Anglesey Abbey

Our flights via Stansted to Cyprus offered up an opportunity to visit Anglesey Abbey near Cambridge on our return

The medieval priory was not yet open for the season, however, it was the spring gardens we were drawn to see

The abbey was remodelled into a 20th century home by Lord Fairhaven, son of a wealthy American oil family, he bought it unseen at an auction when he was 30 years old. He then spent much of his time and fortune creating the perfect place in which to entertain, collect fine antiques and follow country pursuits.  

It is over 20 years ago that we first saw the drifts of newly planted dogwood shrubs, birch and willow trees, and we were keen to see just how they had developed. Grown for their colourful barks, sculptural forms and shapes, together with interesting underplanting, they looked glorious in the spring sunshine

Pretty tassels on the Acer negundo  

Fritillaria raddeana

Anemone blanda together with Scilla siberica

Rubus thibetanus 'silver fern'

Himalyan Silver Birch

Sadly, all too soon it became necessary for us to abandon visiting the more formal part of the garden

Prunus serrula - Tibetan Cherry Tree
having been up since 3.00am to catch our plane back home we were tired,

and still had the drive home ahead of us

In and Around Wells Cathedral, Somerset - Part 1

Entrance gatehouse to Cathedral Green 

There was a Norman Cathedral in Wells, but in 1180 Bishop Reginald de Bohun, decided to build a new one on a different site in what became architecturally known as 'Early English Gothic'. It now has the acolade of being the first Cathedral to be built completely from scratch in this style; a harmonious building filled with light and space with ribbed vaults, and pointed arches.

The West front is a 'tour de force' still displaying more than 300 medieval lifesize statues of kings, knights, saints and lay people - there are plenty of empty niches as originally there were more than 500 statues. The project was conceived by Jocelin Trotman who became the Bishop after Reginal left to become the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Christ sits in majesty at the centre top of the facade flanked on either side by winged seraphim; the twelve apostles stand immediately below - St. Andrew, the patron saint of the Cathedral, has pride of place in the center holding his cross. 

The facade was originally coloured in green, blue and red paint with gold gilding, the figures were unpainted apart from some golden highlights but were offset against a dark red background. Traces of the original paint were discovered during conservation cleaning in the 1970s/80s. 

To give an idea of how the West Front may have looked - I coloured this in on an internet site found via the BBC. It accords with the paint traces found - the white area is the undecorated stonework.

Sound was an important part of the religious display, and on festival days the unseen choristers would sing hymns to the people gathered outside from a specially constructed gallery inside the Cathedral. The sound was channelled outside thanks to a series of carefully hidden holes in the West Front - trumpets played through the larger holes which can be seen carved below the apostles feet. Can you imagine how overwhelming this spectacle must have seemed to the medieval peasants standing outside on the Cathedral Green?

By the time the Cathedral was completed, it was considered too small for the increasing grandness of the liturgy during that period, and in order to find more room for the large ritualistic processions, a spate of construction work began in the early 1300s. A much bigger tower was built adding considerably to the weight at the center of the Cathedral creating structural cracks. When we venture inside next time, it will be possible to see the ingenious and unique way that the medieval stonemasons managed to solve this problem thus averting a potential collapse. 

The exterior clock face on the north wall is driven by the astronomical clock inside the Cathedral which is over 600 years old. The two knights hammer the bells with an axe at each quarter. The mechanism is also linked to a bell in the Cathedral's main tower which strikes the hours and can be heard throughout the city

Through an archway with a covered passageway above from the Cathedral

and then this gate

leads to the oldest complete medieval street in Europe

known as Vicar's Close, the houses were designed and built before 1350 to provide communal accommodation for the Vicars Choral, who sang daily worship within the Cathedral. The current occupants still include all twelve men of the Vicars Choral, plus organists and vergers. The choir has always been at the heart of life in Wells Cathedral since the 1100s and is recognised as being one of the finest in the world.

The library

and the Dining Hall

A visit to the south side of the Cathedral and the splendours inside will be in Part 2

"Welcome to Overbeck's................

.....it is warm and beautiful here. I grow bananas, oranges, and pomegranates out in the garden, and have 3,000 palm trees planted in my woods and garden"

Otto Overbeck writing to a friend in 1933

Perched high on the cliffs above Salcombe in south Devon, and enjoying spectacular coastline views, Overbeck's is a hidden paradise of subtropical plants.

The weather, however, was definitely not subtropical - it was a wet morning, which luckily cleared up as we arrived, but remained dull with barely a peep from the sun through the clouds

"First Flight"

fledglings leave their nest

Banana grove just coming into leaf seen outside through the windows in the Garden Room

Rododendron 'Lady Alice Fitzwilliam' fills the air with a spicey nutmeg fragrance

 These Beschorneria yuccoides - Mexican lilies, look as if they might lurch out and grab you as you pass!!!

Acacia verticillata - Prickly Moses, native to Australia and Tasmania - the normally fluffy lemon flowers drenched in rain

Euphorbia characias wulfenii

Be gentle, and the friendly garden Robins might even feed out of your hand!