Arley Hall gardens

Early this morning Roger and I went to Manchester Airport to pick up Jenny who was joining us for the next ten days. After breakfast with Rogers parents, the three of us went to Arley Hall for the day. Arley Hall was one of the places I was hoping to visit anyway, but then as we were driving from the airport, Jen had seen the sign to Arley Hall and told us one of her co-workers upon learning she was going to England, had told her she was distantly related to the family that own Arley Hall, and she should try and visit - though at the time I don't think either of them knew where it was! So it seemed a natural place to go this first day, since its pretty close to Bernard and Edna's.

The present Hall stands on the same site as the first house built in 1469, and has remained in the hands of the same family ever since. The gardens are magnificent and have been developed over the last 250 years. The part I've shown is the Ilex Avenue. This unique feature consists of seven pairs of the evergreen oak, quercus ilex, clipped into enormous cylinders. Eight metres high and 3m in diameter, they were planted by Rowland Egerton-Warburton in the 1850s. They were in the process of pruning them while we were there - quite a task!