gardens – fraggle ~ rocking a camera across the Universe

Herterton Country Garden ~July 2022 ~ part 2

July 31, 2022July 31, 2022Posted in Adventures, flower, Fuji, FujiX-T2, gardens, nature, photography, UncategorizedTagged butterflies, flowers, fraggle, FujiX-T2, Herterton Country Garden, landscape, National Trust, nature, photography, UK43 Comments

Part 1 HERE

I know y’all were taken with Frank and Marjorie’s story last week, though I condensed 50 years into a couple of paragraphs so touched on not much more than an inch of it. They come across in Frank’s book as two lovely people, loving each other and their garden and home. I took a phone shot of them from the book, taken in 1994, they’d be in their 50’s here,under the arches of the byre, and sitting next to the falconer statue.

I took a fair few shots of some of the flowers on display, with some interesting (I think anyway) factoids.

Foxglove (digitalis purpurea)
The term *digitalis* is also used for drug preparations that contain cardiac glycosides, particularly one called digoxin, extracted from various plants of this genus. Foxglove has medicinal uses but is also very toxic to humans and other animals, and consumption can even lead to death.

Japanese Anemone (anemone hupehensis)
*hupehensis*, which means “from Hupeh province, China”, refers to a region where the species is known to occur. So that makes sense 🙄.

Astrantia (astrancia major) ~ the great masterwort, native to to central and eastern Europe.
The plant also produces an essential oil that can be used in herbal medicines.

Persian Cornflower (psephellus dealbatos)
a species of Psephellus native to the Caucasas Mountains and Turkey. It is widely cultivated as an ornamental perennial.

Purple Toadflax ( linaria purpurea ‘Canon Went’)
It is native to Italy but it can be found growing wild as an introduced species in parts of western North America. In the UK it is regarded as something of a weed, spreading readily on stony waste ground and walls, although it is tolerated for its attractive, long-lasting flowers which are very attractive to bees. This plant is poisonous to livestock, but in a recent study conducted in Italy the plant was found to contain a compound exhibiting antifungal activity, making it a potential natural and ‘green’ anti-aflatoxin B1 agent suitable for use in the food industry.

Martagon Lily, or Turks Cap Lily (lilium martagon)
is a Eurasian species of lily. It has a widespread native region extending from Portugal east through Europe and Asia as far east as Mongolia. It is highly toxic to cats and ingestion often leads to fatal kidney failure.

Purple Viper’s-bugloss, or Patterson’s Curse, (echium plantagineum)
It is native to western and southern Europe (from southern England south to Iberia and east to the Crimea), northern Africa, and southwestern Asia (east to Georgia). It has also been introduced to Australia, South Africa and United States, where it is an invasive weed. Due to a high concentration of pyrrolizidine alkaloids, it is poisonous to grazing livestock, especially those with very simple digestive systems, like horses. When eaten in large quantities, it causes reduced livestock weight, and death in severe cases, due to liver damage. It can also irritate the udders of dairy cows and the skin of humans. After the 2003 Canberra bushfires, a large bloom of the plant occurred on the burned land, and many horses became ill and died from grazing on it. Because the alkaloids can also be found in the nectar of it’s flowers, the honey made from it should be blended with other honeys to dilute the toxins.

And we saw some butterflies

Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta)
The red admiral is found in temperate regions of North Africa, North and Central America, Europe, Asia, and island regions of Hawaii, and the Caribbean. It resides in warmer areas, but migrates north in spring and sometimes again in autumn. Red admirals are territorial; females will only mate with males that hold territory. Males with superior flight abilities are more likely to successfully court females. They are the Tom Cruise of the butterfly world. It is known as an unusually calm butterfly, often allowing observation at a very close distance before flying away, also landing on and using humans as perches.

A small tortoiseshell, or angelwing. (Nymphalis) and a Red admiral.
Today, the anglewing butterflies are found only in the northern hemisphere. Carl Linnaeus described the first members of this group in 1758, and it has since become clear that anglewing butterflies evolved from a common ancestor. During winter months, in latitudes with snow cover, all members of this group hibernate as adult butterflies During hibernation, hidden in various shelters, the butterflies are dormant. The camouflage provided by crypsis (*the ability of an animal or a plant to avoid observation or detection by other animals*)is advantageous to hibernating butterflies. Potential predators will have difficulties in seeing the dormant butterflies. With their wings closed, exposing only the ventral cryptically coloured underside, they blend in with their surroundings.

More pictures taken with my film camera at

Film Friday ~ Morpeth & Herterton Gardens

OK school’s out 🎓 😊 Stay tooned for next week!

Herterton Country Garden ~ July 2022 ~ part 1

July 24, 2022July 24, 2022Posted in Adventures, flower, Fuji, FujiX-T2, gardens, landscape, nature, photography, UncategorizedTagged adventure, fraggle, FujiX-T2, Herterton Country Garden, landscape, National Trust, nature, photography, UK55 Comments

After lunch in Morpeth (see the previous 2 posts ) we toddled West for a few miles to visit Herterton House & Gardens, which we somehow hadn’t known about until this month. This was a treat and I wish we’d known about it sooner.

I can’t do a ‘history bit’ as usual, as the Garden is the lifelong work of Frank and Marjorie Lawley, both now in their eighties and still working on the garden in spite of health issues. The house and grounds were leased to them by the National Trust for 50 years, which is due to finish in 3 years time, when it will revert to the trust, and Marjorie and Frank will have to find a care home or somesuch in which to live out their lives. That seems cruel to me, they should be allowed to live in their home which they’ve worked so hard on, even if the Trust take over the work needed in the garden. But who knows what will happen?

Marjorie and Frank were both trained artists, meeting and falling in love back in the 60’s when they were learning their craft, but both fell in love with gardening when living in their first home, a cottage on the Wallington Estate, where Marjorie’s Dad was a stonemason. To cut a long story shortish, they were offered the lease to Herterton House through their contact with Trust officials at Wallington, and in spite of there being little to recommend it, i.e no roof on the house and mould on the walls, the land around it a complete mess, they decided to take it on. Apart from a year when 3 people from the government ‘job creation’ scheme came to help, the majority of the work has been done by Marjorie and Frank, and they’re still at it, with the help of one chap in his 70’s!

Frank wrote a book about their lives, and how they started out, the people they met and learned about plants, flowers and gardening from, how they sourced the antique furniture and pieces for the house, another labour of love, and he dedicated it to his Marjorie, who now has alzheimer’s sadly. It is a beautiful book, and a must for keen gardeners I think, but also for anyone creative, it was a joy to read. There are photo’s of the before and afters, the plans Marjorie drew up for the gardens and some of their artwork.

We met Frank, and he talked to us about it all, and pointed out things for us to see, whilst Marjorie carried on with her job in the garden. There are 4 sections to the garden, the flower garden, the formal garden, the physic garden and the fancy garden, Sophie and I did them all, and here are some photos.

Firstly a couple of shots from the photos we saw in the gazebo

In the flower garden looking back from the house toward the gazebo.

some views from the gazebo

One of the buildings next to the house is an old byre, it contains a couple of statues with bits missing which i think were given by either Wallington or Alnwick, I forget which

also on the wall of the byre is one of only seven three-faced Scottish sundials in this country

There is a pretty wild flower area next to the carpark too.

Next time we’ll have a look at some individual flowers, and there will be a film friday post to go with this at some point (when I get the scans back!) so stay tooned!

Birkheads Secret Gardens ~ May 22 ~ part 2

June 19, 2022June 10, 2022Posted in Adventures, flower, Fuji, FujiX-T2, gardens, nature, photography, wildlifeTagged adventure, Birkhead Secret Garden, flowers, fraggle, FujiX-T2, nature, photography, UK47 Comments

On with the flowerfest!

fake heron surrounded by Boris’s Avens (geum coccineum) (*there’s a joke to be made there I think)*

They’ve managed to have a Great Crested Newt or 2 in one of the ponds. This threatened creature has suffered a massive decline and is now legally protected. It can be easily identified as it is our largest newt and the males have vivid breeding colours. Not that you can see those on my rather blurry photo, but I’m including it anyway as they are rare as rocking horse poo due to young boys back in the day hoying them out of the water and taking them home in a plastic bag, where of course they died.

Great Crested Newt (*Triurus cristatus*)

Not a scarecrow. (non a cucumerario formido)

So that’s the end of our flowerfest, but stay tooned for whatever comes next.

ref: https://www.birkheadssecretgardens.co.uk/

Birkheads Secret Garden ~ May 2022 ~ part 1

June 12, 2022June 10, 2022Posted in Adventures, flower, Fuji, FujiX-T2, gardens, nature, photography, UncategorizedTagged adventure, Birkhead Secret Garden, flowers, fraggle, FujiX-T2, nature, photography, UK54 Comments

I’m not sure why it’s secret, it’s on a map and everything. Anyway it’s a great place for photography. Started in 1978 when Christine and her Hubby moved into Birkheads, and decided to become self sufficient. They grew organic vegetables, fruit, kept ducks & bees and saw how the wildlife were attracted to their land. In 1987 they started to to make an environmentally friendly garden on a site that had been surface mined (opencast) for coal. Most of the gardens have been created using recycled materials, paving, slates, wood etc. Garden features and sculptures are made from mainly recycled metal and driftwood, others have had a past life in some other place. They were one of the first Green Tourism Businesses to achieve a Gold Award.

Sophie and I love visiting here, there’s always something new to see and obviously different times of the year have different flowers and plants for us to focus our cameras on. So here we have it, The Flowerfest! 💐🌷🌸

We spotted some dragonflies gettin’ jiggy with it.

Pencilled Crane’s-bill (geranium versicolour)

Broadleaf speedwell (veronica teucrium) & Green-veined white butterfly (*pieris napi*)

the gardens are potted with featured items amongst the flowers

fossilised tree trunk 350 million years old, found when digging out the clay soil when they were making a new pond.

I think that will do for this week, we’ll have a look at some more flowers and features next time, and there will be a film on friday post to accompany this series. Stay tooned!

📷 😊

Wallington Hall Estate ~ Oct 2020 ~ part 2

March 13, 2022March 4, 2022Posted in Adventures, animals, autumn, birds, Fuji, FujiX-T2, gardens, landscape, nature, photography, robins, stately homes & estates, UncategorizedTagged adventure, fraggle, FujiX-T2, landscape, nature, photography, UK, Wallington Hall, wildlife34 Comments

There are a few ponds/lakes nestled in the woodlands of the estate, and our favourite is the one with the boathouse.

As always, there are ducks.

The glass house is set in a formal garden so we had a wander around there first.

It was nice to see some flowers still going strong.

The glass house is on a tier above the garden

and there’s a nice view when you get up there.

Inside the glass house there were plenty of blooms and leaves,

The glass house is being propped up with wooden buttresses as it’s very old and rickety, hopefully the National Trust will spend a few bob to repair it. You can just see them through the window here.

Our last stop was at the bird hide, where we were excited to see a couple of deer, though I couldn’t get the head of the deer at the back.

And of course took some photo’s of birds

and that’s the end of our visit to Wallington in 2020.

all pictures are embiggenable by clickeration.

A few more pictures can be found HERE

Wallington Hall Estate ~ October 2021

March 6, 2022February 25, 2022Posted in Adventures, autumn, Fuji, FujiX-T2, fungi & mushrooms, gardens, History, landscape, nature, photography, UncategorizedTagged adventure, fraggle, FujiX-T2, landscape, nature, photography, UK, Wallington Hall49 Comments

Sophie and I go to Wallington Hall quite often, the grounds are extensive and there’s always lots to point a camera at. I’ve done a few blog posts from there, in 2018 and 19, but missed 20 for obvious reasons.

You can click on the little arrow below to read the history bit if you are interested and it will expand for you. If you are a philistine however, you can just look at the pictures 🤣.

Wallington is a country house and gardens located about 12 miles west of Morpeth, Northumberland, England, near the village of Cambo. It has been owned by the National Trust since 1942 after it was donated complete with the estate and farms by Sir Charles Philips Trevelyan, the first donation of its kind. It is a Grade I listed building. The estate was originally owned by the Fenwick family back in 1475. The Fenwick Baronetcy, of Fenwick in the County of Northumberland, was a title in the Baronetage of England. It was created on 9 June 1628 for Sir John Fenwick, of Wallington Hall, Northumberland. He sat as Member of Parliament for Northumberland and Cockermouth. The second and third Baronets also represented Northumberland in Parliament. The title became extinct when the third Baronet was executed for treason on 27 January 1697. The third Baronet, also a Sir John, was a Jacobite conspirator. I’m not going into Jacobitism here as it’s a very diverse and quite complicated political movement but basically a whole bunch of Brits aimed to restore the House of Stuart to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland. You can google it for further info. Back to Sir John. He had succeeded his father to become an MP, and also later got to be a Major General in the army in 1688. He was a strong supporter of King James 2nd, the last Roman Catholic King of England, who was deposed in what was called the Glorious Revolution in 1688, and succeeded by William 3rd, or William of Orange, as he was known, a staunch Protestant. Our Sir John remained in England when William came to the throne, but had money troubles which led him to sell Wallington Hall to the Blackett family. Then Sir John decided to plot against William, insulted Williams Missis, Queen Mary, and was involved in a couple of assassination attempts on William. Eventually he was nabbed, and was beheaded in London on 28 January 1697. So on to the Blacketts. Also given a Baronetcy, they were a wealthy Newcastle family of mine owners and shipping magnates. They shared the Fenwick’s love of parties and Jacobite sympathies, but the Blacketts managed to avoid both financial ruin and treasonable activities. Sir William Blackett (1657-1705) bought Wallington in 1688 as a country retreat from the family’s main home at Anderson place in Newcastle, and knocked down the medieval house and pele tower that the Fenwicks had built, though he converted the ground floor into cellars, which still remain. The new building was quite basic, it consisted of four ranges built around an open central courtyard. The upper floor was reached by ladders and had no internal dividing walls. It wasn’t meant to be a permanent home, but a residence for when the family wanted to have shooting parties for their poshknob pals. The Fenwicks had also been known for their parties and hospitality, and the Blacketts followed the tradition. Sir William’s son took it to excess and employed six men simply to carry him and his drunken guests to bed after their grand parties. Upon his death he left debts of £77,000 and an illegitimate daughter, Elizabeth Ord. Wallington passed to his nephew Walter Calverley on condition that Walter married Elizabeth and adopted the family name. Walter agreed to this and in 1728 Wallington passed to the 21-year-old Sir Walter Calverley Blackett (1707-77). Surprisingly, and fortunately Sir Walter proved a better household manager than his uncle had. He had the house completely remodeled, adding staircases and partitioning the upper floor into rooms. The gardens and grounds were extensively redesigned with the introduction of pleasure grounds, the planting of many trees, and the digging of watercourses and ponds. Sir Walter also built the clock tower which dominates Wallington’s courtyard. Amongst the many figures involved in the recreation of Wallington was Capability Brown who may have contributed to the work in the East and West Woods and was certainly responsible for designing the pleasure grounds at Rothley Lake. Sir Walter’s children died before him, so Wallington passed to his sister’s son: Sir John Trevelyan. The Trevelyans were Baronets as well, and Wallington stayed in their family until 1942. The family includes authors, artists, MP’s and their history is far too long for a little blog post, but also quite fascinating. Sir Charles, the 3rd Baronet was the last to live there. He was first a Liberal and later a Labour MP. He served under H. H. Asquith as Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education between 1908 and 1914, when, as an opponent of British entry into the First World War, he resigned from the government. In 1914, also, he founded the Union of Democratic Control an all-party organisation rallying opposition to the war. In the 1918 general election, he lost his Elland seat, running as an Independent Labour candidate, but won Newcastle Central for Labour in 1922 and held it until 1931. In early 1939, following Stafford Cripps and with Aneurin Bevan among others, Trevelyan was briefly expelled from the Labour Party for persisting with support for a “popular front” (involving co-operation with the Liberal Party and Communist Party) against the National Government. He was the last surviving member of the first British Labour cabinet. He had 6 kids, the eldest being Sir George, the 4th Baronet. He was effectively disinherited when his Dad gave Wallington to the National Trust. In 1925, George went to read history at Trinity College, Cambridge, in accordance with family tradition. Whilst there he began his 42-year-long association with the famous ‘Trevelyan Man Hunt’, an extraordinary annual event which involved a chase on foot over the wild Lakeland fells, with human ‘hunters’ hunting after human ‘hares’. This energetic event was started in 1898 by Trevelyan’s historian uncle G. M. Trevelyan and the Wynthrop Youngs, and still continues today, as a kind of hide and seek game without dogs or weapons. He also became an educational pioneer and a founding father of the New Age Movement. Not sure why Dad didn’t pass on the Hall to George, perhaps George was just too busy to look after the place, another fascinating chap.

After morning rain it turned out to be a lovely Autumnal day, the sun was mostly out and the sky that wintery pallid blue that contrasts so nicely with the greens and oranges of the landscape. We didn’t bother with the hall this time, but instead headed for the lake and the glass house.

Love these Japanese katsura trees, beautiful colours in autumn and their heart shaped leaves.

On the way we walked through woodlands and I got a couple more shots for my mushroom collection.

possibly *Piptoporus betulinus*, Birch Polypore or Razor Strop Fungus

probably Artist’s Conk (*Ganoderma applanatum*) also at the top on the right Velvet Shank (*Flammulina velutipes*)

Woodland Inkcap, (*Coprinellus silvaticus.*)

Always weird to see butterflies in October, this one was on it’s last days I think, missing an antenna thingy and looking a bit ragged

and still quite a few flowers about too, with stupid names.

Kiss-me-over-the- garden-gate 🙄 (*persicaria orientalis*)

So that will do for this time round, we’ll get to the lake and the glass house next time so stay tooned!

📷 😊

Belsay Hall & Castle ~ Oct 2021 ~ The Quarry (again)

February 6, 2022March 20, 2022Posted in Adventures, autumn, castles & ruins, Fuji, FujiX-T2, gardens, landscape, nature, photography, stately homes & estates, UncategorizedTagged adventure, Belsay Castle, fraggle, FujiX-T2, landscape, nature, photography, UK63 Comments

After doing the rounds of the Castle it was time to walk back through the quarry and avail ourselves of the tearoom located in the original kitchen of the hall. So a few more pictures from this amazing garden and that will be the end of our day out.

The trees on top of the quarry send their roots down over the edge, and the big ones split the rock as they travel down.

We took notice of the little things too

We spotted some autumn colours

and then through the exit and away we go.

So that’s the end of our day out to Belsay. Stay tooned for next time, when we’ll visit Bolam Lake.

Belsay Hall & Castle ~ October 2021 ~ part 2

January 16, 2022January 12, 2022Posted in Adventures, autumn, castles & ruins, flower, Fuji, FujiX-T2, gardens, landscape, nature, photography, stately homes & estates, UncategorizedTagged adventure, autumn, Belsay Hall, fraggle, FujiX-T2, landscape, nature, photography, UK49 Comments

We leave Belsay Hall and start off to get to the quarry, but first we’ll have a look in the formal gardens of the Hall. The temperatures were milder than usual in October and November, and so butterflies were still about, which surprised us.

Still some flowers budding and blooming too.

and some buggy things

There’s a manicured lawn within a walled garden

And then on out to the path that leads you on to the quarry, through gorgeous autumn colours.

Next time we’ll get to the exotic quarry walk so stay tooned!

Midnight Snow

January 21, 2021Posted in B&W, gardens, Iphoneography, landscape, nature, photography, Uncategorized, urban, weatherTagged fraggle, iphone11, photography, Snow, weather61 Comments

For three days it rained non stop, right up to 11pm last night. Then we went to the kitchen about 11.30pm to make a cup of tea to take to bed and through the window we saw

It’s been a long time since we saw ‘proper’ snow and we ran to the conservatory and opened the door and stood watching, as big clumps of snowflakes floated to the ground, and stayed. It made us smile and wonder. The world was quiet all of a sudden, the traffic noises deadened in the whitening. I grabbed my phone to take some pictures, but it gives an other worldy orange filter to everything

So I took some from all our windows and converted them to black and white

We spent a long time watching it, and were glad that we could enjoy it and not have to go anywhere in the morning. But we got up this morning and it had gone. It left us as swiftly as it arrived, with only a vestige of it’s former self on the lawns and shed roofs. We sighed, our winter wonderland was a fleeting visitor, and I’m glad we didn’t miss it.

Howick Gardens ~ February 2020

May 24, 2020May 18, 2020Posted in Adventures, cemetery, Church, flower, Fuji, FujiX-T2, gardens, Graves, landscape, nature, photography, snowdrops, stately homes & estates, UncategorizedTagged Canon EOS1000FN, cemetery, Church, Feb2020, fraggle, FujiX-T2, helios, Howick Hall Gardens, kodak portra 40057 Comments

Sophie and I have visited Howick Gardens a couple of times prior to this post, in October 2015 and July 2017, but there’s something different happening there all year round, and this time we went to see the snowdrops.

If you want the history of the gardens it’s in the first link there, if not, on with the pretty pictures!

Although it was quite cold, we had a clear blue sky, and the snowdrops were out in force. I had my FujiXT2 + my 16mm fujinon & my helios lens, with me and my Canon EOS 100 FN with a roll of portra 400 in it.

It was lovely to see the snowdrops carpeting everywhere, and to hear the birds singing, and nice to be out in the fresh air.

As we walked around the estate, we got a fab view of the Hall.

There is a church in the grounds

and a chap on his hands and knees amongst the grave stones, macro-ing the snowdrops.

Such a sad grave stone in the cemetery

Ellen aged 11 mths 1901, Euphemia 4 mths 1908, David aged 8 1914.
Fuji + helios

Just a short one today, nice to remember being out and about and not have to stop breathing when coming across other out and abouters!

Crook House & Gardens~Nov 2019~part 2

May 3, 2020May 3, 2020Posted in Adventures, architecture, autumn, Fuji, FujiX-T2, gardens, History, medieval, nature, photography, stately homes & estates, UncategorizedTagged Crook Hall, fraggle, FujiX-T2, garden39 Comments

Part 1 HERE

In spite of the weather being meh, we had a wander around the gardens. Not many flowers at that time of year, but nice to see some garden features,foliage & berries.

So, a nice day out, the pictures as always are embiggenable with a click, and there are more photo’s of Crook House HERE

Stay home, stay well, stay frosty and stay tooned for our next adventure!

Wynyard Gardens – October 2019 – part 2

April 12, 2020April 9, 2020Posted in Adventures, autumn, flower, Fuji, FujiX-T2, gardens, photography, stately homes & estates, UncategorizedTagged autumn, fraggle, FujiX-T2, nature, Wynyard Gardens37 Comments

Part 1 HERE

On the way back through the woods, we came across a few interesting bits and bobs.

lots of mushrooms everywhere

We got back to the formal gardens, no roses as it was late in the year, but a few bits of autumn colour.

For more pictures there’s a full album HERE

Sophie and I hoped to return here in spring and see the rose garden, but as the corona virus is taking hold in the country now as I write, I’m not sure if that will happen.

Stay tooned though, still some more adventures to do!

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