Green Blogging

A friend has been working at Fairhaven woodland and water gardens for about a year now, and shockingly, we have only just got around to visiting.  We had been to Fairhaven before but it was a very long time ago.

It is the most beautiful place.  You enter through a very well stocked gift shop, and wander through the woodland down to the broad (or lake).  Much of the time you are alongside streams, and much of the vegetation is water based.  Big leaves and yellow irses, little pink flowers, and lots of birds singing high in the trees.  It is like stepping into paradise.

The thing it reminded me most of was Aslan’s place on the mountains beyond the edge of the world in The Silver Chair by CS Lewis.  I kept expecting to find Jill Pole sobbing by a stream because she had pushed Eustace over the edge of the cliff.  It was a hot and sunny Saturday today so there were lots of people, but it didn’t matter  The stillness came through.

Fairhaven, which was gifted by the late 2nd Lord Fairhaven in 1973, and opened to the public in 1975, has quite rightly won several awards.  Their website boasts a Green Tourism silver badge and a Berry Savory tourism award.

It also has its own private broad (lake) and you can take boat trips to see the ruins of St. Benet’s Abbey.

My friend works in the gardens and is looking very happy and fit on it.  The centre has a well stocked plant sales area, and she is starting a small vegetable garden, although starting this from scratch is hard work.

We shall be back there later in the year.  Dogs are welcome so we may be taking my Mother and her west highland terrier, Tracker.

If you are in the area, I suggest you go too.