I’d always wanted to visit this expansive piece of open space in our borough of Brent. Completely surrounded by suburbia Fryent Country Park lies about ten miles north west of central London and covers 250 acres of traditional Middlesex countryside. It’s set in undulating country and once you’re walking through its attractive mixture of woodland, fields and hedgerows you’re transported miles away from urbanization and suburbia. The park truly gives an insight into what this whole part of London would have looked like before being built up from the nineteenth century onwards.

We undertook our visit a couple of days ago on the way back from shopping. It was a little late in the day and so what we managed to see was just a taster for further explorations .

We shall certainly return and explore more fully the meadows, ponds, lakes, hedges and woodland included in this area which is a designated nature reserve with over eight hundred species of wildlife including twenty one types of butterfly and eighty bird species birds. Interestingly, the agricultural past of Fryent park is revealed not only in its preserved hedgerows but in the cutting of hay every July, which is then carried to a farm. Unfortunately there are no longer sheep and cattle which once roamed freely over the green space although horses and ponies are found grazing on it as there are stables nearby.

In the meanwhile, in anticipation of our next visit here is a selection of woodland and meadows views we snapped of this quite unknown part of London.