Springtime at Felley Priory Gardens

I've been to Felley a couple of times before but always at bluebell time when the wood in the distance is carpeted with their blue flowers. 

This time (using my RHS partner gardens pass) I decided to go a little earlier in Spring.

It's a remarkably peaceful oasis in an area of quite high density housing, and on such a warm Spring day it was lovely to just sit and relax, and take in the view.

The stars of the garden at this point were the magnolias, just coming into flower in every shade from white to deep pink, and looking glorious against the clear blue sky.

Wander through a gateway, and there's something new to be seen - formal beds of tulips waiting to flower, drifts of daffodils in the orchard, a mix of familiar and rarer springtime bulbs, topiary birds, scented shrubs.

Daffodil time at Shipley

I'm obviously not talking about this last week of snow and hail, but most of March has been so lovely and warm that it seemed a pity to stay home. So I've been out and about watching Spring advance.

The first trip was to Shipley where I was lucky enough to catch the daffodils at their best. Despite being close by, their flowering doesn't quite occur at the same time as my own garden daffodils, so I'm often early (too many still in bud) or a little too late (yellow petals turning to brown). 

This time I got it just right!

Photographs don't seem to capture their sheer numbers or how amazing they look, flowing down the hillside like a golden river, but I hope these give a hint.

 

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.