Gate Arch

West Gate, Charlecote Park, Warwickshire

Thinking of autumnal colour, we had planned to take a drive out to Stowe Gardens. But as I mowed the laws this morning, most likely for the last time this year, I gulped as I rubber-necked the inferior tread on my offside front tyre. We'd go somewhere nearer.

And glad am I that we chose Charlecote. The entrance is from the east. A left hand turn takes the visitor to an Adams bridge across the River Dene. Most times the gate to the adjacent deer park is locked with an apologetic notice that the deer have the measles or some such. I've never once crossed over. So it was with unexpected pleasure that we crossed to the other side and embarked on a course of new discovery.

We walked as far west as we could go, around half the perimeter, and then back for a cuppa. Then we did the other half perimeter. When something agitates the deer, one by one they can all go ballistic. Four or five shot past me leaping high in the air. I can understand now, how, if one of those sprinters ran into the road, it could write off a family motor.

The east entrance to Charlcote Hall sweeps under the oft-photographed Grade I gatehouse of 1560, but tracking to the far western end stands another gate and lodge, rarely gazed upon except by motorists curling round to Stratford. So here is the gate, built 1865 by John Gibson with, at the roadside, the West Lodge, built by Gibson the same year.