bunn

At the weekend we wandered over to Coombe Trenchard, which is mostly a Stately B&B. But it was advertising a sculpture exhibition in the gardens, and I rather like to look at sculpture. This wasn't part of the sculpture. It was just some stone dogs guarding a magnificent gate. Try and guess how old this place is. I'll tell you at the end.

Here's some official sculpture. It had a name, but we instantly christened it the Two Bums.

The gardens are beautiful, even though the azaleas and rhododendrons were over. Swallows were swooping over the croquet lawn catching gnats. Philmophlegm, seeing me point my camera, confidently told me: 'you'll never catch them, you need special equipment'. Shortly afterwards, he said: 'Oh'.

Why yes, I am smug.

Here is Pp apparently considering a trip through the arch into an alternative universe. There was a lovely well in the foreground here. Neither were Officlal Sculptures. They are just Random Garden Stuff.

It is the Season of the Foxglove. Here's a sculpture among the flowers. I quite liked the series of sculptures from this artist, which were all along these lines and had a lovely sense of movement to them, although they were rather rough to the touch. I do like sculpture to be tactile (which the Two Bums certainly were).

Here's the house. They were serving teas on the terrace, which could not be resisted, even though it was not sunny. The teas were a little slow to arrive, as they seemed to be being prepared and served largely by the owners of the house unaided, but I could cheerfully hang about on that terrace most of the afternoon.

My Mum and Pp admire a giant dice, called, if I remember rightly, New Orleans, and made of reclaimed lead from church roofs. I think it was probably my favorite of all the sculptures.

We did not bring Brythen and Az, as Az was having rather a wobbly day and needed to take it easy (and I can't leave him without Brythen, his Sighthound Security Blanket). My mother brought her ancient whippet Flash though, who sat on his bed on the terrace looking very regal.

Despite its lovely Tudor-ish chimneys, vaguely Italianate tower, hand-made-looking glass and general air of timeless elegance, Coombe Trenchard was apparently built in 1909. I had no idea until I looked it up. What a lovely piece of masquerade.