Severn and Wye

I took this photograph, walking through the orchards of Corse Court Farm, just West of the River Severn, this warm afternoon. (We are enjoying an Indian Summer.) The adjacent St Margaret's Church, Corse must be one of the remotest from its village in Gloucestershire. To have gone round by the road would have meant a long detour, so we walked across to it. It's an idyllic setting, but there is nothing very remarkable about the interior, save for an excellent set of boards explaining about the Chartist Movement. One of five rural utopian communities was briefly established in the neighbourhood in the late 1840s, to my shame not something I knew much if anything about.

Earlier, we had driven just beyond Ross, and I found myself looking down on the River Wye, glistening in the sunshine. Away from the A40, you are soon in narrow lanes with high hedges. Good brakes are needed - and (my advice for the driver of a Chelsea Tractor we encountered) it does help not to be on the phone.

O to be in Herefordshire

We drove through Herefordshire yesterday morning, almost to the Welsh border near Presteigne. Then we returned a different way, with the evening sun over the Marcle Ridge. What a beautiful county it is! From the moment I near the end of the M50, coming down into the Wye Valley, my heart lifts.

Leaving the motorway, we took country lanes towards Weston-under-Penyard to visit Mr. and Mrs. Hughes's garden at Kingstone Cottages, which I had found in the Yellow Book. Though it didn't look very exciting from its entrance, we were rapidly captivated. Not least by the stunning vista Westwards towards Ross Church, with Garway Hill in the distance. The garden itself represents thirty years' labour of love. I took this photograph from the grotto, created by Michael Hughes. A narrow path leads down to the entrance: you think it leads nowhere. Eventually there's a tiny room, its walls lined with bottles and shells. Sitting on a stool, the window gives you a frog's eye view over a pond. An entirely secret place.

Monet's Garden at Giverny is the nearest thing I've seen to Kingstone; but we had this one all to ourselves. The National Collection of old pinks and carnations resides in a parterre - important, but really the least magical part of the garden for me.