CalMax in England: Winter is Coming Part 2

Autumn 2012

“Winter is Coming”, the days getting shorter and the autumn leaves are coming through their peak and over the other side. Over the next few weeks we're going to seek out National Trust properties that are well known for autumn colours.

Stowe Landscape Garden

27th October 2012

With the colours of autumn reaching their peak we went looking for some of the National Trust’s acknowledged properties for autumn colours (in fact, the National Trust list is also the definitive list ☺). Stowe is among the gardens recommended, and being just down the road is always a possibility for a quick trip out, but this weekend it was good to catch up with Helen and Ray at a property near them – Stowe House and the Stowe Landscape Garden. On the map to the left, London is just to the right inside the M25.

Stowe House has a history of feuding, scandal, sex and debt – got your attention? Owned by one family for almost 350 years, Stowe is probably the first and foremost of the great English landscape gardens started in the 18th century. The house was owned by the Temple-Grenville family, who, at one time, were reported to be wealthier than the King.

The gardens were worked on by a number of designers, and was the first major work of Capability Brown, who was head gardener in 1741, and who was married and lived at Stowe.

In its late 18th-century heyday, Stowe was the most magnificent landscape garden in Britain, and rivalled the grandest royal gardens of continental Europe – but it came at a cost. The Temple-Grenville family spent a fortune creating and extending the garden to further their political ambitions. Stowe reached its social peak in 1822 when Richard Temple was created 1st Duke of Buckingham. In 1845 the family laid on an extravagant welcome for Queen Victoria. But three years later the second Duke (who turned out to be a fraudster) took his family and Stowe to the brink of financial ruin. In 1847 bailiffs seized his assets and he fled abroad.

The son's efforts to secure Stowe’s future were undermined when he died in 1889, with no male heir. His daughter used Stowe rarely, and when her son died in the First World War, Stowe was sold. The house was rescued in 1922, when it was turned into a school, and in 1989 the National Trust was given the gardens (and an endowment) and there has an ongoing programme of restoration and investment.

Whatever the history, the gardens are pretty darn good, so here is a sample of the pictures that were taken.

The day started out with clear blue skies (albeit a little chilly at about 3º C), although as we got closer (after a leisurely lie in) the clouds started rolling in, and it started to feel colder than the 3º. But, all in all it was a good day out, and great to catch up with old friends. We had an absolutely wonderful evening with Helen and Ray, and their family (all except Tristan, who is in Aus).

So where does the sex come in. Well, in the gardens are many temples, and one of them is devoted to the Venus (goddess of sex and gardening) – so I guess when the whether is not con-ducive to gardening there is always the alternative. In the temple of Venus (apparently) there was a “pleasuring sofa” . . . We have no idea what that might be used for.

Winkworth Arboretum

3rd November 2012

Coming to the last hurrah of autumn, we knew of two recommendations for gardens. The first was Westonbirt, near Malmesbury (from a work colleague), and the second was Winkworth Arboretum near Godalming (darling) (from National Trust. Unfortunately, National Trust didn’t make the rec-ommendation of Sheffield Park, which is supposedly their crowning glory in autumn (there’s always next weekend ☺).

Okay, the big news of the day actually started the day before when Mark purchased his Christmas present (and birthday present). We just had to go out and try the new camera – a Sony α37 SLT (it’s not an SLR because it has no mirror than flips out of the way when you take the photo, ra-ther, it has a translucent prism that means auto exposure, and auto focus are always on resulting in fast burst shooting. So, for £450 ($675) we got a DSLR equivalent (and in some respects, better with the SLT and 1.5 form factor sensor) with an 18-55mm lens, and a 70-300mm lens. Woo Hoo. We’ll see if the results are worth the expense (mind you, Mark’s four year old Fuji finepix 1000 was dropped once too many times – the last time was at Stourhead when Mark let go of the camera from neck height . . . and he wasn’t wearing the strap, and was standing on concrete . . . oops).

So, what was Winkworth like? It wasn’t bad – even though some of the trees were past their best – there were some really stunning trees, and it had a lovely walk, but it did lack the grandiose nature of some of the classic Georgian gardens. I think our favourite tree was the red one (I’m sure that’s the botanical name ☺). I was taking a photo of Cal (in the portable blanket – otherwise known as a coat) next to the tree and then took some other pics – whilst I was doing this, Cal wandered under the tree and looked up – wow!

Anyway, with the plethora of colours it was time for the happy snaps:

There were also some wild life in addition to the trees – in particular ducks and geese. Very fitting as we get closer to Christmas. One of the supermarkets here is advertising a Christmas Roast roll, that includes turkey (and stuffing of course), but also duck and goose. Hmmmm, nice way to sample the traditional goose without buying a whole bird ☺.

Speaking of Christmas, Cal also noticed that there was a Holly bush right next to a tree with ivy growing on it, and of course noting that when both of these are full grown the holly bears the crown, so Mark made the camera focus on it ☺. No mistletoe though so kissing was definitely out of the question.

At the end of the walk it was definitely time for soup (and a happy meal). It was so popular that it took over 15 minutes to get from the outside door about 5 metres to the till and pay for lunch. You wouldn’t believe it, but the red squirrel we found in the woods even joined us for an English happy meal after the walk and lunch.

After all that, it was off to Viv and Dave’s place for a great meal of moussaka (well done Dave). Whilst we were there the Guy Fawkes fireworks were being let off in a park nearby, and poor Callie – the greyhound not the human variety – was quivering. It's bizarre - you can buy fireworks at the supermarket - no drivers license, no ID, nufink. So we bought some ☺.

Hinton Ampner

10th October 2012

The previous week we ‘met’ an older couple who told us that the best Autumn Colour was to be found at Sheffield Park. (‘met’ = helped the lady when she tripped & fell in front of us). It’s a long way from Salisbury so we decided to visit another place on the way to make the drive worthwhile & visit another place on the way.

The choice was easy – what was on a fairly direct route, still open as lots of places close over winter, sounded interesting & that we hadn’t visited before? Only one place fitted the bill – Hinton Ampner (weird name huh?). OK - so Salisbury is to the far left, Hinton Ampner is the first green dot heading east, amd Sheffield park is the green dot to the right (almost due south of London).

Today Hinton Ampner is mostly known for the garden but the house has an interesting history. Well, both houses – there was one there before the new house was built. The old house was knocked down because of the serious hauntings making it impossible for anyone to live there. Some did not last one night in the house. So the new house was built in 1790, we weren’t told of any hauntings in this one though. The new house unfortunately caught fire in 1960 (probably from one of the Lord’s cigarettes) and was then faithfully restored.

Hinton Ampner is best known for its magnificent garden with views to the south (too bad the sun is always in the south ☺). The elegant country house contains the collection of Georgian and Re-gency furniture, Italian pictures and objects d'art of the last owner, Ralph Dutton, the 8th and last Lord Sherborne. The gardens were also laid out by Ralph Dutton and are widely acknowledged as a masterpiece of 20th-century design, mixing formal and informal planting, providing all year round interest (some text pinched from the National Trust website).

The house was one of the nicest we’ve seen. It had a lived-in feel rather than seeming to be just a museum. Some of the ‘objects d’art’ were really lovely, some were just awful. The latter included a clock that Ralph’s grandmother bought, it was over-the-top girlie & it was one of the only older things to survive the fire (much to Ralph’s disgust I gather) & some truly hideous busts made from 3 types of stone that simply looked like a mishmash. Of the rest, there is a lot of porphyry, a type of red-purple igneous stone that comes from a single quarry in Egypt & is/was valued for its ap-pearance. Ralph was able to restock his house rather cheaply as he was in the market at a time when a lot of the older families were having to sell up due to crippling debts (probably from death duties). When it came to paintings I think he just bought job-lots. Again some were nice & some nasty. We’ll leave it up to you to work it out according to your own taste.

The fire surround in the library used to belong to Marie Antoinette – made from marble and porphyry, notice the “N’s” on either side (Napoleon and his ego!). There were also a lot of these Greek figures around the place. He must have liked them :-/

As we were roaming the house we saw a letter written from the Queen Mother to Ralph in 1972, which was the highlight of the visit. Apparently the Queen Mother and Lord Ralph were both at a neighbour of Ralph’s for some function when someone told Elizabeth about the beauty of Ralph’s garden. She expressed a desire to see it, now! So, without any ceremony Ralph drove right round with her. While she was there she told Ralph she had a horse running that afternoon (probably at Ascot) & would like to watch it on the tele. Ralph didn’t have one. So the Queen Mum watched the race on a very small black & white, sitting on a very hard chair in the servant’s quarters, drinking tea & eating bikkies. The letter expressed her absolute delight at Ralph’s garden & the fact that her own looked like “an absolute jungle” in comparison (her emphasis).

The gardens were charming, and the view over rolling downs from the rear of the house is heavenly. (I’m now using the thesaurus as I’ve noticed that I use the word ‘lovely’ a lot). It includes a rather nice little parish church, still in use. Notice Cal’s rather lovely winter coat that makes her feel like she’s wrapped in a big warm blankie! Mark is warm in his new cashmere coat as well ☺.

Sheffield Park

10th October 2012

We then drove onto Sheffield Park. Very good Autumn colours although it may have been a bit better the week before. Lots of water for lots of reflections, Acer trees out in full red-mode, and the largest display of Gentians outside China. They were behind a rather forbidding chicken mesh fence (which can’t be seen in the piccie due to Mark’s rather good new camera). I’m thinking the deer & bunnies like eating Gentians. We’ll let the photos do the talking…