Visit to Cotehele and Ken-Caro Gardens
Visit to Trebah and Glendurgan
Visit to Combe St. Nicholas Church, near Chard
Lunch at the Beambridge Hotel, Sampford Arundel
Visit to Eton College, Windsor
Visit to Kew Palace and the Royal Botanic Gardens
Visit to Buscot Park, Faringdon, Oxfordshire
Pub Lunch at the Royal Oak, Hill Common, Taunton
Visit to Furzey Gardens, Minstead, Hampshire
Visit to Canon's Ashby, Northamptonshire
Visit to Witley Court, Worcestershire
Visit to Gants Mill and Garden, Bruton
Wednesday 4 April
The visit to Ken-Caro Gardens, near Liskeard, gives Quantock Centre members the chance on the way to make another visit to Cothele, near Saltash, owned by the National Trust and featured in the Winter programme.
Cotehele includes a granite and slate-stone house, built mainly between 1485 and 1560. It was a home of the Edgcumbe family for many years. It has fine collections of textiles, armour and furniture. The formal gardens overlook a richly planted valley garden below, with a medieval dovecote and a Victorian summer house.
Ken-Caro Gardens are of infinite interest throughout the year. Magnolias and rhododendrons should be in full bloom at the time of this visit. Many bulb plants give extra colour. The owners, Mr and Mrs Kenneth Willcock, started creating the gardens in 1970.
Over the years, many new areas have been planted and new features added. There are wonderful panoramic views from a five-acre connoisseurs' garden, full of unusual plants. Wildlife is abundant in this truly beautiful garden, with its lily ponds and carefully positioned seating.
Wednesday 11 April
The gardens of Trebah and Glendurgan nestle in ravines descending to beaches on the Helford Estuary. Both gardens were originally owned and planted by members of the same family (Fox).
Trebah has an exotic landscape. Trees have been carefully positioned to give shape and colour to the gardens at all times of the year. The attention to planting produced dramatic views.
Glendurgan, owned by the National Trust, nestles in a wider ravine and boasts a truly magnificent, finely clipped maze. A brilliant carpet of bluebells is normally seen at the time of this visit.
Monday 16 April
St Nicholas Church is an imposing building with an interesting history and a fascinating range of architectural and other features. These include a Saxon font, the remains of a Norman doorway, examples of various phases of the medieval Gothic style, a painting of David from a former 18th century singing gallery, and evidence of neo-Gothic restoration and enlargement in the 19th century. Please take photographs.
Wednesday 18 April
Here is a chance to relax over lunch with Quantock Centre friends in the secluded surroundings of the Beambridge Hotel at Sampford Arundel, near Wellington. It is renowned for its locally supplied fresh produce. The speciality is the restaurant's carvery.
Tuesday 24 April
King Henry VI founded “The King's College of Our Lady of Eton beside Windsor” in 1440 to provide accommodation and education for 70 deserving scholars. A statue of Henry stands in the centre of the School Yard.
Features of Eton include the College Chapel in the Gothic Perpendicular style, the Cloisters Court, the Museum of Eton Life (including a re-creation of a boy's room in the 1900s), and the Brewhouse Gallery with two floors of changing exhibitions.
Wednesday 2 May
Kew Palace, an elegant and intimate building within the Gardens, was the country home of King George III and his family between 1800 and 1818. It was one of the places where he convalesced during his many bouts of illness – as told in, for example, The Madness of King George. Queen Victoria gave the palace to the nation in 1898.
It has recently been reopened after essential structural repairs. Some of the rooms been returned to how they were when the royal family first lived in the palace.
Collecting for the Botanic Gardens began in 1752 and some of Britain's most renowned architects, gardeners and benefactors have contributed to their development. The Palm House and Temperate House are iconic Victorian conservatories.
Wednesday 16 May
Buscot Park, a neo-classical mansion now owned by the National Trust, was built in the 1780s for Edward Lovedon Townsend. Eventually it was sold to Alexander Henderson, later lst Lord Faringdon, whose descendants continue to live in the house.
Buscot is home to the Faringdon Collection which includes paintings by Rembrandt, Rubens and Burne-Jones. The furniture is Adam and Hope and provides a splendid setting for the ceramics, both period and contemporary.
The gardens have been laid out over a period of time and include a water garden by Harold Peto.
Thursday 17 May
One of the main attractions at the Royal Oak is its excellent carvery lunch.
Monday 21 May
These attractive informal gardens, established in 1922, have all-year-round interest. Many azaleas and rhododendrons should be out when at the time of this visit. A heather garden and fernery are among the features of the gardens.
A lake, a 16th century thatched cottage (which housed families with as many as 13 children) and a craft gallery add to one's pleasure as does a new art gallery displaying paintings, sculpture and photographs by professional and amateur artists.
Tuesday 29 May
Cheddon Fitzpaine Village Hall, 7.00pm.
Here is another chance for a splendid fish-and-chip supper among friends and fellow-members of the Quantock Centre, plus slide-show entertainment from member Robin Grigg. Fingers and/or plastic forks will be the main utensils for this traditional treat.
Monday 4 June
This Elizabethan manor house has been the home of the Dryden family since it was first built in the 16th century. Set in beautiful gardens, the house features delicate plasterwork and fascinating wall paintings. The stone-flagged dairy and kitchen are especially interesting.
St Mary's Church, in the grounds of the house, was formerly an Augustinian priory.
Thursday 14 June
Witley Court, once a great house hosting many extravagant parties, is now a spectacular ruin following a disastrous fire in 1937.
English Heritage has embarked on an ambitious programme of restoration to bring the park, gardens, and sculpture back to their former glory. Restoration work to the West Wing has now made several rooms accessible for the first time to the public.
The vast and rambling remains of the palatial 19th-century mansion – originally Jacobean but later moulded into an Italian mansion with porticoes by John Nash – are surrounded by fine landscaped gardens, containing huge stone fountains. The largest of them, representing Perseus and Andromeda, has been restored to working order and is “firing” each day.
Thursday 28 June
The mill is named after John le Gaunt to whom in 1290 the Lord of Castle Cary granted the right to build a fulling mill. Locally woven cloth was washed and pummelled by huge wooden hammers driven by the water-wheel. The cloth was then stretched across tenterhooks to dry in Rack Close, situated nearby. The fulling mill was a centre for the local woollen industry for 400 years.
Its next period of prosperity was in the 19th century when the railway came to Bruton. A corn mill was needed to grind animal feeds for local farms responding to the rising demand for milk, cheese and bacon. The main machinery of four pairs of grindstones installed in 1888 is still working to produce animal feedstuffs.
The gardens will be at their best at this time of the year, with
delphiniums and poppies making an especially lovely show, all enhanced
by streams and waterfalls, ponds and a bog garden.