National Trust – Anglesey Abbey
National Trust visits – Anglesey Abbey
Visiting National Trust properties is one of my favourite things to do as I explore Suffolk and visit places of interest. I love eating in lovely National Trust restaurants and drinking in some of their great coffee shops. I do all this so I can report back on what you can do when you stay in our holiday cottages in Suffolk on your short break or holiday. Or to put it another way, I can have a day out and pretend I’m working!
One such day out on a bright, fresh February Sunday was a trip to Anglesey Abbey. We’ve been many times as National Trust members and the first thing to confess is… it’s in Cambridgeshire! That aside, it’s still easy to get to from the holiday cottages and as a number of our guests from further afield have visited there I thought I’d bring you some info on it anyway.
It’s a stunning Jacobean-style mansion house, which is only about a hundred years old, in a hundred acres or so of wonderful, unspoilt gardens and woodland. The name is derived from the original Abbey, which stood in the grounds since around 1100. Purchased in the late 1920’s by the wonderfully named Urban Huttleston Rogers Broughton, he set about building his home.
The house itself is crammed with opulent charm, antiques and paintings and the gardens are fabulous. Perfect for families as there is tons for kids to do, but equally it’s a real treat for grown-up kids wanting to explore a very grand home. A real bonus is the fascinating working water mill, which is open for visitors to look around.
The gardens were designed to display all manner of species all year round and there are some really interesting woodland areas aimed at kids too.
Loved the look of this tree house!
Lots of urns, garden statues and sculptures dotted the grounds, with a range of influences. Some of them seem out of place, just randomly plonked around but they do give a really decadent feel to what is largely an unspoilt, natural woodland.
Many impressive species create an awe-inspiring sight. Two of my favourites are the red dogwoods and the incredible silver birches. They’ve just planted another 100 or so!
So nice to see a number of flowers poking through this early in the year.
Very interesting tree art that we nearly missed! It just hangs from the trees above the pathway near the mill and it’s easy to walk straight underneath without knowing it’s there. This one was lots of bamboo pieces, woven together with wire.
There are so many different parts to the gardens and this was a gorgeous old gateway to a little secret garden area.
The snowdrops of course were in abundance with pockets of them everywhere. It’s lovely to see them growing amongst lots of other species.
The Lode Mill is such a great treasure here and is still open and working.
Grain coming down the shoot ready to be milled.
More hanging tree art adorns the pathways.
Well worth a visit if you are on holiday here in sunny Suffolk, as it’s about an hour from us. Check out their website.
As at Feb 2015 it’s just under £13 for adults and £7 for kids for the whole place or just £8/ £4 for the gardens and mill only.
