Stop and Smell the Roses

Padma arrived on Monday afternoon, and on Tuesday he and I had breakfast before popping down to the City Centre for some shopping. While there, we stopped at my favourite of shops, Starbucks Coffee Co. Turns out they’ll take American partner numbers, but only with an actual card – do you feel like sending mine, mum? We wandered around Cabot Circus and over into the Broadmead area where we saw someone playing on one of the live art pianos, which are currently featured in Bristol.

Once we were through shopping, Padma and I caught the U1 going out to the Ashton Bower campus of UWE where fine arts studies take place. This is where I’d seen the grounds of Ashton Court Estate, and that is where we headed. It’s only a very short walk from the AB Campus car park, though the walk is entirely uphill. Ashton Court Estate is comprised of a huge mansion and its grounds, bought from private owners by the Bristol City Council in the 1970s. Coming in we saw what we learned later were red deer standing around in a field on a hill. The hill was rippled over with trenches that are what remains of the Saxons who lived there and ploughed the land back in the day.

I got more excited than I should have about the view from the car park at the visitor’s centre, especially considering what we went on to see. The visitor’s centre itself had only opened the week before we arrived there, and the facilities there (cafe, etc) are in the process of getting started. They have the first floor renovated and open for conferences and weddings, but the rest of the house is closed until they can get enough money to furnish it for public viewing. The house has quite a history and ownership of the land is mentioned in the Doomsday Survey, which I thought was pretty cool. The grounds are home to a deer park including red and spotted deer, as we’d seen from the road.

When we’d had our fill of history, Padma and I took off down a path and through a garden, but where we were wasn’t on the map, so we ended up kind of backwards. We were trying to get to something labelled as the “Domesday Oak,” which sounded kind of awesome. A friendly jogger with a stroller gave us some idea of where we were, but it turned out that once she looked at the map, she didn’t know where we were, either! Anywho, we got straightened out and headed bravely off in the right direction... which seemed to lead up a tiny, rocky, extra steep path for mountain bikes. We climbed it anyway, and I got photos of Bristol from several different elevations, and snapped a few photos of plant life for later identification.

At the top of this path, we did indeed find an oak tree, but it had no sign or indication that it was the Domesday Oak. A biker passing by circled back to see if we needed help, and said that it looked to him like we were in the right place. I have since learned from the estate’s website the Domesday Oak is one we passed a few metres down the road, one that I fortunately decided to photograph. We climbed up just a little ways further and sat on a bench looking out at the city – definitely my favourite view so far. We then, thankfully, started our journey downhill. The way back down included the statue of a guy’s head which I assume represented the head of a Mr. Smythe.

A little ways on from that we found a really pretty little clearing and a darker bike trail into the woods which we decided to follow. This led us back around to almost exactly where we’d started up the hill, and afforded some really beautiful shots of the mansion house. The grounds there are absolutely gorgeous, covered in trees and huge meadows of this really soft, springy grass. It’s long enough and shiny enough that when the wind blows you can watch the waves blow across. Even though I have so much more to explore, I really can’t wait to get back to this park!

Back towards the mansion house we followed a path down through a pretty landscaped garden and between these two huge redwood trees which you can see in a few of my pictures. We spent quite a lot of time in the estate’s rose garden, most of which was in full bloom. Each bush smelled slightly different, and we had a great time comparing them, especially the ones that smelled like peaches. A few varieties have sort of a lemony scent to them, which I particularly enjoyed.

There are several festivals held at Ashton Court Estate throughout the year, including a hot air balloon festival and the kite and flyer festival which was held just last weekend. On our way back toward the park entrance, I snapped a photo of what must be Charlie Brown’s Kite-Eating Tree.

There were lots of people with their dogs all over the park the whole day, both on and off their leads. One woman had a really pretty little whippet, and a basset hound tried really hard to get me to play with her. We met a four-month-old Alsatian puppy called Skye just before we left, and she was just desperate to meet us. Also on the grounds we saw a huge German Shepherd with his people, and loads of terriers. One woman was doing retrieval games with her border collie, which appeared to be having a great time.

In the history of the estate we’d read that Esme Smythe, a former lady of the house, liked to keep Pomeranian dogs. She had usually kept several at a time and had had them buried on the grounds. We passed their little graveyard patch on our way up to the road and paused a few moments to read their headstones. One of them, I was amused to find, had been called Tam.

At the very last second I spotted a strange box set a few yards away from the car park, carved all over with Saxon-esque relief. It turned out to be a map explaining the view of Bristol from that point, including an explanation of the Saxon ploughing strips. We made it back down the bus just as it arrived for its six-minute sit at the campus, and then we were on our way back to Frenchay. It’s really exhilarating to be able to just see something and decide to go check it out. I never treated anything in Richmond that way because it always seemed so familiar. Here, though, everything is new and every excursion an adventure. I am having so much fun!

I finally had an extended conversation with my suitemate, Erik, who is the only other fellow in my flat just now. He is a German citizen who has been living in Norway the last six years, and he’s starting his first year at university studying Pharmaceutical Science. He, Padma and I met Lauren, a fellow VCU student, for Orientation activities this morning. Our activities were not particularly exciting, but I collected a few useful websites for later perusal. Lauren and I marched down to Sainsbury’s for her first shopping experience, and we’ll all be meeting again tomorrow morning for day two of the fun. I hope tomorrow won’t be too long, as I’m really hoping to get to explore North Park down in the Centre this week. If not tomorrow, though, there’ll be Friday... and the day after that... and the day after that...