Opened in 2007 the Garden of Surprises was influenced by the garden that William Cecil, the first owner of Burghley House, had created in his Hertfordshire home, Theobalds. It was common for Elizabethan gardens to have “tricks” such as mazes, statues, grottos, concealed water pipes to shoot out water etc. all of which can be found in this modern version.
The gardens at Canons Ashby present a lovely first impression of the estate. Edward Dryden, beginning in 1908, was largely responsible for the development of the gardens as it looks today. He wanted to create an organised landscape of geometric shapes.
St Mary’s Garden is a small public garden located next to the Garden Museum. It was created by Lambeth Borough Council in around 1932. It was originally part of the road which lead to the original Lambeth Bridge in 1862 which has since been replaced by a bridge further to the south.
I’ve walked by the Garden Museum a few times whilst in London and when I found myself with an afternoon free I decided it was the perfect time to visit. I was largely prompted by their temporary exhibit at the time – on until 19 June – called Wild & Cultivated: Fashioning the Rose.
On my last trip to London there was such glorious sunny weather that I decided to head to Holland Park which I last visited in 2018. I wanted to see if the blossoms were in bloom yet on the trees – they weren’t quite but there were lots of lovely colourful flowers.
Last week I chanced to look out into our garden and saw this wonderful jay. I was taken a bit by surprise as we’ve never had one in the garden before but it was lovely to see it hopping around the trees and even taking a big chunk out of the fat balls!
I visit Stonebridge City Farm fairly regularly and, when it’s been allowed to open during the pandemic, it’s always a lovely (and safe) place to visit for a change of scene during various lockdowns. Here are a few photos from my most recent visit.
We’ve had foxes in our garden before but during lockdown we had a more frequent visitor than usual in the case of this lovely fox with an injured back leg. At first I assumed he (he’s rolled over onto his back so I’m fairly certain it’s a male) had hurt his leg in an accident but doing some research it actually seems likely this has been caused by mange – other symptoms he has are constant scratching, slitted eyes, being out during the day and a noticeable lack of fear around humans. He seems pretty healthy otherwise and is certainly moving about fine (at one point he jumped right over our pond) and I found a charity (Wildlife Aid) where I could buy some mange treatment and add it to some food for him – though keeping very much in mind to be careful he doesn’t become reliant on me/humans as a source of food. I’ll keep you posted about how this works out, but for now some of my favourite shots of our photogenic visitor.
Provand’s Lordship was built in 1471 and is one of Glasgow’s few surviving medieval buildings located not far from the Cathedral. It was built by Andrew Muirhead, the Bishop of Glasgow, as part of the then St Nicholas’ Hospital.
Treasurer’s House in York is a National Trust property in the shadow of York Minster. The treasurer was controller of the Minster’s finances and entertained important guests until 1547 when the job of treasurer came to an end. The current building’s design is due to the work of Thomas Young, Archbishop of York between 1561 and 1568 who almost entirely rebuilt the house.
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