attingham: blickling hall

Our grand tour of England comes to a close today with Anne's final post about Blickling Hall. As a garden lover, I think this must be my favorite. I just can't get over the smooth green grass and magnificent hedges! Many, many thanks to Anne for all of her hard work and gorgeous posts this week. Perhaps ~ someday ~ I will follow in her footsteps...

The 18th-century author Hannah More wrote: “You look on Houghton with astonishment, and Blickling with desire.” I have to agree after our final-week visit to Blickling Hall in Norfolk. The main reason that Blickling was such a delight to me will come as no surprise to those who have been following this week’s posts and have noticed a theme developing ~ gardens! Blickling is blessed with superb topiaries, hedges, a mixture of formal and informal gardens (part of which are newly planted in the style of 20th-century gardener Norah Lindsay), and drifts of flowers that seem to float across the clipped green lawn. The photo below gives a sense of the size and impact of Blickling’s magnificent hedges, and also a sense of what it must be like to be in charge of maintaining them!

After touring the interiors, a small group of us set off for a cross-country trek to visit the mausoleum of John Hobart, 2nd Earl of Buckinghamshire, who died in 1793, and his two wives, Mary Anne and Caroline. A good 45-minute walk from the house, the monument unexpectedly appears in a clearing in a part of the grounds that appears completely disconnected with the gardens and landscapes closer to the house. Its pyramidal form is clearly inspired by the funerary architecture of ancient Egypt, and is an interesting precursor to the fascination with Egypt that arose from European military campaigns in Egypt in the first years of the nineteenth century.

Thank you very much to Janet for inviting me to share these brief memories of a delightful experience on her blog, and thanks to all of you who have read and commented on them