Flickr Mosaics - Winchester

I do love making photo mosaics on Flickr, I do mine on bighugelabs.com  Here are several I recently made from photos of my visit to Winchester, Hampshire in 2007.  We spent a week in Winchester, a really lovely small city with loads of history, architectural gems, lush gardens, and a cathedral.  It was June and everything was in bloom.



High Street, the photo in the center, is so beautifully preserved that you can't tell if it's 2007 or 1907 if it wasn't for the omnipresent trashcans...Winchester is very big on trashcans,



Even in a week there was not enough time to begin to capture all the lovely details.



These photos are from Queen Eleanor's Garden at the castle (home of King Arthur's supposed Round Table).  It was just coming into bloom, but was so lush and green and amazingly full of ideas for such a small garden.



All cathedrals are wonderful in their own way, but Winchester Cathedral has to be one of my favorites.

Bollards in the heart of the town were painted in the style of famous artists, it felt like a treasure hunt as wandered around town and stumbled on on of them.  It also felt like a pop quiz as the three of us sometimes struggled to identify the artist.

Looking back at these mosaics, several things come to mind that aren't represented here, but deserve to be mentioned in any conversation about Winchester.  I'll save them for a later post...maybe even tomorrow.

Sir Harold Hillier Gardens

One the same day that we visited Mottisfont Abbey we also went to Sir Harold Hillier Gardens in Romsey, just a few miles down the road.  This garden couldn't be more different, and yet we found it equally wonderful.  It covers 180 acres with over 42,000 plants from around the world in themed plantings.  We were particularly attracted by the fact that it was hosting a show of garden art.  There were hundreds of works of art spread out through the gardens - art of all sizes and types, truly something for everyone.

You can get a better look at these pictures on my Flickr site. There are at least a dozen more of the artworks there also.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39450859@N07/sets/72157623448854816/

The lovely lady wading in the pool is the one who got us there as I had seen her on-line.  She was, of course, one of our favorites, as were the big balls of wound vines shown at the bottom.  And speaking of bottoms, who wouldn't love that blue guy standing on his his head.


Some pieces were very organic and would fit nicely in almost anyone's home garden...



Others were of a size that could only be called 'Institutional'.

My favorite was a group of Mad March Hares frolicking through the tall grassy meadow, a perfect example of how perfectly sited each and every work was. 


Don't you just love them?

  An added bonus was the newly hatched group of Moorhens - would they be Moorchicks?  We found them balancing gingerly on the waterlily leaves as mother watched on approvingly.

Mottisfont Abbey Gardens

Recently I've been working with my photos from Mottisfont Abbey and their amazing rose garden.  In 1972, the gardens became the home for the 'National Collection of ancestral species and 19th-century rose cultivars'.  Our visit was mid-June of 2007 which must have been a banner year for roses.  We had been amazed at brilliant rose displays in Winchester City Gardens and Queen Eleanor's Garden at Winchester Castle but we were not prepared for the sheer abundance of blossoms we found at Mottisfont.

Since we were there on a weekday afternoon, the crowd wasn't too big and although I took hundreds of pictures that day (we also visited the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens on the same day) I could easily have taken hundreds more - in fact I wish I had.

As you can see, it wasn't just the roses.  The plantings were brilliant and there was an abundance of display ideas for a multitude of different rose habits.  The gardens have lovely perennial borders as well as plenty of fruit trees.  The wonderful old brick walls are the best backdrops one could wish for.  Can you tell I loved it?  After Sissinghurst, this has to be my best English garden experience ever.

In addition to the gardens, the rest of the grounds were delightful and even the quick tour we took through bits of the house was worth the time.  If you are anywhere in the area, don't miss this National Trust gem, and give yourself the whole day so you don't miss a thing.