Mr DT's Nymans Birthday

I will never tire of these wonderful National Trust properties with the huge gardens and acres of Buttercup fields. Not having a garden myself I appreciate the grass all the more I think, and the ability to just let Baby F loose to roam around. 

We visited Nymans for Mr DT's birthday this year. He wasn't really fussed about doing anything but I think birthday's should be celebrated so my family dragged him out for a birthday picnic, complete with presents and cake, on the lawns outside the big house and I think he was secretly rather chuffed. 

Interestingly, having been a visitor of this site for about 30 years (we used to come here with my grandparents when I was small), I went in a part of it I've never been in before!! Quite a large chunk of the house burnt down in a housefire and, due to building material rations at the time, it was never rebuilt so that part has stayed a romantic ruin since then. This time when we went, they have made it into a little secret indoor/outdoor garden!

It was beautiful, really lush and calm and secluded. I can imagine that through the seasons the gardeners will have cleverly planted so that different pots flower or change colour at different times so that the scene is always changing. We'd gone in May (I know - I'm nearly two months behind writing this!) so there weren't many flowers out but lots of green, happy looking plants. Baby F was very taken with this enormous water feature quietly bubbling away in a corner. 

I can't decide whether the building is more impressive as a ruin and being able to see blue sky through those wonderful windows, or if it would have looked even more stunning as a whole building with a roof. I love that there are plants growing through the architecture, giving the stonework a cuddle, but I'm sure there would have been impressive chimneys, and I'm a sucker for a good chimney structure. 

The gardens were very pretty, lots of purples/pinks with the Wisteria pergola (although I'm sure I've seen it more covered in flowers before, there really didn't seem that many this time) foxgloves and aquilegia. There was a group of photographers bobbing around behind all of the plants taking close up photographs of leaves or butterflies, getting very excited by a sighting of something slightly unusual and going haring off together to snap photos of the new 'thing'.

My favourite bit is the walled garden. It's enormous and has areas of wild meadow, orchards, huge fat flower beds, tightly clipped and structured hedges, water fountains, carved archways... it's really beautiful. I fear as I walk around that I always take photos of the same thing but each time you see it, in a slightly different season, or a different type of weather or time of day, they look different. If you scroll up to the top of the blog, on the right hand side there is a search bar and if you key in 'Nymans' you can see all of the posts and photos I've taken and published from there - I've just done it myself and it's almost like a snapshot of the property throughout all of the seasons.

I have no idea what the above tree is but the flowers are fantastic! It looks like a birthday cake, which seemed timely, and they were massive! We were very well treated by the weather and it was such a lovely family day out. We are very lucky to have so many of these protected and cared for spaces near to us.