From the beginning of our trip, Montacute House in Somerset had been on my "maybe" list. It is between Hestercombe and our b & b, but when I got the guidebook from the National Trust, there were 58 pages devoted to the house, and just 6 to the garden....
David and Keith from Westbrook House both recommended Montacute highly, so we took their advice and visited this beautiful property. It was definitely worth the visit! The house is just exquisite, particularly the long gallery, which has an amazing collection of portraits on loan from the National Portrait Gallery. Frank happens to have an incredible sense of color (go figure, since he colors hair for a living.....), and was just blown away by the intensity of color and texture in painting that are hundreds of years old. The visit to the Long Gallery gave a great opportunity to see these portraits in a very intimate setting. Since visitors are allowed to photograph everyone in the house except in the Long Gallery, going inside the house also gave great photo opportunities showing the gardens from angles the Phelps family would have shared.
The "Wibbly Wobbly Hedge" and Orangery, below, made a cameo appearance in the movie "Sense and Sensibility"
The North Garden, below, seems to go on forever.
A pretty fabulous view from the front door of the house is shown below.
The East Garden with its famous "Pudding Houses." 
I think I'm going toconstruct some fabulous building in the garden at the Stepchild just to eat dessert in......do you think my "Not Shed" would work?
I just love the green blobs grown all over GB. They seem as though they could engulf you if passing too close!
ReplyDeleteFrank and I have a lot in common.
ReplyDeletewhoa - that wibbly wobbly hedge is pretty crazy!
ReplyDelete