ONE OR TWO GARDEN ITEMS

 

This is the first proper statue we bought over thirty give years ago at least. Venus came along with us from our old house.

David was bought a good few years later but still over twenty five plus years ago.

Neptune is around twenty five years old and once was knocked off the wall ! I couldn't look as I was so worried he was broken but he managed somehow to survive undamaged.

Igor here used to sit in our front garden at our last house, which was on a main road into the town of Hertford, he faced the front wall. A lady who worked in a shop in the town told me she always said Hello to him as she passed by on her way to work and missed seeing him when we moved.

Our two other gargoyles have also come with us from our last house and are over 30 plus year old, we bought them we were visiting my sister in Littlehampton, at a garden centre a few miles away from her house.

They sit either side of what we call the Cloisters, due to the rectory paving and the medieval style statues that are around. Starting with these tow.

Above them on the wooden framed entrance are some church bosses, we bought back from our holidays in Cornwall many years ago ,

Big fan's of our country's long and varied history, we like nothing more than wandering around some old castle, abbey or country house and if we can bring back a little something then we do.

The boss and the next one , are either side of the entrance from the cloisters into what is now the pond garden.

Because these items are quite small they usually vanish into the background when the roses are climbing up the posts.

On the gated archway leading out of the flower garden into the magnolia garden by the house are these two very small bosses.

This little devil fell off a good few years back and smacked his nose and fingers but managed to save his pint! naturally ;)

This wall planter was bought around the same time as Neptune from the same garden nursery in Enfield.

If I tell you we had to ask the people we bought this house from if we could send our garden items on ahead and luckily they agreed, so a full sized removal van was filled from front to back with our pots, statues, bikes, garden benches etc and arrived on the Wednesday with us following the next Monday !

Niamh we bought when we arrived here from some money that Paul's elderly Mum gave us. We travelled to Wells, in Somerset to a reclamation yard to buy her, travelling there and back in a day. She sat on the corner of the pond we built on the patio and only moved when the folly was built and a base was bought for her.

This lamb and flag we first on the wall under our front porch but removed it when we extended into the porch. It was then lost for a few years, you know the thing put somewhere for safe keeping ! The we suddenly found it, so it was put here.

This roof finial belongs on the Lych gate roof but was knock from it's place by the branch of our big Bramley apple tree, during a storm, a few years back ! But fortunately it must have slid down the roof  and come to rest on some wooden trellis we had in place across the bog garden to the side. It's now been waiting a good few years to get put back in place.

We have just reduced the side of the apple tree and so getting this back up, it's very heavy, will be a job for this year.

When we decided to build another wall to the folly, it gave us the opportunity to add a couple of wall items by the same maker who'd made Nimah all those years ago and they were delivered, so no all day trip to somerset!  This is Edward the first, Long Shanks 

and his wife Eleanor of Castile 

Which did set us off on a little buying spree of other items by this maker Marcus of Tudor Gate.

So either side of the Lych Gate is this one Dark Pan and the other side

Bucca boo a Cornish spirit. I have to say this one I was not sure about he was only one big enough to balance against Dark Pan. I won't say he's grown on me but I'm used to him now.

And we were able to buy Guinevere, who we had wanted at the same time as Nimah but could not afford both. 

So after all that, we stopped and luckily the garden is long enough and broken up enough that it doesn't look full of 'things'.

Over the years, we have bought or had given to us, Greenmen , which my husband loves. These are all on his workshop that is The Cloisters area of the garden.

another

This one is metal and the nose lifts to use like a door knocker.

We have had a few others over the years but they have not survived being outside .

A brass plate of a brass rubbing of a medieval tomb, that on the folly wall.

There are probably a couple more small items about and it's only having deciding to take some photos as I walked about seeing more of the items that are usually hidden by foliage.