Snowdrops at Welford Park

Welford Park nr. Newbury (RG20 8HU) is in a beautiful area of the country and the gounds are open during February for a magnificent display of snow drops dating back many hundreds of years.  The garden and house is a family estate and they only open in February for the snowdrops and during this time raise many thousands of pounds for local charities.  And, of course, it is the home of the Great British Bakeoff.

Before our visit we stopped for lunch at the Queens Arms nearby.  A wiggly country road led us to the heart of racing country - just five minutes off the M4.  The food was tasty and there were groups of jolly lunchers and barbour-wearing owners of gun dogs.  But you don't have to be mad about horses to enjoy a lovely lunch here.

We were fortunate to visit Welford Park on a very fine February day.  There can be few finer sights in winter than the snowdrops of Welford Park, especially those in the beech woods.  But there is more to enjoy at this delightful park than the snowdrops: there is a fine planting of cornus with its glowing red bark, and a large area of aconites, which were also in full bloom.  The river Lambourn, a lovely chalk stream,  flows through the park alongside the beech woods.

If you are a horticulturalist you'll want to know that the snowdrops at Welford are primarily Galanthus Nivalis.  They carpet the ground in a 5 acre beech wood.  Dotted amongst the beech trees are rare species like Lady Elphinstone and Lord Monstictus.

Snowdrops are traditionally considered a symbol of purity and cleansing.  They were often planted by medieval monks, which might explain why many of the major monastic sites in Britain are blessed with magnificent displays of snowdrops.   The Welford snowdrops were probably planted by the monks of Abingdon and used to decorate their church for Candlemas.  The monks also used snowdrops to create a medicinal salve, used to combat headache.

Pre 1536 on the land of Welford Park, stood a monastery which was in the care of the monks of Abingdon until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536.  This was the order of King Henry VIII, who then kept it as his own deer hunting lodge.  Then he granted it to one of his courtiers, Sir Thomas Parry in 1546.  James Puxley and his family now live here.

So what's all the fuss about?  Well take a look at these photographs:-

Millions and millions of flowers carpet the wild beech woods.

The river divides the grounds into two halves: a wild, wooded area on one side and a more formal layout close to the house on the other.  The wild bit is where most of the snowdrops are, great carpets of them pushing through the dead leaves of a beech wood.

From the west side of the house you can walk out into the more formal part of the landscape, past a superb stand of tall lime trees, with mops of mistletoe silhouetted in their top branches.  Rugs of yellow aconites swamp out the grass beneath the trees.  From the end of this walk you get the best view of the house and the church behind, with its odd, round tower.

A wonderful day out.