By Hook or by Crook

I was rather worried about today as we not only had three gardens on the itinerary, but two of them were allowing us in the house too and we also had to drive to Melrose for our last hotel.
 
The first garden was Crook Hall, five minutes from the hotel on the edge of Durham. So close in fact that we walked there. A lovely place, but I suppose one day it will be swamped by the expanding town. I loved this rose peeping through the gate.  

We went on to Wallington in Northumberland where there’s a beautiful walled garden and conservatory – I didn’t get to the house as we really didn’t have time. The last visit of the day was to Cragside, the former home of Lord Armstrong and the first house in the world to be powered by hydroelectricity.  An astonishing house all round with so many innovations. I didn’t see the garden in this case though I’d been a couple of times before.