点评:You leave your vehicle at the entrance to the estate, and walk up the sloping, curved drive.
It's the best way .
late April, and the 150 year old Lime trees are in the very first flush of that bright spring green that announces winter is over, and summer is a coming in. As the curve intends, you come upon the house softly, arriving from one corner so you see the house, and beyond it a view promising open country.
Timed tickets are needed for a house tour, so duck into the stable yard and arrange all that before nipping back and appreciating the gardens, starting at the front of the house. A vista looks out to where another family member once had a grand house - some sort of grandiose stand off of neighbours. The front garden is framed by meticulously clipped yew providing a backdrop, and making you realise that good clipping - dead straight, dead level - is an art many gardens cannot manage.
Working round the house anti clockwise are a range of garden rooms, set each in their own microclimate of comfortable old brick walls. A door leads through to an old orchard, now deliberately left for winter foraging wildlife, though an Apple Day still happens, and some produce is on sale in the season. The carp pool is still there, waiting for the chef to send down for a couple of fish for the table. The plantings are diverse and interesting, and the same expert hand has clipped more yew, and mown grassy areas. Delightful gardens that need time to appreciate, and more visits to see their changes across the seasons.
The interior of the Hall also holds details of interest - from the Henry VIII nursery chair in the entry hall to the original garden plans on a corridor wall and down to the below stairs area, where a sad old ice cream churn is mislabelled as a quick bread maker as it sinks away into rust.
翻译:您将车辆停放在庄园入口处,然后沿着倾斜的弯曲车道步行。
这是最好的方式。
四月下旬,150 年历史的酸橙树正迎来春天的第一缕绿意,宣告冬天已经结束,夏天即将到来。正如曲线所暗示的那样,您会轻轻地来到房子前,从一个角落到达,因此您可以看到房子,而房子后面是一片开阔的乡村景色。
参观房子需要定时门票,因此请躲进马厩院子,安排好一切,然后再回来欣赏花园,从房子的前面开始。从远处望去,可以看到另一个家庭成员曾经拥有的一栋大房子 - 某种与邻居截然不同的宏伟建筑。前花园由精心修剪的紫杉树构成背景,让您意识到良好的修剪 - 笔直,水平 - 是许多花园无法做到的艺术。
房子周围逆时针方向是一系列花园房间,每个房间都位于舒适的旧砖墙微气候中。一扇门通向一个古老的果园,现在特意留作冬季觅食野生动物的栖息地,不过苹果节仍然会举行,一些农产品在当季也会出售。鲤鱼池仍然在那里,等待厨师送来几条鱼上桌。植物种类繁多,引人入胜,同样的熟练之手修剪了更多的紫杉,并修剪了草地。令人愉悦的花园需要时间来欣赏,需要更多参观才能看到它们在四季中的变化。
大厅内部也有一些有趣的细节——从入口大厅的亨利八世育儿椅到走廊墙上的原始花园平面图,再到楼梯下方的区域,那里有一个可怜的旧冰淇淋搅拌器被错误地标记为快速面包机,因为它已经生锈了。