The Courts Garden

We've actually been on two outings in the last two days, so I'll be writing a couple of blog posts over the coming days. 

On Sunday, we visited The Courts Garden, a National Trust property in the village of Holt in Wiltshire. This is the place I mentioned at the end of my previous post. For reasons I'll go into later, it was a bit of a disappointing trip, but overall I think the property is worth a quick visit.

We were meeting family friends there, and as we arrived early, we had a little look around the village first. There was a really pretty little area with a lily pond and a willow tree, which was almost as nice to see as the garden itself.

As you can see, there was a furry visitor who particularly loved the pond!

Then our friends arrived and we went to the garden, which was very well set up with regard to social distancing, as there was a one-way system in place. 

One thing I liked about the garden was that it contained features that were reminiscent of different parts of the world, in particular Japan and Italy.

There was one part of the garden that had ponds filled with lotus flowers and waterlilies and a little wooden bridge, which reminded me of the Japanese gardens I visited in Santiago and Buenos Aires.

The garden also had many Roman style statues and columns, which made me feel a bit like I was in Italy.

Other interesting parts of The Courts Garden include the house...

...the sunken garden...

...the orchard...

...and this dog statue...

...along with many pretty flowers and trees.

It was a nice place to look around, but unfortunately the resident cat wasn't there, which was a shame, as I'd been looking forward to meeting him or her! 

The Rose Garden tea room was also a disappointment. It had a selection of about 15 different varieties of cake, as well as various savoury snacks, and yet absolutely none of it was suitable for vegans. Given that there were several gluten-free options, it really didn't make sense. Why would they cater extensively to people with one dietary requirement and provide nothing at all for people with a different dietary requirement? Plus it's actually very straightforward to make vegan cakes, so there's no excuse for not getting with the times and offering some options that don't harm animals or the planet.

My parents had told me great things about the tea room, so it was really disappointing that it offered nothing for me at all. They both got big slices of homemade cake to take away, whereas I had to pick up a sandwich from ASDA on the way home! To be honest, it left me with a bit of a bad impression of the garden overall, which I know is harsh, but you come to these places for the whole experience of looking around and then going for coffee and cake afterwards, so they really should be catering for everyone.

Our outing yesterday was to Faringdon and Lechlade, and I'll be writing about it soon. It wasn't exactly the most exciting trip in the world, but it was a nice day out with a few interesting sights to see.