Exploring England: Mayfield Lavender Farm

You don't have to go all the way to the French Provence to immerse yourself in fields of fragrant lavender, in fact you hardly have to leave London for the opportunity to wander through rows of the beautiful purple flowers and an impromptu photo shoot with Instagrammable features throughout the fields. Mayfield Lavender Farm in Surrey has opened its doors once more for its annual lavender season. After years of thinking about going we finally made the trip down this past week – and it was glorious.





As you know, we've had an extremely hot summer for months now in the UK so the harvesting season is earlier than normal but we managed to visit the fields the weekend before the first harvest, which I'm really happy about. Mayfield Lavender Farm does still list on its website that they're open until mid-September but because of the heat I highly recommend going sooner rather than later as the fields were already losing some of their vibrant colour. And with the first half being harvested this week I can only imagine it won't be long before the rest follows suit.





The drive down from North London was about 90 minutes so having a bright and early start to beat the heat we got to the lavender farm soon after it opened at 9am. It's definitely better to go as early in the day as possible to get a parking spot next to the fields and to avoid the crowds that descend onto the farm closer to midday. Tickets to the lavender fields are only a courtesy £2pp, which includes parking, so not only is this an easy day trip from London, it's a very affordable one too for the whole family!





You can also opt for a tractor ride around the fields for another £2pp if you're less mobile but we decided to walk through the fields ourselves and explore at our own pace, which was delightful. Even though it's not *that* big (you can see from one end of the field to the other, and easily walk across) we ended up spending about two hours at the farm exploring, taking tons of photos, and enjoying the view. With the sound of hundreds of bees buzzing around the field and a beautiful gentle aroma of lavender in the air, it was a really relaxing way to spend a Saturday morning.





In addition to the fields itself (which also boost some cool photo – such as a bright red London telephone box, a sign pinpointing capitals of the world and how far they are, and even a photo op with a cut-out of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle for a charity donation – there is also a cafe selling lavender-infused food and beverages such as cup cakes, ice cream and cider as well as a shop selling everything lavender you can possibly imagine. I bought a bunch of lavender and lavender chocolate, and they also had cookies, meringues, honey, chutney, jams, beauty products and much much more. If you love the smell of lavender this is really the place to be!





Mayfield Lavender Farm is located on 1 Carshalton Rd, Banstead SM7 3JA in Surrey. They're open 7 days a week from 9am until 6pm until 16 September 2018. Though do keep an eye on their website in case the harvesting times change because of the heat. Just a 10-minute drive away there is also the Mayfield Lavender Nursery & Gift Shop on 139 Reigate Rd, Epsom KT17 3DW, which boosts even more lavender-infused food and beauty products as well as a range of potted plants. Definitely worth a visit if you're in the area anyway!



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