Hestercombe I

Back in September the lovely Niall came down at the weekend and we had a little expedition to Hestercombe. There's a house and gardens but the house is private. The gardens are split into two parts; the landscaped valley and the formal terraced garden. I've been there plenty of times as it's near my house but Niall hadn't so we explored pretty thoroughly.

On the day we were there there was a "family" event going on. This meant that on one of the lawns there were a few stalls selling "gifts", a Punch & Judy show, a falconry display(with uncooperative birds), and a tent full of tasty local cheese, cider & similar products. We enjoyed the latter the most...

There are lots of walls like this

An old mill with a waterwheel

A swan in the mill pond

And pretty views.

Landscape gardens are generally cleverly built so that there are lots of constructed views. You can sit in a little Grecian temple and admire a carefully composed segment of landscape.

The swan the right way up.

Another, more tranquil pond

Wayfaring Tree, which we thought might be related to red currants

Nice view through the trees

And back up the valley

And that's enough for now, formality next time I think...

All my photos from Hestercombe can be found in my Flickr set. These were all taken on my new Canon Ixus 105!