Combe Sydenham Country Park has connections with Sir Francis Drake; his second wife, Elizabeth, was the daughter and heiress of Sir George Sydenham who owed the estate. The secluded park, with its fallow deer and abundance of other wildlife, covers 500 acres and has 10 miles of woodland walks. Follow the Alice Trail, Drake’s Leat Walk or sit by Sir George’s Pond. Look for the deserted hamlet of Goodley, inhabited by a small community until Victorian times and where whole families were wiped out by the Black Death in 1348.