Avebury Manor Gardens

We are now well into the month of September and the manor gardens are still a mass of summer colour - autumn appears to be nowhere in sight

Cleome - Spider flower

Some of the garden walls have an attractive thatch coping


Centaurea cyanus - cornflowers

Swiss Chard  along with

Artichokes and Fennel jostle for attention amongst the flowers in the herbacious borders

Zingy shocking pink Zinnias mingle with their more restrained neighbours

There was a selling sculpture exhibition in the gardens

I liked this giant ceramic seedpod - if it had been a peapod then it would definitely have come home with me for my collection

The garden keeps on revealing hidden delights with each new path or archway encountered

The Kitchen Garden

here we found real treasure - freshly picked damsons, now I can make 

Damson & Sloe Gin ice creamNext time 'to the manor reborn'

A Rococo Garden in the Cotswolds - visited 28.01.16

snowdrops en masse 

Rococo was an artistic movement and style developed in the early C18th in Paris. It not only involved the arts and architecture but also gardens. Today's Rococo gardens are mainly to be found in France and Italy - they were exhuberantly created using extravagant pavillions, fountains and stairways. However, the Rococo garden movement also had a fleeting craze here in England, and although not as grand as their European cousins, they sparkled with unrestrained delights which showed off their ostentatious owners often new found wealth. The Rococo Garden in Painswick is a very rare suvivor in England, and at this time of year hosts a special harbinger of Spring - the snowdrop. The garden grows thousands of them including various different cultivars but the principle snowdrop grown is Galanthus atkinsonii which is commonly known as the "big one".  
As a result of the mild winter weather the snowdrops have peaked three weeks early.

This elegant white stucture is called the Exedra, in architectural terms an exedra is a semicircular recess or plinth often crowned by a semi-dome. Used as a folly here in the Rococo garden it makes a striking focal accent which can be seen from many different points in the garden

The Anniversary Maze spells '250 years' and was newly planted at the beginning of the millenium

 Snowdrops have been growing in this Grove for over 250 years. In the C18th the owners of the house traditionally opened their garden to all the local Painswick residents for one Sunday each snowdrop season and invited them to pick themselves a posy of six snowdrops each

A Palladian seating folly which has been given some exhuberant rococo emblishments

The Kitchen Garden prepared and ready for planting - it looks spectacular during the apple blossom season when the cordoned fruit trees flower 

A Plunge Pool accompanied by running spring-water were essential elements in an C18th century garden. Throughout that period there was an interest in following a cold regime, which was claimed to extend life expectancy. This included spending time out of doors, taking plenty of outdoor exercise and bathing in cold water.
The philosopher John Locke wrote in 1703....
"Everyone is now full of the miracles done by cold baths on decayed and weak constitutions, for the recovery of health and strength;"

In the C18th Plunge Pool activities at Painswick were presided over by Jan Van Nost's statue of Pan which has now been repositioned to another more protected location within the garden

Arched walkway

View across the fish pond to the Red House

 The Red House sits at the head of the valley having commanding views of the garden. It is both flambouyant and eccentric, displaying one of the main features of the Rococo period of asymmetry. The doors to the Red House are locked in the open position as it plays host to a colony of Lesser Horsehoe Bats roosting in the roof - an extremely rare bat in England and only found here the southwest of the country

The Red House was put on the English Heritage 'at risk' register in 2007 when it was discovered that there was evidence of structural movement. In the winter of 2009/10 underpinning was carried out, and at the same time the windows were replaced. They are inscribed in Latin with the Songs from Solomon.

As it's name suggests The Eagle House sits at the highest point in the garden and has far reaching views across the garden to the countryside beyond

This fanciful creation sits on the unaffected stump of a Beech Tree which had become diseased.  It will quickly mellow and blend in with the other trees in the glen. The work was completed by a local chainsaw sculptor, Denius Parson literally days ago - it was inspired by Schloss Neuschwanstein in Bavaria

It seems appropriate to conclude the post with a snowdrop

Chatsworth Garden

Although nearing the end of September these wildflowers were still making a colourful show

The lst Duke's charming Greenhouse was built in 1697 to grow citrus trees. It is one of the most important C17th greenhouses surviving in England. Today it houses part of Chatsworth's Camellia collection, a few citrus trees and other tender plants

The Ipomoea 'Heavenly Blue' morning glories thriving happily in one of the other estate greenhouses

Ipomoea - 'Ocean Blue'

Henry Moore OM, CH - Three piece reclining figure: Draped

Every year Chatsworth hosts a large sculpture exhibition

The current one is entitled Beyond Limits: The Landscape of British Sculpture 1950-2015

The Long Walk, topped by a memorial urn to Blanche, wife of the 7th Duke

In a vale lying alongside but below the Long Walk is the Emperor Fountain - anticipating a visit from Tsar Nicholas l of Russia, the 6th Duke decided to construct the world's highest fountain, and set Joseph Paxton to work building it in 1843

Mr Paxton was Head Gardener to the 6th Duke, but he is far better known for his design and building of the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park where the Great Exhibition was held in 1851

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Coloured lithograph of Queen Victoria opening the Great Exhibition

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Paxton's unique building and design expertise in the use of cast-iron and glass was honed in the gardens at Chatsworth where in 1837 he built this revolutionary glass house which sadly was demolished in 1920

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Paxton also designed a glass Lily House at Chatsworth - this illustration shows his daughter Annie standing on the leaf of a giant Victoria amazonica at Chatsworth - Paxton's design for the Crystal Palace took its cue from the organic structure of this plant 

beyond the Emperor fountain are uninterrupted views stretching across and beyond the River Derwent 

Juxtaposition

Classical statuary and the roofline at Chatsworth House appear dwarfed by a large scale sculptural construction by Conrad Shawcross RA called 'The Dappled Light of the Sun'

A sculptural piece by Stephen Cox RA - Dreadnought: Problems of History - The search for the hidden stone.

Personally I would have preferred to see the water cascade without the sculpture sitting in it, albeit only a temporary exhibit

A colourful show of wild flowers highlighting what is known as 'The Conservative Wall' - a series of greenhouses built in front of the garden wall. The building behind the wall is the imposing Stable Block

As the afternoon shadows lengthen - a last look over my shoulder, 

before heading back into the Derbyshire countryside