Today has been a very busy, but an incredibly fun day that I could more than happily repeat if you asked me to.
When I was younger and lived in London I used to come down to Verwood (30 mins away from Bournemouth) to wear my Grandma lived for the holidays because when I was younger I loved it here. My Grandma was great because she used to take me out to loads of places and one of the places was the Dorset Heavy Horse Centre which was about a 10 minute drive away. I LOVED it at the Heavy Horse Centre because when I was younger (and I still am) I was in love with horses, so somewhere where it’s a whole place dedicated to horses was my all time dream! We used to come here multiple times in a holiday and sometimes multiple times in a week! This was one of my favourite places to come and I have very many happy memories there as I have been to the Heavy Horse Centre probably since I was about 3 years old.
Today I decided I was going to take my niece so she could create happy memories at a place I once loved. Also the main reason of the visit today was so I could revisit it as I’m guessing that it has probably been a good 6 years since I have been and I really wanted to revisit before I head off to uni!
As you can kind of gather these aren’t your everyday pony these horses are taller than me. They were bred for war and then later on used for labour, such as ploughing fields. Did you know that it could take a horse 9 hours to plough a field that was 1 acre in size whereas a tractor could do it in 10 minutes! A great thing about the Horse Centre is that all of the horses are rescue horses and some have been with the family for years and even before they bought the farm 10 years ago. It was funny because some of the horses that were there today were there when I was 3 which was so nice to see because that really was a massive trip down memory lane!
My niece (Lily) had such a fabulous time today she drove a horse and carriage (with actual members of the public on, which terrified me slightly), had tractor and trailer rides, she got to feed all of the animals, play on the go-carts and so much more that I possibly can’t remember!
I’m so glad I got to return to this wonderful place and I would be more than happy to return their in the near future!
Thank you to the wonderful staff who made this day so special and for keeping the farm in such good condition that I am still able to visit 15 years from when I first went!
~Ciara~
