A Host of Golden Daffodils at Shipley Country Park

I've been anxiously watching the weather forecast as the sunshine from earlier this week seems to be on the way out and rain heading back in, so with a dry but cloudy day expected I decided to seize the chance to head out to Shipley Park looking for daffodils.




















The remains of Shipley Hall stand on a hill in the centre of land that's been restored after open-cast mining, and it's on this hill that swathes of snowdrops and, later, daffodils can be found, lining what I assume was once the main drive up to the hall and continuing into the trees that surrounded the hall.









It's possible that once the daffodils were strictly ordered in lines and rows, or formal patches of colour, but now they just flow down the hillside, and look absolutely stunning!

Some are the larger brighter daffs of gardens but the majority look like the 'original' Lenten Lilies as brought back from Palestine during the Crusades. There's another place locally, a ruined castle, where these grow and weather permitting I'll be off to see those too in the next week.

To end the day perfectly, the sun came out as we were heading back to the car, bathing the flowers in golden light.

We regularly go to Shipley to see the fabulous snowdrop display but generally miss the daffodils a few weeks later - and we've missed out on something equally wonderful. Now I think there may be another reason to go back - the shoots of bluebells were pushing their way through the daffodils, so I've hoping that in a month or two the woodland will be carpeted in flowers again, this time in blue.