Frankham Farm, NGS

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bokeh, Cork oak, Dorset, Frankham Farm, Harlequin Glorybower, Ivy-leaved cyclamen, Jo Earle, John Betjeman, National Gardens Scheme, Oak-leaved hydrangea, Ryme Intrinseca

This must surely have been my last National Gardens Scheme visit of the season. It took me south, just over the Somerset/Dorset border to a village called Ryme Intrinseca, and this working farm. “Ryme Intrinseca is generally regarded as one of the most interesting of all village names in the County of Dorset, and was so regarded by John Betjeman in his poem, ‘Dorset'” (source and further explanation here.) It was a chilly and overcast day, but I was well wrapped up, including gloves, and I really enjoyed my autumn stroll.

I drove past the farmhouse,

and into its yard to park. At the front of the house I took a plasticised map, with a few words on the back:

As can be seen, the late Mrs Earle loved oaks – Quercus

Having taken a quick photo of the formal garden, to which I would return, my route was via the vegetable garden to the long thin wooded area, back through the vegetables and round the garden, then into the orchard at the north-east of the plot. I crossed behind the farm buildings to the stables, then into the wild garden and wooded area, finishing in the paddock.

I have only recently discovered this variety of kale, since lockdown having it (and other fruit and veg) delivered regularly by a local organic farm.

The ancient Bramley mentioned in the notes

An interesting use of ?ancient roof tiles.

Ivy-leaved cyclamen

Each significant tree had its own label

Looking up at autumn

I have been delighted to find that the app I am obliged to have on my phone to act as a season ticket to The Newt in Somerset (search other posts) helps me to identify plants I don’t know – this an Oak-leaved hydrangea.

Many opportunities to sit down in Mrs Earle’s garden

There is no doubt an interesting history to this gentleman, but there was no-one around to ask at the end of my visit.

A tiny plaque on top of this sculpture, inscribed “JME 1936-2007”, says it all.

Cork oak bark

Moving back into the vegetables on the way back to the formal garden there are other delights:

A sculpture by Nature, fungus welded by her into the rotting wood

The combination of green, yellow and mauve is unbeatable.

Peach, yellow and green’s not bad.

And yellow and green tumbling down a weathered wall is wonderful.

Eventually, one is back in the lawned area in front of the house.

Wherever you were, if you looked beyond the map, there were fields. I was taken by this stand of trees in the near distance.

In the flower borders, this fuchsia flourished

This bee just didn’t want to co-operate in having its photo taken on the scabious. But I have learnt a new word recently, describing the blurring in the background of close-up photos. It’s called ‘bokeh’.

My app identifies this as echinacea.

Obviously I’m in the orchard now. Did ever you see such a red apple? I suspect Sleeping Beauty’s stepmother!

There were not just apple trees in the orchard.

It is this plant which led me to first try the app, called Candide (and is free). It identifies this as Harlequin Glorybower, Clerodendrum trichotomum

To get to the other side of the drive, I cut though the yard behind the farm buildings. I stood beside this wheel. The tyre reaches to the top of my head – and I’m tall.

Stable buildings

From the wild wood.

Every good forest has a ring around a fireplace. The earth was so well trodden in this area that I wondered whether a forest school is held here on a regular basis in normal times.

And charcoal burning?

Now into what is called the Paddock.

The app couldn’t handle this one.

Emerging out on to the drive once more, I was pleased to see what is presumably the 250-year-old oak.

Someone with clearly a good knowledge of horticulture visited under the NGS scheme on a sunny day in March 2019 (that other era). Her blog is here.

The Newt in Somerset – October 2020

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Hadspen House, The Newt in Somerset

It’s nice to do something special on a birthday, and it had been a while since I had been to The Newt in Somerset. Even booking eight days in advance, it had only been possible to get a table for lunch in the Garden Cafe for 2 o’clock, so I decided to get me and my camera to the gardens an hour earlier.

The car park was alarmingly full when I arrived. But it was a Saturday, with lovely bright sun, even if it was accompanied by a chill wind. (I put gloves on for the first time this autumn, but then I do feel the cold.) The familiar boardwalk up to the entrance had a distinct autumnal feel to it.

Once through the Threshing (= entrance) Barn, with the Cyder Bar to my right, I was again alarmed by the number of people, but I soon realised they were queuing (sort-of) to pick up their picnics. The Newt does not allow people to consume their own picnics there. It was interesting to see washed apples emerging from underground on a conveyor belt. I look forward to the day when it is possible to observe the full workings of ‘cyder’ production there.

The farm shop and coffee bar areas also looked quite busy.

But past there, as I walked into and around the Woodland area, there were few people.

The roof of Hadspen House, in the hands of the Hobhouse family from 1785 to 2013, and now a luxury hotel

Large ducks, hunkered down against the wind, and almost too bright in the sun for the camera.

Back from the Woodland, I took a new (for me) way into the cottage garden…

… of and from which I took the following and many more pictures.

Into the Victorian Fragrance Garden (not much going on here at this time) and the Cascade, the bottom of which attracts children young and old, even though they know they will have water squirted on their ankles, in this chilly weather, randomly by frogs of various sizes.

I didn’t join them, for more than one reason.

Instead I went down another way to the kitchen garden.

The parkland remains sadly inaccessible for now.

Now into the Parabola, an interesting, probably unique, designed orchard, and its literally hundreds of apple species. In the main, only crab-apples now remain on the trees.

Two o’clock approached, and I had a rendez-vous to meet with two friends who were joining me for a delicious lunch, served in impeccably Covid-sure conditions, in the Garden Café. All photography was forgotten from then on!