A house and garden

The Garden House being a place that BH knew about and which we have finally got around to visiting. A garden created after the second world war by Lionel Fortescue and his wife Katherine after he retired early from teaching languages at Eton. A keen gardener, particularly keen on rhododendrons. Probably with family money as there is talk of several gardeners.

The house was built in 1826 as a vicarage for Buckland Monachorum, subsequently sold in favour of something more convenient. About 10 acres of garden which includes some ruins from an earlier vicarage and a great many plants, many of which were in flower on the day we visited. Part of the ground floor of the substantial house is now the shop and cafeteria. Originally just the bit right middle in the snap above, now extended to left and right.

Starting off with tea and cake in the cafeteria. This despite having taken hog's pudding for breakfast, along with granary bread from the Honey bakery at Horrabridge and a fine orange from the Co-op at Yelverton. Pudding from Bidder, also of Yelverton: a place we visit twice a year and which still features a cashier in a booth at the back of the shop.

A cake, in my case involving apple and some rather damp sponge. With the large windows looking out over the veranda and the garden beyond being the sort that come with built in-internal shutters, shutters which might well still shut. A type of window that must cost of care and attention to keep in working order. A type of window that I first came across in Somerset House when I started work there in the mid 1970's. I am fairly sure there that the shutters did not shut.

Did the gardens, which were interesting with lots of interesting plants, but which I found a bit fussy. A fussiness made worse by all the bits of wall and ruin. And not helped by the lie of the land.

One of the features of the garden had once been a line of ten lime trees. Sadly, now down to two or three, having lost two or three more in the recent storms.

Back to the cafeteria for lunch, which in my case took the form of a ham sandwich. Ham plentiful, if a little salty. Decorated with a dab of pink coleslaw, pink which I think was from beetroot rather than from red cabbage. Rather good. View from the veranda where we took lunch snapped above.

One of the plants I liked were the camassias, a kind of lily which was growing all over the place and which came in three colours - white (snapped above), pink and blue. And as one of the gardeners was taking some out, I was able to acquire some - and now taken in hand by BH. We will see how they fare in Epsom - in ground which is a lot drier than that from which they were taken.

A kind of lily which used to grow in large numbers in what is now the US and the bulbs were widely used as food by the First Peoples (if that is the presently correct term). See reference 2.

From the garden we moved onto the associated church, which until then we had only seen from the outside. Entrance at the bottom of the tower from the street which can't be seen at the back of the snap above.

A rather grand interior. The columns may be granite  monoliths, but if not, they have been very neatly jointed. Must take a closer look next time.

A rather flamboyant memorial to Lord Heathfield of Gibraltar, an eminent soldier of the second half of the eighteenth century, married to Ann Polex[f]en Drake, daughter of the fourth version of Sir Francis. Of Scottish gentry stock and who went to university at Leyden, now to be found at reference 4. Possibly took on the nearby Drake family home, Buckland Abbey, after the death of his sister's brother, the fifth version, without issue. 

Fairly sure that the font is a monolith. Rather ugly too.

To my mind, a failure of detailing. The arch springing to the left off the head of the column has not been properly thought through.

The moat around the church. Presumably, with all the people and coffins being dug into the ground around, that ground gradually rises, leaving the church behind. You can't really see in this snap, but a lot of the gravestones are surprisingly thin, well under the more usual couple of inches. Presumably some special sort of stone.

On the way back to Holne, we stopped by the bridge at Hexworthy, where we made the acquaintance of a grandmother from Houston, her daughter who lives over here, and her daughter. She was able to confirm my story about frying turkeys in oil drums, a yarn which I thought I got from reference 5, although I cannot presently track it down. Very good, she said, if done properly.

References

Reference 1: https://www.thegardenhouse.org.uk/.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camassia.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/05/piano-55.html.

Reference 4: https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en.

Reference 5: https://texasmesquitegrill.com/.