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Early summer days

15 May 2016
Ben Pentreath
38 Comments

The sun has shone on Dorset this weekend. I’m writing on a quiet Sunday evening after the most fantastic couple of days. We’ve had our friends Will and Brandon (and Mavis’s best new friend, their Airdale puppy, Lewis) staying with us.

Friday evening was balmy. The Parsonage was bathed in warm sunshine. Charlie’s vegetable garden is looking like a microcosm of paradise.

The last of the tulips, pretty much:

But the first of the apple blossom:

I have always loved the delicate beauty of the late flowering Narcissi, Pheasants Eye, which we are planting every year now along the orchard path.

The wisteria decided this was the weekend it was going to burst into flower. As it has been for primroses, it feels like it’s been an amazing year for wisteria. 

We took Mavis and Lewis to meet the cows in the field, which always arrive at this time of year, as regularly as the seasons change.

The cows galloped over (do cows gallop?) and were fascinated by the puppies.

The setting sun did its usual trick for first-evening-arrived-from-London friends.

Mavis and black cow love-in:

Sunset.

After a very happy dinner we woke early (well, you can’t help waking early with the puppies in tow) and headed to Bridport Market. As everyone knows, there is no point in even trying to drive into Bridport after about 9.15 in the morning, unless you enjoy traffic jams and frantic middle-class road rage in the Waitrose car park.  Best get in early.  We did.

We had a good market – buying a very nice jug with a little price label on it saying £7.50. ‘What’s your best price’ I asked the lady on the stall. ‘Let me have a look at the label’ she said. ‘oh, yes, let me see, it’s £7.50’.

Fair enough. It was still a bargain, although I’m afraid I haven’t yet taken a photo.

But I did enjoy the randomness of stalls at Bridport Market, as always.

Bag of plastic dinosaurs anyone?

Or, as Brandon said, a talking-point book for your coffee table? 

Or someone else’s wedding photo?

This was a nice cover:

We bought fresh crab to go with drinks that evening:

And listened to the St. Swithin’s Silver Band:

Who are brilliant, and I realised at that particular moment there was no where else on earth that you’d rather be than in Bucky Doo Square in Bridport.

After lunch we ventured on a little trip, National Trusting; two beautiful houses that incidentally (following my slightly controversial post from Cornwall a couple of weeks ago) had been presented without a costumed interpreter in sight.  Tintinhull, followed by Montacute.

Tintinhull is approached across a perfect orchard meadow.

Their wisteria is extreme.

The house must be one of the great, perfect gems of English classic domestic architecture. It is truly impossible to think of anything which would improve this facade.   It is rather the thing these days to comment that the garden is not what is was in the glory days when Penelope Hobhouse was the National Trust’s remarkable tenant here for many years. I well remember visiting when I was really quite young, my breath taken away.  Maybe Charlie and I need to persuade the Trust to let us move in one day. What do you think?

For now, you can enjoy this beautiful place as a short term holiday let… probably the finest National Trust cottage there is.

There is nothing in the world more inviting than an ancient oak gate, faded silver grey, set in a lichen-encrusted brick wall with a small stone manor house beyond.

We arrived at Montacute in the late afternoon, as the gardens were emptying of people but full of serene early summer grandeur.

I suddenly had a vision that Montacute, and all these great Tudor palaces, feel more genuinely of the Renaissance than any more pure renditions of Palladian architecture that followed a hundred years later. Blink and you could be in Urbino.  Especially at the place where this gravel path meets the hard warm sandstone wall bounding the great courtyard garden. How fascinating to have resisted the urge to smother this wall with climbing plants.

The contrast within the court garden is all the more magical. I adore the tiny, romantic corner pavilions. Would they not be a dream place for a midsummer dinner?

Beyond, the great wide avenue stretches away to the east.

Fabulous beasts on the roofline.

“Act Naturally”

The orangery.Fragments of the ancient, red-brick walled garden are now the overflow car park. Possibly the nicest car park in Britain?

We got home to the late afternoon haze, the whole garden glowing, jewel-like. Mavis and Lewis were basically in heaven all weekend. Charlie’s crab salad and Brandon’s home made pate accompanied drinks with our neighbours Ed, Christine and Nic.

I couldn’t resist a photo of the veg garden in the early evening sunlight, I’m afraid.

Mavis and Lewis carried on playing for hours, which generally involved Mavis chasing Lewis, if we are honest.

Another spectacular sunset. The valley is so beautiful at this particular time of the year.

This morning, some of us fighting hangovers more than others (you will be very glad to know I went to bed at midnight…) we went in sparkling sunshine to Mapperton, which I suppose is the perfect Dorset house and garden. Obviously I have taken photographs here before, and I know that it is a favourite house of many readers of this blog. With reason.

The restored orangery was looking very fine.

I was very jealous of the daturas.

I don’t think you would believe that the orangery was constructed in the late 1960s.

I love the contrast between the ancient house and the perfect Edwardian gardens below. Two different worlds.

One of my favourite parts of Mapperton is the wonderful arboretum at the end of the garden. The spring green was intense.

Clouds of cow parsley billow down the hillside.

We found a tiny beautiful baby rabbit and were rather thankful that Mavis and Lewis were at home at this particular moment. Charlie tried to catch the rabbit in which case I think we would be home with a new pet. This was not to be.

Mapperton really is like something out of a dream.

We came home to a delicious lunch cooked by Charlie at which moment I put my camera away and lived in the moment of perfectly roasted lamb, salads, cheese, wine, happy conversation and intense heat from the sun. The first lunch in the garden. I collapsed in to a deep sleep and then it was time for the boys’ farewell. We had a little walk and got back to the grass terrace and fell fast asleep again, Mavis, me and Charlie lined up in a row.

Now it is evening. Clouds have rolled in from the west but a beautiful sunset is about to open up. Charlie and I are sitting in the kitchen. Mavis is fast asleep on her armchair. And as I was just writing that sentence, a great golden sun broke through the clouds and set in the west. You won’t mind the fact that C and I went out with our cameras. So beautiful. Have a great week ahead.