Tuesday 29 - Leek & Biddulph

Where are Bertie & Erica? They are sitting on adjacent pitches at Leek Camping & Caravanning Club site where our five-night stay has come in at £132 and some pence, for hardstanding with electricity. 

Weather: not as good as forecast with a persistently overcast sky keeping the temperature down until late afternoon when it finally got into the 20s. 

We are on holiday! Some might consider that our entire lives are one long holiday, but I make the distinction that usually we just travel around and use Bertie as our mobile house, living pretty normal lives and not trying to pack everything in as one might on holiday. This week we have come away with both Bertie and Erica, with Bertie providing fixed accommodation whilst Erica facilitates day trips. 

The day tripping started yesterday, even though we didn't leave home until late morning and didn't arrive at the campsite until gone 1pm (that being the earliest permitted arrival time). We didn't tarry; as soon as Bertie had been settled onto a pitch and plugged into the mains, we jumped into Erica and headed the 11 miles over to Biddulph Grange Gardens. That is the very National Trust property that Mick visited without me the week before last, whilst I was out on the Staffs Way, but he'd mainly been in their cafe with just a quick look around the nearest section of the gardens. 

This time, we did the place more justice, and discovered that there was more there than just a simple garden, with the hall's original drawing room being accessible, an information display in an underbuilding (an open cellar, is how I'd describe it, if that's a thing?), a geological gallery with a fossil display (which used to be the public entrance to the gardens, back in 1850 when it first opened) and a Chinese pagoda, together with a couple of other small follies. 

I wouldn't have classed myself as an appreciator of gardens, but I was taken with this one and it was well worth the visit.  

Look at those hedges! Mick talked to one of the hedge-tending gardeners, who said that they get them that straight by eye and by long experience, not by using level-sticks or lasers. 

The quantity of trees masks what is hidden between them. Unfortunately, I failed to take any photos of those things (or maybe that's a good thing, that I was so taken with looking at the surroundings that I didn't even think to take a snap)

A very poor shot of the dahlia walk. 

The Pinetum. We later walked the Lime Avenue. 

The hall itself is privately owned. Mick tells me that there are currently two apartments therein for sale, one at £700k, the other at £1.1m.