Hillary Davis Travels's Blog

Travel Guide Review: The Gardens of English Heritage

The Gardens of English Heritage by Gilian Mawrey & Linden Groves

This is what I call a travel guide. Not a phone book of addresses and hours open. But a book I can read before I go to linger over each beautiful photograph and read evocative descriptions and plan a trip that I know beforehand I will love. 

Actually, this is a coffee table size book so you can not drop it in your bag and carry it with you but you can use it as a wonderful resource and inspiration before you go.

I lived in England for many years and on weekends would often take off to explore the National Heritage Gardens, which are magnificent. The English Heritage owns and manages historic properties throughout England for the benefit of the rest of us. This book opens their gates and allows you to visually stroll through them.

This lovely book covers 23 gardens, including Queen Victoria's Osborne House, Kenilworth Castle, Chiswick House, and Old Wardour Castle, among others.

Each property is fully detailed with its history, pictures of rooms and paintings and furniture, and descriptions of the gardeners and the gardens they created for the property.

If you love gardening and visiting historic homes, this book is for you. 

The Gardens of English Heritage by Gillian Mawrey & Linden Groves

Paris Luxembourg Gardens

You would think that a garden would be at its most beautiful in the summer. Yet, for me, this fall, the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris seemed to evoke another kind of beauty than achieved in the summer when it is filled with a riot of blossoms. It was a beauty composed of stillness and sweeping lines. 

 

Yes, the leaves had fallen. But in their place were graceful tree limbs. 

I strolled over to the Medici Fountain and found a seat where I watched the ducks play and splash and meditated on the reflecting pool. 

Marie de Medici, one of my favorite historical personages, was responsible for building the Luxembourg Palace and the gardens in the 1600's. She requested the gardener to design a garden that would remind her of the formal gardens from her native Florence. 

Do you see in this picture how the flowers in the large urns so perfectly cascade down?

I discovered the secret. Look closely at the next picture and you should just be able to see a green plastic trainer that holds the stems from underneath so that they grow in a graceful curve downward. 

I find myself totally revived after a long walk here. Others stop a bit longer and perhaps have a bite to eat.

 

And many many others find a chair and totally unwind.