I recently saw a blog post on a website I visit called "Cherie's Place" (please see My Blog List on the right) on Hampton Court Castle gardens and it reminded me it was on my list of places to visit in Herefordshire as it is only 20 minutes from the caravan. I checked the website and found you didn't have to pre-book so on the Thursday afternoon we went along to take a look. Thankfully it wasn't busy and there was no queue we just waited for the person in front of us to buy tickets before doing the same ourselves.
The castle itself is a castellated country house with the oldest parts including the chapel dating back to 1427. Royal permission was given by Henry VI to crenellate it in 1434. There have been various alterations and additions since then and the castle is now fully restored. The Hampton Court Estate was originally formed by the merging of the manors of Hampton Richard and Hampton Mappenor. Henry IV began a building on the site and then gave it to Sir Rowland Lenthall and he built a quadrangular manor house there in 1427. In 1510 it was sold to Sir Humphrey Coningsby and his descendants remained there until the early 19th century when the estate was bought by Richard Arkwright, son of the famous inventor. The house was remodelled in the 1830's and 1840's work was carried by Charles Hanbury Lacey later Lord Sudeley. The Arkwrights lived there until 1912.
During the 20th century several owners bought the house and much of the furniture was sold until it was bought by Robert Van Kampen, an Americal millionnaire in the 1990's. He has refurnished the interior in accordance with his idea of how an English castle should look.
The house was open for self guided one way tours but B and E are not really keen on country houses and as you know I am still not keen on going inside buildings so we spent all our time in the gardens and parkland.
The present gardens sit within two walled gardens and were designed by Simon Dorrell and David Wheeler in 1996/8 with Chadburn Ltd of Bath. The South Garden has canals with bridges to a pair of octagonal pavilions. For the creation of the landscaped park some centuries ago Humphrey Repton was consulted in 1795 and 1810.
The Walled Gardens were operating a one way system to help maintain social distancing. The gardens were really lovely and full of perennials.
Be warned there are a lot of photos!
A peek at the orchard - we will return here later.
Because I kept stopping to look at flowers and take photos B and E were already zooming ahead.
A rather scary metal figure.
By this stage and with the path splitting in two directions I had completely lost sight of B and E and because of the one way system I couldn't go back to look for them so in the end I left the walled garden and entered the parkland thinking they would spot me there when they came out of the walled gardens. As usual I didn't have my phone all I had was a small back pack stuffed with mask, hand sanitiser, dettol spray and disposable gloves! There are times when I really do get a trifle fed up with the times we are living in as life seems so surreal!
Isn't this tree with a door wonderful?!
B and E had by now re-appeared thankfully. The Orangery cafe had many precautions in place - staff were wearing masks and/or visors, you went in through one door and out through another and tables AND chairs were sanitised after use! Against my better judgement I did have a wrapped icecream!
We went on the River walk.
B and E shooting ahead again!
Himalayan Balsam
Hedge Woundwort
We decided to enter the Sunken Garden even though you had to walk across the back of the waterfall to maintain the one way system!
With hindsight I probably wouldn't have bothered as, although walking past the back of the waterfall was fun, the passage each side was dark, very narrow with an uneven floor and I was petrified! especially as you guessed it B and E had disappeared well ahead of me.
So back into the Walled Garden - we did visit some of the areas seen earlier although we didn't see anyone else while doing so.
A dragon or wolf? guarding the entrance to the orchard.
Rather frightening Pied Piper of Hamelin and children!
The gardens and parkland were lovely and there was the chance to extend the river walk by a 45 minute circular path which we didn't do this time. I will certainly be visiting again although will probably steer clear of weekends in case it is busier.
Sorry for vast amount of photos! There will be less in Part 3 as we just relaxed at the caravan site. I am still using the old blogger as I reverted back but I am hearing horror stories of the new one with problems uploading photos and photo quality :( I fear I will eventually be lumbered with new blogger so may well be posting a lot less pictures if it is as horrendous as I fear.
All photos taken by me with the Panasonic Lumix FZ330
