Snow Day Escape

 

As the snow falls today and my mind and heart are preoccupied with my dear UK family, I am drawn back to this day in May at the incomparable National Trust property Snowshill Manor, in Gloucestershire. Of the impressively symmetrical sixteenth century country house I have little information, as this visit was all about the gardens.

 My host recounted that the home's interior was chockablock with the collections of the eccentric Charles Paget Wade  The National Trust corroborates. Wade's motto says it all: "Let nothing perish."

The property displays Arts and Crafts sensibilities, the garden growing outwards from the house,  which makes it especially delicious. 

Owner Wade used the talents of architect M.H. Baillie Scott in the  early 1920s to create the garden. Local builder William Hodge likely did the heavy lifting.

As my hosts soaked up the sun on an ancient stone bench, I scampered up and down steps marvelling at the beauty - there's something especially appealing about changes in elevation used well by gifted garden designers. 

And in the distance, the soft hills of the Cotswolds. It was tricky to give them proper attention while negotiating and loving the steps, terraces, walkways, pond, stone walls and the Well Court with its Venetian wellhead.

I loved hearing that Wade lived in the Priest's house, while developing the property and collections, to which the house was dedicated. Here's more from the NT if you're so inclined. Below is the Sancta Maria Byre, elevated from a cow shed. Note the religious statue above the door.

If I were inclined to take selfies, here I would inflict on you one taken in the Garden Court, me with a goofy grin a mile wide. Such a place of delights. 

 At the end of our delightful visit, we met at the bottom of the 2 acre garden, and a personable fellow took us by golf cart back to the entrance, bumping along a tree-canopied lane. I could imagine a child driving a small herd of sheep, in another century.