Gardens to visit in spring and summer – Blickling

This impressive English country house actually began life as a manor house. In the eleventh century it was owned by Harold Godwinson who was later to become one of the early Kings of England.

With alterations and enhancements continuing throughout the generations, it is worth noting that attempts have been made to reflect the Jacobean nature of the house. The gardens in particular are a testament to inspired planting and good husbandry during the last three centuries, as they combine excellent preservation of some of Blickling’s oldest landscape features alongside innovative modern garden design. There is a formal parterre of immaculately clipped yew and herbaceous borders set around a central pool and fountain, there is a sunken garden modelled by Norah Lindsay in the 1930s and notable for its bright herbaceous borders which encircle a seventeenth century fountain and some very good topiary and away from the more formal garden area, visitors can wander through beautiful parkland with woods, lakes and temple. There is also a delightful orangery which was built in the eighteenth century and houses a good collection of citrus fruits, and to the north of the house you will find a ‘secret garden’ which contains a sundial, a summer house and many scented plants. There is a large man-made lake and in spring and summer the 100,000 bulbs planted in the grounds make a superb show.

Blickling also has its ghosts. Anne Boleyn spent her childhood at Blickling Hall and after she was executed - at Tower Green on May 19, 1536 – a ghostly female figure with its head held on its knees has been seen, carried towards Blickling Hall by a phantom coach; at the gatehouse it vanishes into thin air. The ghost of Anne Boleyn’s father is also doomed to drive his coach over twelve bridges in the county every year before returning to Blickling, although legend doesn’t say why!

Blickling photograph by gch 15, used under a creative commons attribution licence

 

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