A walk in Stourhead gardens

n my last post I shared our visit to Stourhead House and today I'll share our walk around the gardens. The garden was designed by Henry Hoare II who was known as Henry the Magnificent. He had a large estate around the house and he wanted to create a personal landscape, taking inspiration from his travels around Europe.

During the 18th century many new plant species found their way to England and the garden was the perfect way to showcase plants and architecture he had seen on his tours. The garden was planted by a team of 50 gardeners and had many different species of trees In 1783 Sir Richard Colt Hoare inherited the estate and made many changes. These included planting about 90,000 trees and introduced rhododendrons. As we walked around the garden we got different views of the trees and structures. The walk was very calming and tranquil. On the walk up to the house we had gone through the stable yard where we found this beautiful horse made of willow.

We started our walk from the house and I wanted to see what it looked like from the back. As we walked around the side we saw the arched window from the library.

As we walked a little further you can see that the library is the height of the house and is on the one side of the house. I got distracted at this point by a robotic lawnmower happily cutting the grass by itself so we never walked completely round the house. I've come across a lot of robot vacuum cleaners but not a lawn mower. It was fun to watch for a few minutes.

We followed the path for the lakeside walk passing this lovely gnarly tree on the way.

As we followed the path that led downhill we got glimpses of the gardens attractions including the Temple of Apollo.

The colours of the rhododendrons were beautiful.

.

We reached the lake and enjoyed the views. There were a few ducks to see but not many.

We walked under this rock arch and headed towards the Grotto

The grotto was nice and cool, just what I needed having got quite warm walking in the sun.

In the centre of the grotto was this opening that framed the lake rather well.

and past that was another statue and cool water.

We had to ascend some very wet slippery steps to climb out of the grotto. From here we walked to the Gothic cottage also known as the watch cottage.

Here is the information about the cottage. Remember you can make it bigger by clicking on it.

A view that gives you a better idea of the size of the cottage.

Walking further round the lake we came to the Pantheon. Built in 1753-54 it was inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. Pantheon means a temple sacred to all the gods and the temple is filled with statues of deities.

I particularly liked the glass in the ceiling of the dome.

 From here we could see the Temple of Flora across the lake. This is dedicated to the Roman goddess of flowers and spring. This was the first building built in the garden by Henry Hoare II between 1744 and 1746. We didn't visit the Temple of Flora but we will do at some point in the future. There was still a lot left to see at Stourhead even though we spent the day there.

Walking across a bridge I stopped to take a photo of the waterlilies. Some were already in bloom but it was a still a little early for them.

Off on the side of the hill we could see a pretty waterfall.

Across the bridge I was able to get a photo of the Pantheon. I love the reflection.

We walked under these beautiful flowers. I can't remember what type of trees these were.

Although we had seen the temple of Apollo from the other side of the lake we weren't able to visit it as there was a wedding about to take place. Up to this point we hadn't been caught in any rain but just as the bride was arriving at the venue heavy rain fell for about a minute and a half leaving the guests sheltering under their umbrellas. We continued our walk into the village area past the Bristol Cross. It was originally erected in Bristol but was bought to Stourhead by Henry Hoare II in 1765 The cross depicts old English kings and queens in the stonework.

We decided to look round the church.

The altar was very plain and simple.

There was this pretty stained glass window.

and there were a lot of embroidered kneelers, all with a different design.

By this time it was almost closing time so we returned to our car for the drive back to our hotel. We really enjoyed our visit to the house and gardens. A great day out.

Take care

Lyndsey