Oh what a lovely day ....

..... the day we went to Denbies!
My grandson and I drove through the lovely Surrey countryside to Denbies Vineyard just outside Dorking (UK) . On arrival we booked 2 tours , the first one was of the cellar where the wine is made, and of cause we had to sample 4 of them! Would have been rude not to! This took about 1 and half hours and then at 2pm we were taken by tractor train up above the vineyard itself , I didn't walk today as the range of the hills were not high enough to bother me with, if you believe that you'd believe anything! The 2 guides were very knowledgeable and made it all very interesting , so was Simon the guide on the first tour, they were all funny guys full of mirth.
We left the vineyard at about 3.30pm and drove to a lovely pub and had a meal ( no alcohol was taken, only water/Coke and coffee) "O" was safely delivered home at 6.30pm

Grateful ..... for a lovely day with "O" , good weather, good food and safe and pleasant journey.

Just a little info about Denbies.
Originally this was sheep farming area , with a farm house at the top of the hill. When this was farmed by a John Denby in 1500 hundreds . It had many owners , was renovated and improved , but in 1787 William JosephDenison purchased the house by 1850 he sold the property to Thomas Cubitt , who had a training in carpentry / went to sea with navy/ then had a history of building much of Londons mansions etc. Denbies estate became his life's work to demolish and improve . Thomas' son George became a parliamentarian and eventually became interested in the estate opening the gardens to the public in 1892 . In the 2nd WW an enormous change in social order happened. The house was taken over by British and Canadian forces as this area was the 2nd line of defence after the cliffs .
Negotiations with a Distillers Company in 1952 was the beginning of the Vineyard as it is today. Thomas Cubitt also built Osbourne House on the I . O. W. So Denbies had a strong resemblance . Being composed of chalk this made an excellent situation for this to succeed and had grown rapidly . By now the estate was owned by the White family developing the Vineyard and Winery , by 1993 it was becoming renowned for its wines which have continued to improve and some are supplied to stores such as Waitrose and Sainsbury's.
This is such a potted version of Denbies if you are interested I suggest you read The House on the Hill by S.E.D. Fortescue