At the end of June we had a real treat ... a visit to our first village open gardens event in what seems like absolutely ages. We'd never been to the open gardens at Whittington before, even though it is literally just down the road, and we had a lovely couple of afternoons exploring the village gardens and open spaces.
There were 13 sites to visit in all, quite spread out around the village, and over the course of the weekend we managed to get to see them all.
On the Saturday we visited with mum, my brother, his partner and my nephew Bobby and Bobby's other grandma ... if that makes sense. It was a late start so we only managed a few gardens on our first visit. Martin and I then made another visit on Sunday afternoon to see the rest at our leisure.
I didn't take photos in all of the gardens but here are some of those that we particularly enjoyed ...
1 - Rock Farm
Described in the leaflet as a 'licquorice allsorts' garden ... with a bit of everything. It was the perfect description and there was a real variety of interesting bits and pieces to enjoy. There was plenty of cottage garden style planting ...
... a pond ... with bridges for people ... and for fairies ...
... hidden pathways ... or secret paths as Bobby excitedly described them ... if you look closely you may just see him running off through the archway to explore ...
... and interesting paraphernalia finding a second life in the garden ...
12 - North Cottage
This was my favourite garden from our visit on Saturday. It was absolutely stunning and had everything ... glorious borders, a fabulous pond, a wildflower meadow, a vegetable plot, plenty of spots for wildlife and ... secret pathways, that Bobby was thrilled to explore.
It was immaculately kept and there were lots of lovely spots to sit and take it all in ... it definitely ticks all my garden goals boxes ...
We only visited another couple of the gardens on the Saturday before having a pitstop in the garden of The Bell and then running out of time as the last garden entry was 4.00pm.
When going back to the car park for the car the chap on the gate asked how we'd got on and when we said we'd only managed to see a few he told us we were welcome to come back again on the Sunday to see the rest and that is exactly what we did.
On the Sunday we decided we would park closer to the gardens we wanted to see, to make it a bit easier on our creaking knees. We started off at ...
3 - Whittington Wharf
This was a small garden in a lovely spot and the best place to view it from was the other side of the canal ...
From here it was just back across the canal and across the road to ...
4 - Swan Meadow
Swan Meadow is part of the Whittington and Fisherwick Environment Group's 'River of Flowers' project. It really was a lovely open space, with lots of wildflowers and places for wildlife to thrive ...
We really enjoyed our wander round the meadow and could only imagine how lovely and well used this space will have been over the last year through lockdowns.
We backtracked from the meadow to ...
2 - Noddington Lane
This was a real surprise and a real treat. It was a fairly small garden of a fairly normal sized modern home and wasn't what we had been expecting at all. It had been professionally designed and the space had been used really well to fit an awful lot in, without it feeling cramped and overwhelming. We both really liked it ...
From here we jumped in the car and headed for ...
5 - Middleton Bridge Garden
We have actually seen this garden before ... a few years ago when we were out walking along the canal. It's a community garden that lines the edges of the footpath up to the canal bridge. It's really lovely and obviously available all of the time for anyone to have a look at and to enjoy ...
This was a pretty 'walk past' front garden, with some plant sales going on. For some reason this is the only photo I took here ...
7 - Fisherwick Road
This garden was my absolute favourite. It was just remarkable. It was peaceful, with lots of secluded spots to sit and relax. The planting was amazing ... really well established and there were lots of interesting and quirky features to take in ...
From here we had to go up the road to turn round and I couldn't resist taking a few photos of the field boundary ...
We now just had three gardens left to visit ...
8 - The Community Orchard & Brownies Bee Garden in Jubilee Park
This was another lovely open space, with a BMX track at the back and outdoor gym equipment spread throughout the park ...
We didn't explore the whole of the garden but we did sit for a while in the Brownies' Bee Garden, where there were plenty of bees buzzing around ...
9 - Cloister Walk
There was a small stream running down the garden ...
This was a very unusual garden being the site of an original sunken garden of Whittington Old Hall in the Victorian period. The house almost seems to built in a pit, with the ground floor pretty much underground on three sides.
The front opens onto the sunken garden ...
... which is accessed via some fairly steep steps ...
This was the last garden that we visited and was a short drive out of the village. It was a fairly new garden, having been transformed just over 10 years ago and is divided into six separate interconnecting 'garden rooms' surrounding the house...
There is a formal front garden ...
... a family back garden ...
***********************************************************************************
absolutely perfect!
ReplyDeleteThere is something very relaxing about mooching round other people’s gardens. Is this something that we just do over here or do you have this kind of thing where you live too? 😃
Delete