Alun SaltI visited Biddulph Grange Garden, a National Trust Property in Staffordshire. As visits go it wasn’t a huge success. The sky was solid cloud that hammered the light flat, meaning there was no real light and shade for photographs. They all came out awful, except this one which merely came out bad. I converted it to black and white and coloured the highlights. Despite that, and the masses of people that also went there on Easter Sunday I thought the garden looked good. It’s a bit early in the season for the garden to be at its best, but on a summer’s day with fewer people this would be a terrific place to visit.
The landscape and the planting is extrenely sculpted, which kills any idea of the gardens being nature, but that doesn’t stop them from being works of art. The China area is in need of replanting following restoration, but that looks like it will be stunning in time.
A.I. Assistant
I visited Biddulph Grange on a Bateman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bateman ) pilgrimage some years ago. I enjoyed it a lot, but definitely somewhere to avoid on a bank holiday!