Exploring :: The South East #6 … Great Dixter

Hi there everyone 😀

We are back in the South East for this week's post where our visit was a really good chance to tick lots of new places that I’d wanted to visit for ages off the list ... the gardens at Great Dixter being another.

I’d probably seen and heard about the garden on Gardeners' World or something similar, but it was a fair while ago and I really had no idea what to expect. Whilst not a National Trust garden, we did manage to use our Gardeners' World magazine two for one ticket so it was another fairly inexpensive afternoon out.

I have to say that from the minute we passed through the entrance gate we knew it was going to be special …

It just looked so natural and abundant … and was so full of planting. We started to the right of the house with the sunken garden and I was literally blown away. I could have spent hours just taking it all in … it was just stunning … an absolute riot of colour and planting, set against the red brick of the oast houses, with the bluest of skies …

It really was magical and I could have stayed there all day, but we eventually dragged ourselves away to see what else the garden had to offer.

The house itself is also beautiful and totally enveloped by the garden ...

You can also actually have a look round inside the house and it is definitely worth a look. I didn't take any photos though ... this visit for us was definitely more about the garden ... 

Having had a really good wander around I couldn't resist another look back into the sunken garden, where we'd started ...

All that was left for us to do was to find a perfect picnic spot ... and that is exactly what we did ...

I am so glad that we got to visit this garden ... it really was beautiful, so full of beautiful planting and is such a lovely setting ... I would definitely recommend a visit if you get the chance 😀

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Exploring :: The South East #2 ... Rye

Hello again everyone 😀

It was Sunday and the first full day of our week's stay in Kent. The weather forecast was ok-ish and we opted to head across the border to East Sussex for a visit to Rye. It wasn’t too far and it’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to visit … having spent many a childhood hour lost in books about a group of kids’ adventures in Rye and the Romney Marsh area … they were very akin to The Secret Seven/Famous Five kind of thing, but I had no idea who had written them.

We parked up at the bottom of the town on the quay area, where we mooched around the vintage and antique shops, wishing we had enough room in the car to be able to buy some huge tin planters for the garden.

We started by walking back up the Main Street passing Tudor buildings …

… quaint and quirky shops … the kind where everything is lovely and you just wish you could buy everything, but none of it is really what you need ...

... inviting places to sit and eat ...

… and intriguing alleyways …

I just had to call into a book shop to see if anyone could tell me the author of the books that I’d loved as a child. They knew exactly what I was talking about and I was given the name of Malcolm Saville, with no hesitation whatsoever. Sadly his books are no longer in print so I couldn’t have a browse but I was delighted to find the answer to my burning question.

We walked as far as the town wall …

… before making an about turn and heading back and taking a left down the prettiest old cobbled street …

… towards the old water tower …

… passing the church …

… and ending up at Rye castle …

… where we did experience just a few spots of rain.

From the castle we headed back through the churchyard …

… which was surrounded by pretty streets …


… and pathways …

We ended up at Lamb House … A Georgian house with literary associations …

As far as National Trust properties go it’s a small one, but it was definitely worth a look and had the largest garden of any of the properties in Rye …

… Sadly no tea room to visit though … and we would definitely have prevailed ourselves.

We made our way back to the car via Mermaid Street, the very famous and picture-perfect cobbled lane filled with half-timber framed houses and Georgian residences.

The cobbles are not the easiest to walk on but there were certainly some beautiful properties to see ...

... and some very pretty front doors ...

We decided it was time to find somewhere nice for our picnic and headed for the closest piece of coast that looked like it might fit the bill.


We ended up at Winchelsea Beach ...

In spite of being lovers of the sea and the majority of our beautiful coastline coast, it wasn’t somewhere that any of us will be rushing to visit again … still … it served its purpose …

We'd had a lovely day. Rye had more than lived up to my expectations and definitely one ticked off of the '50 Things to do before I hit 60' list 😀

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