BUSCOT PARK

Having recovered from nine days of vigorous coach touring, today we set out again to do a little exploring again. We chose a place about fifteen miles away from our village of Ascott, a great country house called Buscot Park.
The Palladian style edifice stands in the centre of fifty seven acres of beautiful parkland, and you drive up to it along several hundred metres of old oaks. Interestingly, back in the 1860’s it had belonged to a rich Australian who made his money from gold trading. Now it is owned by the National Trust but it was first restored by a financier called Alexander Henderson, later to be made Lord Faringdon.
The house itself, while large and imposing is really like many old manor houses you find in rural England. But it was the gardens and the contents of the house that we came to see. More about the gardens in a moment, but inside the house is a magnificent art collection known as the Faringdon Collection and it includes works by Gainsborough, Rembrandt, Van Dyke, Rubens and many others, both very old and relatively new.
The various rooms of the house have been preserved or restored to their original state, with a main staircase leading to beautiful rooms upstairs, bedrooms, saloons and a library, all hung with great art, and through the windows, panoramic views of the grounds sweeping off to the horizon.
We spent another hour or so, exploring the gardens. Firstly a walled garden with beautifully laid out beds of flowing plants, and hung with wisteria, and all sorts of espaliered and climbing plants.
Leading away from the walled garden were long avenues of clipped hedges, leading away to flights of steps, and flanked with Grecian, Egyptian and Roman style statuary. Then there were the pleasure gardens, several acres of sometimes wild and sometimes neat and planned out stretches of trees and shrubs, flowering plants and vines.
We walked along the long canal like stretch of water called the Water Garden, reflecting the dark foliage of huge oaks, elms and beeches overhanging the gently flowing stream. And at its end, the stream entered a wide lake, reflecting the sky and the trees along its banks. In the distance we could see an old stone bridge crossing to a little island with a dome shaped stone temple.
We plan to go back to Buscot Park in a few weeks time when more of the flowers are out, and to enjoy the delights of that beautiful park once more.