The gardens have been made out of the orangery and half the gardens of Bicton House, this last now being Bicton College, an establishment with a predominantly countryside and agricultural bent but with trimmings. One can, for example, do an 'Edexcel BTEC Extended Certificate in Uniformed Public Services', presumably the result of the proximity of Lympstone Barracks - which we thought also explained the various helicopters gracing our visit.
The orangery and its terrace have been made into a fine place for taking tea, with views down the lawn, across the (rectangular & apparently fish free) lake and into the trees beyond. While taking my tea with some rather odd soup, spotted a crow buzzing a buzzard overhead - having previously seen one crow buzzing a heron and another buzzing a seagull in Epsom. Crows must be very aggressive birds. And while I am in tweet mode, I should also record two sightings of gold finches in urban hedges near Bicton. Not a bird I recall seeing at all in Epsom.
Gardens were really good, in a slightly low-key sort of way. It was a botanical garden, but did not make too much of a parade of it. Some interesting peonies, the like of which we had never seen before.
Fine collection of trees, mature and not so mature, including a lot of pines and including a number of record holders. Tallest four leaved red cypress in the west of England sort of thing. There was also a clump of araucaria araucana, such a thing last having been seen maybe fifty miles to the north at Arlington Court (see August 26th 2012 in the other place). Perhaps the western climate suits.
Interesting glass houses, including a record holding palm house, this time for the oldest palm house in England. Not a large palm house by the standards of the RHS or Kew gardens, but a handsome specimen, inside and out, for all that. We admired the work and workmanship that had gone into the thing with, for example, its very large number of rather small panes of glass, puttied into place onto a light iron frame, a rather more delicate design than that of the much larger Crystal Palace thirty years later and which would cost a fortune to replicate. We wondered how the curved doors were made - and how did they stay the right shape for so long? Did the apparently wooden frames conceal a heart of steel?
The miniature train was complemented by a Pugin arranged ruin of the original church and a Hayward designed replacement (1850, listed grade II*), a bit austere but which included some good stained glass, not by Pugin. But he did do the stained glass in the ruin, part of which still serves as the family mausoleum and which we were not able to see, about which he writes 'I found Lady Rolle a very cheerful happy sort of woman but with dreadful ideas on architecture. She actually suggested a sort of Turkish morgue ... however I managed so well that in half an hour she consented to my plan ...'. Clearly knew a thing or two about client management. We will do the steam museum next time, not being at all averse to a bit of traction engine. Not to mention the Rollin' Clones (http://www.rollin-clones.com/) who will appear on the 8th August next.
For once, the place is neither RHS, RSPB, National Trust nor English Heritage, so presumably a bit of enterprise with much the same standing in the world as the Chessington World of Adventures, although I did not spot anything on http://www.bictongardens.co.uk/ about ownership. Surely the place is not still run by Mr. & Mrs. Bicton?
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