Couple of stops from the journey north from Surrey to York, along the mostly uninteresting M1 motorway.
Home to one of the most significant gardens in Britain, Wrest Park is a substantial English Heritage site close to Luton. The house was used as a hospital in WW1, and suffered a fire in 1917 so there isn’t much left inside but the gardens alone make it worth a visit.
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They’re very French in style as originally laid out in the early 1700s, and later modified to a more ‘natural’ design by the prolific garden designer Lancelot “Capability” Brown. Not really to my taste but their intent to wow visitors is clear, with epic sight lines.
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Around the gardens are numerous eclectic buildings including a bowling green and this sadly empty Orangery.
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The Yorkshire Sculpture Park is somewhere I’ve wanted to visited for years, as a fan of sculpture parks generally and based on the amount of media coverage it gets. Sadly it was a disappointment…
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The sculpture park covers 500 acres, but is only home to around 80 sculptures, meaning a lot of walking through sheep, cow and goose dropping filled fields, and along stinging nettle lined riverside paths.
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The sculptures that are there were mostly underwhelming to me, though here are some of the more interesting ones.
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The huge if pretty hideous The Virgin Mother by Damien Hirst was one of the more memorable.
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The park is home to a large number of Henry Moore bronze sculptures which are very good.
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My clear favourite though was Untitled by Roger Hiorns, two decommissioned Boeing EC-135c aircraft engines.
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There is also a not very subterranean underground gallery which had a few things of interest, though the building was the main attraction for me.
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