The Memory Garden at Compton Acres

Today I'm sharing a small part of a garden in Dorset which I visited last March. Compton Acres is in Poole and is one of the most amazing spaces I've been to in a long while.  I've shared little of it here so far, I'm not quite sure why - maybe because there are so many photos to wade through, or perhaps because it's full of plenty of stunning gardens and I want to do it justice.

But I can't do it justice without starting so I'm doing just that and starting with one of the most poignant spaces and that's this small memory garden which was dedicated to the owner's three children in the mid-1950s. 

GARDEN OF MEMORY

AND WITH THE MORN THOSE ANGEL FACES SMILE WHICH HAVE LOVED LONG SINCE & LOST AWHILE

The names of the children, Dick, Elizabeth and Anne are engraved in wooden benches in the small circular space. The son was killed in 1942 while flying in the RAF and the daughters died of polio.

It's believed that their mother arranged flowers from the garden in what I fist thought was a bird bath, but is in fact described as a font. It is, of course, made from local Portland stone and somehow the reflection of the trees in the water echoed the poignancy of its origin.

For me this space proved you can have the smallest of spaces, but it can still be moving and as beautiful as anything larger and full of plants.

Post Comment Love 23 - 25 March

Hello there and welcome back to Post Comment Love, it's Friday again and that means another day off for me this week - I know it's becoming a bit of a habit!  If you were here last week, it was great to see you and if you're new here this week it's great to have you along.

I don't know about you but I'm so over winter, so I'm hoping that the milder forecasts - and the start of spring - are correct. I could do with some more warmth, after the very brief taste we've had of it. And I'm hoping that it's not followed by the same as last week. 

I'm also over socks. And boots. I'm living in trainers, boots and such like all of which require socks. My socks it seems like to rumple down towards my toes and I forever seem to be hoicking them up - even more than tights, which really is peculiar.  I thought perhaps my socks were exhausted, so bought some new ones, but these seem even worse than the old ones. 

So I'm ready to ditch the socks as soon as I can. It seems the only way to save my sanity. That or stapling my socks to my legs, which I don't think is going to be a sensible solution. But enough about socks.

My photo this week is from our visit to Hestercombe Gardens last Friday. It was taken in the spring-like part of the day, before the hail arrived. Aren't the textures great?  Wood, stone and iron all in one shot - and a bit of rust for good measure too.

Much better than socks.

Bloggers Showcase: Sarah from Life in a Break Down and UK Bloggers

Sarah runs one of the best bloggers groups, and I'm sure many people including many of its members don't know what's involved in keeping the group running smoothly.  It's one of the groups I joined fairly early on and so it's nice to feature Sarah in this spot this week.  Morgan is hosting Sarah's full responses, so do pop over there and have a read.

But before you go, here's a taster... 

Sarah's first real experience, and what it could become, took place on Live Journal and you'll know things have progressed somewhat when Sarah says last year she took the decision to try and make blogging her full time income, and so far so good.

Sarah admits she finds it hard to stay on one subject on her blog - which is music to my ears as I "suffer" from that too, as you've probably noticed.

Before you head over to Morgan's to find out more, do give Sarah and/or UK Bloggers a follow on Twitter, or Life in a Break Down on Facebook.  And if you're a blogger based in the UK then take a look at the UK Bloggers Facebook group too.

If you'd like to feature in a future Blogger Showcase, then please get in touch with Morgan or I.

*** PoCoLo is taking a break next week for Easter, but we'll be back again and raring to go 6 April ***

An InLinkz Link-up

Progress at Castle Drogo

They're having quite a bit of work done at Castle Drogo near Exeter. And they have been for quite a while.  We visited again to see what was going on when we were in Devon last weekend, and before that our last visit was in October 2016. For us the progress was noticeable, and as I haven't shared the photos from when we were there before I thought it'd be interesting to look at both sets of photos in parallel. 

But first a bit about the work that's underway, and now hoped to finish by the end of this year. A year later than expected as the contractor ran into difficulties and folded part-way through the project, not what anyone needs.  Talking to the room guides on this visit about the cost of the project we were surprised to learn it's only costing thirteen million.  I know that thirteen million is a lot, and not an amount many of us will ever have, let alone spend, but they're doing a lot with it.

The castle has had problems for a long time, ever since it was completed they've had "major leakage problems" - it's only about a hundred years old, but a hundred years of leaks isn't a good thing, and so a six year project to make the castle watertight is underway.  But it's not just the roof that leaks, the windows do too. 

All of the windows are being replaced, there's 913 windows containing over 13,000 individual panes of glass - and of course, not all the windows are easily accessible.  The castle also needs repointing, as at some point it has been repointed using cement mortar which becomes brittle and cracks over time, which as you've guessed allows water into the core of the wall.  So the blocks of granite are being repointed with lime mortar to allow it to breathe.  This has resulted in granite blocks being carefully dismantled, numbered and stored safely before being replaced. It's almost as if the castle is being rebuilt block by granite block.

A STORE OF CASTLE WALLS

So that's the scene setting done, what does it look like?  Well the most obvious change to us was in the Drawing room, mainly because in 2018 it's starting to look like a Drawing room again.

2018: THE DRAWING ROOM

When we visited in 2016, it was being used as a store room - albeit a rather fabulous one. 

2016: THE DRAWING ROOM AS A STORE ROOM

It was fascinating to see the items displayed in this way, and while they were still curated - see the trunks above and the picture below - it really brought home the quantities of items the National Trust has to deal with, let alone during a project like this.

One thing - or rather two - that were constant were the glorious chandeliers, which we learnt on our visit in 2018 the Drewes brought back from their honeymoon in Venice. I'm not sure we managed to bring back anything quite so grand from our honeymoon, the sentiment is there though. But can you imagine bringing these in through customs, perhaps opting to go through the "Nothing to declare other than two rather ornate chandeliers" channel!  

I'm already looking forward to seeing it when it's done and I'm hoping that it will be almost complete when we head back to Devon much later in the year.

What also struck me looking through photos from two visits is that I have captured very similar photos on each visit - in fact, there's a couple that are exactly the same, but still I don't think they're good enough to share here, so I'll have to try harder on my next visit.

The rest of the photos in this post are from the most recent visit, and all from the same room.  The wooden sinks, with sparkling taps, three this time - I also have a photo of the sink with just two taps, it seems you can never have too many taps, or pictures of taps.

I did managed to snap a new picture on this visit, and that's of this glassware. They're in a glass fronted cabinet so there are reflections, but just look at the detail, not just the etching but also on the base of the stem.

While I'd like to think I'd be living upstairs, in reality it's the downstairs area that fascinates me more. Maybe it's the "technology" or maybe it's because it bears no, or little, resemblance to our own domestic homes, and I'm not sure I'd like to be on the end of the calls from this either, but there you go.

So back to that thirteen million, yes it's a lot but there's a lot of work underway and I think it's worth saving Castle Drogo, don't you?