this month's flower
Edgworth and District Horticultural Society
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AUTUMN VISIT - 4 OCTOBER 2008



CASTLE HOWARD



Castle Howard


Our trip to Castle Howard was rather later in the year than usual, something we’ll avoid in future since at this time of year the flower beds are finished and the autumn colours haven’t arrived. The coach arrived about 10 minutes late (some panic at the Barlow Institute!). Very soon after leaving Bromley Cross, the lady inside the driver's Sat-Nav started to get very irritated as the driver ignored her demands to turn around. We soon discovered that she’d been told to take us from Castle Howard back to Edgworth! So Phil took over her job for the remainder of the journey. This went well until the last mile when an oncoming coach driver pointed out the difficulty of fitting the coach through an archway several inches narrower than the coach! A quickly improvised diversion was needed (did anyone notice?)

For the hardy souls who ventured on our trips this year (armed with waterproofs and wellies) the Yorkshire weather was something of a bonus – cold and cloudy, but amazingly, until the heavy rain of our drive home it was dry all day.

Our garden tour was given by an enthusiastic lady volunteer, a semi-retired lecturer with a fairly stern manner! She showed us the colourful delphinium beds……..but these were photographs since the beds had been cleared! For “health and safety” reasons we couldn’t go into the kitchen-garden walled by high yew hedges so we peered through a gap in the hedge as she described the heating system for growing pineapples. Although there was a lot of ducking and weaving, no-one could see anything! Fortunately, her interest and talk focussed on the history of the garden and of the Howard family and had little horticultural content. The talk was interesting however, and parts of the garden were growing some good vegetable varieties so we enjoyed the tour.

For more information visit the web site.

Castle Howard