Sunday 27 August 2023. Today our excursion takes us to Abbotsbury where there are two attractions quite close to each other.
Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens is a 20 acre garden, once a walled garden of the Earls of Lichfield who had a house here. It commenced in 1765, the house burned down in 1913, and the garden has remained whilst the earls returned to their home at Melbury House in Dorset. The gardens occupy a sheltered and wooded valley which leads down towards Chesil Beach and include a high viewpoint of the beach. The environment has its own micro-climate and can sustain outdoors many plants that would normally require to be kept in greenhouses. It is Grade I listed.
The gardens were a hard slog for me, I have to use a walking stick these days and there are lots of uneven slopes with a mix of surfaces and it was hard to find our way around. For a start, the maps we were given were printed upside down compared to all the maps displayed around the trails and there were no Exit signs until you were within a stone's throw of it. There were undoubtedly some lovely gardens, thankfully quite a few benches, but also a lot of fairly steep slopes. I didn't take any photos which was a shame, but I was more interested in remaining upright, so the picture is a watercolour of the lily pond that I did once home. I know I'm a bit rubbish at watercolours but every now and then I feel the urge to have another go!
Finally we managed to work out where we were on the map (because of the lily pond!) but then still managed to turn the wrong way and ended at the exit end of a rope bridge that there was no way I would have tried anyway. In fact later when we were waiting for the last passenger to come back to the coach I had visions of her hanging upside down from it, with her head in the water and her foot tangled in the ropes...
Anyway at least we actually found a signpost that gave more information than just a pointer without text. It said "Exit" and we made our way back to the cafe and courtyard dining area which we soon found was full of wasps... The place was refusing cash and insisted on card payment - like a red rag to a bull as far as I'm concerned - and of course they hadn't signposted that either. You were only told when you got to the till having stood in a long queue with a fully loaded tray. It was obviously not the young girl's fault who was serving, but if His Lordship is reading this, get it bloody sorted!
After lunch we were back onto the coach and taken the short distance to Abottsbury Swannery. The swannery was started when swans were reared in order to feed the monks at the nearby abbey set up by King Cnut in the first half of the 11th century. (This is the same Canute who demonstrated his non-divinity by failing to hold off the incoming tide). Swan roasting is slightly frowned upon these days and in any case King Henry VIII chucked the monks out in 1539.
They are mute swans, but not so much that you'd notice from the noise... Two blokes were ringing their legs (the swans that is, not their own...) and whilst one caught a swan then held it in a reverse cuddle which calmed it down, the other fitted an identifying ring. This activity had been paused for a bit whilst Covid and Avian Bird Flu affected both keeper and kept and the swannery was starting a count of the swans which before Covid had reached over 600 birds.
It is the only place in the world where you can walk through a large colony of nesting mute swans. There are two pathways set out where you can see both adults and small enclosures where chicks and cygnets are reared. Many of the them return here as adults to mate and raise their own families. White feathers are all over the place. If you go, you are warned not to pick them up. In times of Avian Bird Flu, the last thing they need is any risk of you taking it to all corners of the country...
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