Day 7 Tuesday October 25th Family in the Cotswolds

 

Dyrham Hall

A more exciting day today hopefully.  After breakfast we had arranged to meet Val, Brenda, Carolyn, Samuel and Thomas;  we were all going to National Trust Dyrham Park near Bath.  Rich was working and so we didn’t meet him later.  I travelled with Carolyn and the boys which was entertaining and Christine went with Val and Brenda.

scarecrows found!

We were soon there, parked, paid and ready for action.  We discovered there was a special scarecrow competition in the grounds of the hall with prizes for those finding all the answers.  We wound our way through and found 7 scarecrows and kept the answers for where the prizes could be claimed.  We then ended up at a playpark/coffee shop area and the younger ones played on and some of the older ones queued for refreshments.  That all eventually came together and we went on to find the house and gardens.  

some of the rear gardens

the church

Initially we went to the rear gardens where there were pools and some formal laid out plantings.  There was also a very old church adjacent to the hall which some of us visited.  We then walked passed stables and had another refreshment break and some of us visited the National Trust shop.  Suitably recharged we decided to make our way back to the top using the smart electric bus now in use.  Whilst waiting some of us visited the orangery - gaining entrance by one route or another! (Thomas through a window at ground level!).  Our party made up one bus load so that was 

electric bus for us

good and we were soon back to where the car park is.  We then had to go to the place to collect the scarecrow prizes which were carvings on discs of wood.  A good way to end the visit, we returned to the cars and had an uneventful journey back to Highworth.  Rich arrived home from work (someone has to!) and we all made our way to a local Italian restaurant for a good meal.  It was soon time to say goodbye after a brilliant day and we returned to our hotel.