This Has to Stop.

Off to Harlow Carr, a Royal Horticultural Society garden just up the road from Harewood.

Beside being a fantastic garden the place also has a local Bettys. (No apostrophe) Bettys is a local icon based in Harrogate. It was founded by a lost Swiss pastry chef in the 1919. He accidentally got on the train to Yorkshire and the rest is a hundred years of clogging arteries.

It’s a great place with disgraceful pastries and cakes. I will admit that a lot of people appeared to have been taken there by their children as a day out from the Home. Hope Kate didn’t feel like a carer.

All of this before we got inside.

The gardens are very impressive even in 27 degree heat. Every sort of plant you could imagine. Also had a somewhat aged men’s choir serenading the crowd, a giant fly and columns. The great English custom of lets bring a chair and sit about until something happens was much in evidence. What else could you ask.

Charlie bore it all well. (Being pushed around in a pram when she got weary helped a lot).

And this was only the morning.Leggi altro

The was a bit of luck.

Slow drive with quite a few delays thanks to Friday afternoon traffic and we just made it to see the house.

Build by the terrifically named Charles Sabine Augustus Thellusson who demolished a Georgian house 4 times the size it was a Macmansion of its day with over 30 rooms, 16 bedrooms and 17 servants. It had all the mod cons with Hugh windows and outside blind shutters that look amazingly modern. All for the quite reasonable cost of 2 million in today’s money
It was eventually given to English Heritage after the National Trust knocked it back as it didn’t include the estate.
Given that is after they agreed to pay 3 million pound for the furniture. That’s what makes it so unique as it’s almost a complete Victorian county house.
For the last 18 years before the gift the last lady lived it it alone with her dogs, deteriorating surrounds and occupied only 3 rooms. It cost them another 5 million to restore it.

Fantastic place looking like someone just steps out.Leggi altro

A two acre garden at the back and around Peckover House.
A nice change after yesterday’s extravaganza of Burghley House.
Walled garden walks, fruit trees (pears, apples, plumbs). Sun shining after a rainy drive, bees about and someone drinking peppermint tea. The morning complete.
Even has a cat cemetery, which some would suggested is the best place for cats.
Bernadette picking up more ideas for a major redo of the backyard. This place is a better template than the otherLeggi altro