Cragside Gardens

This is actually a garden we went to over a week ago.

I loaded the photos onto the post but didn't write anything. I am still having occassional trouble with loading photos, my last post only had a few of the pictures i wanted to put on, kept having "security error" messages coming up. Whether it is because i am using McDonald's Wifi I don't know??

Anyway I am at another mcDonalds at the moment, in Basildon which is in Essex, and hours drive from Yvonne's in London. I have brought the truck over here for a service, the nearest motorhome service provider i could find on the internet, hopefully good work will be done for a reasonable price, and then we can move on, back to the continent and on with our adventures.

Anyway, back to cragside, a beautiful as the photos show National trust property up in Yorkshire i think it was. It is north of Newcastle. The thing about this place, apart from its beauty is that it was owned by Lord Armstrong who was apparently quite an inventor. He trained as a lawyer but then became really interested in engineering, water wheels, electricity etc. This was the first house in the UK to be powered by electric lightbulbs, and is full of fascinating inventions the man made. He fitted mechanised spits for roasting meat in the kitchen, with interlocking cogs throughout the house driving the turning from a water wheel. He also had a hydrollic lift again one of the first to help the servants transport things from the cellars around the house.

I do have a pamphlet but of course not with me, so I can't give much more info, other than to say he was obviously a really talented man who refreshingly made his fortune through his own hard work and good ideas, unlike so many of these places which are/were owned by wealthy people who had inherited or made their money by being unpleasant to others. Goodness me, I must be a bit of a socialist, not that i would mind having lots of money of course, but not through the misfortune or abuse of others, .... well may be just a little!! No not really.

The other good thing about Cragside was they had a wildlife hide in the gardens/trees. We had a couple of visits to it, at the beginning and end of the visit. The bird life was amazing, finches of every colour, tits, (Hilary made a joke about seeing a couple of Great tits, I don't know where she comes from sometimes), we also saw pheasants who were hanging out under the feeders, woodpeckers all really close up. We got to see our first and second and third red squirrel, and also a fallow deer (just a little one), who popped its head through the trees a few metres away, before startling and disappearing again. It really was a wonderful experience to see all these natives at such close quarters.

Red squirrel

Glass house full of an orchard (grapes, nectarines, citrus, apples, pears, veges and herbs)

A couple of weirdos in the formal garden

A huge carving on an old stump. The tree was over a hundred and the sculptor had carved the creatures into the stump, who had lived in the tree when it was alive.

Cragside from the rock garden below

Some of the gorgeous jelly/mousse molds

The kitchen with meat rotisserie on right

Marvellous wooden panelling, hand carved

Took my fancy washing equipment

A woodpecker eating peanuts