A Mid-Winter Walk around Attingham Park – The Mile Walk

We haven’t visited our local National Trust property, Attingham Park, very many times in 2023 for a variety of reasons but when we found ourselves with a free afternoon in December we took advantage and made the short drive there.

The sky turned a dark shade of grey as we arrived but the sun still shone highlighting the silhouettes of naked trees and the stone of the main buildings.

We decided to take the ‘One Mile Walk’ with the weather not looking too promising, starting off by following the bark pathway to the walled garden in search of signs of the season.

We used to think of autumn time as the best time to enjoy spotting fungi but as our winters are getting wetter and wetter we see them right through to the end of the year. The National Trust has changed its policy on woodland management for the better with the emphasis being on increasing biodiversity. Fallen or felled trees are no longer cleared away but are left for insects, invertebrates, flora and fungi to live on and feed on. They then become the base of the food chain of the wood.

Fungi on tree stumps thrive alongside mosses, lichen, ferns and even tree seedlings.

Even in the depths of winter we can find flowering shrubs to give us colour and often scent. These are joined by berries and catkins.

Here along the Mile Walk we always look forward to arriving at this splash of yellow and the rich pineapple scent provided by the flowers of a mahonia. It is a large thicket of branches mostly hidden behind its glossy deep green foliage, a perfect foil.

Our final visit to Attingham in 2023 gave us plenty to enjoy, as it does whatever day throughout the year we wander it’s paths.