It was a pleasant and cool morning as I packed the car and headed off to Castle Howard with Meg and Gracie. It is usually a good forty-five-minute car journey from home, but unfortunately today the traffic at the ‘Hopgrove roundabout’ on the A64 outskirts of York, was quite bad and I was stuck in a twenty-minute queue as the traffic filtered from two lanes into one. It was just after 10.30am by the time we arrived, parked the car in the car park and headed into the courtyard, popping into the takeaway shop for a coffee and cake, before making our way across the pebbled stone courtyard to the ticket office. Although it was fine and dry with the sun breaking through, the sky looked quite threatening with some dark and heavy looking clouds, fortunately I had a lightweight waterproof waistcoat so had some protection if it rained, fortunately, as it happened it stayed fine and dry all morning till mid afternoon when we had heavy rain.

After showing our entrance tickets in the booking hall, and exchanging pleasantries with the staff behind the counter, we headed over to the ‘walled garden’, It had been just over a month since our last visit, then the gardens were awash with tulips. Today the tulips have long gone and replaced with a multitude of shrubs and lots of colour. Originally the gardens were laid out as an 18th century kitchen garden, today the Sundial Gardens is still given over to producing ornamental vegetables and cut flowers. Much of the produce grown in the garden can be purchased in season in the farm shop.

The Rose gardens were a picture today, full of roses as you would expect at this time of year and surrounded by low hornbeam hedges. Every now and then you would catch the sweet scent from the roses as it drifted across the air. Apparently, there are over 2,000 modern roses of various types within the walled garden, making it one of the country’s most comprehensive collections.

After leaving the walled garden we stopped to admire the ‘Atlas Fountain’ which was in full flow, looking very majestic in the morning’s sunlight. We continued our walk along the South Terrace, up the grassy embankment to ‘Ray Woods’, I always like this part of the walk as the views looking back towards the house are beautiful, especially on a day like today with a light breeze and intermittent sunshine. Much of the grassed areas and embankments have been left to grow this year and it is interesting to see the different kinds of wildflowers that have come to the surface including wild orchids and cow slips. On reaching the top of the bank we stopped for a few moments to enjoy the views across the ‘South Lake’, It looked as though some of the geese had recently had chicks, we watched as the little ones all swam in a line behind there parents as they navigated the peaceful waters of the South Lake.

We opened the wooden gate and entered the woods, much of the Azaleas and Rhododendrons that were in flower on our last visit had now finished flowering. We continued our walk along the edge of the wood until we reached ‘the Temple of Four Winds’. I always enjoy the views from here looking across the rolling countryside, the fields all different shades of green and brown depending on what crops were being grown and closer to hand the green grassy pastures with the Angus cattle contently grazing. Moving on we turned around and headed back towards the house. 

Passing the main house on the righthand side we continued to the Courthouse and popped in the courtyard café for a very pleasant late brunch before our journey home.