Wandering the local estate

The pets were keeping us company over breakfast, with Cadi and Sticky waiting eagerly for their next walk.  

The National Lotteries had a promotion for the week which allowed free entry into participating National Trust properties on presentation of a valid scratchie or lottery ticket. We had diligently paid 1 pound each for a scratchie the day before as part of our plans to visit Knightshayes.  

We started with a walk through the approx 100 hectare estate which has been owned by the National Trust since 1972 and remains a working environment with lots of farms and their associated farm houses dotted across the hills. We also visited the walled kitchen garden which was restored in 2001 and Georgie explained some of the work still underway. 

We completed our circuit of the estate back at the Lost Kitchen, one of Georgie’s favourite restaurants, specialising in seasonal food and wood fired cooking. Graham joined us for lunch and on his recommendation, we shared some plates and a delicious wagyu and mozzarella pizza. 

Leaving Graham to return to work we made our way back to Knightshayes, this time to visit the house.  Knightshayes Court was designed by William Burgess for the Heathcote-Amory family.  The last Lady Heathcote-Amory (a former professional golfer) undertook much of the work in the garden and as part of her legacy, requested that fresh flowers from the gardens be on display in house. Georgie is one of the volunteers who have the role of picking the flowers twice a week in readiness for the flower arrangers to create their beautiful displays. 

The flower arrangements were beautiful and we chatted with a few of the volunteers who were located in the different rooms and appreciated their insights on items of interest, that we would have missed otherwise.  

Despite the inclement weather, we ventured into the garden with its interesting topiary of the fox and the hounds as well as giant dogs and an even larger horse.  We had met one of the gardeners, Andy, when purchasing our tickets and acted on his recommendation to detour via the magnolias to appreciate them in full bloom. 

Friday night is traditionally pub night and we were happy to go along, whilst Graham tried to encourage a few more people to attend his Trivia fundraiser and we enjoyed chatting to some of the locals. Thanks to Caroline, Costa Rica is now on my bucket list as a place to visit.

Prev entry - Home - Next entry