Visit to Westbury Court Garden

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Visit to Westbury Court Garden

Unlike previous two days, a beautiful blue sky appeared in the morning on 21^st September. Mark had planned visiting Westbury Court Garden on the west outskirts of Gloucester. The garden was due to open at 11 o’clock. We did a bit of shopping in the morning and caught the bus from the transport hub at 10.30. As soon as the bus left the town centre, the bus was running on the high speed road and went through the countryside. Mark was checking through the routes with his mobile. The bus brought us to the destination just before 11 o’clock. We found two striking buildings – St Mary & St Peter & St Paul Church and Lyon Inn Pub near the garden.

As well as ourselves, several visitors turned up when garden was about to open. The garden was opened by one of the National Trust sfaff/volunteers. She suggested we all should go upstairs in the pavilion and see the bird-eye view of the garden. We learned that this Dutch water garden was originally laid out between 1696 and 1705, but the garden was neglected for a long time and its restoration work was carried out in the mid 1960s. We strolled through the lovely water garden containing canals, koi ponds, herbaceous borders, 17^th century vegetable plots and many old varieties of fruit trees. All the flowers, fruits, and vegetables looked beautiful and refreshing after the rain. The highlight of this garden was a 400 year oak tree – there were a number of big fungi growing on the thick trunk and branches. We bought some souvenirs from kiosk and visited St Mary, St Peter & St Paul Church and had lunch at Lyon Inn, as the National Trust lady had recommended.



St Oswald’s Priory ruins and historic buildings in Gloucester

I wanted to visit St Oswald’s Priory ruins. Although the outbound journey went past St Oswald Priory, the return journey bus didn’t seem going there – we decided to get off somewhere in the town and headed to the destination via Eastgate Stree, Northgate Street, and walked past St John’s Church and the lane behind the cathedral (Via Sacra). By walking on Pitt Street, we saw a number of historic buildings – Old Bishop’s Palace (currently used as King’s Six-Form and Senior schools and music schools) – and some old remains like the Infirmary Arches. Afterwards, we reached St Oswald’s Priory. This historic ruins date from the mid 12^th century – we could see the remains of the arch from the north aisle to the north transept. The remains of the Saxon monastery building was located against the backdrop of Gloucester Cathedral – it offered picturesque views of the ruined priory with the cathedral. From there we managed to walk to St Nicholas Church and find its bracket clock on the church tower. We went to the Italian Restaurant for dinner – we both had the main dish and dessert. We had a bit of walk around the Docks after the dinner.



We did check-out at Gloucester Central Hotel on Friday morning and went back to London.

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Photos

400 year oak
Big fungi growing on the thick trunk