I am the song

I am the song that sings the bird.
I am the leaf that grows the land.
I am the tide that moves the moon.
I am the stream that halts the sand.
I am the cloud that drives the storm.
I am the earth that lights the sun.
I am the fire that strikes the stone.
I am the clay that shapes the hand.
I am the word that speaks the man.

Charles Causley

The weather yesterday was lovely and sunny so we set off on a bluebell hunt. We settled on Packwood House and Garden as our destination. Due to a hold up before we set off, we arrived at the property rather late (just in time for lunch) and were told that there were no tickets left for the house. The lady who had greeted us with this news went to get map as the layout of the property had changed since our last visit. When she returned with the map she was also holding two house tickets, which had fortuitously just been returned by someone who had changed their minds. It is all in the timing…

We had lunch, which was rather chaotic due to the large volume of visitors and then we headed off to the woodlands in search of bluebells. We found little clumps of them scattered in among the trees and the walk was nice and peaceful, away from the main crowds that were visiting. After the walk we visited the gardens and finally ended up by taking a tour of the house.

I had an extra day off work today and had hoped to go on the bluebell walk in Attingham Park, but the weather was not in my favour. Strong blustery wind and rain are not conducive to a woodland walk. Instead of a walk, I stayed at home with my books and an episode or two of Michael Portillo’s Great British Rail Journeys.

This transverse walk is flanked by twelve great yews now known as ‘The Apostles’ with four very big specimens in the middle known as ‘The Evangelists’.  Crowning ‘The Mount’, reached by a spiral path hedged with box and on the axis of the garden, is a single yew tree, ‘The Master’, also sometimes called ‘The Pinnacle of the Temple’.*

In the first photo you can just about see the steps leading to ‘The Apostles’ which can be seen to the left of the photo with ‘The Master’ being just out of view.  The trees to the right and in the second two photos are  ‘The Multitude’,  these yews replaced an orchard in the 19th century.

*From the National Trust guidebook.

at Packwood the compact house, relatively undistinguished externally, is a1920s and ’30s recasting of a much altered late 16th-century timber-framed building.  It is set off by subsidiary buildings and garden walls in richly coloured brickwork of the 17th century, some of it moulded and architecturally enriched.  Furthermore, its setting is public and accessible, the handsome outbuildings putting on a smart face either side of the road in the way fashionable until the early 18th century.  Discovering it suddenly, after a bend in one of the many narrow, erratic lanes characteristic of this unspoilt part of Warwickshire, is an experience never forgotten: one is intrigued and impressed as a traveller three centuries ago would have been.  Most fascinating of all are the tantalising glimpses of the yew garden which presents its flank to the public road.

I shall talk about the yew garden some more in another post.

Two square sundials outside Packwood House. One shows the morning times and the other shows the afternoon times.

For more of this weeks PhotoHunt pictures check out tnchick.