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!!

Stourhead

Mr DT and I were invited to a good friend's wedding in August this year. It was a no children event which posed some problems for us and how we were going to work it with Baby F. It's not that we mind weddings being child-free, he would have run amok anyway, but it was in Bath so a several hours drive away and we were trying to go through all of the options of how long we stayed away for, did we just go up that morning and stay one night with Baby F having a sleepover at Nanna & Poppa's, or did we go the day before so we weren't rushed and stressed on arrival...in the end, we managed to swing it that Nanna and Poppa, and various other family members would all come with us! Combining a customary big family holiday with the wedding! Genius. So we went and stayed for almost a week in the Bath area and then Mr DT and I just popped off to the wedding one afternoon/evening and went back to our family holiday home afterwards. 

It worked out perfectly! I can highly recommend taking the childcare with you (hee hee). 

It also happened that it was The Mother's birthday on the day we travelled to Bath so she was allowed to choose where we stopped for lunch. All of us are National Trust members and we find it easiest with the smalls to set off fairly early in the morning, stop for breakfast at a service station and then head to somewhere National Trust owned for lunch and to hang out until our holiday home is ready - it's a routine we do almost every time we go and stay somewhere in the UK. The little ones need a good run around after sitting in the car for any length of time and big old country estates usually have enough space for that!

The Mother requested we go to Stourhead which was a huge sprawling estate with its own little village in the middle, massive lake with various follies, huge house and formal gardens... it just kept going! The lake part reminded me a little bit of Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire which we had a family holiday at in 2015 (pre partners and babies!) which was also ornate lakes and water features with temples and follies set throughout the landscape. 

The Palladian villa that is now on the site, Stourhead House, was built around 1717, after Henry Hoare I purchased the land and knocked down Stourhead Manor to build this rather grand, presumably much larger building with nicely balanced features, stone columns and grand staircases. We did go through the house, although apart from the library, where Baby F sat down for a few minutes to read a book with me on the window seat, it was pretty much a whistle stop tour as big old grand houses don't actually impress 2 year olds and all he wanted to do was to be outside where he could roam free and pick up the thistles he couldn't touch on the chairs inside. 

Over the summer, many of the National Trust properties were having a 'summer of fun' I think it was called, and they had extra toys or things for children to play with in the gardens, usually on a theme. At Stourhead they had little ride on tractors which the boys absolutely loved, giant jenga and hoops to roll around. We stayed for a long time playing with the tractors and driving them around the haybale course. 

When we'd eventually got bored of that, you have to walk back the way you'd come to the house and walled kitchen gardens, and take another turn to what turns into a little hamlet with a road and more buildings arranged in what I think was a stable set up (a posh one) with a courtyard where you could sit and eat ice cream. 

Then you are able to get into this enormous landscape garden! It was built by Henry Hoare II and designed by landscape architect Henry Flitcroft in a classical style, inspired by Henry's Grand European Tours. The plants and trees have been changed over the years as new flora discoveries were made, or the next descendent coming in with their own favourite type of tree, but I think the general layout has mostly stayed the same. There are several buildings you can go in and explore, and you could find yourself coming across the Temple of Apollo, The Pantheon (I've been in the actual Pantheon and I'm not sure it compares but it's still pretty), the Temple of Flora, the Grotto, or walk over the Palladian Bridge. Every time you round a corner there's another beautiful view across the lake of another gorgeous building, it's really very clever. 

So many of these beautiful watery places are currently affected by the suffocating Blue/Green Algae which is why the water is such a strong colour in these photos. We came across it a couple of years ago at Painshill Park, which is equally very similar in style to this garden with the bridge and little buildings that look like they've been stolen from other places around the world. 

If only I had a garden where I could have all of this space to roam around in! Although the original garden I think had to employ over 50 gardeners to keep it in tip top condition so perhaps I should scale back my coveted acreage a little bit as that is a lot of people to employ for trees! The views I think are worth it though here. 

And, of course, walking so many miles around the houses and lakes and pathways, had the desired effect for us of completely wearing out Baby F and his favourite monkey, Bertie. The rest of the journey to our holiday house was very peaceful. 

Cambridge Getaway :: Wicken Fen

After the delights of Anglesey Abbey, we had a little bit of time left in the afternoon to pop a few minutes down the road to Wicken Fen Nature Reserve (in a quest to gain more National Trust badges you see). Baby F fell asleep in the car and, as he'd missed his nap earlier, we ended up sitting in the carpark for about 40 minutes to let him recharge. Of course I rarely go anywhere without a stitching project so I had my Cherry Blossom ATCs for the April Stitchscape swap with me and spent the time happily sewing on my pink branches with the car door open to let the sunshine and sweet smelling air in. 

We ended up walking around the Fen on our own as the rest of our family group had split up - some had walked round whilst we were in the car, and others had taken their small people back to the holiday home for their nap. It was nearing the end of the day but the sun was still shining a beautiful golden glow and it felt almost like we had the place to ourselves. 

Wicken Fen is a huge wetland, supposedly with thousands of different species of creatures living there - not that we actually saw much except some little brown lizards warming their tummies on the boardwalk. You could hear the birds all around you with their different calls, and the sound of the rustle of grasses in the wind was very peaceful. Apparently this site was the National Trust's first ever nature reserve to be taken into their care, and they've been looking after it for 125 years! 

There were some activities you could do whilst on your wander around the boardwalk, I particularly enjoyed making my own poem from pre-worded pebbles. I hope you enjoy my efforts. 

The little one quite liked walking along the pathway, although we were holding onto him fairly tightly!  

The wind pump cuts a striking figure, standing out proud among the flat marshy land around it. I believe it was moved to Wicken Fen from somewhere else and restored by the National Trust in the 1950s and is now the last remaining wooden wind pump in the fens. 

This was our last Cambridge getaway visit I can show you really. On our way home we stopped off in Bishop Stortford to have lunch with my aunt and then to the IKEA at Lakeside to have a mooch round, neither of which have blog-worthy photos, but I hope that you've enjoyed my posts about our holiday!