Sledmere Park

The last day of the summer holidays, I take my youngest daughter and her friends to Sledmere Park. It is overcast most of the time we are there, but the temperature is pleasant and there is barely any wind. Sledmere House, is closed for the day, but we take the day to explore the park itself. The estate includes a deer park, stables, a small rare breed animal farm, children's play area and woods and parkland with ancient trees, as well as a well kept walled garden. There are lots of outdoor things for kids to explore, despite the lack of organised events on the day (which take place all through summer).

Looking across from the house. The largest body of water in the park is a formal pond. The lack of large lakes in the estate is a consequence of the lack of running water in the Wolds. On the grass around the pond there are many of Pied Wagtails.

Giant trees
There are four Giant Sequoias planted in a clump, but also many ancient trees scattered around the park, mainly beech and horse chestnut. Some of these make wonderful canopies to hide under and have large branches kissing the ground, great for climbing.

Looking up a giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) by the Walled Garden.

Walled garden
We visit the walled garden. It has a lovely wooden hut with a visitor book, formal planting and unusual paths. The garden actually has a double wall, with apple trees in cordons against the walls.

Circular Walk and Deer Park
Although the central part of the grounds are only accessible with an entrance ticket, you can do a circular walk for free. We take the outer part of this walk after a lovely picnic lunch, which we have perched on the haha. During the walk, the kids enjoy collecting feathers. Most of them are from the numerous pheasants in the estate, but they find some gems like a Buzzard and a Tawny owl feather.

Buzzard feather. We see three Buzzards over the woods at some point.

Woodland near the haha.

The walk has some great views of the Sledmere house (top shot) and the wolds and takes you through mainly beech woodland. The walk also takes us closer to the deer, although they are quite wary of us. They seem to be in three enclosures, one with stags and hinds, one with hinds and a third one with young stags.

A vigilant stag on the mixed herd enclosure.

The hinds keeping an eye on us.

Young stags. Some of them are in velvet and others have bloody antlers after the loss of the velvet.

These male pheasants were resolving a dispute. After some posturing they parted ways. There were many pheasants about, mostly young ones.

Two Guinea Fowl on the grounds.

Bumblebee on Kniphofia. The lack of sun meant we didn't see many invertebrates about.

We see numerous Mistle Thrushes, some of them are feeding on Rowan berries. I also see a Nuthatch, which is an uncommon sighting in East Yorkshire.

Stables and rare breed farm

A view of the stables yard.

Cows nudging each other. They belong to the British White breed.

One of the spotty pigs in the farm.

House Martin. Although there were many House Martins overhead, we only saw one nest on the stables, with young almost ready to fledge.

The three shire mares. The girls loved petting them...

...and they were given the chance of brushing Poppy.

More information

Official Sledmere House website.