Tag Archives: Hidcote Manor Garden

Cotswold Five…

It’s time for Five on Friday hosted by Amy and Friday’s Fave Five hosted by Susanne. Today I’m continuing my reminiscing of our time in Great Britain with our daughter Katie in April of 2004. After our day in Oxford we took a day to drive through the Cotswolds.

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This was a literary tour for our daughter to see her favorite authors haunts or inspirations for the books they wrote. We were hoping to see a Hobbit in the Cotswolds. Our first stop was for a snack of treacle close to the Cotswold way. I fantasized about walking the whole of this trail once…

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The closest we came on this tour of seeing Hobbit land was just seeing the countryside and coming upon this little village of Buckland which I’m counting as stop number two. Buckland has a lot of history we weren’t aware of when we stumbled upon it. Isn’t that the way it goes when you blog? You come home and look up a stop you made to research for a blog post and find out everything you missed! I wasn’t blogging in 2004 so I’m letting myself off the hook for this trip!

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Our third stop in the Cotswolds was Hailes Abbey. Built in the 13th century by the Duke of Cornwall, the beautiful ruins of Hailes Abbey are set amid delightful Cotswold countryside. There was a small church with this graveside next to the Abbey.

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Stop number four was Hidcote Gardens. This was early in April and the blooms were still not at their prime except to our delight the daffodils!

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All these photos were taken with film not digital. The manicured hedges are always a treat to see.

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Lambs were in plenty.

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One more stop halfway on the Cotswolds Way was St. Mary’s Church in Painswick. The church of St Mary (originally Norman) was extended around 1480 in the English perpendicular style. The churchyard with 99 yew trees (legend has it that the 100th won’t grow) also has unusual tabletop tombs.

img393This past week afforded me the time and effort to scan our film photos from our trip to Great Britain in 2004. It’s nice to look back and remember the good things that God has allowed in our lives. This trip was a good experience for Dear, Katie and me. I still have the Jane Austen portion of our trip to share and the Monty Python portion, too. I’ve already shared the C.S. Lewis and Tolkien portion in Oxford.

These five stops could be way out of order but I don’t think that matters now. Hidcote Manor Gardens and Hailes Abbey are part of the Heritage Pass that you can purchase for your touring pleasure…

Dear got home from Austin Thursday night so all is back to normal around this old house. I made it to the accountant in the big blue truck and he was helpful as usual. I have a few more things to dig up for him so we can get a few more deductions. I was able to get out and walk in between rain showers by myself while Dear was in Austin which was a great accomplishment for me.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

This is a long post already but today on Mennonite Girls Can Cook I’ve reposted my Chicken Quesadilla recipe with a new twist. Click over to check it out. Also on some of your blogs my comment link takes you to the Mennonite Girls Can Cook blog instead of to my home blog (The Happy Wonderer). That happens when the pull down choices for comments don’t include the Name/URL option or the double choice blogger and open ID. On those that give you 5 choices with open ID it won’t let me switch from my blogger ID to my WordPress Blog. TMI? It’s just one of those weird things. Sheesh…I better just let you go now and enjoy your day!

Good Fences ~ England

Day 4 Gardens 082The first two photos are from Kiftsgate Court Gardens in the Cotswolds and the last few are from Hidcote Manor Garden in the Cotswolds.

Day 4 Gardens 083These two gardens are just across the road from each other in the Chipping Camden area of the Cotswolds in England.

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Day 4 Gardens 050I have a lot of fences and gates to share from the two weeks we spent in England the beginning of July.

I’m joining in with TexWisGirl at Run*A*Round Ranch for Good Fences #18.

If you want to see more from Kiftsgate Court Gardens or Hidcote Manor Garden click on the links.

Hidcote Garden

Monday July 7th was a two garden day for us in the Cotswolds. The first garden was a National Trust property. Our one year membership had not expired yet so we got to go in without paying the entrance fee. We visited this garden with our daughter Katie back in 2004 but I wasn’t aware that this was an American’s vision.

Day 4 Gardens 130This quiet American’s name was Major Lawrence Johnston. He began to create the garden in 1907. Over the space of 30 years he transformed a field containing just a few trees to one of the country’s great Arts and Crafts gardens.

Day 4 Gardens 001During the 1920’s Johnston traveled the world taking part in many plant hunting expeditions. He carefully selected only the finest plants to bring back to his garden.

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The sweet bird decided to sit long enough for a photo-op. We enjoyed our stroll through Hidcote and quenched our thirst with a Ginger Beer from the cafe. One nice thing about most of the National Trust and other museums and such that we visited were the nice cafes and refreshment options that were available on the properties.

From this wonderful garden we walked down the drive to the road to visit a garden just across the road from Hidcote. I’ll share the photos from Kiftsgate Court Gardens soon.

Back in the States:

During our bathroom renovation I feel trapped here since I’m not comfortable leaving the house while worker bees are busy inside my home.  As the saying goes “this, too, shall pass”. We are recovering a little each day from our jet lag and are able to sleep a little longer each day. Dear went back to work on Monday and was pretty wiped out when he arrived home. He had a hard time keeping his eyes open past 6 p.m. We have had some overcast days here and we were happy to hear that a little rain fell in the areas ravaged by brush fires here in the State of Washington. Hoping the thunderstorms predicted don’t cause any problems for the firefighters.