The Great Country Estates of Britains Series. Blickling Hall Part Two

We continue our tour of Blickling Hall with the gardens...

Above: The clocktower. Reminiscent of the stone clock tower at Hatfield house, but this tower is actually constructed of wood and painted and plastered to look like stone!

Below: A simple colonnade.

In the 18th century John Hobart, the second Early of Buckingham redesigned the baroque styled parterres gardens like so many gardens of the 18th centruy, in the landscape style and included woods, follies and lakes.

Follwing the second earl's death his daughter employed Humphry Repton to continue redesigning the gardens. The estate covers almost 5000 acres, 55acres in garden

The current large lawn with its four large corner beds was designed in 1930s by Norah Lindsay in response to critical comments made in Country Life magazine which had upset the 11th marquis of Lothian, Philip Henry Kerr, the then heir of Blickling.

As you can see from the many statues, urns, sundials and benches the garden is not lacking in ornamentation.

Above: Statue of a dog. Below: A Herm marking the boundary from the main garden to the steps up towards the temple folly.

Above: View back from the steps towards the hall.

Below: View on from the steps towards the folly.

Above: The little Doric temple folly, built about 1728. 

Below: Peter standing on its steps, with the view back to the house.

Below: Sundial in an enclosed garden.

Above: Stretching out into the park, the sunlight was fading fast, which did provide some nice photos before is disappeared completely.

The orangery was built in the 1870s to over winter tender citrus fruit...

Just before the sun set completely we made it to a pub on the edge of the estate and managed to get a couple of pints in before heading back to Kings Lynn for the night, ready to head off to Sandringham and Holkham the following day.