It was a cloudy and slightly overcast sky as we arrived at Castle Howard this morning, just 13c with a weather forecast to get brighter as the morning wore on. After purchasing a takeaway coffee and slice of cake we and the girls (Meg and Gracie) sat in the courtyard to enjoy the ambiance of the place and to drink my coffee without spilling it down my jacket! Since our last visit, there has been an ‘Easter Animal Trail’ set up in the estate grounds, in fact it ran from the 23rd March and finishes this coming Sunday 14th April, although the trail was set up for children and families we decided to follow part of the trail this morning. Gracie one of our dogs has been quite lame since we returned from our holiday over the Easter weekend, so she is on short walks for the time being until she gets her mobility back and following the trail would be ideal.

We collected our guide map from the visitor’s reception and made our way to the main house passing the ‘Green Man’, the first of the willow figures, in the west paddock adjacent to the Walled Garden. Apparently, the ‘Green Man’ is a wise and ancient guardian of the landscape and tries hard to make the landscape flourish. After leaving our green friend, we headed over to the right and into the walled garden. It looks as though a lot of work has been carried out in the borders during the winter months, which were all nicely dug over and weed free. I didn’t think there were as many Tulips in the borders as there has been on previous visits about this time of year, that said, we still had a very nice steady stroll through the walled garden and admired the various types of Hosta’s that were coming into leaf. On leaving the ‘Walled Garden’ we headed for the ‘Atlas Fountain’ passing the ‘Willow Peacocks’ sheltering amongst the trees forming the ‘Lime Terrace’. Unfortunately, the fountain was not running this morning, though had it been, we would probably have got soaked from all the spray, at least it enabled us to have a closer look at the beautiful carved figure of Atlas and his four Tritons, all carved out of Portland stone back in the early 1850’s. On leaving the fountain we headed back towards the house, stopping for a few moments on the south lawn to admire the huge ‘Rabbit and Hare’, before making our way back to the house and along the South Terrace towards ‘The Temple of Four Winds’. Before we reached the Temple though I stopped to take several photographs looking back towards the house, before the last of the daffodils die back. Continuing along the terrace we stopped again to have a look at the willow birds in one of the trees adjacent to the path. A little further on we stopped to have a look at ‘Meleager’, one of several sculptures at Castle Howard. The statue of Meleager, a naked young man with a short cloak around his neck, leaning on a tree stump with his dog along side of him. The statue is actually a lead replica of a Roman copy of a Hellenistic original from the mid-4th century and looks quite at home watching all the visitors who pass beneath him.

We continued to the Temple to admire the views across the Howardian hills on the left and ‘The New Bridge and family mausoleum’ on the right. The beautiful Azalia bush was in full flower and provided lots of colour on the edge of ‘Ray Wood’. Leaving the Temple behind us, we retraced our steps back to the house and into the Courtyard, taking a slight detour to find ‘a pair of willow Foxes’ on the opposite side of the paddock to the ‘Green man’. From here it was just a short walk back to the Courtyard where we enjoyed a very pleasant brunch sat outside at the Courtyard restaurant, enjoying the afternoon sunshine, with Meg and Gracie contently snoozing under the table after a pleasant walk around the estate grounds.