Cragside Garden And Grounds

As I said in the previous post, to us the most marvelous thing about Cragside is that, before Lord Armstrong came along, it was not much more than a cliff rising from the Northumberland wastes, above a valley where he played and fished as a boy (and began learning about hydraulics, presumably). After seeing the house, we wandered a bit, but not too far, in the extensive grounds. The National Trust has done its usual superb job in preserving and enhancing all.

Map of extensive grounds

Just below the house, rock terraces, a beautiful Victorian iron bridge over the creek

Water feature in the rock terraces

Miles of forest paths, beautifully signed

Creek; or "crick" as we say in Montana

View of the house from the iron bridge

Nice furnishings all around

It's a cliff terrace trail, but there's probably not a single rock not placed here by human
hands

The specimen trees have had a century and a half to mature here and are gorgeous
in every direction

Vicki walks past, disregarding a new Monkey Puzzle; it's a
long story

In the distance, where the road goes, is what this place might have looked like in the
mid-19th

Now we are in a garden, overlooking a lawn, where this Honda F1 Grasscutter Drone
seems bent on mowing us down: but ha! There's a ha-ha! It bumped and turned on
its mindless way...

Sweet Pea

In the rock garden

This year's border

Greenhouses

Did I mention the place is covered in Rhodos? We might try to revisit on the
flip-side next spring, if the bloom is right: nothing beats a Rhodo Riot!