Greys Court, The walled garden in January

While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night will not stop.
Acts 1: 7

This post is a contrast in seasons of two visits, the first during the very hot dry spell we had in summer and now this one in January with frost and ice staying on the ground for a good few days. In my summer post we looked around the house, this time we chose to enjoy the grounds more.

A large house, Greys Court, on the left then follow the road…

…to open countryside beyond. We will then go through an opening into …

The sun playing on the frosty wall and trough .

The courtyard where the red and white geraniums were in the summer.
Cobbles with some moss but patterns clear to see.

Fallen figs under early flowering Irises.

In 1514 the King granted Lettice and Robert the estate of Greys Court for the term of both their lives. All that was needed in return was an annual quitrent ( a symbolic payment ) of a single red rose to be presented to the king at Court every Midsummer’s Day.

I can almost hear you ask : ” So who were they to deserve this?” You can be sure the story has marriages, deaths and intrigue. Lettice in the end lives till 91, a great old age at that time.

A hopeful Hellibore.
Spring is on its way.

Here is a quote from an American writer, Paula Mc Lain born in 1965. She wrote a memoir about growing up in the Foster system and amongst other novels she also wrote ” A ticket to ride.”

” Ernest once told me that the word paradise was a Persian word that meant walled garden . I knew then that he understood how necessary the promises we made to each other were to our happiness. You couldn’t have real freedom unless you knew where the walls were and tended to them. We could lean on the walls because they existed; they existed because we leaned on them.”
Paula McLain

Thank you for looking at this post.

Sandy 🙂