Category: News

The Ladies of Hinton Ampner ‘Constable’ skies of bright blue and towering cloud hovered over the lush May foliage on our journey east to the National Trust Neo Georgian manor house with prospects far and wide across the rolling Hampshire countryside.  Given a Victorian gothic update in 1865, with few facilities, in 1936 John Dutton, 8th Lord Sherborne, envisaged a return to its Georgian roots and again after WWII, redecoration was required which took fifteen years then followed by a[…]

It was a perfect spring day on 25th April 2022 for travelling through Dorset to Dartmoor and Devon. Woodlands with fresh new leaves, and passing through small villages, farmland with lambs in the fields, then, finally arriving at the last castle to be built in England – Castle Drogo. It was built in 1910 for Julius Drewe on a remote Dartmoor hillside. The architect Edward Lutyens created an imaginative, romantic, and historic castle for the Drewe family. The Drewe descendants[…]

A group of us enjoyed the spring sunshine in our first visit of the year to Forde Abbey. Swathes of crocuses and daffodils naturalised in the grass enlivened the lawns in front of the Abbey while in the woodland arboretum several magnificent Magnolias, particularly M. sprengeri  impressed with their huge pink flowers. Another attractive seasonal element was a tapestry of blue anemones and cyclamen growing out of beech mast. As ever the Centenary fountain drew visitors at midday to view[…]