In the third week we moved onto Clumber Park, Nottinghamshire.
This is the colourful entrance of the Clumber Park Caravan Club Site - they came second with this 'blooming display' for the Caravan Club sites!
Lime Tree Avenue, Clumber Park, is the longest of its kind in Europe. Planted in about 1840, it is almost 2 miles long and consists of 1,296 common limes planted in a double row on each side of a drive. Records from 1906 relate that the trees were suffering from insect attack. To alleviate this, black grease bands were painted round the trunk of each tree to trap the insects, and are still visible today
Truman Gate one of the entrances to Clumber Park.
Sue in the Walled Kitchen Garden at Clumber Park. The walled garden contains the glasshouses which at 135 metres are one of the largest in England and contain a fig house, vineries, palm house and peach house. There is a working kitchen garden with produce for sale. At the present time there are only 4 full time gardeners so all of the garden cannot be cultivated. In its heyday there were about 20 gardeners.
This modest semi-detached Edwardian house was the family home of well-to-do grocers William and Florence Straw from 1923. It is remarkable because the Straws' two sons preserved it almost unaltered until it came to the National Trust in 1990. The interior with its 1920s wallpaper, heavy Victorian furniture and household objects provides a rare glimpse into interwar middle-class life. There are displays of family costume, letters and photos and a typical suburban garden. The actual house is the one on the right, the one on the left is used as the reception and for the display of various artifacts.
Towards the end of our stay at Clumber Park we visited Neil and Karen Hodgson, who live just east of Retford. I taught with Neil in the mid 1990's at Windsor School. He moved on and we met again at the Ackroyds 60th do. We were made very welcome and Neil let me tweak the throttle on his Harley. That's got to make ones year.
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