Lovely Spring day here!!!!

[woodchip]

It was such a lovely Spring day here that I decided to take a walk with the camera around the Kingston Lacy estate nearby.
The house was started in 1663, after the family had their previous home (Corfe Castle) destroyed in the Civil War.
The parkland and current house was created through the late 18th and early 19th century.

There is something about formal parkland with the layout of trees that I like, and todays walk amongst the tall cedar trees was a real pleasure.

The Red Devon cattle have been bred here since the late 18th century, the beef is particularly fine quality, and available from the estate farm shop.

The original house was transformed into a grand Italian style over several years, and completed in 1841.
The cedar tree in the foreground was damaged in a great storm in October 1987 which felled over a million oak trees in Southern England.

The house was given to the National Trust in 1981, and is now open to the public.
More info on the National Trust site if anybody wants to read more, I'm off for a strawberry cream tea now

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-kingstonlacy.htm

 

[woodsmaster]

Nice to see a live ash tree. there all dead around me from the EAB. Never realized cedars got that big.

 

[jimbom]

So. How does that old beech burn?

 

[jimbom]

So. How does that old beech burn?

The 180 years old Kingston Lacy estate beech along the grand entrance. Hello. Is this thing on?

 

[woodchip]

Sorry, missed your first post!

Quite a few of us have managed to scrounge some of the beech trees that have been removed so far
It burns very well, nice and bright, but really needs to season for a year or two, I only got a few bits last year.
Being such large trees that are being removed or pruned, the splits have very little bark and they don't produce much ash which is a bonus.
They are slowly being replaced by hornbeam trees which will give a similar colour in the fall, but they will take a very long time to come to maturity.
Originally, 365 trees were planted each side of the mile long carriage drive by William Bankes in 1835 as a wedding anniversary gift for his wife.
Time has taken it's toll, and pruning and thinning will be going on for at least 15 - 20 years as the hornbeam grows.

Sadly, what was once an elegant carriage drive is now a fairly busy road, I love driving along there in the fall when the colours are at their finest.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

That looks like a beautiful place.

 

[Mt Ski Bum]

It's a pretty nice spring day here also... the peak is kinda obscured by the clouds today, though.... but it's already about 45 degrees at noon!