World's End

 A few miles from where I live there is a road turning off the main road with, after a couple of hundred yards, a narrow side road leading off the first one. 

If you walk along the side road for 5 minutes or so you come to the gate of what is obviously the entrance to the courtyard of a grand house.

Carrying on past this you see a sign with "World's End' marked in large letters and underneath in red, "Private Road". 

Now, you might stop here and retrace your steps but you decide that the opportunity to see the end of the world is too tempting. Besides, the private bit probably only refers to vehicles not pedestrians, and so you carry on. The road becomes rougher with several potholes marking its surface. There is a thick wood on the left, overgrown and unkempt, while on the right appears a stagnant pond covered in slimy green weed with broken branches sticking out of the water. 

The area now has an aura of abandonment and slight decay. Then you reach an old stone wall about 7 feet high which lines one side of the road. The stones are worn in many places and even falling down in some, and the whole wall is overgrown with ivy and tangled vegetation. 

Then you come to an old wooden door with a rusty lock that looks as if it has not been opened for a long time, but since there only appears to be a dark wood on the other side of the wall why would anyone want to open it? Perhaps at one time it was the entrance to a pleasant grove but that must have been long ago. 

The sense of going back in time becomes stronger but then a few scattered houses appear on the other side of the road though even these are a little odd. Of an indeterminate age, they have the air of being lived in by people wishing to escape the world. You can see various old-fashioned tools stacked up outside, and the front gardens are planted with vegetables rather than flowers. However, there's no sign of any activity.

And then the road stops dead. Thick undergrowth blocks any further progress, even if the path continued which it clearly doesn't. Could this really be the end of the world or, at least, the edge? There seems nothing to do but go back the way you came.

All at once you suddenly notice, hidden away to the far right, a very narrow little gap which turns out to be a path. You could easily have missed it but you take this path wondering where it might lead. What could there be beyond the end of the world? The path is mulchy underfoot with wet leaves littering its floor but then something unexpected. 

An iron fence bars your passage. Now you really can go no further but you peep through the fence to see what's on the other side.

A glorious vista opens up with a wide expanse of grassland on a gently rolling hill bordered by sunlit trees very different in atmosphere to the gloomy wood you have recently passed through. The photo does not do it justice.

Now this is where it gets interesting. For the narrow path you have been on at this point doubles back on itself and leads to a big housing estate. There is a wide road and cars, and the houses are expensive but soulless in the modern way. It's as though you have gone right back into the 21st century after escaping it for a brief moment. What are you to do? You have a choice. The beautiful country lies ahead but it is blocked by iron railings. The path takes you back to the world. It's the obvious way to go but the magic and the mystery of what lay beyond are not there. No, there is only one thing to do. You must climb the fence.

Can you guess what this is about?