Woolly says – We were off to meet the family, it’s always lovely to catch up with Morag and David not to mention daughter Zoe who would be meeting us there. Even the weather seemed to be on our side, although the sat nav finished its directions a mile away leaving Jo knoring at her nails, we arrived on the car park just on the dot of eleven.

Kyre Park is a privately owned parkland & gardens, laid out in 1754 by Capability Brown. Considered one of the finest gardens in Worcestershire since the mid 1700s, its roots go back to medieval times when it became licensed in 1275. Over its history the house and grounds have provided as a WWII military convalescent, a sanatorium and nursing home for children, a care home as well as a family home.

With everyone in attendance and coffees consumed we headed out to see what the park would offer us, we arrived at the first of the park’s lakes crossing over a wrought iron bridge that had been constructed a few miles away in Stourport, below it yellow water lilies had nearly covered the lake itself, not quite in full bloom but very pretty non the less.

The path led us towards an archway and a dark tunnel beyond, the green man sculpture above the archway looked friendly enough but the darkness beyond might hold all sorts of gremlins waiting to attack, I took the only sensible precaution and sent Alfie the Dog in first.

A small domed skylight lit the inner sanctum allowing us to see two faces who looked as though they had been turned to stone when the had taken the same pathway, I shivered in fear although to be fair it was quite cold and there was a good chance that the family of the estate might once have stored their ice supplies in there. I hurried through before I could be turned into a stone mammoth and was glad to see the sunshine.

We had exited through what looked like a small tower but was in fact a folly, so popular at the time of construction, next to it was a small bridge guarded by another green man.

I followed the pathway towards the top and found a very pleasant area for sitting and admiring the landscape. Below us another lily padded pond sat with a variety of pinks, whites and yellows all waiting to come into full bloom.

The path led us past the waterless waterfalls and onto another lake. This one was home to a small family of swans and coots with an odd moorhen putting its head in and out of the water.

A small summer house made a perfect spot to sit and watch the wildlife going about their business.

As we walked onwards more lakes appeared, if only we had waited a few more weeks and we would have seen them in all of their glory, the Monet bridge named so aptly for the scene that could be painted allowed us to cross the lake until the path ran out and we had to retrace our footsteps and climb down a small slope onto the road.

The view of the house itself was lovely and gave an indication of its historical architecture with the different finishes to the outer walls.

As we admired the house Alfie the Dog found himself a live willow summer house to explore, perfect for dozing on a warm summer’s day.

Having arrived back at the carpark and café the sensible suggestion was made for us to have lunch, we sat and chatted and caught up on our lives and what we had been doing, the company was excellent sadly the lunch wasn’t so great.

Leaving the café behind we headed off to look at the Dove Cote, a 14^th century building that had been moved to the site in 1754, it has 550 nesting holes served by a ladder which rotates on a central pivot for the easy collection of eggs. I peered closely at the nesting holes but failed to see anything much except for the large peacock who had taken up residence. It was the prettiest doe cote I had seen, as I pondered whether it could be converted to accommodation for me the humans set off once more.

Crossing the road we arrived at St Mary’s church, a very pretty place, the earliest parts of the church dated back to the Norman times around the 1100s with further additions added in the 1300s.

 Inside was an anteroom with stunning stained-glass windows providing incredible detailed work.

The church itself was small with a tiny organ and a large number of pews which were filled with a whole array of prayer cushions beautifully sewn in all many of designs.

To the left of the alter was the Geneva (‘breeches’) bible, printed in 1578 which was one of the most historically significant translations of the Bible into English, preceding the King James Version by 51 years.

The walls gave us memorials to many of the Pytt’s family members owners of the house for many years and window above the altar had a beautiful piece of glasswork depicting St George.

Content with our visit we left the small church and walked straight into a hail storm, seeking shelter from the hard icy balls arriving from the skies I sat looking at the view that the Pytt family would have enjoyed over the lake and landscape. Finally, the ice attack ceased and we were able to cross back to the cars. Such an enjoyable walk with some most interesting finds and wonderful people to shar it with, we headed back to all thing’s glamping.