Ninesprings, Yeovil

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Ninesprings, Yeovil, Yeovil Country Park

Ninesprings is one of the five areas which comprise Yeovil Country Park, and is accessible on foot from the town centre. Here are some photos I took there, on a grey, grey day this week.

We made for the café by the car park where we bought a takeaway coffee, consumed in the increasing drizzle which had caught up with us. It had been a very pleasant way to take on some vitamin D.

Montacute

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Cluniac Abbey, Ham stone, hamstone, Holm Oak, Lockdown, Mons Acutus, Montacute, Montacute House, National Trust, Phelips, South Lodge Montacute, sweet chestnut, Wolf Hall

Time for another visit to a National Trust place. When I booked, for last Wednesday, 10th November, the forecast was for a 14% chance of rain. By the time the day came it was more like 50%. But we were lucky. Driving though showers to get there, I feared another rain-sodden visit, as to Park Cottage, but not a drop of rain fell during our wanderings, (unlike the journey home).

Montacute House is the most splendid of houses to visit in the area, (pace Barrington Court, which runs it a close second, and whose gardens I also visited recently) much used as a filming location, including for the recent television version of Wolf Hall. While the house was not open to the public, under current lockdown regulations, the gardens were, and we had them almost to ourselves.

As you drive there, you have a tantalising glimpse from the road of the long drive and the house at the end, but cannot stop. Here it is from the other direction.

I had forgotten to pick up my camera as I left home, but am quite pleased with the service my phone gave me, and by the time Daphne and I met up at this point, I had already taken photos of the displayed map,

of the amazing house front,

and of the crest emblazoned thereon.

We ambled round the gardens together, looking inwards and outwards.

The back of the house is even more impressive than the front.

A gate entices you into the formal, walled garden,

of which I select just one photo.

We were soon on the other side of the wall once more.

One person’s gazebo is another’s whole house.

We didn’t explore the parkland.

One of several holm oaks

Sweet chestnut

Kitchen garden

Daphne could not stay much longer, with a delivery to receive at home, but found time to have a takeaway coffee bought from the café (I had to improvise a mask, my nearest being in the car). We sat on a bench, which was just long enough to enable us to be socially distanced, with the view at the top of this post ahead of us.

I was not in a hurry, and had never walked round the village before. The car park was not closing for another 30 minutes, so I took the opportunity to rectify that lack.

The lodge to the house

For further exploration some time.

Sir Edward Phelips built Montacute House in the late 16th century, and the Phelips family held it until 1929. Bankrupted by a 19th century gambling Phelips, they first let, then in 1929 relinquished the house entirely, and it passed two years later to the National Trust.

Almost the entire village is built in the beautiful Ham stone (or hamstone).

If the house at the far end of this row looks a little wonky, that’s because

… it is.

I’ve not been able to identify the origins of this, now a private house.

All that remains of a former Cluniac Abbey, now also a private house

One of several B and Bs in the village

I had just taken this picture when a family of four came out of one of the doors. I couldn’t help but cry out from over the road, “You are so lucky living here, it’s beautiful!”. They heartily agreed and the children told me they were going off to the park to play football. (I suppose I was breaking lockdown regulations by speaking with more than one person.)

The explanation for the name, courtesy of Wikipedia (village link above): The name Montacute is thought by some to derive from the Latin “Mons Acutus”, referring to the conically acute St Michael’s Hill dominating the village to the west. An alternative view is that it is named after Drogo de Montagu, whose family originated from Montaigu-les-Bois, in the arrondissement of Coutances. Mortain held Montacute after 1066, Drogo was a close associate.

I’ve turned back to meet the car park’s closing time.

I couldn’t believe how colourful this garden was in mid-November!

Back at the lodge – which is a National Trust holiday let.

I felt so good after that visit, and all evening. With all the electronic means of communication and entertainment that I have at my disposal, I had not felt at all lonely during this or the previous lockdown, but I had not realised how much good some real face to face conversation with a friend – enhanced by a beautiful setting both during and after – would do me. That was great!

An autumn distraction

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bindweed, bryony, Candide app, CNN, convolvulus, Covid, Covid-19, cow parsnip, crabapple, Dog rose, field maple, Glastonbury Tor, hedge woudwort, Hogweed, hornbeam, jackdaw, longtailed tit, magpie, Millfield Prep, Priority postbox, sheep, Somerset Wildlife Trust, Teasel, US presidential election

It was Stressful Wednesday, and I had been obsessing with the rolling news half the night (less than four hours’ sleep) and all day until lunchtime. It was gorgeous outside, and I hadn’t done my little there-and-back walk from my house for a very long time. I wondered if it was possible to distract myself for an hour or so.

It was. I can honestly say that I did not give the US presidential election a single thought all the time I was out.

Down to the end of my road,

through a small passageway to my left, up the lane to the main road where the prep school is situated, and back again. Views and details.

There were children, parents and a dog in the playground, to the left of this view.

Dog rose hips in among the ?privet.

Hogweed aka cow parsnip

I spent a few minutes trying to capture hedge reflections in the puddles at the side of the road. This is the only vaguely successful image.

So I raised my eyes to the lane ahead, and thought that they’d soon be flailing the hedges.

In theory there is a right of way up to Glastonbury Tor from this stile, but I’ve never seen anyone take it.

I’m always intrigued by this old tree. Has someone just put an old crate in its hollow trunk for stability, or has it some more interesting purpose? Sadly two other, much younger, trees have succumbed to the recent winds. And there is an apple trapped in the wire netting round the nearest tree!

Mixed feelings about convolvulus/bindweed, but here it’s pretty

Jackdaw in crabapple

Hooray. When last I passed by here, this right of way was completely overgrown and impassable. To be taken another time.

To my untutored eye none of the ash trees on this walk has yet been affected by ash die-back, but it’s a very serious threat in Somerset. The Somerset Wildlife Trust has asked people not even to visit four of its reserves in the east of the county, and at its online AGM this morning the CEO said that she thought that 90% of its woodland would be affected within 10 years.

Field maple supporting bryony fruit

Yup, ‘they’ have started trimming the hedges.

Still, it does mean that views like this are revealed.

An unprepossessing gate, softened by teasel.

Magpie in ash tree

I zoomed in to look at the top of the Tor. Quite a lot of people (and there were more on its sides).

Will the ponies be in the field?

No.

I tried to catch a long-tailed tit on these twigs, but it flew off. But I thought I would include the picture as a sort of abstract – and found that, top left, I had indeed captured the long tail and a wing.

Good to see cars in the staff car park of the school,

and even better to hear the cries of small children playing, not, as they were in the spring and early summer, absent during this lockdown.

Will the Open Event happen?

Victorian postbox in the wall of the school at the junction with the main road. I wondered what a Priority postbox was, and found once I was home that it’s related to Covid testing – more info here.

Time to turn round.

The signs are presumably channelling parents as part of Covid-safe measures.

From now on, I was facing the low autumn sun.

Glastonbury Tor not zoomed. There are little human dots up there.

The sun highlights a flooded field – I am surprised there are not more, given the rainfall we have had recently – and some telephone wires.

I was intrigued by this very new fencing on either side of this track, which on first glance appeared to be creating two paths. A closer look made me realise that in fact it was protecting new hedging. I waited for the sheep to be ushered into the right-hand field, and for the ‘shepherd’ to come back to his van, to my left. From him I learned that in fact this was his project. Living in town, he owned nine acres, and was putting native hedging around the three fields, for the benefit of wildlife. 600 metres so far. Brilliant!

I stood and listened to these sheep tearing at the grass – quite soporific.

According to my Candide app, this is Hedge woundwort.

Common dogwood

It’s only 3pm, but shadows are long at this time of year.

For some reason, a toffee apple came to my mind as I looked at this tree.

I’m back at the bottom of my road again.

And the hornbeam in my own garden’s not bad!

I started this post early on Saturday afternoon. I broke off about three pictures ago to watch CNN, and caught the moment the result was announced. Stressful Wednesday was worth it!