Visit to Little Chalfont Nature Park

Visit to Little Chalfont Nature Park by Richard Parker
Last Wednesday morning (9 June 2021), my Mum, Drina, and I took my Chesham ADLC All Around The World Course group to the Little Chalfont Nature Park where we met Mandy Rooke who was on the Little Chalfont Nature Park Action group with my mum and is now on the Nature Park Management committee. It worked out perfectly that the visit had been re-arranged from May to June as we then had the lovely warm and hot sunny weather for the visit. It is a very quiet and tranquil place to visit even though there are main roads nearby. The leaves on the trees in the ancient woodland muffle the sound of traffic and it is hard to believe that the Nature Park is in the heart of a busy village. There is a rare Metasequoia tree in the park. This tree was thought to be extinct last century. The meadow is rare too. It is an ancient wildflower meadow. In the Park, there are lots of chainsaw wood sculptures made by a man who Mandy Rooke told us had won both the European Championships and the World Championships for his skill with the chainsaw.
The sculptures are as follows: a story-telling chair with toadstool seats for young children surrounding it, some owls in a tree and a giant strawberry. There is a red kite sculpture on a nest on a tree stump and many other animals carved into benches around the park. My favourite sculpture is the group of owls ‘hiding’ in the bark of a tree. I find this fascinating to feel the face and the body of the three owls, with my hands as I cannot see it with my eyes as I am blind.

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