Hidcote Garden

 Our day began with one more village called Chipping Campden. We followed the town walk map that gave us great info on what the buildings had once been used for dating back to 14 & 1600. This village came about through prosperous wool farmers with a central market hall where they sold their produce. We finished here with soup at the 'Badger Inn' then onto Hidcote garden.

This was once the home of Lawrence Johnston and his mother. In 1948 Lawrence handed it over to the National Trust.

Lawrence's mother bought up land for him and in 30 years he had transformed the fields into a huge country garden with its many rooms and formal hedge rows. I now recognise where many kiwi gardeners  have found their garden inspirations including Alan Trott.

The long walk.

My favourite flower in the garden today was in the poppy garden.

The last of the gardens on this trip.

We had some time left in the afternoon so we popped over and visited Mary Arden's Farm who was Shakespeare's mother and where she grew up as a child. This is one of the 5 houses on the list to visit while on the Shakespeare family home visit. They still run this as a Tudor Farm with it's rare breeds of animals and people running around in period costume going about their daily tasks that were performed in Tudor times. A great place for children to visit but also very fascinating when you talk to some of the people working there as they seem like they have become one of them living it every day.

The girls bringing the geese indoors for the night to keep them safe from predators.

Time now to head back and cook up our dinner.