Saturday Stroll, Weir Gardens

 

With the failure to find a suitable bakery Close to home, the option ranged further afield. Sue and I wanted to check out the Oakchurch farm shop to see what they had available on a Saturday.
This was very successful with fresh bakes in a number of ranges, and after checking maps this would be a longer bread run than previous ones, but still within acceptability at the long end (15km round trip).

So future trips planned, we opted to visit Weir gardens (just down the road from the farm shop) on the way home.

It had been raining steadily all morning, and added to the previous few days of rain everything was wet, however not muddy or even boggy.
We wandered along the preferred garden trail, following the numbers on the map.
We walked up the slope to pass the big house - now a residential nursing home.
The path had occasional vistas down to the river, and around the bend.

From the end of the gardens we then returned on the lower walk - a little wetter, but still very passable.

Along the concrete parapet and past the rock garden (with contorted acers) to the boathouse (not open).

Along t the new fence around the suspected roman buttress and remains of structures.
hence back to the car park entrance.

A diversion to the walled garden (separate to the woodland gardens), and its restored glasshouse.
then back to the car to return home for lunch. We will return to explore the parkland as well as the gardens when it is not raining.

Statistics

Distance	Elapsed	Height
2.6km	1h 19m	47m