The Courts Garden

 

Whilst on our short break away to Wiltshire, we visited The Courts Garden, another National Trust property within half an hour from the door of our holiday home. We were really lucky with our position actually because we managed to find lots to do within a short distance every day, and I think we visited at least one National Trust property every day too so it ended up being a much cheaper holiday than we'd expected - plus we were able to collect lots of embroidered badges for our camp blankets. Going away during the school holidays is always so much more expensive but with this being worked around a wedding, plus some of my family working within a school setting, we didn't have much of a choice so it was good for our bank balances to keep visiting National Trust locations. 

I'm not sure there's a hugely long or involved history for this place. It seems to have been linked to the wool mills as it is very close to Bradford-on-Avon which was a wealthy wool town in the 1700s, and one of its early owners was the builder of a cloth mill next door to it, part of which is now covered by the garden as it was later demolished. The courts part of the name came from its use as a village law court where cloth weavers could settle their problems. It's had a string of owners who have all added their own little stamp or mark on it, bits of architecture or a new garden element. Queen Mary visited at one point when it was lived in by Major and Lady Goff in the 1920s or so and I believe Lady Goff was the one who implemented all of the garden rooms that you can walk around today. 

Whatever its history, for us on the day it was a lovely place to visit. It also had the extra outdoor activities for the kids and a kind of forest school/mud kitchen/bivouac making area which they absolutely loved. We've got so many lovely photos of us and the kids so it helped us to make amazing holiday memories. 

The different garden rooms were gorgeous to look at, and I especially loved the ornate waterlily pond! The planting in general was lovely - with a kind of wildness to it so it wasn't all box hedge and straight lines but more free-flowing and natural whilst still being beautiful cultivated flowers, and the dahlias below were dinner plate sized!

My brother-in-law managed to badly break his ankle in three places about a week or so before we left for this trip and borrowed a wheelchair from a family member as he was all strapped up in a big boot. It turns out that the wheelchair really wasn't that robust and we have even more hilarious photos of him being pushed over the bridge in the below photo - I won't embarrass him by sharing them here but lets just say his facial expressions don't imply he had much confidence in my sister pushing him over the hump and down the other side. 

We spent the afternoon wandering around Bradford-on-Avon itself, although got very lost after following what we thought was an easy path to the canal and a playground that turned into a bit of an intrepid adventure through a graveyard, up steep hills and bobbly roads, across a railway line and through a load of fields. The wheelchair didn't even make it past the graveyard before they turned back, and Mr DT was ready to turn back at the railway line but we pushed on, eventually found a playground with a really old fashioned booth selling slightly bizarre flavoured ice lollies for more money than they were worth, which ended up staining the boys' skin and clothing. We ended the day slightly hot and bothered, if I recall rightly after our lovely start at The Courts garden, and didn't see the canal but it all adds to the holiday memories!!