On Friday 30th September I met up with Rhys Jones at National Trust’s Cliveden for a photo walk. My visits to Cliveden are usually in the school holidays when the place is bustling with visitors young and old. It was then unusual to be able to park in the nearly empty car park right by the Information Centre.
Our first walk was down to the River Thames after walking past the house and the South Terrace. The Terrace is still being renovated but the Eastern end was still open so we could have some great views of the Parterre. We went down the Yew Tree Walk to the Thames and watched some of the boats going by (in the rain!).
We walked back up to the Parterre using some of the steep paths and I we walked past the Parterre there was a bird of prey circling around the garden.
It was now shortly after noon and we went past the house to the Orangery Cafe.
This was perfect timing as the heaven’s opened and the cafe soon filled with fellow visitors sheltering from the rain.
The Grand Avenue
After a sandwich and a long conversation about camera clubs we walked back down alongside the Grand Avenue to the Fountain of Love.
The Fountain of Love
Despite the rain we were not the only ones using the NT map to get our bearings.
The Water Garden and Storybook Play Den
We walked back past the Information Centre, the Maze and went to have a look at the Water Garden
and then onto The Storybook Play Den. We were the only people in the children’s play area and I took these images of a couple of the wood carved characters.
Walking back past the Water Garden it took a while for any of the fish to appear but we were patient and waited.
Woodland walk
Our next walk was back towards the entry kiosk to walk along the bridleway towards the woodlands.
Further down the bridleway we turned right towards the overlook of the Thames and the Duke’s statue (called the Duke’s Seat on the map).
Cliveden from Duke’s Seat
We then accepted the challenge of capturing the view of the house away to our right and the painting made of the same view.
This lady was out walking her dog towards us as we juggled our settings to get the shot of the house from that spot.
After a brief conversation with her (and double checking taking her picture was OK) we went to look out across the Thames.
We then walked along the dog walking trail for a good 15 minutes before turning back towards the house and leaving the woods behind.
We did take a short detour to have a look at the Round Fruit Garden. This has been restored since my first visits to Cliveden and will one day be splendid as the fruit trees are trained over the arches.
Back at the Information Centre we had time for one more cup of tea before calling time on our photo walk.