Lodge Park and Sherborne Park Estate

This weekend, my parents and I went on an outing to the Lodge Park and Sherborne Park Estate, a National Trust property located in the Cotswolds. It's quite a big area of countryside, with its main focal point being the 17th century grandstand. The grandstand isn't a big building, but it's quite impressive to see, because of its attractive classical style of architecture. There is definitely a slight touch of Italian palazzo about it...

The little ornamental pond in front of the house makes it look even more picturesque, and interestingly, we could see lots of little tadpoles swimming around in it!

When we arrived at the building, we were given a forty-five minute tour, starting with a short film about the history of the property. Sadly, it was originally built as a place for rich people to watch a cruel "sport" involving dogs chasing, and sometimes killing, deer. But luckily, now many different types of wildlife, including deer, live happily in the surrounding area.

After the film, we were shown around various parts of the building. I think my favourite bit was when we went out on the balcony and could look out over the countryside below.

When the tour finished, we moved on to our second destination of the day: the nearby Sherborne Arms pub. The food there was really good, and I also enjoyed seeing the pretty little Japanese garden next to the car park.

Overall, it was a very nice day out to an interesting place we'd never visited before.

Next Saturday we'll be going to Chepstow in Wales, but given that I've already written about it here, I'm not sure I'll be blogging about it again. However, I'll possibly be visiting a new local destination during the week, so hopefully I'll be writing about that (or something else) in a week's time!