but there was, am I right in saying that that Walter Rothschild in the sort of posh manor, actually had weird animals rolling around, these aren't just stuffed animals, you know, live weird animals, unusual animals, just part of the park?

Claire: Yeah, so to take you back a little bit, Walter Rothschild first became really interested in natural history when he was about 7 and and he then decided to set up the museum. So throughout his teenage years, he started collecting different animals, living and dead. And the park at Tring was home to a lot of the animals so in in the park were lots and lots of living animals that he he kind of just kept there roaming free, so he had things like rheas, cassowaries, ostriches, emus, kangaroos.

Adam: I, I've seen a picture, I think I've seen a picture of him in a sort of horse drawn carriage, except it's drawn by zebras.

Claire: Yeah, so so he decided to train zebras to draw his carriage. So he started off with one zebra and then sort of moved on to having three zebras and a and a pony and he actually took the carriage along Regent Street all the way through the mall in London to Buckingham Palace where where the zebras met the Queen, which was a bit sort of worrying for Rothschild because actually zebras are really difficult to train and quite flighty sort of animals so he's a bit worried about the Queen petting his zebras and and something going wrong, but fortunately it was all fine. The zebras did come out to Tring when they retired as well, so they were also sort of roaming about. I think what you need to imagine is Tring at the time was a really kind of provincial country town, there was a lot farming going on and the Rothschilds came with this, massive amounts of wealth, but they really embedded themselves within the local community and and did lots of, you know, really helped people out. But Walter then started introducing all these animals into the park. He was really interested in adaptation of of different species of animals, so he actually rented out the island of Alhambra in the Seychelles to protect the giant tortoises, but also in Tring you have all of these different exotic animals from all around the world and I can't imagine what it must have been like to just be an ordinary agricultural labourer living in Tring and having the opportunity to walk through the park and just se all these amazing animals that you wouldn't have had the opportunity to see because there's no television.

Adam: It's a really interesting back story to it, but I wonder what you feel about the purpose of the museum and this collection now, when there's a sense I already feel a bit uncomfortable going, is this quite right to be watching stuffed animals, is this in keeping with our modern sensibilities? What's your view on that?

Claire: So our mission really is to educate people about biodiversity and to to ensure that our future generations become advocates for the planet. So we do this by, you know, trying to instil the importance and the wonder and beauty of nature within our collections and tell people about the things that are vanishing. We have lots of extinct and endangered animals on display, which we highlight to our visitors and and you know, to try and get them to understand that they need to look after the natural world today, and obviously our collections are incredibly scientifically important. We have researchers come from all over the world to visit Tring and to study their collections and you know, really make a difference to to our planet in terms of understanding how populations of animals have increased or decreased through time. You know, sort of engage with people and educate people so they look after the planet going forwards.

Adam: And explain to me a little bit about your relationship or the museum's relationship with the Woodland Trust, then.

Claire: So we have a really good relationship with the Woodland Trust. We work hand in hand with them, we share our our sort of knowledge between both of our organisations and advocate for, for you know, the good work that we both do.

Adam: I'm going to have a quick look around before we go off to the to the woodland itself. What's your favourite animal here? What's the favourite thing you think you’d direct me to?

Claire: Oh my goodness, you’ve put me on the spot there. I mean, I really love all the animals in the museum. I think the thylacine is really worth going to have a look at.

Adam: OK, thylacine, never heard of it.

Claire: So the thylacine is an extinct animal. It's an example of something called convergent evolution, where it looks very much like a dog, but it's actually a marsupial. It lived in Australia. So that's upstairs in gallery 5.

Adam: OK, that's where I'll be heading next. Thank you very much. Well, having finished my tour inside the museum, I'm off, it really is just across the road, to the woodland itself to meet my guide for the day.

Grace: My name is Grace Davis, I'm an assistant site manager at the Woodland Trust, I help to manage our woods in Hertfordshire and Essex.

Adam: So we're very lucky. It was raining when I left home. It is not raining, so I don't want to tempt fate but I do want to offer my thanks to whatever power that be. Where are we? Why are we here?

Grace: We're at Tring Park in Hertfordshire. It's just next to the town of Tring. It's 130 hectares of grassland and woodland. It's famous for its chalk grassland and has been designated a SSSI.

Adam: Right. And we were just walking down an avenue really weren't we and you were telling me they're lime trees because I couldn't spot it, but I did have a quick look on my app and just, maybe everyone else knows this, but apparently the nickname for Brits is the limeys, I think Australians call us limeys and it was because the lime trees were made, were used to make ships. And I think the Australians thought they weren’t great wood for trees and sort of nicknamed us limeys. Anyway, there's a little bit of a side note. We passed some cows, rather docile cows. What what are they doing here?

Grace: We've got a a number of cows that graze here most of the year, so they really help us to manage the scrub on the chalk grassland. If nature had its way, the the grassland here would eventually convert to be woodland, which isn't a bad thing but because of the SSSI designation of the chalk grassland here, and because it's a very rare habitat internationally, we really need to manage the scrub and any trees from from taking over, so the cattle are here to browse, to keep the the growth in check of the hawthorn, the blackthorn, the the scrubby species that really want to take over.

Adam: And we passed, just a bit of practical information with people, we passed a little area where I saw a lot of tree planting going on, but also that's going to be a new car park is that right?

Grace: That's right. So we've actually got Tring Park itself on a 400-year lease from the council after it was threatened in the nineties to be turned into a golf course, but we've also invested in this site by converting a patch of land to a car park for 50 spaces, and we hope that that car park will be open soon, very soon, and the one of the real benefits of it is it will provide a level access into the into the grassland, whereas at the moment people generally have to walk over the bridge across the very busy A41 but with the new car park, people will be able to park and walk straight into the grassland. So it will be great for anyone with a pushchair or mobility scooter.

Adam: Fantastic. Now we're we're on a bit of a hill on this path going towards, past the cows on my right, going towards the trees themselves Right just before we head off there here's a Woodland Trust little bit of signage which I don't quite understand, it's a wooden post with a foot cut out of it. It is Walter’s Wander. Walter moved into rooms at Magdalene College with a flock of kiwis, which were soon rehoused and cared for by a local taxidermist. Yeah, I'm not sure a taxidermist cares for animals much. I'm sure he cares, or she cares about her work, but I'm not sure that's the the verb of the job of a taxidermist. Anyway, yeah, so this is Walter’s Wander, and it is Walter Rothschild.

Grace: That's right yeah so this is this is showing a link between Tring Park and the museum of which Walter Rothschild is famous for having his his taxidermy there.

Adam: I mean, he proper barmy. He, Magdalene College, he was a student at university and he brought with him a flock of kiwis. I mean, my kids went to university, they weren't allowed to have a kettle in their room, let alone a flock of kiwis. Better times, eh, let's bring those back! Right off we go. Let's go. This is this is, look, I'll get this wrong, is this hawthorn on the left?

Grace: This is hawthorn, yes.

Adam: Ohh top marks for Adam *laughs* Top marks for Adam, OK.

Grace: We've got dog rose on the right, hawthorn again.

Adam: Oh you see, you're you're showing off, just cause I got one right, you’ve gotta get more right than me. *both laugh* OK, off we go.

Grace: So some of the plants that we have here growing on the chalk grassland have got fantastic names such as fairy flax, birdsfoot trefoil, lady’s bedstraw, salad burnet and you know they've all got different colours, so white, yellows, purple. So if you visit here in spring or summer, there’s just beautiful shades of colour all around the park.

Adam: They’re wildflowers are they?

Grace: Yes, that's right and they’re they they they they’re specialist to chalk grassland. In fact, up to 40 species of chalk grassland plants can grow in one square metre, which is quite astonishing.

Adam: I was taken by lady’s bedstraw. Did ladies use it for their beds?

Grace: I believe it was dried and used in mattresses.

Adam: Blimey. Not just for ladies, gentlemen too, presumably.

Grace: *laughs* Maybe

Adam: Who knows, maybe it was only for ladies. Let's do some research. OK. So we're heading uphill as you can probably hear from my laboured breathing to a wooden gate up there and that that leads us into a more densely wooded area does it?

Grace: Yes, that's right so that's the mature woodland up there. And we'll be we'll be leading on to the King Charles Ride, which is quite interesting for its connection with King Charles II.

Adam: So what tell me whilst we're walking up, you can talk which will mean people can't hear me panting. Tell tell me about King Charles Ride.

Grace: So Tring actually used to belong to King Charles II's wife. Catherine of Braganza, I think was her name. So King Charles is known to have visited the area and the avenue was named after him, and it's also heavily rumoured that his famous mistress Nell Gwynn came here with him on certain visits. She may well have lived in Tring during a typhus outbreak in London. There's also a monument here that is rumoured to be dedicated to her, which would make it the only public monument in the country to be dedicated to a royal mistress.

Adam: Wow, good knowledge.

Grace: I've got my notes *laughs*

Adam: If only this comes up in Trivial Pursuit. I go where's the only monument to a royal mistress? And I'll get, I'll astound people at dinner parties. Good stuff. So we’re taking a little break and I've turned around and actually it's it's beautiful looking back, we’re up at the top of a a small valley we can see a road ahead of us that will be the A something, A41 says my expert and the sun is cutting through greyish clouds hitting the fields, green fields and the hills beyond the A41. And it looks really pretty. I mean, it's an interesting point, isn't it, that that people, the clue’s in the name, the Woodland Trust, people feel it's about, get as many trees in the ground as possible. But it's not quite like that is it, because here in this particular patch you're doing what you can to prevent trees growing?

Grace: That's right. I mean, scrub, scrub and woodland are obviously fantastic habitats for a range of species. But but chalk grassland really needs a low, low, low sward so a short height of the,

Adam: Low sward, what’s sward?

Grace: Sward is the height of the the grass and the plants. So you can see it's quite low because the cattle are browsing it. So we need to keep that low. And the cattle will browse, they will eat like the young hawthorn and blackthorn and things coming through. They won't touch, really the the bigger, more established patches. But they'll keep the young stuff from coming through, and they'll reduce the competition of more dominant weeds like dandelion and things from from coming through. They they grow very fast and they will shade out and outcompete the slower growing rare chalk grassland species.

Adam: And I mean, as we're sitting here and it's sort of mid-October-ish. We're starting to see the trees change colour aren't they, you can see in the lower bits they're not this uniform green. We've got reds and yellows and coppers just coming out. It is this time of change in the year, isn't it?

Grace: That's right, yeah, it's quite beautiful, actually, at this time of year. Although we're saying we don't have the colours of the of the chalk grassland plants at the moment, but we do have the lovely changing colours of the trees. Yeah so this area here was enclosed about 300 years ago by by fencing, presumably, which which meant that a lot of the habitat was kept intact. It wasn't developed on and it's preserved the historic landscape as well of the area, and in fact it's, Tring Park is a Grade II historic parkland because of the ornamental park and garden features, which we'll we'll we'll see some of as we get to the top.

Adam: Lovely. Have we rested enough?

Grace: Yeah, let’s push on.

Adam: Push on.

Grace: It will be muddy this next bit, but it's not for very long.

Adam: OK. Ohh you can, you might be able to hear the sound effects of this getting very muddy.

Grace: Yes, claggy.

Adam: We've come into well, we're on a path, a little clearing and there is a mighty, mighty tree. But it's it's certainly dead. But it looks like something from a Harry Potter movie, The Witches or Macbeth, something like that. What's the story there?

Grace: Well that's a tree perhaps it was struck by lightning, or it's just decayed you know, with old age. That's what we would call a veteran tree. So it's got wonderful cavity at the base there, it's got fungi growing on it. It's got the the top is all split off. It's open, open at the top for birds to nest in. You know, we we really do like to keep as much deadwood on a site as possible. It's just fantastic for invertebrates, bugs, beetles, fungi. There's about 2,000 invertebrate species that are reliant on dead or decaying woods, so you know, we're really working at the at the base of the ecosystem to get those small creatures into the woodland ecosystem for, you know, birds, mammals to to then eat and forming the wonderful woodland ecology that we that we need.

Adam: So it it's not a good idea to clear away these things and make everything look neat. It's actually it's part of the ecosystem. There's it's funny cause you can't see anything that you know, there's no leaves on it or anything, but you're saying there's lots of animals actually dependent on that dead wood.

Grace: That's right. Yeah. Really, it's really. That's right. If we had a closer look, we'd see all sorts of small bugs and beetles and crawly, creepy, crawly things. There may well be bats that roost in there, birds that nest in there, probably fungi around the base and at the cavities.

Adam: Right. And that's supporting other animals who need to eat on that and and the soil itself obviously, which is increasingly a big issue, isn't it?

Grace: That's right. Yeah, of course, well that, that, that tree will eventually decay into the soil and the soil health of woodland is really really important.

Adam: Yeah, I mean, that's an increasingly big issue for people, isn't it? We don't we don't think about much about the soil, we look above the soil, but the soil health is a huge concern and and increasing issue for people to maintain, isn't it?

Grace: That's right. I mean, the trees will come and go over hundreds of years but the soil will remain, and it's got those nutrients that have built up for hundreds and hundreds of years, especially in an ancient woodland, so it it's really the soil that is the most important thing in an ancient woodland.

Adam: And remind me this is something I definitely should know but, is is there a definition of ancient woodland? Is there a cut off period?

Grace: Yeah, it's trees that date back to the the 1600s, which is really when records began of mapping out the country and what the land uses were.

Adam: Right, OK. And we're just going up, here are two or three felled trees. We’ve gotta turn right here have we?

Grace: That's right yeah.

Adam: They look like they've been cut down just left or no, they're very black. Is that fire or something?

Grace: I think that's just water from the, from the rain, because that tree there is very dark isn’t it.

Adam: Right, oh yeah, that's dark. So we’ve come up to the top of the hill, or is there much, is there another hill?

Grace: No, no, no, no more hills. Maybe just gently undulating, but no more hills.

Adam: OK, right. So we're at the top of the hill. But I see a regal path ahead. I can imagine myself in my zebra drawn carriage riding down here, waving, if not at my people, then at my trees. So is this all in my imagination or is this is this the King Charles road?

Grace: I'm not sure if the zebras made it up here, but this is known as the King Charles Ride, named after Charles II, we're also on the Ridgeway Trail, which is Britain's oldest road.

Adam: Sorry, this this road I'm standing on now?

Grace: That's right yeah, this, this, this stretch is part of an 87-mile national trail that stretches from Buckinghamshire to Wiltshire. It would have been used by drovers, traders, soldiers for at least 5,000 years.

Adam: Gosh, that's extraordinary.

Grace: So if if if, if, if one is so inclined, you can walk from Buckinghamshire to Wiltshire, or do it in reverse, taking in wonderful views, and you know, walking in vhy many hundreds of years of ancestors’ footprints.

Adam: Yeah. And and how many times have you done that walk then?

Grace: *laughs* Zero. But I would like to do it one day.

Adam: One day. OK. Well, you could do it in bits. I'll do I'll do the first kilometre with you.

Grace: Lots of people do do it in bits. They park up, they walk a stretch and they get somebody to pick them up at the other end and take them back to their car. But actually I was I was on site here in the summer and I heard some like tinkling bells and looked up and it was two guys with huge backpacks and they were walking from the start of the Ridgeway Trail all the way to the Avebury standing stones in Wiltshire for the summer solstice.

Adam: Blimey. How long would that, do you know how long that would have taken them?

Grace: I don't know actually. Maybe a couple of weeks.

Adam: Wow. And they had tinkling bells. I think you just sort of threw that in, which I think is that might get on my nerves with two weeks of walking with someone with a tinkling bell. Any idea why they were, were they just magical folk?

Grace: They looked a little bit magical, but also I think it was day one so they might have ditched the tinkling bells after day one.

Adam: Well, and actually we should, that's extraordinary, but I want to stop here because there's another felled tree and you were talking about the importance of actually decaying wood and even to the semi untrained eye like mine, we’ve got a tree trunk lying on its side and the roots of a tree still embedded covered in moss, but also fungi all over the place here. I mean, this is it's not a dead bit of wood at all really is it, it's hosting a huge amount of life.

Grace: Yeah, it's absolutely living. Numerous fungi, species and bracket fungi here on the side. Smaller, smaller ones down there, you can see like the holes where beetles and different invertebrates are getting into the deadwood, what what, which is getting softer and softer over time. Ahhuge cavity over there, which could be used for all sorts of species.

Adam: Looks like an elephant's foot at the bottom, doesn't it? Really does, amazing. Amazing that. Ah, OK. Back to the path. And we are, I mean, look, it's actually quite nice weather at a time of year where the weather isn't going to stay with us much and we are the only people. And I can see all the way down the King Charles Avenue and yes, just us, just us. All right, now we've had to stop because you got very excited about something you said ‘Stop!’. So why?

Grace: That's right yeah so these are young lime trees that have originally come from the veteran lime trees we saw at the avenue at the start of our walk. So we've we've propagated, we've taken the seed from those veteran limes and we've grown them on into these young lime trees which we've planted up here because those those lime trees on the lime avenue they're not gonna live forever. They've hopefully got many hundreds of years left, but we want to continue their historic link to the site so this is seed from those very trees that we've planted up here on the King Charles Ride.

Adam: And since, I mean, lime is obviously there's a lot of lime trees we've already been talking about that here. Just give me a as part of our online tree identity course, how do you spot a lime?

Grace: So you you can tell a lime generally from the quite heart shape of its leaf, and they do also have quite quite unique looking seed pods as well.

Adam: They've got little things on them. They flutter around to help them fly, like I always think of them as mini helicopters but anyway. OK, great.

Grace: There's a word for those things I can't think what they’re called.

Adam: Yeah. Well, we'll, we'll call them mini helicopters and see if it catches on.

Grace: Yeah, yeah, yeah *laughs*

Adam: Yes, it's getting spookily dark under the canopy here, so these are clearly not lime trees. What sort of trees are these?

Grace: We've got a lot of mature yew trees here which are causing quite a bit of shade at the moment across the ride.

Adam: Yeah. So you showed you showed me how to spot a lime. How do you know these are yew trees?

Grace: So yews have got these needle-like leaves a little bit like a Christmas tree sort of leaf. But but needles and they also have usually very sort of gnarly, flaky bark and red berries. Hopefully we'll see some, that would be quite fun, they're quite a quite an interesting shape.

Adam: And yew trees are some of the oldest living trees, aren't they?

Grace: They can live a very long time, yes.

Adam: I thought, is it, I might be getting confused but I thought is it yew trees that often get planted in graveyards.

Grace: Yeah, that's right. Yes.

Adam: And I think, I mean, who knows? I think I've heard examples, you know in the thousand, 1,000 year old or or even more which is properly ancient.

Grace: Yes. I believe they were there before the graveyards,

Adam: Ohh I see it was the other way round.

Grace: Yeah, that's what I've read because the yews were connected to Paganism and the, the, the, the, I believe the churchyards were built on these sort of sacred or spiritual sites where the trees were already in place.

Adam: Right. Yes, must have something to do with rebirth or longevity of, you know, I'm I'm sure I've heard of a yew tree being 2,000 years old, so you’re thinking, God you know, there's a yew tree from the age of Jesus Christ which really think, makes you ponder doesn't it, but that's I didn't realise you thought it was the other way around, I thought they planted yew trees in graveyards rather than they built graveyards around yew trees, but it makes more sense in some ways. So we're taking a little path to the left. I say little it's also rather grand, to be honest. But I know why I'm being taken down here cause at the end I can see a stone monument of some description. So I’ll see what it is when I get there and you can hear the time of year, the leaves are falling, you might be able to hear that rustle. So this is an unexpected find, we come into another clearing and there is a huge stone monument. Grace, what on earth, what is this?

Grace: This is the obelisk. It's a it's one of two Scheduled Ancient Monuments here, we'll see the other one shortly. It was built in in the early 18th century, so it's contemporary with the the the start of the parkland here. And probably designed by the architect James Gibbs. And it's said to be dedicated to Nell Gwynn.

Adam: I mean, there's nothing on it, when you said you were taking me to see something dedicated to Nell Gwynn, you'd think they'd have a blooming statue of Nell Gwynn. It's, I mean, but it is huge and it's got a a round bauble at the top, I'm just going round it to see if there's any markings on the base, which there isn't. So maybe maybe this was a sort of you know, I'm going to publicly recognise you with this enormous monument, but because you're not the queen, I can't put your name on it. Amazing. Oh, my goodness, I'm turning around and there's another stunning thing at the end of this pathway, it's just full of surprises. So this looks like a Palladian villa at the end of this pathway, so is this also to Nell Gwyn but says nothing about her on it?

Grace: No, I no, I don't think so. This is the summer house. The other Scheduled Ancient Monument here, again designed by the same architect. Well, we'll see when we get there, but it it looks certainly very impressive from the front, but we'll see more up close what lies behind.

Adam: Ohh, you see, you're teasing me now *both laugh* Why she goes ohh what's, what does lie behind that villa? Alright. Let's go find out. You said go go at the back. There's something. It looks like it's very crowded at the back. Let's have a look. Ohh, there's nothing to it. There isn't a back. It's just a facade.

Grace: That's right. The facade is all that remains now.

Adam: There, there, there was more to it was there?

Grace: There was more. It was it was an actual building, it was lived in by a gamekeeper and and his son in the 19th century.

Adam: What a house for a gamekeeper. It's fit for a king. That's extraordinary.

Grace: But it was demolished to make way for the Wiggington Road, which you might be able to hear in the background.

Adam: Oh, how disappointing. Nonetheless a very nice pied-a-terre.

Grace: It looks like an ancient temple from the front.

Adam: It does. I just need a bit, you know, 4 foot at the back, I'll move in. Very nice. Now this has properly been a real treat, but modern life is intervening not only in the shape of the cars you might hear in background, but I have a Teams call with some TV producers I have to meet in about half an hour and they will be not and they will not be amused if I say I'm lost in a wood. So modern life as ever drags you back, what's the way home Grace?

Grace: I'll I'll I'll walk you back, don't worry.

Adam: Thank you, thank you, you're not going to just leave me to follow a trail of breadcrumbs back to the car. Well, that was quite a trip. If you want to visit Tring Park, it is on the A41, 30 miles North West of London and if you go to the Woodland Trust website, type in Tring Park, you'll find lots of other ways of getting there by bus, by train, on foot, by bicycle and even the What 3 Words location to use as well. And if you want to find a wood nearer you than Tring Park, well type into your search engine of choice Woodland Trust find a wood and you'll find one near you. Until next time, happy wandering.

Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks with Adam Shaw. Join us next month, when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. Don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special or send us an e-mail with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to podcast@woodlandtrust.org.uk. We look forward to hearing from you.