Recent Visit to Herefordshire - Part 4: Ancient Tree Walk at Croft Castle

 

After looking round the Walled Garden at Croft Castle we decided to walk again the 1.5 mile Ancient Tree Trail.

Looking back towards Croft Castle and St Michael and All Angels.

Then down to the pool and 

along the path to a grove of old Sweet Chestnuts.

Unfortunately I forgot to look for the Quarry Oak - one of the oldest trees at Croft being around 1000 years old.  Last year I struggled to find it.

An avenue of 400-500 year old and more recently planted Chestnut Trees.

And then onto my favourite part of the walk the Spanish Chestnut Avenue which was originally the formal approach to the castle.  A story suggests that the Sweet Chestnuts were taken from captured Spanish vessels and planted at Croft between 1580 and 1680 to represent the battle plan of ships at the Armada.

Some of the Chestnuts have died from "Ink Disease".

Leaving the Chestnut Avenue you enter a grove of very old hawthorns. They were planted as though they were in an orchard and one idea suggests that they were rootstock plants for a medlar tree orchard and when the medlar trees died the hawthorn rootstock took over.

The walk back to the castle takes you by the more recently planted chestnut trees.

This 500 year old oak tree was named after Sir William Croft who supposedly died under this tree after being wounded in the Civil War.

Should anyone visit Croft, thinking particularly of Bovey Belle, I can really recommend this walk.

The next and final Herefordshire post from the last trip will include a quick interior visit to St Michael and All Angels and a few flower photos from the caravan site.

Take care and stay safe and well everyone.

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

Reference: National Trust Ancient Tree Trail leaflet.

Return to Herefordshire - Part Two: Croft Castle - Walk and Garden

 

Friday was dry and sunny so we returned to Croft Castle where I had pre-booked tickets. Arrangements were slightly different this time as you had to show your membership cards in a ticket office but it was a one way system and we waited until the people already in there had left.

I thought we were going to redo the Ancient Tree Walk but B had spotted a pool and bridge down in the valley when we drove in and decided to walk up hill through the parkland and then go through woodland in fish pool valley to find the features.  Of course, I hadn't brought the map of the walk with me so it didn't exactly go to plan.  There are so many beautiful ancient and veteran trees at Croft Castle - I am sure there was once a programme on Radio 4 about them which is something I will have to search for.

We then turned off the main path going uphill to walk through woodland above Fishpool Valley.

We didn't find the path down to the pool and bridge as we came back out near the cafe and toilets! Next time I will take a map of the walk with us.  There are certainly some lovely trails and much to see at Croft Castle and it is a real discovery.

We carried on to the castle and had another look round the walled garden.

There was a lot of mistletoe growing on apple trees in the orchard.  You could buy a bag from the shop for £2.50 to pick your own apples and afterwards I rather wished we had.

The castle is now open but we didn't go inside. The church of St Michael and All Angels was also open and I did go in there but will write about that in Part 3.

Rapunzel's Tower

Tree Art

I have slowly got used to new blogger although I still don't like it very much and it takes a lot longer to write posts.  I am still not happy about photo quality on the actual post although they do look a little better in the gallery.  I am still using "compose your own view" rather than html and find I add far less text as I get fed up of changing settings e.g. left align, paragraph and font size every time.

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