Belton House, Lincolnshire

April 13 2017 - my birthday outing.

As this was the Thursday before Easter there were a lot of visitors, but the grounds absorbed them easily. This time we didn't go inside the house.

Horse chestnut flowering

Old stable clock and stormy sky

Through the stables courtyard and into the gardens:

Gardener at work

Into the orangery:

The walled garden:

and the church:

The mirror pond:

 A few bluebells:

 A hairy woodland character:

 Tar Lane Pond:

A morel?

 Summer house:

Convenient summerhouse/shelter for a picnic on a windy day.

 Back to the gardens:

The sundial, featuring in Lucy Cresswell's book The Moondial and the 1980s TV series. Note there is a photo from July 2015, without the blue rope, here.

Belton House

Exploring and making use of the National Trust membership! Belton House was well worth the visit - lovely house and grounds.

The stables block and the archway to the house itself.

Who is this lurking in the ivy?

Monarch of all I survey?

A splendid ceiling in one of the rooms

Stairway and hall with gilt patterns and a portrait by Leighton.

One of several stone urns in the formal gardens

Statue in the formal gardens

Belton church where there are the remains of many of the Cust family who owned Belton House

The lion exedra - so we're told

Small statue in the Orangery glimpsed through the window

and another

Flowers and small tortoiseshell butterfly in the walled garden

Pillar in Belton Church

and the font.

The boathouse and small lake

A modest, or a cheeky statue near the maze.

St Medard(us) , Little Bytham

The name on the church struck me as we drove through Little Bytham last Friday. I have never seen it in England before:

The church is a Grade I listed building. It is dedicated to two 6th-century French saints, St Medard and St Gildard (or Medardus and Gildardus); the dedication is unique in the UK. Virtually unknown in Britain, St Medard is still well-known in France, with at least 25 towns or villages named after him (as St Médard or St Méard).^[2] Gildard, thought to be his brother, is less well known.^[3] The villagefête is held annually on or near St Medard's feast day, 8 June.

St Médard is particularly known in France for his association with bad weather - and once, as a child, was protected from rain by an eagle which hovered over him.

His feast day is celebrated on June 8. It is believed that, as with Saint Swithun, whatever the weather on his feast day, it will continue for the forty days following, unless the weather changes on the feast of St Barnabas (11 June).

One day, soon, I shall make time to visit the village, which was once a railway junction. The East Coast mainline trains still run through on a viaduct.

and talking of weather . . . Brooklyn's had a foretaste of winter.