New Forest Ponies with Tom Gould

We spent the weekend visiting a friend who lives in the New Forest.  Her son, Tom, is a Commoner and farms about 300 acres in the Forest.  On Sunday morning he took us out in his 4 wheel drive truck to see some of his ponies in the forest.  Rather than running away from humans, they stayed as they thought there might be food in the offing!  This is a group of mares with foals and yearlings at foot.  We also visited a stallion with a couple of mares and foals, but they hung about a steel gate and a barbed wire fence which didn't make nice photos.

The Vyne

On Monday we visited The Vyne, a National Trust property near Basingstoke.  The Vyne is a 16th century estate and country house built for Lord Sandys, Henry VIII's Lord Chamberlain. Henry is supposed to have stayed there.

The gardens are less formal than some NT properties and all the better for that.  This week the jewel of the garden is the wild flower meadow in the walled garden

. 

This first photo of the house from across the lake is stolen from Wikipedia.  The rest are mine.

This wing shows how much the walls have moved!

The ceiling decorations are all made with papier maché to reduce the weight 

 I don't think that I've ever seen a Wisteria grown as a tree before

 The Wild Flower Meadow

Lots of bees around the walled garden.  Anyone for onion honey?!