Synopsis: An outing to visit Forde Abbey House and Gardens, Dorset. This is old Cistercian abbey founded around 800 years ago, later converted into a palatial house in the 1700s.
Forde AbbeyI’d visited the gardens of Forde Abbey before, but not entered the house. I don’t recall the reason for that, other than perhaps I visited on a Saturday, when the house is, perhaps surprisingly, closed. It’s about a 35 mile drive from where I live, taking about 45 minutes. I had thought I could do this visit by public transport, the trains being my best option, with the stations of Crewkerne and Axminster possible transit stops, but the walking would be in the order of 18 miles or more, and I just hadn’t the energy for this. I suppose the Cistercian Monks hadn’t placed visitor accessibility high on their agenda 600 years ago when they chose the site for their abbey. Well, I’ve not used my car for quite some time, so perhaps it was due an outing to blow away the dust and cobwebs.
It was the ceilings and the tapestries that really impress in the house, both of which are of the highest quality. Apparently the tapestries are some times put on show at the Sistine Chapel in Rome, as they’re modelled on a design for that place. There is also a fine Axminster carpet in the Saloon, created for the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace of 1851. Visitors today are permitted to walk across this carpet, testimony to the long standing quality and durability of the carpet.
There’s very little sense of when the place was a Cistercian Abbey. It’s the manorial house of later conversion that dominates the senses. The fact that it maintains the tab ‘Abbey’ seems a little bit of a cheat. Apparently after the dissolution of 1539 the Abbey lay empty for 100 years until in 1649 it was ‘transformed into the magnificent house you see today’.
The rockeryThe best parts of the garden were to my mind the rockery and the bog garden. The lakes are lovely to see too. The herbaceous borders were not in such full flower as on my last visit, but I suppose that’s because it is still rather early in the plant season.
Leda and the swan
The statue in the Mermaid Pond is that of Leda and the Swan (please take note Helen!). Quite why the lake is called the Mermaid Pond I don’t know. There are also mermaids carved onto the side of the building (see photo), so someone had perhaps a mermaid fixation? There’s an enormous fountain in the centre of this pond, that spurts water very high into the air. I believe it’s the highest fountain jet in the country. It’s run for about 2 hours each day, and was running whilst I was at the house.
Forde Abbey is a lovely, beautiful and tranquil place to visit. I have just one confession to make, I did it on the cheap, as I had some leftover Tesco Deals vouchers and used one of these. So, Tesco once again adds to the cultural vitality of the country. What would we do without Tesco?
No comments:
Post a Comment