Stourhead Revisited

This week I had an overnight with a good friend in the small North Dorset town where I used to live, Gillingham. My friend is a National Trust volunteer at the nearby estate of Stourhead, one of the Trust's star properties. She had some brief business there, so we visited together and I met many of the workers there for the first time, both volunteers and employed. We went into the Estate Office and I saw a smidgeon of the enormous amount of work that goes into running the place. Multiply that by the number of large NT properties around the country and it's an immense undertaken.

After that we did a trip round the garden. Fortunately they now have a golf buggy plus volunteer driver which took us just over half way, as it would be tough for me to manage the mile long path all the way round the lake, and we got a running commentary, much of which I already knew but there is always something new to learn as well. I've spent many a happy hour at Stourhead and had lots of lovely memories brought to mind.