A day in Northumberland

Last week  my daughter came home for a weeks holiday, (as always she is crying poverty) otherwise she would have gone somewhere for a proper holiday as she would put it. we spent the week pottering about together, the weather for most of the week not being that cleaver.
    On one of the days it was decided we would have a ride over to Northumberland, and visit a place called Cragside. Cragside is a country house, which now belongs to the National Trust, and is famous for the fact that it was the first house in the world to be lit useing hydroelectric power.
     For those visiting the house, it is split into different areas, the house, the formal gardens, and the estate drive, which allows you to take your own car and drive the 6 mile circular, with lots of areas to stop for views.
      On arrival we headed first to the formal gardens, which has its own car park, then other car parks for the house itself.

So we made our way to the gardens first as this is nearer to the main entrance

 

The Weather was dull with fine drizzle so was n't conducive for photography, however we do our best, and here we have a good example of carpet bedding (pictures and words layed out using plants)

This and the following two pics are some of the Dahlias that where on show.

This clock tower was in the gardens seperate from the house.

A rather late-ish honey bee still working away.

I have only ever seen this plant in conservatories

This is some kind of insect eating plant as it had a sticky substance on its petals similar to other plants of that genera

And this looks like a crocosmia type plant

Apart from Robbins this was about the only bird we saw all day

Looking down one of the glades close to the house, and the first of the Autumn colours beginning to show.

This is the first view of the house after leaving the car.

And now from the main drive.

Closer look at the archways,  which we later drove through to do the estate drive.

As can be seen from the next photo there was a small area of Virginia creeper, some of it looking good in its Autunm colour.

Not far below the house it has its own iron bridge.

Looking back up to the house from the path leading down to the iron bridge.

And this time from the iron bridge

Flash was not permitted in the house, so just took this one of the Kitchen as it would have been up to the 1950s, even the spit was run from power utilising water from  one of the lakes.

And lastly a little bit of garden by the local primery school.