Longbarn, Eltham Palace and Horniman Gardens

In which we return to London to roost via an amazing garden, a historical site and a filler.

Breakfast was advertised to start earlier today, at 7 instead of 8 but arriving down at the restaurant I am told that the hot buffet doesn’t start until 7:30. Okay… I also learn that the last minute instructions from Lynn, our tour guide, to bring our luggage down at 9 a.m. for a 9:15 leave time were erroneous, that in actuality we have paid for porterage and were to put our cases outside the doors by 8 a.m. Folk had been notified by what’s app of the change, but Gary hadn’t let me know despite knowing that I’m not on what’s app. Oh well, too bad, so sad. I had a few minutes to throw more things in the case before returning to the dining room for my fix of beans, tomatoes, scrambled eggs and mushrooms.

Got the luggage down before the rest had been loaded on the bus, so all good. We managed to extract ourselves at the scheduled time and first stop was a private garden called Longbarn. It was the precursor to Sissinghurst, the first garden that Vita Sackville West and Harold Nicholson designed, and visit is by invitation only. Located on a remote backcountry road, it was quite a challenge getting there in our girnormous bus. We got stuck at one point by building trucks and parked cars on both sides of the narrow road but fortunately Sam was able to locate the owners of the building trucks to move them so we could get through… we were welcomed by the house owner and head gardener Rebecca Lemonius, who together with the previous owner gave us a history and background of the garden. We were offered tea/coffee and cake then set loose; two hours of wandering around passed really quickly in such a magical spot.

Background from Rebecca. Note the wavy roofline behind her…

Very quirky house, very few straight lines as it was built without a foundation a la building techniques of the time (1360) and there has been considerable settling since. The second part of the house, to the right, was a barn addition added later.

Lovely old barn doors on both the house and barn.

Gorgeous terraces, the first concept of “room” gardens and a cacophy of birds in the background made it feel a world apart.

White wisteria near the entrance

top terrace

Tulbaghia

Aeonium – so many beautiful plants, artfully placed

Kolwitzia

top terrace – yellow rambling rose on the house

Cristus

the bottom terraces led gently up to the top with a unifying staircase

the garden was filled with places to sit and contemplate

only 20 mins by London by train, it was another world

bottom “room”

Peony

roses – the first we’ve seen without aphids covering the buds

roses on the border of the meadow

diversity in roses.. all looked gloriously healthy

rockwall garden

This has to be my favourite garden so far on the tour, tied with Great Dixter. I took many more pictures than I can show you here!

Reluctantly, we returned to the bus and had another eventful trip back to the main road, narrowly scraping by cars parked on either side of the road. One driver reluctantly backed up after we squeaked through two others on a curve and encountered her coming in the opposite direction – she backed up so far she nearly landed in the living room of the house nearby… yikes. However, we made it back to the main road intact.

Next up was Eltham Palace, a former royal palace where Henry VIII grew up, and bought and refurbished by Americans in art deco style. A bizarre combination…. one of the few remaining period pieces was the Great Hall, where the ceiling beams were magnificent.

There was a talk going on in the corner from a volunteer, but from our vantage point in the gallery it looked like they were receiving a sermon…

Amongst the bizarre combinations were this gaudy bathroom

Virginia Courtauld’s ensuite – does the gold plated gaudiness remind anyone of a contemporary example?

The bomb shelter in the basement was fairly well equipped including a pool table.

It did sport fairly good views of London’s downtown financial district – photo courtesy of Alison McWalter. (dogwoods still in full bloom here though I still marvel at how advanced the artichokes are).

The gardens had some pretty spots (clematis above for eg), and were known for the contemporary 100 m long borders.

We had another day of lovely weather, and by this time it was t-shirt temps.

This garden too, had morning glory problems and were attempting to lure them up climbing sticks to isolate them and make them vulnerable to gently applied herbicide. I guess the standard gardening advice when asked how to best deal with morning glory, “Move!” wasn’t an option here….

hard to go wrong with a border given the gorgeous walls in the background…

gladioli with moat in background

Rock garden – photo courtesy Alison McWalter

Wisteria on terrace of Palace – growing on pillars relocated from Bank of England after its’ renovation

Here too in the grounds there were many spots to plop down and be contemplative. There was an interesting swath of laurel which was left for yards in a low trim, like a high groundcover (seen on the right). Must be a challenging trimming job.

The lower gardens were styled in rooms as well, though the rose garden was afflicted by aphids again.

There was an iris project close to the entrance which yielded some lovely colour.

After final refortification with another drinkable coffee (we’d had a quick sandwich and coffee at the start) we were off to the next spot on the itinerary, Horniman Gardens. Or were we? Trying to leave the palace parking lot the bus driver was faced with 2 vans on one side of the road, and another car parked directly across on the other, leaving little space to get between and certainly not enough for our monster bus. Unfazed, Sam put the behemoth in park and hopped out, walked over to the school nearby whose name was identified on the side of the vans, and returned with a woman with dangling keys who moved the car (stupidly parked on the narrowest point of the curve in the road)… turns out she was a teacher on her way home and had just “run in to get something she’d forgotten”.

And so it was into London traffic, past the famous Maudsley Hospital amongst other landmarks, to Horniman Park. This is a large public park, with good views of the city and expansive green spaces for the public to use for free. It contained a (rather sad looking) specimen of a Woollemia tree, a dye garden, and we found mulberry trees at the back of the latter.

Dye garden

The dye garden was chained off and we watched with interest as someone hopped over the chain fence, took multiple pictures including while stepping onto the bed to get a closer view, then proceeded on his journey, hopping over the fence on the other side.

lovely carved bench near the perennial garden

London skyline from Horniman park – closer!

It seemed like a bit of a filler visit, but some time meditating on a bench in the shade (Alison and I) while others basked in the sun (most of the rest of the group!) passed a very pleasant hour. Then it was back into rush hour traffic, fortunately most of it heading in the opposite direction to us, and we learned that Sam was a former double decker London city bus driver hence the explanation for why he was never flustered!

It was heartening to see some decent bike lanes on our way through town, and many cyclists on them pedalling through the inner core. Most but not all sported helmets and there is no law here to wear one, unfortunately. It was very different driving past landmarks such as Victoria Station, which I’ve only ever accessed from underground, I think, and fun driving past the iconic MI5 building. Going alongside Hyde Park in Knightsbridge I was able to identify The Berkeley where I’d been a few days ago picking up the patisserie from the Patisserie Cedric Grolet… We were deposited in Kensington in a fairly tony neighbourhood, and decanted onto the sidewalk with our suitcases. Sadly, we are saying goodbye to Sam and Lynn here and changing buses (hopefully to a smaller one) and guides. The hotel here is huge, with a lot of Middle Eastern customers and many things are not functioning well – Alison is currently engaged in getting her heating fixed as her room temperature approximates a refrigerator interior. I was “upgraded” to the 6th floor for some mysterious reason, and the upgrade appears to entail a smaller room, and being the only recipient in our group of a bottle of water….

Laundry done, Alison and I went for a quick stroll in the ‘hood and discovered the nearest green space was a private garden needing a key for entry. I offered to hoist Alison over the wrought iron fence but she declined. We dined en masse at a nearby pub with preset menus; the starter of feta cheese and humus was nice, the main of salmon cakes was good and the most important course, dessert, a very disappointing sticky toffee pudding made with molasses cake and very little caramel sauce.

Long but interesting day, and once again I forgot to start Strava though I can summarize by saying, there was lots of walking!!