Last week to Hampton Court Palace, the first outing of this sort for a while and the first visit to Hampton Court since early March, noticed at reference 1.
The online ticketing system made plenty of allowance for high demand and availability, but in the event we were able to book the day before without problem. And when we got there, around the middle of a weekday, things were very quiet. Social distancing was not a problem at all.
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| The yews |
A one way system had been installed for entry and exit, with entrance through the main gate and exit through the side gate, nearer the car park. So one got to walk through the palace on the way to the gardens, even it one could not visit the palace in the ordinary way. So we did get to see some of the elaborate trompe l'oeil painting in and around the stair wells.
Out on the east front to admire the yew trees, clipped but not topiarised. Note the flower bed, in the distance middle left, which ordinarily would contain some flashy floral display, this year reduced to a few pots, borrowed from their usual position outside the orangery.
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| The hats |
The horse and cart - more precisely four horses and two linked carts - perhaps chars à bancs in heritage speak - were out offering rides, although there were not many takers. I was not tempted to go for a ride in this sort of royal version of the train you can ride on along the sea front at Bognor Regis - but I was intrigued by the costume of the coachmen, which include a sort of flat version of a bowler hat. Asking both Google and Bing about coachman's hats revealed that that indeed was what it was, popular during the second half of the nineteenth century. There was also a warning about a shipping surcharge due to their size. With the whole costume coming to what must be several hundred pounds per coachman, rather more money that I usually have on my back, as it were.
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| Lilies |
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| Reeds |
Down to the long water, from where we walked the whole of the south canal, the first time for a long time that we have done such a thing. Rather larger lily bed and rather larger reed bed than we have at home - in black plastic tubs let into the ground. No fish that we could see, but quite a lot of coots, including some young ones feeding on the duckweed and blanket weed. The first time I recall seeing coots grazing - while Bing tells me that they are omnivores, eating more or less anything that moves that they can get into their beaks.
Round to the left into the conifer lined path down the river, above the regular path, open to all comers.
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| Starlings one |
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| Starlings two |
At one point there was a clump of two or three trees which must have been full of starlings, with a steady murmur coming from them. I associated to the murmurations of starlings, not often seen in London, but which can be spectacular out in the country - or around the tower of Gloucester Cathedral where I once saw such a thing, at dusk. While according to OED, murmuration is an old word - Chaucer at least - to do with murmuring and the connection to flocks of starlings is obscure. While I associate the visual throbbing of murmurations of starlings to the audible ups and downs of the mumurings of crowds, when heard from a suitable distance. Is that the link?
Counting the starlings in the second snap is left to the reader.
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| Special tree |
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| Picnic spot |
I was once very taken with this tree, partly because of the unusual bark, partly because of the shape of the crown. Lost most of its magic now, but we took our picnic underneath, out of respect for the memory. In my case brown bread, cheese, hard boiled egg, raisins and water. BH something more ladylike.
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| The slightly shaggy look |
Round to inspect the herbaceous borders and the privy gardens, looking well enough but a little shaggy. We learned later that most of the gardening team had been stood down during most of the lockdown - so they had not done badly considering. The only bad thing was an infestation of woodland art works - that is to say arty types making various figures - gardeners, kings, dragons and so on - out of willow and such like. Some of it was clever enough, but I wish they wouldn't. Wisley suffers from the same disease. Not for the first time I wondered why the civil servant and local government types which look after such places are such suckers for low grade art.
That apart, the restored privy garden has done us well over the years. A place which looks well all year round. The one snapped above.
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| One of the two sunken gardens |
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| Agave flower |
We came across a striking agave flower. The sort of thing we used to see of lot of in Tenerife when we used to go there every year to visit a distaff uncle. Maybe twenty years ago now. Never been back, despite the many attractions of the northern half of the island. Put off, I suppose, by the four hour flight and all the waiting around at airports.
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| A wilder than usual wilderness |
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| Consolation prize |
Consolation prize in the form of echiums pininanas in the rose garden. Not quite up to the echiums to be found in the botanic gardens at Ventnor, but the best we are going to do this year. And considering that we go to Ventnor most years, I was surprised that I had to go all the way back to reference 2 to find a snap.
Home to read what little there was in Pepys Diary about Hampton Court: an entry in the companion and that was about it. But I did get to read a neighbouring entry about his health, and was horrified by what he must have had to go through to have some kidney stones removed - the after effects of which operation also looked to have caused trouble in later life. As the companion observed, the pain must have been pretty bad before you opted for such an operation. Quite apart from the pain, the chances of coming through alive were not good. I think it said that the next half dozen or so such operations by the same surgeon failed - his run of good luck ending with Pepys.
While BH dug up the irritating fact that we had missed the non-qualifying coastal redwood, probably in what used to be called the Apprentices' Garden. Something to be spotted next time.
And so ended our first heritage visit for some months. Very satisfactory.
Reference 2: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/search?q=echium+ventnor.
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