Tag Archives: English Heritage

Bolsover: a Mannerist Masterpiece

Posted on 20/01/2018 by

If you’ve ever driven on the M1 between Nottingham  and Sheffield you can’t have missed the  large castle perched high on a steep promontory overlooking and commanding the wide valley below. This is  Bolsover Castle, visible for miles around, and … Continue reading →

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Christmas in the Park…

Posted on 23/12/2017 by

I had planned to do another of my slightly off-beat approaches to a Christmas post –  and was looking at  Shirley Hibberd’s monograph on Ivy for inspiration – when into my inbox came a post from a fascinating botanical blog … Continue reading →

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Belsay: “A self-contained Eden”

Posted on 25/11/2017 by

Belsay is an extraordinary match made in heaven, or rather in the green rolling hills of Northumberland.  The estate is most famous for its stunning but stark Grecian revival mansion finished just 200 years ago in 1817, but tucked away … Continue reading →

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The Beasts of Bexley…

Posted on 26/10/2014 by

Would you expect to find a large red dragon in a garden in Bexley? Or a griffin lurking behind a hedge at a castle near Cardiff?  To say nothing of  a dolphin on a staircase in Kensington or an English leopard in a French camping site? … Continue reading →

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Eternal Wrest…

Posted on 18/10/2014 by

Wrest Park is a rarity.  I’ve heard comments that the house  looks a bit like a mundane French provincial station but, if so, it is a Grade 1 listed French provincial railway station, and mundane on the outside only. Inside … Continue reading →

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