When we arrived we were rather surprised to see trucks galore and soon realised there was a film crew there. At the ticket office we were informed that a movie remake of "Far From the Madding Crowd" was being filmed. Thankfully the gardens were still open and in fact we had to walk past loads of actors/extras in period costume to get to the gardens around the front of the house. We didn't find out until we left which actors were starring in it; nobody that I know apart from a couple of people I've vaguely heard of. Thank goodness it wasn't Colin Firth is all I can say, or I'd have spent all afternoon hanging around trying to get a glimpse of him! I actually remember the film from decades ago starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates but don't know the story line at all as I saw it when I was too young to make sense of it.
What I was surprised and pleased to see were the amount of pretty autumn colours here - a total contrast from higher up where Mum lives. We were told that this valley is in fact in quite a frost pocket which may explain some of the more native plants having already coloured up, but as it's a public garden with an arboretum it is not surprising that they also have many non native trees which have splendid autumn colours.
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| The back of the house with a huge walled kitchen garden with fruit, vegetables and flowers. |
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| We weren't supposed to take photos but hey I've got a superzoom 'paparazzi' camera so nobody noticed me taking this from a distance..... :-) |
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| View uphill from the bog garden. |
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| Yours truly! |
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| View over the Great Pond from the bog garden. |
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| Farmland behind the gardens looking very English to me. |
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| There were loads of flowers still in bloom. |
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| The Mermaid Pond. |
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| A Japanese Maple starting to change colour, and I can just about see a face in that bark behind. |
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| No idea what the fungi is but it looks interesting. |
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| There are extensive rock gardens which were still very colourful. |
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| I see faces in these flower buds! I think it's a flowering sage of some kind. |
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| Dahlias and more Dahlias. |
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| The annoying thing about the filming is that the front of the building was covered in scaffolding with lighting rigs and people, vans and trucks all in the way. |
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| I've no idea what most of the trees in the arboretum section were but it was wonderful to see so many trees and shrubs starting to turn beautiful colours. |
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| There were also plenty of trees with berries too which brightened up a dull day! |
All in all a lovely visit despite grey skies.
Their website, showing what it looks like through the seasons, and with blue sky! http://www.fordeabbey.co.uk/
