Hilltop Gardening Club: Lake District Tour 2017

WE STARTED our journey to the Lake District from Bussage on a bright Sunday morning, full of anticipation for the days to come.

We broke our journey at the world famous Levens Hall to see the ancient yew topiaries.

They really are enormous!

A short time later we arrived at our hotel in Bowness on Lake Windermere and settled in for the next few days.

The hotel is undergoing a major refit and if the lower communal, bar and restaurant areas are a guide, the end result will be beautiful.

On Monday we visited Dalemain House with closely packed gardens of incredible colour and plant combinations; a wonderful grove of blue meconopsis too!

The historic house was interesting and we learnt of the true story of two marmalade makers two hundred years apart and the festival that has developed in recent times.

Our afternoon visit was to Lowther Castle.

A renovation project of a long abandoned garden and is the vision of The Lowther Trust and Dan Pearson, an innovative landscape gardener.

It is proposed to add a modern influence to the century and a half year old excavated gardens.

Lowther Castle itself is a ruin, an unusual and sensitive planting scheme has been installed within its full height turreted walls.

Tuesday brought the rain and another two adventures.

Holehird Gardens has a colourful walled garden; wonderful borders within beautifully landscaped areas of rock and scree and bordered lawns.

This immaculate garden is entirely managed by the volunteers of the Lakeland Horticultural Society.

Our next journey saw us on a steam gondola on Coniston Lake, sailing for Brantwood, the home and gardens of John Ruskin, a remarkable and many talented man of great social, literary and artistic vision who lived through most of the nineteenth century.

Still raining on Wednesday morning saw us once more fully loaded to start our journey home, stopping at Sizergh Castle to explore their gardens.

This National Trust property is rightly proud of its rock garden and especially its newly opened stumpery.

We arrived, safe and sound, back in Bussage in the early evening.

Tired and full of thoughts of the various wonderful gardens we had seen.

We have been to places almost impossible to get a coach to, we have travelled the Kirkstone Pass and enjoyed some wonderful scenery in passing.

We are full of admiration for the efficiency of our Tour Leader and for our Driver who got our huge coach through Cumbria’s tiny, weaving roads.

I wonder where we’ll go next year!