The garden is a memorial to the 14th Earl of Arundel, an avid art collector. The garden has a central canal with a domed pergola and fountains. The centrepiece of the garden is a rockwork mountain planted with palms and ferns to represent another world. A green oak version of ‘Oberon’s Palace’ flanked by two oak obelisks has a shell lined interior with a stalagmite fountain with a gilded coronet ‘dancing’ on a jet of water.*

* Information from Arundel Castle by John Martin Robinson

After lunch on Easter Monday we visited Hodnet Hall gardens which is always a lovely place to visit. We also had high hopes for the illusive piece of cake that we missed out on during our previous days travels. On arrival it was suggested that we didn’t park in the visitor car park due to a downpour of rain in the morning that had caused the ground to be muddy and soggy. We accepted the advice and parked on one of the suggested areas at the back of the hall.

Rather than head straight to the tea room we elected to take the nearest path into the garden, a route I had not walked before. The path was down a slight incline with surface mud and water. All of a sudden I found myself sliding downhill on one foot, placing my other foot on the ground only increased the speed of my slide. I chose to sit down rather than gain even more moment with the potential of falling over and breaking some bones. Mr C turned round in alarm but found me laughing at my predicament. My only worry was would I be able to get up again?

Firmly on two feet we walked the upper part of the gardens before stopping for a well earned piece of cake which we chose to eat outside, this lead to us  having an interesting conversation with Sir Algenon before we resumed our walk around the gardens.

Take a stroll in the labyrinthine ‘grand gardens in miniature’ now restored to their Victorian heyday. Enjoy the garden vistas and discover enchanting features like the pleasure grounds with their fountain centrepiece or the classical summerhouse or the fern dell and pet cemetery.

With snowdrops and winter evergreens, spring tulips and laburnum and summer roses and autumnal leaves, the gardens are open year-round with an ever-changing colour palette.

Now things are beginning to reopen we took the opportunity to visit Hampton Court Castle Gardens in Hope Under Dinmore.  On arrival our first port of call was the Orangery Cafe where we sat outside in the sunshine enjoying a sandwich whilst taking in the view.

After lunch we enjoyed a walk around the gardens which were as lovely as I remembered them on a previous visit. It was nice to visit somewhere that did not require tickets to be pre booked.

Although badged as a castle, Hampton Court is more accurately described as a fortified manor house. Access to the house is by guided tour and we were shown round by the housekeeper who gave us a potted history of the house and the various owners of the property.

Hampton Court has been standing among pastures and parkland beside the River Lugg for 600 years. The original manor house – of which substantial parts remain – was built by Sir Rowland Lenthall on land that was a wedding gift from King Henry IV when he married the king’s cousin, Margaret Fitzalan. Rowland fought under Henry V at Agincourt. Our Herefordshire Hampton Court is nearly a century older than the other with the same name. ‘The powerful Coningsby family bought the house from the Lenthalls and stayed here for 300 years, extending and changing it. In the nineteenth century it was bought by Richard Arkwright, son of the famous inventor and industrialist. Richard’s son John, carried out another ambitious remodelling of the house. The family stayed there until 1912.

In the twentieth century it passed through various hands and much of the original furniture was sold. It was rescued in the 1990s by the American millionaire, Robert Van Kampen, who furnished it magnificently according to his idea of how an English country manor should look. It was sold again after his death.*

Adjacent to the house is the orangery (seen to the left in the above photograph) where sandwiches, cakes and light lunches are served. We were spoilt for choice and the food was delicious.

The gardens which are stunning have been recently redesigned as they had fallen into disrepair over the years. There are several different areas to the garden which include; Flower gardens enclosed by the original victorian walls, kitchen garden, moated pavilions, Wisteria Walk, herbaceous borders, yew maze, sunk garden and dutch garden.

The water features in the garden are fed by the river Lugg to where the water is returned after it reaches the final water feature in the water circuit, the sunk garden.

These photographs were taken during my visit in June. There a few photographs of the gardens in July on the Hampton Court website.

*From the Hampton Court promotional leaflet

We enjoyed another lovely breakfast looking out towards the cathedral before we set off, in brilliant sunshine to visit the Bishop’s Palace. The palace rooms were interesting as was the current exhibition of church robes. The under-croft was set up for a wedding breakfast that was due to take place later in the day. We also visited the adjacent Bishop’s chapel before venturing into the gardens. The gardens are stunning and the location of the wells that gave Wells its name. We took our time enjoying the gardens and walking along the ramparts to take in the views of the surrounding area.

The Bishop’s Table cafe was rather busy so we made our way back into the town for lunch at the Swan Hotel. We sat outside overlooking the cathedral whilst enjoying as poached salmon and dill sandwich.

After lunch I would have liked to have walked around a few historical areas of Wells that I had not seen. Mr C, however was in the mood for learning more about the Battle of Sedgmore, so we set off in the car in search of the visitor centre. After driving around in circles for some time due to the lack of signposts (mentioned in my previous post) we eventually found the right one only to find that the visitor centre had currently been replaced by a signboard explaining the battle site. Mr C didn’t get out to look at it and was not interested in finding the battlefield memorial.

We got just as lost making our way back towards Glastonbury and it was only as we drove past Barrow Mump that I was able to pinpoint where we were and realise that we were travelling in the wrong direction!! I regret that we didn’t stop off to visit the Mump but by this time Mr C had got the hump so I remained quiet as we retraced our steps, stopping briefly at Street Village before returning to Stoberry House.

I took the opportunity to explore the gardens whilst Mr C enjoyed a quiet moment reading. Monty decided to join me, twining himself around my legs as I walked and paused to take photographs. All too soon it was time to return to the room to freshen up before dinner. We dined in the Fountain Inn which serves freshly prepared pub style food. We were accompanied by some very noisy diners, including one group who were quite naive in the conclusion to the political discussion they were having.

We escaped the noise and returned to Stoberry House where we enjoyed a glass of wine whilst sitting on a bench in the garden. Mr C had fun trying to take a selfie of the two of us (the camera focused on anything but us ) whilst, on and off Monty came to supervise us

This was our last night at Stoberry House and it seems that love has turned into joy…

We had an early breakfast sitting outside, which on this occasion wasn’t interrupted by rain. We had booked on an organised tour for the day, so after breakfast we strolled through the back streets to the bus station to pick up the minibus. Our first port of call was Trieste across the border in Italy. On arrival our guide Damjan took us on a short guided tour of the city, where he showed us among other things; the seafront statue, the seafront square Piazza Unità d’Italia, the remains of the Roman theatre and the Serbian Orthodox Church of Saint Spyridon. As a Slovenian Damjan is passionate about Trieste and believes as other Slovenians do that Trieste belongs to Slovenia.

After the guided tour there was just enough time to for a quick drink. We didn’t chance ordering lunch because the service although friendly was rather slow. The drinks. however arrived with bowls of crisps and other nibbles. Whilst we were walking round Trieste we couldn’t help but notice street traders trying to tout their wares to the tourists. Their object of choice seemed to be brightly coloured selfie sticks and I wondered if they managed to sell many.

Our second port of call on the tour was Miramare Castle which is situated on the Gulf of Trieste. Miramare was commission to be built by Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian as a residence for himself and his wife, Charlotte of Belgium. The castle is situated on a cliff high above the sea and is surrounded by a botanical garden. The inside of the castle is interesting and ornate and the gardens are stunning. Whilst we were there the temperature soared to 92^o so to cool off we bought a tub of ice cream and sorbet from a stand near to the castle entrance. We also grabbed a bottle of water to drink on the minibus journey back to Piran.

On arrival in Piran we made our way to the seafront and enjoyed a more leisurely drink watching the world go by before returning to the hotel to freshen up before dinner.  After the heat of the day a cool shower was welcome and I began to feel human again. Even in the evening it was too hot to stay inside for long so once again we found ourselves sitting on the seafront with a cooling drink watching the world go by…

I Corinthians 11:14