Tuesday 11 September 2007

Wentworth Castle Gardens

Today, instead of a cache, we decided to go to Wentworth Castle Gardens. It was a perfect day, and it took us about 1.5 hours to walk round them. The paths were all newly laid as they are in the process of renovating a lot of the buildings and gardens. There wasn't much to see in the way of flowers or flowering shrubs, but the distant scenery was lovely.

We came across Stainborough Castle, which is a Gothic Romantic Folly. Lennie climbed the tower to a veiwing platform which is 600 feet above sea level. It was a spiral staircase which frightened me! Far too strenuous for me. I waited in the grounds below:0)


The picture above is me waiting below for Lennie!
We also saw the conservatory, famous after featuring on the BBC TV series 'Restoration'. This elegant cast iron glass house remains derelict, but restoration will begin as soon as enough money has been raised. I couldn't get a photo of this as it was behind a high wire fence, and supported totally by scaffolding. Trees were growing through the roof, and glass was missing. You could see the complete errosion of the ornate cast iron framework.
There was a very nice tea room there, but we were not at all hungry, so we had a drink on arriving, and another one just before we left. Lennie is pictured sitting on the wall of the tea room patio where we had our drink and looked through all the leaflets we picked up. We will be visiting a lot of these, although some of them are in North Yorkshire. All in all another lovely day, and I must say, that although this walk around the gardens was all uphill, I am beginning to feel better for all this excercise!!
We have not yet decided where we are going tomorrow, but go somewhere we will. This weather is set to continue, with the only hiccough on Friday when we may have a little light rain, but Saturday the sunshine will be back!

4 comments:

Babs (Beetle) said...

It does look like you had a lovely walk. Almost anywhere you go in Yorkshire is beautiful though - we are so lucky :O)

granny grimble said...

That all looks very beautiful. They should have called Yorkshire 'The Garden of England'. It's so very much better than Kent! Have you made some sort of vow to go out somewhere every day then?

weechuff said...

We just feel we have to go out every day, but usually end up in Stocksbridge, buying lots of groceries we don't need. That is sooo boring, so we have decided to still go out every day, but visit some new place we have never been, be it cache hunting or sightseeing.

Gary said...

And that sort of sightseeing doesn't cost much does it? A nice day out for the price of a cup of tea. Can't be bad! When you go further afield you can always take a packed lunch. I am amazed at what gorgeous scenerey is on our doorstop. I know we already know of lots of gorgeous places, but you're finding so many more!