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The Garden House (Devon, England)

The destinations are beginning to blur but looking at the tour guide booklet, I see that we are now in Plymouth. Today, we visited two gardens designed by Keith Wiley.  The first is The Garden House , where Wiley worked as Head Gardener for 25 years (from 1978-2003). The 10-acre estate was purchased in the 1940s by former Eton schoolmaster Lionel Fortescue and his wife Katherine. It was formerly home to the  vicars of Buckland Monachronum. The Fortescue's renovated the gardens and ran a market garden business and raised cattle.  The remains of some of the original buildings in the vicarage still stand in the garden and serve as a romantic backdrop in the Walled Garden - I loved the way they had massed ferns together. Just stunning! Surrounding the walled garden and venturing out away from the house are more naturalistic plantings  - Today, the head gardener is Nick Haworth, who was previously head gardener at Greenway , which we visited earlier.  Keith Wiley lef...

The Carson Mansion in Eureka, California and the coast


On the drive down to Miranda, California, we bypassed the beautiful northern California coast. It was a bit foggy as we stopped by an overlook to get some photos.





Later in the week, we drove back up the coast to Eureka. I have to say that it wasn't a very pretty town like I expected (perhaps we were in the wrong section). We did see the Carson mansion which is supposedly one of the most photographed Victorian houses in the U.S. Too bad we could not see the inside of it. It is a privately owned club now.






Another Victorian across the street, "The Pink Lady" was a wedding gift to Carson's son.




A bay area along the way -






Text and photos by Phillip Oliver, Dirt Therapy

Comments

  1. I love those big old Victorian houses. They are amazing with all the embellishments. Too bad you didn't get inside for some photos.
    The CA coast is a sensational space. I don't think I would ever tire of seeing the ocean.

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  2. I'm so glad you got to take this trip. I enjoyed all of your FB posts! I've only been to Eureka once, but I feel like there is a prettier section of town, I could be wrong though. However, the Carson homes are impressive.

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