Houghton Mill

 The last stop, and last National Trust cake, of our few days away was at Houghton Mill on the river Ouse, near Huntingdon (although both now lie in Cambridgeshire) 

The mill itself, the last-remaining working one on the river Ouse, is open for visitors but by pre-booked tour only and we hadn't bothered to enquire as we were really looking for a gentle riverside walk and that all important tea and cake.

And so we ambled alongside the river, past the locks and upstream through nice flat water-meadows, looking at boats, ducks and swans, and enjoying the blue sky, sunshine, and first really warm day of Spring.

There are longer walks that can be taken in the area - up or downstream to Huntingdon or St Ives, or across the flood plain to the villages of Hemingford Abbots and Hemingford Grey - but for this occasion a short walk was enough. 

 

Anglesey Abbey

Anglesey Abbey in Cambridgeshire is a National Trust property known mainly, I feel, for its early spring snowdrop displays. Really to catch them we should have visited earlier in the year; by March, particularly with such warm weather, it was getting a little late, although we did still find some flowering in shady areas.

Anyway, you can't design a winter garden around just snowdrops, and there were other things to see  - hellebores, early daffodils, dogwoods, scented daphnes, and cherries and birches grown for the beauty of their bark; altogether a lot of inspiration for my own garden, if only I had space for any more shrubs and trees.

 

Not every winter day is going to have as stunningly blue sky as this one, but these silver birches would look wonderful whatever the weather; vivid in the sun, ghostly on duller days.

A gateway leads on to a more natural-feeling woodland, then the path meanders to the Lode Mill.

Eventually we found our way to the house, and then beyond to more tree-lined walks. 

Unfortunately, some of the gardens in this area, and a herbaceous garden we'd passed earlier, were closed to preserve the grass which was a little disappointing as, even if the flower borders here weren't at their best, a glimpse of them would have been better than nothing. For National Trust members living locally it's easy enough to return and see how the seasons unfold; for visitors from a distance it's not so simple, and maybe a better way way needs to be found to balance public access and gardening needs.

 

Great Chishill Postmill

For some odd reason, I like windmills. 

I say 'odd' because I have no interest in how all the cogs and gears mash together to grind corn but I still like to visit. Maybe it's something to do with an interest in social history, maybe they just look photogenic.

With a deep blue sky as backdrop, Great Chishill windmill was certainly looking good when we stopped off for a few minutes on our journey home.

And it's a great place to stop and admire the view (again, as on Periwinkle Hill outside Barkway, I bet you can see Ely in the distance)

Even I could tell this wasn't a standard windmill with a static brick or stone tower, with sails that operate when the wind happens to be blowing the right direction, but I'm not sure what is meant by its description as 'an open trestle postmill'; one of only seven in the country! 

What I did manage to glean from an information board is that the smaller fantail whirls round  and operates a mechanism which moves the whole mill around to face the wind direction., and there are warnings that the mill might suddenly move. It didn't while we were there, but it's a clever idea.

If you're interested enough to want to find out more, including info about the group restoring it, check out the Great Chishill Windmill site here

 

Wimpole Hall - formal garden

Taking a longer than anticipated walk around Barkway in the morning we were late in the day when we arrived at Wimpole Hall. Many of the attractions - tea room, farm, hall, walled garden - were closing for the day but we had time to visit the formal garden and see the outside of the buildings. 

I read somewhere that Wimpole Hall is the largest house in Cambridgeshire - looking at it from the front approach, it's certainly the widest! 

Other things that seem over-sized are the car park (absolutely massive, so I hate to imagine the crowds in summer), and the walk from 'reception' to the hall/garden/stable area, plus an extra 10 minutes apparently to the walled garden. There is a shuttle service but not realising the distance we decided to walk, and the extra time this took meant we couldn't visit the walled garden. 

Anyway, the stable block (yes, that's just the horses' house) was looking stunning against the blue sky, daffodils were coming into flower along the path to the formal garden, and we managed to have a good look around outside, and check things out for another time.

The formal gardens lying behind the hall are, as you'd expect, formal in design - geometric shapes which look good regardless of season - with views over them to the wider estate.

In the distance you can see a folly; given more time this could have been quite a nice walk, but not this day.

To the side of the hall the gardens become more relaxed with a walk leading through a shrubbery and under established trees, with more daffodils to brighten things.

 

We didn't have long to sit and gaze over the view though as the gardens close earlier than the wider property, so before we got locked in we headed out and round to the front of the hall.

 By now staff were closing up the stables building and heading home, and we seemed to be the only visitors around, so just for a few minutes it was possible to stand on the entrance steps and pretend everything in the view belonged to us :)

 

Barkway

When I picked Barkway as a destination for my mini-break (or whatever you like to call it) I was merely looking for somewhere convenient for my proposed trips to RHS Hyde Hall and Anglesey Abbey, so it was quite by accident that I stumbled on such a lovely spot. 

Once Barkway sat on the main road between London and Cambridge, and many of the houses which line the high street were once coaching inns.

Now the road goes elsewhere and (outside of commuting hours when people seem to be busy needing to be elsewhere) it's a quiet place, surrounded by open countryside and a network of footpaths obligingly leading through it.

There's a village pond and ac hurch, and on a side road by the latter is another reminder of Barkway's coaching past - a pond constructed for the washing of wagons. Soaking in water also caused the wooden wheels to swell and fit more tightly in their metal rims. 

But the open fields and wide blue skies were calling. We headed up a road opposite the AirBnB, which led to a path, up a rise towards Periwinkle Hill; a peaceful spot, though once site to neighbours' dispute which seems to have turned into a nasty fight.

Up here you can see for miles - in fact with binoculars you should be able to see Ely Cathedral rising out of the Fens about thirty miles away. We didn't see Ely, but walked over to the next village of  Reed, crossing the Greenwich Meridian Line on the way there and back.

This is my sort of walking country; good paths most of the way, good signposting, no narrow stiles to push through, an occasional bench, and an excellent view - and a glorious spring day with snowdrops and violets flowering in the hedges.

I wish we'd been staying longer, but it's not far from home and I hope to be back.