Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens in the Autumn

Hi there everyone 😀

In the few weeks we were home in between our Isle of Wight and Peak District holidays we managed to grab a sneaky day out for a local garden visit and afternoon tea.

Managing to use our Gardeners' World 2 for 1 card and an afternoon tea gift voucher, that we'd had for a couple of years and was very close to expiring, we headed for Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens, which was about a half an hour's drive for us. Neither of us had ever visited before and other than seeing other friends' photos on Facebook, we had no idea what to expect.

The gardens are not in the usual kind of spot where we would expect to find a pretty 18th century walled garden to visit ... tucked away on the edge of a residential area, within spitting distance of the M6 and just under the flight path for Birmingham airport.

Saying all that, we were pleasantly surprised to find a charming walled garden, with plenty to see in spite of the time of year and feeling quite peaceful, apart from the hum of planes overhead as they were coming in to land.

We entered the garden via a small cafe and courtyard ...
We decided that we walk round the garden in an anti-clockwise direction and headed through a gate into the courtyard bringing us into a pretty small walled area, with plenty of interesting bits to catch the eye ...

We headed for the orangery ... the red brick of the old walls of garden were really popping against the blue sky, which was more than we had been hoping for from a weather point of view. It was a glorious Autumn day ...
Of course, we had to have a peak inside ...

Back out into the Autumn chill and we carried on following the old red brick wall ...
... until we reached the archway leading outside the garden walls ...

We decided to head through the archway and explore the areas outside of the garden walls, which have been cultivated to encourage wildlife, with ponds, flower meadows and an orchard ...

There were also signs of Halloween shenanigans to come ...
We came back into the garden not far from the summer house and headed to the West Lookout where we were surrounded by vibrant Autumn colour ...

Having taken it all we headed into the maze ...

... where we got a few steps in meandering through the holly ...

We finally found our way back to the gate for a fabulous view looking right down the garden ...

From the maze we made our way to the vegetable garden, where there wasn't a lot to see but this sight  did give us both a quiet chuckle ...

... as did this little fella ...

We were now by the Summer House, so about half way round the garden ...

I think I caught some of favourite shots of our visit in this half of the garden ... vibrant pink cosmos, still with plenty of life ...
... and some seed heads which looked striking silhouetted against the blue sky ...

We were now on the last side of the garden which brought us back up past the Hall, which is the hotel where we were to be taking our afternoon tea ...
... and our last views of the garden ...

We were a bit early for our afternoon tea so called into the cafe for a warm up before making the short drive round to the hotel, for what ended up being a very eventful visit 😲
Who would have thought that this little flower bed ...
... could cause quite so much damage 😧 ...
All I can say is ... I am glad I wasn't driving, as I would never had heard the last of it.

It did take the shine off our afternoon a bit, but we did still manage to enjoy our afternoon tea treat ...

We'd really enjoyed our visit to the gardens and I'm sure it's somewhere that we will visit again at another time of year ... not sure that we would go back to the hotel though ... not through any fault of their own.

As a footnote ... DirectLine Insurance were absolutely fantastic at getting us all sorted and back on the road. I literally had to make one phone call to register the claim and that was it. Car collected, hire car provided, car repaired and returned, with the absolute least of fuss and no chasing required at all ... we were both very impressed 😁

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