Packwood House and a few photos from our garden

As promised in the last post a few photos from inside Packwood House

During the 1920's and 1930's Graham Baron Ash remodelled the Tudor Packwood House. He added extra rooms and turned a barn into the Great Hall. He gave Packwood House and land to the National Trust in 1941 in memory of his parents. He also left a Memorandum of Wishes explaining how he wished the house to be shown to visitors and asked for fresh flowers throughout. The house today is very much as it would have been when Baron Ash left in 1941.


Apologies for the quality of some of the photos - light was really poor in the house and even, after changing the iso and aperture, the shutter speeds were rather low!!

The Entrance Hall

The Parlour

The Ash family made their money from a galvanised steel business in Birmingham. Graham Baron Ash sold his interest in it after the death of his father in 1925. He invested the money in stocks and shares. He never married but his sister Beryl and niece Bunty regularly visited.

The Long Gallery was built in 1932 to link the house with the new Great Hall. Much of the furniture etc came from other country houses which were being demolished.

The Great Hall converted from a barn in 1927.

Tapestry seen from the stairs.

The Ireton Bathroom was added by Graham Baron Ash and in fact he added en suites bathroom to all the bedrooms. This bathroom has antique Delft tiles and all bathrooms had the same taps and lion head.

I didn't take photos of all the rooms in the house - some were even darker than others! But here are a few pictures of the bedrooms etc.

The Drawing Room

A few photos from the garden here at home which I took last week when some of the days were drier!!!!!!


Mock Orange is now starting to flower as are

Foxgloves and

Valerian

Pyracantha

Common Carder Bee

Canterbury Bells

Rock Rose

All photos taken by me the Panasonic Lumix FZ330 bridge camera

Packwood House Gardens

On Monday afternoon I went along to have a look round the gardens at Packwood House.


I went into the Kitchen Garden first which contains a mixture of vegetables, fruits and flowers. Work began in 2009 to create this garden based on an 18th century plan of the vegetable garden which shows it was divided into quarters with a central feature - possibly a dipping pond.

The wild flower meadows contain many native wild flowers many of which would have been known by Edith Holden (The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady) as she walked and cycled around this area of Warwickshire in the early 1900's.

There has been a garden at Packwood for over 350 years. In the mid 17th century John Fetherston created what was a modern garden at that time. To the south of the house he planted a fruit orchard with 30 paired bee boles (this area is now the famous Yew Garden). He created a walled garden (the Carolean Garden) with brick gazebos - one containing a fireplace and flue system to heat the adjacent wall. The box hedges he created remain to this day. In Victorian times the garden became more informal with flower beds and a rose garden. In the early 20th century Graham Baron Ash extended the house and remodelled the garden making it more formal. When the National Trust took over the house and garden - the garden was mainly laid to lawn. The paths and borders seen today were created in 2004 after the gardeners saw a book by landscape architect Geoffrey Jellicoe who had visited Packwood in the 1920's and taken many photos. A two year project took place to recreate this layout.


The Carolean Garden surrounded by a 17th century red brick wall.

The sunken garden which contains drought tolerant plants including bulbs, annuals, perennials and succulents from around the world.

The Raised Walk which is my favourite part of the garden. I will try and go back early next month when it will look even more stunning.

It was created in the 18th century and is 40 metres long. Borders on each side used the "mingled" style with "hot" colours and there are about 100 different varieties of plant.

The Yew Garden

There were very few butterflies about but there were loads of bumble bees - White-tailed, Buff-tailed, Red-tailed and Common Carder plus many honey bees.

I resisted the temptation of cake and treated myself to a Cardoon plant instead which hopefully the bees will love :)


I did have a quick look round the house this time but I will write about that in a separate post.


All photos taken by me with the Panasonic Lumix FZ330 bridge camera


Reference: Packwood House - A Potter Round the Garden