Lexham Hall

Back in August - my birthday in fact - Mum and I headed off to the village of Litcham, just a couple of miles from Mum and Dad's, to visit Lexham Hall which was open for the National Gardens Scheme.  It's quite unusual for a NGS garden to be open mid week and, as I had nothing else planned for my birthday, I thought it would be nice for a relaxing mooch around a garden.

Lexham Hall is quite imposing and they have some beautiful formal lawns with clipped hedges, a walled garden, but also quite a lot of woodland garden - it's not all been manicured.

These ladies were part of a club called the Red Hat Society, formed to provide companionship for ladies of a certain age - which I'm alarmed to note I'm included in now!  There is a band of them in Swaffham and we have bumped into them a number of times, including at the Ely Cathedral Christmas Fair.  They didn't stop nattering all the way around the garden, so we let them overtake us!

The borders were beautiful and stretched for miles.

I love agapanthus and the walled gardens were full of them - and the flower heads were enormous and heavy which is why they were leaning over.

Mum and I were very taken with this structure - it looked like a big Afro hairdo!

I think these are hydrangeas, but with cone shaped flowers?   I love the grading of colour from dark to lightest pink.

We spent a good couple of hours wandering around before heading off to the tearooms for some tea and bara brith - yum!  I had thought there would be a plant sale, but not today.  Never mind, we collected some candelabra primula seed on the way round anyway - naughty!