The third annual trip to Acton Court

During the hottest day of the recent hot spell, when temperatures locally reached 36.7°C, an early morning walk with the dog would ideally have been followed by a lounge on the settee and some iced water, but my friend, Cathy, and I had tickets for our annual visit to Acton Court, this year accompanied by my friend, Liz, and the homemade cake they serve is too good to miss, so off we went.

Because the temperature was set to rise swiftly during the morning, we got there as soon as the house and garden opened and decided to explore the grounds first - at least, as much of them as we could manage in the already searing heat.

Acton Court is managed by a trust and is only open for the month of June. This means there's a choice to be made: you either go earlier in the month when the wild flowers are at their height, or you delay till the end of the month when the lavender is stunning. The last two years we have set out sights on the lavender, though there were still some flowers to be had ... 

... including some of my favourites: scabious, pyramidal orchid and knapweed.

We had our cake, of course, and tea, and toured the state apartments, which occupy a wing built for the two-day visit of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn in the summer of 1535, but it was too hot to linger as long as we might have done on a more normal summer day. At least we didn't have to wear linen shifts, petticoats, corsets and farthingales under our kirtles and ruffs around our necks! 

We'll be back next year, all being well, hopefully on a cooler day.

A return to Acton Court

Acton Court. I visited it last year for the first time with my friend, Cathy, but the lavender wasn't out and it looked like it would be spectacular when it was, so we resolved to go back this year, only later in June, which is the only month it's open to the public, just to see it. And lo, we did.

(If you're wondering about the presence of King Henry VIII above, he visited Acton Court in 1535 with Anne Boleyn. Can't say I care to see monsters celebrated, but the idea and execution of the vase is lovely; I just wish it was Anne.)

And the lavender was out, and it was spectacular.

buff-tailed bumble bee

small skipper

I didn't take a lot of photos of the house and garden as I did all that last year, but some vistas were still too hard to resist. 

One place we didn't visit last year was the extraordinarily well-appointed loo in the royal apartments - not, unfortunately for Henry, available to him during his visit, though there was a garderobe, of course, which was probably cutting edge at the time. This modern version even has a bed in it! 

This time of year, wherever I walk, I'm on the look-out for feathers, and I was delighted to spot both a tawny owl feather ... 

... and my first barn owl primary, having only found secondaries and a couple of body feathers up till now.

Over a cup of tea and some sublime cake, accompanied by Lesley Saunder's lovely collection of poems about the house, we decided we wouldn't mind making the visit to Acton Court an annual event.

A visit to Acton Court

I'd been meaning to visit Acton Court, near Iron Acton in South Gloucestershire for ages, but it's only open to the public for a month every year, and I kept missing the window and only remembering when yet another smug friend announced they'd been there. This year I stalked the website for months, and got my ticket for the opening day. I also told my friend and ex-neighbour, who'd wanted to go there even longer than I had, and she got one too.

So it was with great excitement and no little anticipation that we collected our hand-held audio guides at the reception desk and set off around the exterior of the house and through lovely 'wild' garden.

There might have been one or two Tudor ghosts drifting about, a nod to the most famous episode in the history of the house, when King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn stayed during the Court's Summer Progress of 1535. (We spoke to them later; one makes Tudor costumes, the other is a gardener there and gave me a pheasant feather.) 

Back to the narrative, though: The owner of Acton Court, Sir Nicholas Poyntz, was so keen to impress his sovereign that he had a whole new wing built in the space of nine months, ready for the two-day visit. 

Common Brimstone 

Moat and garderobe

Buttress doubling as a dovecote

The well

Early bumblebee

the main entrance

There's a fair bit of graffiti with serifs in the porch of the main entrance, including a ship.

The formal garden will look spectacular when the lavender's out in a couple of weeks' time. The Friend-formerly-known-as-'Er-over-the-road and I decided we'd come back next year, only later in the opening month. 

In the house, we saw the dresses of Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr that one of the ghosts had recreated from their most famous portraits. (I'm always interested in meeting other people with an obsessive interest in something (unless it's DIY).)

Upstairs in the East Wing, the state rooms built for the King and Anne Boleyn were all the more atmospheric for being empty. I loved the floors, which heaved and swelled like walking across an ocean.

The painted frieze is original, and dates from the Summer Progress. 

There's also some rather more modern grafitti than the earlier examples, drawn on the plaster walls.

    

Probably a good thing these stairs were cordoned off

King Henry's garderobe, which was only discovered amongst piles of masonry during conservation work in 1994 

Just time for tea and cake before our timed visit was up. I think it's safe to say, we'll be back. 

Pheasant feathers

Corvid feathers