Estates in the County

With this route you walk a long day in the woods of the De Graafschap region. You explore two connected estates. On the seventeenth-century estate de Velhorst you will not only find woods, but also fields, stately avenues, farmhouses with painted shutters and hedgerows. You almost feel like one of the nobility when you walk through this quiet area or have a picnic on a bench. On the't Waliën estate you walk through coniferous and deciduous forest and past pools where salamanders, the common toad and the brown frog feel at home. Occasionally you can hear the drumming of a black woodpecker. The country house't Waliën, built in 1915, is located in the middle of the forest. The two estates border on the Grote Veld. This original heathland to the east of Zutphen was once so vast that you could see the church towers of the surrounding villages of Lochem, Vorden and Almen. This area was cultivated in the nineteenth century and mainly planted with larch, Douglas fir, Norway spruce and Scots pine. Typically a forest where bundles of sunbeams produce mysterious pictures. In addition to this needle cover, you also walk through small heaths with flying pines and juniper bushes. The latter species is relatively rare and only grows on poor soil.