Dyrham Park

L and I went to Cardiff this morning, to take a hardwood garden bench inscribed with their wedding date to L&G. We had coffee and a lovely chat with them, and then went off to Dyrham Park, which neither of us had ever visited before.

As you can see from this photo, the house sits in a dip. The car park is at the top of the hill, and there's a curving, tree-lined drive down to the house, which you can either walk down or take a shuttle bus. We walked, both ways - and I can tell you that it's a bit of a pull on the way back up! Back in the day there was a water cascade, similar to the one at Chatsworth, running down towards the house from close to where I took this photo, but now there's just the mini version of it which emerges at the back of the house, and runs down into the first of two ponds.

Ponds, I can hear you thinking, must mean dragonflies. And on a sunny day maybe they do, but today was very overcast, and if there were dragons about they were roosting in the trees and sulking. Much like myself.

I feel like apologising for this photo, because it's a bit boring, but I only kept a small handful of shots from today, and two of those were of the bench. I've a feeling that this estate would be lovely on a bright sunny day (though the climb back to the car park might be a bit of a mission); and I suspect that it really comes into its own in autumn, when the trees change colour. We rather liked it, and it's not a million miles from home, so maybe we'll remember to go back in October and test out that theory.