On 8th September 39 members embarked on a 5 day Garden Holiday staying at the 4 Star Cambridge Belfry Hotel and Spa and visited 7 gardens during the trip. We once again used Dunwood Travel who have managed our holidays so well in the past.
The holiday included visits to 7 gardens and houses. We stopped on the outward journey at Barnsdale Garden (the garden created by Geoff Hamilton for BBC’s Gardens World) and at Beth Chatto’s Garden on the return journey. While staying at Cambridge we visited Anglesey Abbey, Wimpole Hall, Bressingham Garden & Steam Museum, Fullers Mill and the Cambridge University Botanical Gardens. We also spent a half day free time exploring the wonderful City of Cambridge with the chance to wonder around this magnificent City with its many College Gardens.
Everyone enjoyed the trip and we were blessed with some lovely sunny weather.
Browse through the photos below and see what a great trip we all had.
Cambridge Belfry Hotel and Dunwood Coach
We stayed at the 4 Star Cambridge Belfrey Hotel and Spa, which was a modern very well appointed hotel with very friendly and helpful staff. We travelled once again using Dunwood Travel, who have a fleet of excellent coaches. The one we had was only 2 weeks old, driven by Paul who was a great diver and was great company.
Barnsdale Garden
On the outward journey we stopped at Barnsdale Garden, created by Geoff Hamilton for the filming of BBC’s Gardeners World. programme. It’s really 38 separate areas/gardens that have been so well laid out that it feels like one garden. Geoff joined the Gardener’s World Team in 1979, having impressed the shows producer as a guest presenter in the mid 1970’s. Geoff moved to Barnsdale in 1983, which comprises of 5 acres and set about creating the gardens. Today the garden still remains in the Hamilton Family and is run by Geoff’s son, Nick Hamilton. We were given a tour of the garden by the Head Gardener Jon Brocklebank.
Anglesey Abbey
Anglesey Abbey is now owned by the National Trust and is one of thier most well-known properties. Originally it was a hospital, dating from 1135 and then became an Abbey in the early 13th Century but was dissolved by Henry VIII in 1536.
The original priory ruins now form part of the present house, which was built in the 17th century, but became dilapidated over the years until it was bought by Lord Fairhaven, in 1926, who restored it to the house tit is today. We found it the house very homely and the grounds very well maintained.
The grounds comprise of 125 acres of woodland, cultivated gardens and sweeping parkland woven paths and crossed by tree-lined avenues all designed and established by Lord Fairhaven.
There are tree lined avenues and walks which form the framework for hidden, more formal gardens (4 small gardens) including the dahlia garden, which was quite spectacular, a rose garden and a semi-circular herbaceous border.
Lord Fairhaven’s impressive collection of statues positioned throughout the gardens.
Wimpole Hall
Wimpole Hall, a National Trust property is a very large estate covering 2,400 acres so we didn’t see it all!
The impressive 17th-century mansion at the heart of the estate, with intimate family rooms that contrast with lavish Georgian interiors. From Iron-age roundhouses to a sophisticated, modern estate, this site has been lived on, and farmed for over 2,000 years. Over the centuries, Wimpole has been owned by several families, and each has left its mark. The Civil War, a true love match and a collection of priceless manuscripts that formed the core of the British Library are just some of its stories.
The present house, at the heart of this estate, was the vision of Elsie Bambridge. Wimpole had been an empty shell until she filled it with pictures and furniture, bringing it back to a welcoming home in the 1930s. Intimate rooms contrast with beautiful and unexpected Georgian interiors, including Soane’s remarkable Yellow Drawing Room and wonderful plunge bath. The fascinating basement corridor offers a glimpse into life below stairs.
The garden mainly consists of a walled kitchen garden, with a lovely greenhouse, pleasure grounds with specimen trees. The parterre sadly was being redeveloped while we were there and was being excavated by archaeologists.
There is a Rare Breeds Farm that was well worth a visit.
Bressingham Gardens and Steam Museum
This was a trip to see the famous Bressingham Gardens, as well as visiting the Steam Museum, as well as a chance to visit the Dad’s Army Collection and a ride on a Steam Train.
The founder of Blooms Nurseries, Alan Bloom (1906- 2005), started Blooms Nursery in 1926 and bought Bressingham Hall in 1953 and then began developing a garden in front of the Hall in 1953. The garden was designed using a new concept of gardening using perennials, the nursery’s specialty, in Island Beds.
The garden covers 6 acres and contained nearly 5000 different species and cultivars were planted by 1962, when the gardens were first opened on a regular basis to the public. Now there are now in the region of 8000 different varieties and the island beds were quite spectacular during our visit.
Adrian Bloom Alan’s son returned from abroad in 1962 and began, began developing more gardens, starting with his own, Foggy Bottom Garden in 1967, which is devoted to conifers, heathers, trees and shrubs.
In 2000, additional gardens were added by Adrian, linking them up to create a more diverse attraction to visitors, and joining the gardens together to create the Foggy Bottom Trail.
Fullers Mill
Fullers Mill Garden was gifted to the charity Perennial in 2013. The charity helps people in horticulture build and live better lives.
It is a very relaxing and tranquil garden – a really little gem, and is described as an enchanting waterside oasis and combines dappled woodland with a plantsman’s collection of shrubs, perennials, lilies and marginal plants. It appears quite small, but it actually covers 7 acres, cut in two by the River Lark, which is more of a stream really.
The garden was created by the late Bernard Tickner MBE who spent 50 years creating the garden as it is today.
Cambridge University Botanic Gardens
Cambridge University Botanic Garden holds a collection of over 8,000 plant species from all over the world to facilitate teaching and research. The Garden provides resources including plant material, horticultural expertise and facilities to research workers and lecturers. However, the Garden also provides a beautiful place for everybody to enjoy and benefit from – a series of wonderful landscapes through which to discover the drama of plant diversity.
The City of Cambridge
We spent an afternoon of free time in Cambridge wandering around the University City, which has 31 Colleges and 6 Schools and is arguably the most beautiful city in the world through which the River Cam flows.
The university was formed when a group of scholars left Oxford in 1209 following a series of violent altercations within the town, resulting in the execution of 2 Oxford Scholars. Some decamped to Paris but other settled in Cambridge – its not known why although some scholars may have originally come from Cambridge.
Organised education was established in the 13th Century with the first college being Peterhouse that was founded in 1284 by Hugo de Balsham, the Bishop of Ely. Today the College Gardens are an extremely important element of University Life with the gardens and buildings being totally integrated. They incorporate spaces for leisure, food production and Scholarly Meditation.
Originally the townhouses were used a hostels and the land around them were used for food production, including orchards, which were used by the scholars for ambling through or just sitting and contemplating.
Everyone enjoyed their free time, some embarked on punting trips, taking in the sights of Kings College Chapel, the Bridge of Sighs and the Mathematical Bridge. Others took a tour of Kings College Chapel and wandered around some of the other college gardens that are beautifully maintained. While others took an open bus tour of the city.
Beth Chatto Garden
We stopped off at Beth Chatto’s Garden on our journey home to Bidborough.
The Gardens were established in 1960, by Beth and her husband Andrew Chatto who had had a lifelong interest in the origins of plants. Once an overgrown wasteland with poor gravel soil and boggy hollows, the area has been transformed into an informal garden.
The world-famous drought-resistant Gravel Garden, created in 1992, began as an experiment to replace sun-scorched grass with a living garden of drought-tolerant plants.
There are four main areas: the Gravel Garden, the Water Garden, the Woodland (developed after the great storm of 1987) and the more recently, the former Reservoir Garden has been redeveloped into an exciting new display of perennials, accessible via winding pathways.
