We were heading back to Painshill Park www.painshill.co.uk for our second walk-around, aiming to see some of the sights we had missed on our first walk. Now imagine this park filled with young men on horses, ladies in fancy dresses having a promenade, people rowing in the lake, groups picnicking on blankets, to see everyone who is out and about and to be seen. And what do you have? BRIDGERTON!!! Many times when they were filming a scene in a park setting, they were filming right here! People have come here to promenade for hundreds of years, as it is known as one of Britain’s best gardens. It is absolutely perfect, as this park has been painstakingly restored from the original version when it was designed in the 18th century by Charles Hamilton, and it is a window into the past. So lovely.
Take a look at the Bridgerton hot air balloon scene (season 1, or maybe season 3?) It was right here! Also the 5 arch bridge is where Simon and Daphne were speaking in season 1.
Why go back a second time? We missed so much the first time! We want to climb the tower, see the ruined abbey near the bottom of the grapevines, and take a look at the Chinese bridge (which is closed right now as it urgently needs to be refurbished.) Plus, I was hoping that the swans would come closer 😊. You can see the Chinese bridge in the background, with a swan in front of it!
So, off we went, bringing a little container of peas with us for the ducks. We walked in the “out” path this time, as a lot of what we wanted to see was closer to the exit than it was to the entrance. There weren’t a lot of people there this time through. We were sad to see that the tower was closed for the day! We could go up to it, but not inside.
The ducks were nowhere to be seen at first, but I did see the 3 swans! I went right by the waters edge to take a photo, and they kindly obliged me by swimming closer! And closer! AND CLOSER! Guess what? They very much liked being fed the peas! I have some excellent video to post… somewhere!
We walked on the far side of the crystal grotto, which we visited last time.
We continued our walk, and did get some nice photos next to the tower.
Next on our walking plan was the ruined abbey at the base of the vineyards. We only took photos from the lake side for this trip. ONe of the bridges is out of service, so it isn't quite as easy to stroll from one part of the park to the other part! Perhaps next time we will walk the other way.
There were many giant trees, which nothing like the trees in Canada. (Please disregard the very messy hair! It was windy and cool, (4 degrees Celcius), and I had my hood up most of the time!) I think this is a Barn Elm Plane tree... maybe. It kind of looks like it has consumed people... or hobbits... dwarves? Hmmm...
We got excited because we found the mallard ducks! First we had to go past many many many Canadian Geese, and some British geese, and something we didn’t know what it was but it was extremely territorial and it would chase all the ducks away! We had to look it up – and it was an Egyptian Goose! Just one. That does explain why it only chased the ducks, and not the other types of geese. At least it didn’t chase us!
The mallards were quite happy to come and eat the peas we brought, as soon as we moved past the edge of the Egyptian goose’s territory, just past the boathouse.
