June Trip to Herefordshire - Part 2: Stockton Bury Gardens

 

On the Saturday afternoon D and I decided to visit Stockton Bury Gardens as B was happy to stay at the site and garden.  The gardens are only 20 minutes away and fairly small if my ankle was playing up!  We've been several times before but it is a year since the last visit.

The C18th field barn by the entrance to the gardens is Grade II listed  and now houses the Tithe Barn cafe.

Stockton Bury is a four acre garden created over the last 35 years by the owner Raymond Treasure with help from 1984 by the gardener Gordon Fen who had been Head Gardener at Hereford Cathedral.  In 2015 Tamsin Westhope, a gardening magazine editor, arrived to help with the garden.

The gardens opened to the public in 1995 and are charming with lots of garden "rooms", many varieties of plant and hidden features.

The three bells at the end of barn are rung every hour.  There has always been a tradition of bell ringing at Stockton Bury and in the past they were rung at 6am to summon farm workers.  The large bell was recently cast by John Taylor Bell Foundry in Loughborough especially for the gardens.

The Elizabethan Garden

Common Spotted Orchid - there were many of these scattered throughout the gardens.

The Pool Garden

The Kitchen Garden has vegetable beds, fruit trees and a greenhouse on one side and herbaceous borders on the other side.

Fuschia in the greenhouse.

The Kitchen Garden leads into The Dingle which was created from an old quarry.

A lovely little meadow area full of Ox-Eye Daisies

Oontitump!  - oontitump is an old English word for molehills which I read about in a book by John Moore from memory!

Timothy by the pool in the Dingle

The door leads into The Grotto

Bog Garden and Stream

Leaving the Dingle we walked into the Secret Garden

The Pillar Garden

The Sunken Garden

The Spring Garden next to the house has bee skeps and a small summer house painted with panels of flowers (sorry couldn't get a photo of that as people were sitting in it!)

There are a couple of small museums - one contains garden tools and the other has some coins and other items found in a Roman Hoard near Stocktonbury

The Pigeon House Garden houses a medieval dovecote which has 51 opening holes and a revolving ladder and is Grade II listed.

Before leaving we had tea and cake!  We opted for the Lemon Polenta cake which we have had before and is delicious!

Hopefully we will return to Herefordshire soon although July seems full of blood test appointments, dental appointments, a boiler service and car service and MOT!  

All photos taken by me with the Panasonic Lumix FZ330 bridge camera. (I don't particularly rate my photos but if anyone wishes to use one of mine or my son's I would be grateful for an email first - thanks)