| Status: | Active, open to new members |
| Coordinator: |
Alison Manning
|
| When: | Monthly all day 10:00 AM-5:00 PM venues across North |
| Cost: | £5 for transport + entry, lunch etc. |
We are extremely lucky to have such a range of beautiful gardens and historic houses across our region.
It is a pleasure to visit them at any time of the year as each has a different story to tell throughout the seasons.
From ruined castles and stately mansions to refurbished country houses, through intimate cottage gardens to sweeping grand estates we try to visit as many as we can!
Our Co-ordinators work extremely hard to arrange visits throughout the year and have covered snowdrop displays in February, colourful displays of bulbs in spring, spectacular herbaceous borders in summer and vibrant foliage in autumn. Many of these gardens are attached to wonderful houses, usually with delicious tearooms! And we always try to arrange a December visit to one of our local historic homes to see their Christmas displays and indulge in some festive shopping.
We had quite a busy year in 2023-24 visiting various Homes and Gardens such as those at Beamish, Ormesby Hall, Bowes Museum, Mount Grace Priory, Kiplin Hall and Seaton Delaval. Thornton Hall Gardens were a delight; the most beautiful display of annuals, perennials, herbaceous plants and trees arranged in swooping swathes in what were two fields surrounding a Jacobean farmhouse. A large modern garden room centres one garden, while the other contains a lovely pond complete with water lilies and statuary.
A cross-group (with the Theatre group) enjoyable day was spent in Reeth, admiring their community garden and the beautiful Swaledale views after listening to a most enjoyable talk by Whispering Bob Harris (Old Grey Whistle Test) on 'Songs the Beatles Gave Away.'
Until very recently it was becoming increasingly difficult to arrange visits to the further reaches of our area as transport costs, post-Covid had become excessively high. The Homes and Gardens Group is one of the more popular and it was not always possible, because of numbers, to arrange shared transport in members' cars.
However, earlier this year we were very fortunate to be awarded a substantial grant to help with transport costs for all of our groups who regularly travel out of the village. Currently each member pays only £5 towards travel for each visit with the balance being paid from these new funds.
We have also arranged access to the Community Bus Service which is proving to be much more reasonably priced than commercial transport and more convenient for our needs especially as a couple of our members have trained as drivers!
We always have such a good day out where/when ever we go; please support us if you can.
To get more information or join this group please contact group leaders, Alison or Carol on sedgefieldu3a@gmail.com