Dipley Mill - lovely place

I wrote about this earlier this year, having driven past it on the way to visit  West Green House again, and having then found it on the internet and established that it's only open a couple of times a year.

Finally last month, I managed to get to one of the open days, and I can recommend it highly.

This was the view that tempted me:

Seen from the road - with thank to Google street view, as it's not a bridge on which you can stop and admire the mill stream - and here it is from the inside, as it were:

Lovely, isn't it? I wandered a little closer to the road bridge, admiring the symmetry of the reflections in the still water:

 Every garden with water should have a boat, even if it's not a real one, and yes! they had a boat.

The label on the side told us that it is came from Thailand, and is very fragile, which is why they screen it off from the garden.

Presumably they no longer use it on the water there - or maybe they never did, as they only have the one stretch of still water, then it's all weirs and so on: as the name suggests, it's a former Mill, rather than a house with a decorative lake on which you can paddle around in a genteel manner.

Other things which caught my eye include this rather lovely part-grown arch into the wild part of the garden.

I'm not entirely sure what the foliage is: I thought it was willow-leaved pear - usually seen as a pendant tree - as any normal willow would be far too vigorous for a small arch like this.

But I didn't really look too closely at it!

I know, I know - "call yourself a Botanist!"

*hangs head in shame*

If the garden were in Oxfordshire, this might be a candidate for Prettiest Garden Seat In The West.

(Award currently held by a seat in one of "my" gardens.)

I particularly like the Bamboo Grove all around it.

Here's a more traditional willow arch, strongly made and growing well.

Stupidly, I took the photo from the right angle to show off the formation of the arch, instead of the right angle to show the "long" view across the water meadows to the elegant statuary at the far end.

Oops!

I'm a gardener, ok, not a garden photographer!

Regardless of  my photographic shortcomings, Dipley Mill is a lovely garden to visit,  so put a note in your diary for early next year, look it up in the NGS Yellow Book, or check the website for opening times. Well worth it.