Britain's Most Special Places - HHA short film

Did you know that around three quarters of the UK population makes a visit to a heritage site every year?  Or that the top reason for coming to the UK given by foreign visitors is to visit our castles, houses and gardens?  Heritage tourism is an important economic driver in the UK.

To highlight the importance of the heritage sector and the role played by private owners and guardians of our historic properties, the Historic Houses Association has commissioned a short film.  It's well worth a look; please share it with others. 

Autumn turns to Winter

A lot going on in the garden and on the estate, so watch out for some reports on that - ranging from Peto's rose garden, to Alison Jenkins' new designs for the borders on the terrace for 2014, some stonework challenges, and the excitement of winter garden maintenance.

Meanwhile, here are some photos of the winter transition.  For more, you can find us on Facebook here:

Post by Iford Manor: The Peto Gardens.

  

Autumn images

Last Round of the British Maxxis Motocross Championship

Last weekend saw the final round of the Maxxis MotoX championship come to the internationally renowned circuit at Farleigh Hungerford.  The organisers have posted the video below, showing some of the action.

Autumn colour - pots, beds and leaves

Alison Jenkins produced some brilliantly colourful borders this year.  Now, with winter approaching, the team has taken the annuals out in preparation for the first of the perennials to be planted.  This is the next phase of our Replanting Scheme which is a three year project to realign the floral element of the garden, to be more in tune with Harold Peto's ethos.

With the warm weather still just about clinging on (although we had a light frosting last night on the top of the hills), we still have some late colour in the garden, and not just from the pots.

  Visitors today were treated to a warm afternoon bathed in beautiful, low autumn sunlight which back-lit the leaves of the great cercidiphyllum...

...and here the Vitis coignetiae which blushes through the old (150-200 year old) yew tree by the conservatory.

 The venerable chestnuts are changing their costumes too, and in a fortnight or so I would expect to see the beech trees above begin to turn and the acers by the cloister to join in the fun.

Welcome, Autumn!

The evenings are drawing in now that the equinox is passed, and whilst the birds may still be singing and the Indian summer sun breaking gently through the mists, the mellow fruitfulness requires some pruning.  Mark, our fruit tree expert has been putting the cordon trees to bed for the year.  The oldest apples in the kitchen garden pre-date Harold Peto by quite some stretch, but they battle on (mostly).

 Meanwhile, the last of the floral colour in the garden is holding out, while we wait for the trees to change their wardrobe for the 'fall'.

 

 But the trees aren't far behind... so don't forget that Iford is still open on Sundays in October.

Balsam Bashing Bonanza

A group of "balsam bashers" from the Friends of the River Frome, led by Dorothy-Anne Bryant, visited Iford today to assist us with the ongoing fight against Himalayan Balsam.

Balsam is an annoyingly pretty, but highly invasive species which is colonising the UK's river banks.

 The team of 8 donned their gloves, waders, and other gear and pulled the better part of two tonnes of plants over the course of a couple of hours.

We even deployed the good ship Siegfried.  

Siegfried is a former Rheingold dredger from back in the day (no, not really).

 It was a lot of fun, and if you would like to join the Balsam Bashers in their essential work to free the bank from this invasive plant, then go to their website here:

http://fromeriverfriends.org.uk/

Yoga and Gong Bath in the Cloister

The gentle patter of raindrops falling from the Cloister's stone tiled roof formed a natural backing-track to a yoga session in the cloister led by Philomena Plunkett this evening.  Around ten had signed up for this first ever yoga evening in the cloister, and after a successful event we hope next year to develop this into a little series.

The second half of the session saw Graham Bater take the assembled company through a "Gong Bath" meditation; a most remarkable experience as the sounds washed through the cloister, the acoustic augmenting the lower frequencies.

Graham brought with him a range of gongs, from the large to the small, and his expertise was apparent as he extracted an array of sounds from the percussive to the vocal from these simple metal instruments.

If you would like to know about future yoga or meditation sessions in the garden, please get in touch or join our mailing list (www.ifordmanor.co.uk - at the bottom of the homepage).

Iford Arts Season Round-up

Well, what a season that was - made spectacularly more manageable by the beautiful weather (for the most part) from our point of view.

We kicked off with Verdi's La Traviata, a rich production by Bruno Ravella, the Chroma orchestra conducted by Oliver Gooch.  Critical acclaim in particular for Alinka Kozari's performance as leading lady.

Highlight of a lively weekend of midsummer Jazz was a visit by Claire Martin and Ian Shaw, who engaged the audience with their humourous renditions.

Jeff Clarke's production of Offenbach's La Vie Parisienne brought the comic highlight of the year, as the cast burst onto the cloister scene dressed as steam engines, clouds of white smoke billowing from their funnels.  Review.

Handel's pastoral Acis and Galatea proved itself on the perfect scale for the cloister.  Mary Bevan as Galatea excelled, here pictured with Lukas Jacobski as Polyphemus in Pia Furtado's moving presentation of a well known work.  Christian Curnyn as ever brought the score to life exquisitly.

Reviews: Independent; Telegraph; Guardian

The final fling for the season was a weekend of jazz, including the excellent Minas Project, from Brazil (above).

All in all an excellent season - thank you to the team at Iford Arts who put it all together and we look forward to next year!

Summer... catch it while you can

Storms forecast for this week (much needed for the water, but you know what it can do to blossoms...) so don't miss out on the Iford summer colour. 

As readers of the blog will know, we have been undertaking a historic replanting this year which will be a three year project. The border work on the terrace, despite the long winter is really paying off, and Alison Jenkins' terrace scheme looks splendid. This is phase 1, and the rear of the borders here will be done next, with other borders around the garden following. 

 In other news, fans of Wisteria will want to know that there is a 'token' second flowering out in the upper garden, less so at the front of the house.

Make hay...

Make hay while the sun shines, they say.  So we did.  

With the combination of a late spring, a wet start to the summer and this unusually warm, dry, sunny spell, the grass is coming off in a perfect state - thank you, weather gods!

Rose Garden update

As part of the historic replanting scheme that we are undertaking, Peto's rose garden is being recreated behind the house on the terraces leading to the Spanish patio garden.  Completely new beds  had to be constructed.

 To build strength into the design, and to ensure that the wall below is solid for the next century, we designed concrete plinths and ties to underpin the wooden colonnade support the pillar roses.

Sterilised soil mixed with old horse manure was brought in - something like 10 tonnes in total.

  

Here are the beautiful oak posts before insertion:

 

And here they are in place: