Enjoying the lights at Belton

Belton House isn’t that far from us, about 30 minutes or so drive towards Grantham, and it’s one of the places we’d visit whenever we were close by, it’s a lovely place - and I love the Orangery there - but somehow we hadn’t managed to get over there now that we actually lived closer - isn’t that always the way?!

In fact our last visit to Belton was a pretty special one, after viewing our house again and agreeing with the developers to proceed, we stopped at Belton on our way home. We wanted some time to reflect on the decision we’d just made, and wanted to do that in a beautiful space in the open air rather than in traffic on the A1.

Crazy I know.

But reflect we did and less than two months later we moved in to our new house, and we hadn’t been back to Belton since. So having seen their Christmas lights advertised we booked tickets for one of the off peak entries (the prices are crazy, even with free parking for National Trust members), but anyway, it was worth it - and a good way to mark our first Christmas out of London.

Once we’d found the way in - ahem, there were plenty of signs to get you close and to all the fairground rides, but the way in was less obvious to us, though I’m not sure why as it’s quite often the way we’d go into the garden anyway - clearly we were dazzled by the lights!

As you’d expect there was a planned route around the garden, which meandered along paths and took us further through the gardens/ parkland than we’d before. Next time we’re there we’ll be checking those areas out in the daylight! There were plenty of people there, but it didn’t feel overly crowded. There was a mulled wine and refreshments stop part of the way round, it was understandably busier there, but we didn’t stop and found it easy to get past those that had.

The lights were pretty spectacular, I think they had been refreshed and revamped for this year - and those on the lake were probably the most striking. But there was plenty to see, with something for everyone.

The bright colours of the flower-shaped lights really popped against the dark sky and I’m sure provided many Instagram-worthy locations. The next part of the garden focused more on lighting up the trees bringing a magical feel to them, and the walk through them.

The display at the lake was probably the most spectacular, and the one which benefitted most from the music which accompanied it. I have many iterations of this photo in various colour schemes, but this is the most striking and one of my favourite photos from our visit.

My favourite area when we visited was this quite simple triangular shaped tree section - the lights changed colour and was quite calming. They have a look of daleks about them, but what I didn’t realise until I edited my photos was that there’s an very subtle inverted tree amongst them - I think that makes me like them even more!

The other that I was particularly taken with were the robins - they were large - but it was their coloured shimmering metal discs that were impressive, like a large sequinned robin hovering above you!

The last archway that you walked through as you headed out of the garden was also pretty spectacular, and proves that simple isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but can be equally as magical.

So it was good to get back to Belton, and it’ll be even better to get back again in daylight - as the car park changes they’ve made in the past six months look to have improved that no end. No more parking in a muddy field, and that has to be a good thing!

Celebrating colour at Hidcote

Since we’ve moved to Nottinghamshire many of our regular journeys to visit family and friends have changed, understandably, and that’s meant our usual places to stop have also changed. Our journey to Devon no longer takes us along the A303 (a blessing!) but it means Marlborough and Stourhead aren’t en-route either, both are places which we love to visit.

But it does mean that we have a whole new series of towns, gardens and houses to get to know, and that’s how we came to visit Hidcote. We’d originally planned to stop on the way down, but due to the weather that was correctly forecast the garden was shut for the day, so with remarkably better weather on our return journey, we stopped and I think I’m just a little bit smitten.

Hidcote is ‘one of the country’s most celebrated gardens’ according to the leaflet handed to us as we entered, and it didn’t disappoint. It covers 10.5 acres and the spaces are both formal and intimate, and full of vistas - and plants - to admire. The garden was designed by Lawrence Johnstone in phases from 1907 to 1938, and the borders are full of newly discovered plants and exotic rarities from plant hunting expeditions from around the world. He gifted Hidcote to the National Trust in 1948, and it’s now a Grade I listed garden, which until our visit I didn’t know existed.

We weren’t surprised to be greeted by the typically honeyed cotswold stone, but the riot of colour alongside the cafe was perhaps not what we expected. Hidcote is one of those gardens where paths lead you to explore, with sights and colours pulling you through the garden - the map given to us as we entered was useful to identify which area we were in, but what I most liked about this garden was that there was plenty of spaces to start. Our starting point was clear, once I’d spotted the Plant House through the gate in the hedge…

Well, who wouldn’t want to explore further?

Inside the steel structured plant house there was so much to see, the plants, the structure itself let alone the stone planters of succulents nestled on the steps. And then there was the view over to the lily pond, which of course was beautifully framed by a vibrant yellow border. I’m so glad that we weren’t able to visit on the day we originally planned to, as seeing an all time favourite plant - the red hot pokers - on a warm, sunny September day was so much more worthwhile.

Somehow in driving rain I think the enjoyment would have been so much less! Especially for the bee which was having a quick nap.

But what colour, clearly being a bee here is hard work. But isn’t all this colour joyous?

There were signs of autumn throughout the garden as you’d expect - it was the very end of September after all.

There was also plenty of inspiration. I’ve included this espaliered fruit tree here to remind me that this is what I want to do with the peach tree from dad, and to remind me that I still haven’t created a square frame from canes to start to train it into this shape.

In the potting shed, I turned to MOH and said this is what I want my tiny greenhouse to be like. I’m not sure he got it as, well I won’t have this kind of shelving unit, but I will have the terracotta pots and the plan for the tiny greenhouse is to be pretty as well as functional, but it won’t be industrial functional as there just won’t be the room.

After a walk through the orchards and productive garden we turned and headed back on ourselves through the Beech Allee, and what a walk that was. Again made by the dappled sunlight streaming through the trees. Completely uplifting and again joyous.

Walking through the iron gate, again set into a hedge, we found ourselves on the Great Lawn, heading towards the Red Borders, which as you’d expect from the name, had predominantly red leaved and red flowering plants.

The Long Walk, again aptly named, was bordered by hedges which the gardening team were cutting. It takes five months, with four gardeners working each week day, to cut these hedges which given the amount of time it takes are only cut once a year. If it takes this long now, with modern equipment, I can’t imagine how long it would have taken beforehand.

We wandered around spotting the bathing pool (above) and the vista towards the old garden below, with its magnificent cedar tree. We meandered through paths eventually finding ourselves under the tree and walking through the white garden with its silver leafed plants really helping this garden live up to its name.

So definitely a garden full of colour, and one I’m pretty sure we’ll be back to as well.

Tulips at Mottisfont

We stopped off at the National Trust’s Mottisfont on our way back from our short break in the New Forest. Breaking the journey with a stop at a National Trust property is absolutely my best way to break a journey, and while this one took us a little out of our way from a direct route it’d been a good few years since we last visited, so it really was a no-brainer.

I just checked and we previously visited in 2017 on our way back from a family celebration holiday in 2017. Back then I was pleased to discover the Potting Shed, but sadly it was no longer in place. On this visit though the tulips more than made up for that.

So as the tulips die back for another year, here’s a reminder of just how fabulous they are. There were so many different types, and many that I didn’t manage to capture (unbelievably!), and our wander through the walled garden started where I remembered the potting shed to have been with a large terracotta pot of tulips, and rows of raised beds equally full.

It was in these raised beds that these frilly purple tulips were mixed in with the paler pointy pink ones, and a more neutral yellowy-white variety. Though with the fancy ones, the neutral ones barely got a look in though I think they really did help the others shine.

Moving on into the walled garden the borders thronged with tulips, as you’ll see in a moment - but first just some of the glorious tulips that caught my eye. We were lucky with the weather for our visit, and the sun made the tulips shine even more.

You know how much I love a walled garden, and this one’s no different - but there’s something about gates in garden walls isn’t there? Especially closed ones, perhaps it’s the mystery of what’s behind it - and no doubt that is likely not to match my imagination.

We stopped on one of these benches to enjoy the space awhile, and admire the tulips too. On our previous visit the garden was full of roses, and I’m sure they are most likely making their presence felt right now. The climbing rose we have in our garden is doing spectacularly well with more flowers than we can remember for a long time, I’m hoping that many rose gardens are also benefitting from plenty of flowers and gorgeous scent.

There’s more individual flowers to share yet though, and I promise I didn’t stop to snap them all - though it was tempting!

The one above reminds me of rhubarb and custard, can you see that too?

As we wandered through to the end of the garden I caught sight of the armillary sphere and couldn’t resist a picture. I will have seen this previously and I’m sure admired it but wouldn’t have known its name. I do now though thanks to the Seven Sisters series of books by Lucinda Riley! See you never know when what you’ve learnt through reading will come in useful - I’m still several books behind though, and I’m waiting for some more to become available on KindleUnlimited (spoiler: I couldn’t wait for some, and it’s likely I’ll be purchasing the next in the series soon!)

It was great to have a wander around the walled garden, and to catch up with other parts of the property - including a quick tour of the house to see that again, and to answer a question I had from our previous visit. But that’s for another day…