Clumber Park

Oops, missed the beginning of the month again for the garden picture, as I was up at my Mum's for a few days. Work has been a bit mad lately, we have various projects on the go, and although I've taken a couple of days off and there's been a few bank holidays (the last three weeks at work have been a 4 day, a 3 day, then a 4 day week, and this one is another 4 day with Easter Monday off), I've ended up working late so have accumulated yet more flexi-time so need to take more time off! Oops. I am massively behind (again) with reading blogs etc, although have done some catching up over the Easter weekend.

 The OH was going to take a picture of Garden at the Beginning of Month as I'd left him and Monkey in charge of the garden whilst I was at Mum's, but I'd also taken the camera with me. So it'll have to wait for next weekend. In the meantime, these are some of the things I got up to at Mum's.
Obligatory photo of Sweep looking cute:

We visited a newish garden centre, at Floral Media in Caunton.

 It was absolutely amazing, they do a lot of their own propagation so you can buy plants in a variety of sizes and it was so cheap (I may be biased by living in Slurry Surrey, which is hyper expensive for everything). I ended up buying rather a lot of plants (good thing I'd driven to Mum's instead of taking the train). Purchases:

 That lot is about £25 worth of plants, which would have been about £80 at least in Slurry Surrey. They also had a lovely tea room with fab cake, and views over surrounding fields and a wildlife area. And cool ideas for kids parties - including flower arranging parties!

There was a bit of a gardening theme to my entire visit, as we then went on to visit Clumber Park, which has opened its walled gardens to the public. Clumber is somewhere I visited a lot when I was small, but the first time I'd visited in a while. Whilst the main house (think Downton Abbey, this was the country estate of the Dukes of Newcastle!) was demolished in 1938, the lake, parkland, chapel and gardens are still there. The walled gardens are amazing, absolutely huge, with a 450ft glasshouse (only half of which is open), where grapes are grown.

 The old potting sheds are open, with rows of the old tools and equipment on display.

The walled gardens were divided into sections with other walls, presumably to increase the number of south-facing walls so more crops could be grown against them?

 Forced rhubarb! We bought some. It was yummy. Apparently they grow over 100 varieties of rhubarb here. I had no idea. I thought rhubarb was rhubarb.

 And orchards as well as vegetables. Makes my gardening look a bit pathetic, doesn't it?! It did bring home to me just how many people somewhere like Downton Abbey (obsessed with Downton, me?!) must have employed. Clumber these days is relying on volunteers, which is why there is so much grass in the walled gardens!

And back on the site of the house, with views across the lake, and towards the chapel.

And that's enough gratuitous pics of the English countryside for now. Clumber is just off the A1 between Newark and Doncaster, so I'd recommend a visit if you're journeying north or south.

Normal blogging service will be resumed soon! I didn't get much knitting done whilst I was away, that's the downside to driving there.