Gilwell Park

My parents have been to the UK numerous times.  We lived here as a family for a couple of years when Jonathan & I were younger, then they’ve wrangled vacations out of my continued attempts to run away from home.  So as far a tourist destinations in the UK, they’re starting to run low on things they haven’t already seen…which leads us to this.

Amazingly, Gilwell Park hasn’t quite made it into the Rick Steves’ London guide book yet.

As is much of the UK, Gilwell was originally a farm which fell into disrepair around 1900. It was bought by Scout Commissioner William de Bois Maclaren in 1919 and given to the UK Scout Association to provide camping to London Scouts.  It additionally became the home of the Scout Leader training academy (the Wood Badge) and Scout Leaders from all countries of the world have come to Gilwell Park for their Wood Badge training.

Dad has a Wood Badge and wanted to see the home of the original training center.  He had also been told of the Buffalo statue donated to Gilwell Park by the Boy Scouts of America in the 1920’s.

So off we went.

Luckily, I’m the perfect daughter and didn’t mock any of his enthusiasm.

At. All.

Luckily we had Adam to document the documentation of Dad's visit

Directions from the scout leaders

He was moving leaves, not shaking Baden-Powell's hand

So the buffalo was slightly smaller than we thought it was going to be.

Okay, so it’s not going to make my top ten list of prized destinations in the UK, but I’m so glad we got to visit and let Daddy see somewhere that he was really excited about.