The Cherry Orchard

As it happened, yesterday's post about cherries followed close on from a visit to the cherry orchard at Polesden Lacey, a cherry orchard which we had not known was there.

The idea had been to visit the rose garden, which was indeed in fine shape. As were the delphiniums, the peonies and the long border, this last running roughly east-west below the formal gardens and to the west of the house, clearly visible on gmaps at 51.257655, -0.375506.

From there to the childrens' play area in the woods to inspect the chain saw art, back along Admiral's Walk to lunch under the giant umbrella, really an open marquee. From there through the informal gardens and so into the unknown-to-us cherry orchard, illustrated above. The cherry trees were about the size of standard apple trees and were not in very good condition, although there were some cherries, some way off ripe and just about visible at the right of the illustration. Perhaps one day we will get a trusty to tell us about the planting of the orchard, which when it was going strong it would have supplied far more cherries than they could possibly have used at the big house, the lady of which was a beer heiress, not a cherry brandy heiress. With the beer money being quite good enough to catch a dashing guards officer, and later on all kinds of all kinds of visiting aristos from the old money.