Courtyard Fountain...

We have been slowly chipping away at a few final touches since we shifted in (2 years ago this Christmas). One of those touches was finishing the courtyard fountain and pond. We have so far got it to this stage....

The plans for the fountain show the circular lawn and pond, with a fountain in the centre and four stone lions spouting water into the pond from the lawn...

We  started the pond 2 years ago, when we were forming the driveway...

And then had the turf laid...

Inspired by photos such as these...

Then we took a long time searching for a fountain. We initially considered ornate statuary such as this...

But settled on something more restrained and classical...

 like these...

By now the fountain was starting to look almost finished, but we had also gone through 3 years in a row where we failed to get our waterlilies in the lake to take (every time a fresh shoot came up the Mallards ate it). So we decided to try having waterlilies and goldfish in the courtyard pond after seeing how this could still look rather nice...

We were lucky enough that a local couple who booked to come to high tea after the fine homes tour said that they had a large pond with fish and waterlilies, which they were having to cull annually, and would we like some? We said yes please. So last weekend we popped down the road to visit them and collect said aquatic offerings. They had a large clay puddled pond with masses of fish and lilies...

The gentleman kindly donned his waders, jumped in, and started to dig out some well rooted lilies...

He also caught us some fish (7), for our pond as well... 

Here are two of them (Brian and Jackie) being released into our pond at home...

I spent the morning potting up the lily pads, making sure I spaced them all out carefully and turned all the leaves up to face the sun. Woe betide any Mallards that come near this pond!

Finally, we wish to complete the fountain by getting a jet ring to go around the inside of the pond and spray water back towards the urn...

As well as some Buxus or Euonymus to go around the outside...

We are discovering it is nice to have some ongoing projects, to keep us engaged with the park in a creative journey that will hopefully last for generations to come. Night night for now...

Bright Ideas...

Recently we have invested in a lot of landscape lighting, as well as having coloured LEDs installed above the cornicing in the ballroom, which can be set to any colour on the spectrum (from subtle to not so subtle!).

Here are some photos:

Below: The Sphinxes lit with Duracell solar lights...

Above and Below: The Super-bright 60 lumen spotlights available from Duracell USA, which are a big advance upon traditional solar garden lights (which are usually about 5 - 8 lumens).

As you can see, they are plenty powerful for our needs, and have let us light up many of the garden features around the 30 acres, without us having to run cabling around that sized area...

Two of them powerful enough to light up the folly by night too...

We did a lot of research about LED lighting when we bought the bulbs for the inside of the manor. It was a compromise between efficiency and longevity; and ambiance. Even with the warmest colour available on the market (2800K), they still do not create the same ambiance as a good old fashioned incandescent Tungsten bulb (but running over 400 of these in a house would not be a sensible idea). Here is an indicator as to the colour warmth of different lights...

With yellow filters on the outdoor lights one can almost achieve the right colour...

Here is a little video clip of the different glows we can achieve in the ballroom. If there is a colour theme to your wedding or event we can match it perfectly, or let the lights cycle through colours if you wish to use the ballroom as a dance floor.

Note: The flickering is only due to recording on a digital camera, and is not visible in real life.

I Feel The Earth Move Under My Feet...

Last week the courtyard and driveway earthworks started. Below is a photo of the driveway before the storm and before the metal was laid down...

We had diggers and trucks onsite contouring the courtyard surface and re-leveling it (the carriage house side of the site was one foot higher than the chapel side. They obviously took this into account during construction, subsequently there are an additional two blocks on the west colonnade wall than the east, or at least there were until the trucks brought in coarse metal and compacted it down with a steam roller...

Above and Below: Getting the earth level and compacted before bringing in the metal.

Above: The digger man made short work of the task. After taking some LASER levels with a theodolite he set to work and virtually free-handed the whole job based on a starting set of measurements. I didn't see him stop half way through to check. Everything just turned out perfectly.

Below: The west colonnade wall. Note the three blocks underneath the door, where on the east colonnade there is only one. This was soon remedied.

Below: Setting out the measurements for the central fountain. There is a twelve metre wide circular lawn in the centre of the courtyard, with a six metre circular fountain in the middle of it. 

The dotted orange line going down the centre of the photo is the final alignment for the end of the driveway. They made the penultimate curve more acute, as well as the final reverse curve, so that the driveway hits the courtyard dead centre and perfectly perpendicularly (say that three times).

Below: The circle in the middle is the width of the lawn.

Click on the panorama below to enlarge.

Below: The metal being laid.

 Above: View from first curve back towards gates.

Below: View from first curve towards second curve.

Above: View from potager entrance across second part of drive towards manor.

Below: View from courtyard back towards final curves.

Then the builders boxed up the sides of the driveway and the courtyard and started to pour the concrete for the curbing. It will have coloured cement rendered on it once it is dry, so that it matches the sandstone of the buildings.

While the diggers were on site they also dug out the garden paths for us.

Above: Plan of paths.

Below: Six foot wide paths dug out for us to line the sides with wood and back-fill with hoggin.

 Above: Path along formal lawn and off down Lime Walk towards Rotunda.

Below: Path along formal lawn and off down side of Badger's Wood towards Lake and Palladian Bridge. 

Below: Path as it travels past Sphinxes along the back of the formal lawn.

The Gardeners of Worcester College have created some traditional Hoggin paths, which are similar to those we are trying to create...

Other hoggin paths...