A parterre wouldn’t be to everyone’s taste – in fact, I’m not sure that it sits wholly comfortably within mine – but I do admire the precision of this design at Hanbury Hall, and the amount of work that has clearly gone into its creation. And this only one section of the garden at Hanbury; there are many “rooms” here, most of which are far less formal and structured than this, though there’s a pleasing unity to the overall design, and the flow of the different areas. If you’re in Worcestershire I do recommend a visit – and I’m happy to tell you that even if the reception staff give you a ticket with a name on it, tell you that you are a visitor to the newly-completed house in 1710 and ask you (in tones of slight desperation, I felt) to “Please play along”, the staff in the house don’t even try to make you do anything so kitsch. In fact, I’m confident that by the time you visit this little initiative will have quietly faded into memory.
I had been intending to go to Hanbury at some point this month, because they’re currently running a photo competition and I wanted a few different shots for that than I already had in the bag; and having set Taste as today’s Mono Monday theme I thought of the parterre and decided that today would be a good day to make my visit. It was quite an overcast day, but I thought I could turn that to my advantage; sadly, very shortly after I took this, the sky moved from threatening rain to actually dropping some, which necessitated me taking shelter in the cake tea room. Dommage. Luckily the rain didn’t last long, so I was able to finish my tour of the garden before the estate closed.
On the subject of photo competitions, the IGPOTY Macro Project winners were announced today; there are some really lovely photos, which can all be seen here. Even though I didn’t make it past the first cut this time round, I’m happy to have entered, and it will be interesting to see what feedback I get from the judges in due course.
