Living the good life- Dutch Manor houses and formal gardens

The countryside in that part of Holland where my mum lives is dotted with pretty little country houses built by
wealthy Dutch merchants and citizens.Most gardens are in a formal French/ Versailles style  .The garden and house you see here is about ten minutes away from my mum's house It's a real pleasure to stroll around in it on a lovely summer's day.There are tunnels with climbing roses to walk through ..

And a lovely kitchen garden..

There is a formal parterre, all twirly trimmed box hedges like here..

Here is another picture which is more to the left of this path..

This gazebo-style plant support is covered in honey suckle and roses- and there are a few of these dotted a round the box parterre- the whole design is completely symmetrical as they do in the French formal gardens.

The symmetry starts with the entrance where an avenue of trees leads straight to the main entrance of the manor house.

Quite pretty, don't you think.

The entrance gates are huge and in front of the gate is a big bench .You always see a group of little old men sitting there, gossiping and chatting and it's supposedly called the "Liar's bench" because of all the invented stories that are being told there.

There are espalier fruit trees, trained against the warm brick walls, and loads of garden urns dotted around.

The house itself is from brick and split in three parts - although you don't really notice that inside the house.

It's surrounded by a moat and clipped hedges.

And then there are more formal gardens, lawns cut through with paths on which at the end you see big garden urns.

There is a sweet little garden room where the owner could drink a cup of tea and gaze out over his lovely gardens...

And the whole of the gardens and the house is again surrounded by a huge moat flanked with huge old trees.

Not a bad life , eh, living in a place like this.
I hope to show you a bit more of Holland, villages, towns and the countryside, but for now
I leave you with one last picture of this lovely old place.

And if you ever want to visit these gardens, and you are in Holland , you will find the link to the website and details here

Have a great week !

XOXO


Bea