Today I took a walk around Target Hill Open Space.

I had not intended to: I was going to visit the mosque but when I got there the place was deserted, so I went for a walk to kill some time.

I have to admit that I had never been to Target Hill before. It is quite a large area as can be seen from aerial photographs – it is about the same size as Broadfield Park – but I had only seen it from in front of the houses which are opposite at the top.

With houses fronting onto the space it is obviously not that secret, (I am starting to think this series should be called ‘relatively secret Crawley’) but its one of those places which is not known of by too many people elsewhere in town.

As you can see from the first picture, there is a sign, but it is not exactly prominent.

This is the entrance near the mosque, opposite St Helier Close. As you can see, the sign is hardly visible from the road. As soon as you go through this gate there is a very short path, three or four metres, before a flight of steps leading upwards.

The park lives up to the “hill” part of its name.

It does not really live up to the “open space” part of its name though, as at the top of these steps it is quite dense woodland and undergrowth with a path through it.

Before too long the path led to another set of steps which in turn lead to another path, heading off in two directions. I decided to turn right first, and carried on until reaching a more open area with a small frozen pond.

The pond had a small platform extending over it, and on the opposite bank there was a seat with a high back and a dragonfly carved into the back of it. Part of the seat seemed to have broken off and had fallen into the pond.

At this point I was pretty close to the A264, and there was quite a lot of traffic noise to remind me that I was not in the middle of nowhere as it might have appeared just from visual clues.

The path continued around but I did not. I will have to go back another day to explore it fully I think. Instead I returned the way I came to see what was in the other direction. Perhaps in the summer it is possible to go off looking through the woods, but on a November morning it is better to stick to the paths.

Every now and then there are benches – none vandalised – and some of them on the Northern side of the park are facing spectacular views across the town towards the airport.

Today the benches were white with frost, even just after midday, so not facilities you would want to use for sitting on. It was cold, but as you can see from the pictures, it was bright and sunny with fabulously clear skies.

This is the view from one of the benches on the Northern path, even better than the views from the top of my road in Tollgate Hill, framed by trees rather than houses and cars parked on the pavements.

When I continued in the other direction I found more of the same – paths through woodland – until I reached the point where the houses are. I decided to call it a day and go back to the car, but made a mental note to return as I hardly covered a fraction of the area.

Although hilly, as the name would suggest, it is quite accessible, especially from the top. I encountered a couple of ladies with a pushchair and three enthusiastic dogs who were coming down from the top where the houses are. They even managed to get down the sets of steps OK with the pushchair, as I saw them later on at the bottom.

To finish off, here is one of the more arty shots I took this morning. No abandoned shopping trolleys this time – this area is very tidy. I think that one beer can is the limit of the litter I saw, apart from a large pile which was actually in a bin.