The Deepdene Trail
Local highlightOpen accessfree to visit at any reasonable time
The art collector Thomas Hope turned this hillside above Dorking into a landscaped pleasure ground in the early 1800s, complete with a mausoleum he built for his young son and was later buried in himself. The house came down in 1969 and the gardens grew wild for decades, until Mole Valley District Council restored them with lottery funding and reopened the grounds as a free walking trail in 2016. Look out for the re-instated parterre, a grotto and an embattled tower folly. It’s a 15-minute walk from Dorking’s railway stations.
