Sheffield Park and Garden is one of the many that are
managed by the National Trust in England. They are
a large non-profit charity that was founded in 1895 to preserve Britain’s
buildings, landscape and coastline.
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| Lily Pads |
We are having a springtime visit to Sheffield Park and
Garden to enjoy a different season than the autumn visit we had before. We are here just a bit too early to see the
water lilies that will be covering this middle lake about two weeks after our
visit. That would be stunning. They offer a Water Lily Photography workshop,
which would also be great.
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| Pulham Falls |
Interesting that Victorian engineering is still being used
to pump the water around the garden.
They are now having Waterfall Walks this year. They aren’t charging for it but one must book
to walk along the bottom of the waterfall as it cascades down and give you a
different perspective of the falls.
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| Rhododendrons |
Although the day wasn’t sunny, as I’d love every day to be,
the beautiful bushes of Rhododendrons brightened up the gardens. There were
several large bushes around the Park as well as so many other trees and bushes,
that visiting anytime would offer some beautiful sights.
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| Sheffield Park House |
Privately owned, this was the home of the owners of
Sheffield Park and Garden, who changed many times over the years. One of the most memorable owners would be
Arthur Soames, who is given much credit for introducing many of the treasured
flowers still living in this garden. Still
privately owned, it has now been converted into several condos or flats, as
they call them in England.
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| Beautiful floral displays |
This is a sampling of some of the flowers we saw on our
visit this day. The colors are gorgeous
and they are blooming all over the Garden. There are several walking paths to
follow, I am sure one could spend a week wandering the different Garden trails
in order to see and enjoy it all. This Map illustrates them and will give you an idea of the size of Sheffield Park
and Garden.
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| Large Gunnera plant |
Granted, my sister is not very tall, but these plants are
monsters. There are clusters of them
around the Garden, and hopefully I have the right name of this plant. It is a Gunnera, which grows to incredible
sizes. There is plenty of room for these
huge plants to grow here, there are over 250 acres in Sheffield Park and Garden
and we have only walked a very small portion of that.
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| Bridge over Lower Woman's Way Pond |
We eventually cross this bridge but we were waiting to see
if we would see another waterfall. We
hoped that today they would open the waterworks to allow the water from Upper
Woman’s Way Pond to fall down into this lake, and they have a chosen time of
day to do that when need be. As it turns
out, the water level was too low so not possible, it didn’t happen.
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| Canadian Soldiers legacy |
The War Office requisitioned Sheffield Park during WW2 for
the British soldiers and it eventually became camp for thousands of Canadian
troops, as well. They lived and trained
on the grounds, which surely did some damage that took many years to bring the
state of the park back to its’ former beauty, some of which the soldiers helped
with.
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| Canada Geese and ducks |
We found some immigrants who obviously came from Canada and
had their young here. The Canada Geese
are part of a fairly small flock enjoying this lovely Garden. Then a little duck decided to perform her
‘drying-off-water methods’ for me when she got out of the lake. I’ve not spent a lot of time with ducks to
know how they think so maybe she was looking for treats from me. LOL She was in no hurry to stop, little did she
know that I had no treats.
Click here to see our autumn visit at Sheffield Park.
