As it was an amazingly hot day this Saturday, we decided to have a picnic in Herschel Park. If you didn’t know, Herschel Park (formerly known as Upton Park) is a Grade II Listed site in the centre of Slough, originally built in 1842. It was completely restored in 2011 and is now run by a lovely group of volunteers. There’s a Nature Reserve and all sorts of nature events run throughout the year. You can also do self-guided trails, including a tree trail and a history trail, with guides that you can download here. There was also a Dinosaur Trail in summer 2020, hopefully this will return.

Armed with supplies from Tesco and M&S, we made our way to the park. It’s really easy to get to from the High Street – we just turned right at Boots and walked up Park Street, past the Herschel Arms pub, where I couldn’t help laughing at this sign – that’s one way to get the customers!

Park Street is full of character houses, so if you’re looking for the pretty part of Slough, take a walk up this street. At the end of the road, we crossed over Albert Street to the entrance.

We were chuckling away during this walk, wondering if it would be like Clapham Common, where it would be packed on a sunny day and all you could see was a sea of orange Sainsburys bags, except here maybe it would be a sea of Tesco bags. Anyway, we’d have to wait and see if we were right, as there was still a little walk up this road, with more pretty character houses to admire.

And here is the actual entrance to the park. Well this is the Albert Street entrance, but there are more entrances – one on Upton Park off Windsor Road, and the other off Datchet Road where there is a little car park and you have to walk through the nature reserve.

And we were wrong about it being packed. There were a few families with the kids running about, but other than that we had the place to ourselves. We set up our picnic under one of the many trees, with a view of the lake.

It was lovely and so peaceful. But then I wondered, what if there was a reason no one picnics here? But then more families arrived and set up their picnic areas – phew. Then we saw few smartly dressed older women arrive, one carrying her garden deckchair! Then a park person (maybe the warden?) wheeled over lots of white garden chairs for them and they set up their little gathering by the lake – so cute. And I guess you can hire out these chairs. At the other end of the park, a group of 4 families set up their giant family picnic. So it is definitely a good place to have a picnic I would say.

After he had eaten, Tyler decided to feed the birdies. But he would tear up a piece of bread and try to hand it to the pigeons! We told him he had to throw the bread as the pigeons were scared of him, but he wasn’t having it. I’m quite proud of this photo, as I’ve captured said scared pigeon about to fly off.

Here are some more photos of the park, you can see how picturesque it is. There were lots of ducks sleeping in the sun, by the lake.

There’s a cute little bridge over the lake, where Tyler likes to throw bread for the ducks – I think he feels safer behind the bridge. Children seems to love running up and down this bridge.

I love the lampposts around the park, they give it a ye olde feel, together with the character houses in the background.

In the middle of the lake is this greenery and little palm trees – a little bit of tropical Slough perhaps!

A lot of the tree have plaques, so you know what the official names are. This one is a Turkey Oak.

We checked out the Nature Reserve afterwards, which is at the back of the park.

As you walk in, you have to go through this archway. Tyler really enjoyed it, as he’s got a thing for tunnels at the mo.

The path leads you through greenery, different species of plants and flora with butterflies flying about. This is at the end of this particular path, which led on to the car park and another part of the reserve which we will save for another time, as Tyler’s little legs were getting tired.

We walked down another path that led us through more greenery and a little pond, where Tyler looked for frogs. They didn’t appear but I’m sure they were in there.

And that brought us back to Herschel Park, where we walked back to the High Street to do a bit of birthday shopping for Tyler’s grandma.

I still can’t believe this place is in the centre of Slough, it really is beautiful. See it’s true, Slough – it’s not that bad!

Sabrina x

More ideas for things to do in Slough here: themummystylist.com/slough