Mottisfont Part One

Mottisfont is a National Trust property in Hampshire, it started out life as an Augustinian  Priory being founded in 1201, it welcomed pilgrims on their way to Winchester who wished to worship the relic they had said to be the finger of  of St John the Baptist. The priory suffered during the black death of the 14th century. It was dissolved by King Henry VIII and given to his favored statesman Sir William Sandys  who I might add also owned the Vyne.
My Wife & I were visiting  to see the rose garden (600 odd different kinds) which seems as good a place as any to start there.

 When you come into the gardens at Mottisfont you pass over a bridge

 walk past the house

and the stable block to get to the rose garden

 You pass these pillars of roses on the way into the walled garden

where you see this, I admit to feeling a little disappointed  

even though they had nice roses I though they were a little short of 600

 I then noticed this part of the garden and went wow

 I loved this little water feature with the roses on one side

 There were other flower beside roses as you can see in the beds

Globe Allium , I felt cheated as I planted some bulbs earlier and they never came up, now I know what I missed

 some nice sculptures round the garden

and roses

places to sit. (I waited for this couple to go  but the did not move so I took the photo)

flowers mixed with roses

the walled rose garden

looking back the opposite way

Lawns with rose borders 

 The color variation was great 

and all the roses were mixed together

there were roses growing over arches

up the walls

even roses in roses

roses by the wall

One of the things you pass when going to the rose garden are some huge trees

These are a few near the stabels

 This statue is not far away from them and my wife was taken with it because of the hound

The old stabel block is now a tea & coffee shop along with a gift shop. You can also buy plants here that are grown in the nursery 

you can even see part of the original stables

 Lunch Time

Remember the  first photo of the stream well I have no doubt that was a water mill at some time  which was fed by this stream

 The water flowed under this bridge with roses growing on it

It also had an abundance of fish swimming round 

I say trout , roach and I think a barbel in there

The tree was really old and the trunk you see in the foreground was a sucker from the main one behind

We decided to cross the bridge and follow the path

which went past a play area

 round a tree

and over the bridge past a family who's kids seemed to be giving them the run around

When we started I noticed a swan with her cygnets

next time I saw them they were hitchinga ride

with dad keeping gurard

they were a bit cautious at one stage with everyone looking as they came to the bridge 

 but then went for it and swam under

we walked back along the stream

passing a draggonfly

and some cute fluffy ducks

they were soo sweet

but mum kept an eye on them and us.
 I'll leave you there for now and in Part Two I  will show you more of the house.
For more information see the National Trust Website