Re-posted from my wordpress blog. Originally posted on 24/09/2018
Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex is an interesting place. You pay at a gate outside the car park to go into the grounds and then you pay at the Castle entrance for a tour of the Castle. I didn’t go in, as I was far more interested in the grounds and I had a good explore.
They had a rose garden that seemed to be devoted to sundials as well, there was a massive one in the middle of the garden. I wondered whether I could take it home, however was told no. For multiple reasons.
At some point, I heard a Peacock and couldn’t work out where it was. I did see a peahen, but it wasn’t the bird making the noise. Turned out the culprit was half way up a tree, I didn’t even know these birds could fly.
It was a very hot day and I wanted to have a paddle in a tiny pond that was just the right size for me but decided against it when lunch was mentioned. My friends had packed a picnic and we each had a pork pie, which was the same size as my head, so as usual had to share with someone. There were also some sweet chili peanuts and I had a couple, they were really nice but you couldn’t eat many at one time.
They also have something called a Magic Garden, but unfortunately this garden looked a little dead when I went. Most likely due to the recent heat wave England had been through. The whole garden was covered so that probably didn’t help. They did have some giant wooden mushrooms that I could sit on.
There were a lot of chestnut trees as well, I managed to get a photo of me sitting in a hollow in one of them as many were very old, some were from the 1700s. One was very twisted because it was struck by lightning but I couldn’t tell which one it was as they were all very similar.
There were a lot of different art pieces around the garden, mostly sculptures. My favourite was this wooden squirrel, which was similar to the giant mushrooms I found. I’d noticed some catoony signs about and this squirrel had one with a cartoon squirrel underneath it. I wondered if it was part of a kid’s activity. For me though, it was a great place to perch.
Leave a Reply