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.