while you're ahead…

I joined the National Trust.  For Christmas we gave my parents a membership and they’ve began to explore the local attractions, and since I can’t resist any place I haven’t been before AND I’m a firm believer in getting to know the place you live I intend to join them as much as I can.

We used to be taken on all sorts of ‘days out’ when we were younger and whilst the memories are not always exciting – my mum officially made the worst sandwiches in the world – nowadays I’ve come to appreciate the effort and the motive behind it all.  I love travelling, it’s my favourite activity in the whole world, and like I said I believe in getting to know your own country as much as possible.  Life with three sporty boys has made my original plan to do the same very difficult. Weekends are often taken over by matches of all descriptions and I travelled our county far and wide and discovering all sorts of rugby pitches, hockey pitches, cricket grounds… but not much in terms of architecture and history…

So anyway, I am now a National Trust member and intend to make full use of it.

First stop, on a scorching Sunday afternoon was Westbury Court Gardens.

The Gardens were firstly laid out between 1696 and 1715 and survived untouched for nearly 300 years.  It managed to escape the Capability Brown English landscape school which destroyed many such gardens but by the middle of the 1960s, when the National Trust took over, it was in a state of total neglect.  Well… not anymore, it’s glorious, and thanks to archive materials and old engraving it looks now pretty much how it might have looked in the 1720s.

Even though it’s not far from the road, it has a splendid calm about it, no doubt thanks to the still water and the perfectly trim hedges…

This is believed to be the oldest evergreen oak in the England, (next to it it’s my dad who LOVES a big tree)

(mum and dad discussing trees)

(mum dad reading tree tags – they didn’t miss one!)

the perfect walled garden in the sun…

There is a gorgeous picnic area in the shade and many a bench to sit and watch the birds go by… and tulips… lots and lots of tulips…

… and who doesn’t love tulips, right?

 

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