GARDENS OF SURPRISE

We took a trip to a local-ish house of interest a few days ago with two of our friends and I wanted to share some pictures from the day so I could let you know what we thought of Burghley House! The house is located near Stamford in Lincolnshire in beautiful grounds with surrounding gardens. It's £18 for entry and you get both the house and the gardens, but you also have to option of getting an annual pass for the same amount so, of course, we decided to do that so that we can go back for a year and not pay again which is a pretty good deal! The actual house is nice, you don't get to look round a huge amount of it but it was interesting, we chatted to a couple of the house assistants whilst we were going round and they told us a few stories about the family and those that used to live there - it definitely added to the experience so I would recommend asking questions as you go round to get the most out of your visit.

We had lunch at the Garden Cafe which was pleasant, they had a choice of sandwiches, paninis, cakes, coffee etc., not a huge amount but enough. There was another restaurant, The Orangery, which serves more substantial meals if you're looking for something a bit more and there are also a couple of cute gift shops. The star of the day though was definitely the gardens, especially the Gardens of Surprise. We weren't actually expecting much before we went to have a look around but it was so fun! Going through the gardens there are fountains, water curtains, ponds, outdoor giant garden games, sculptures, secret caves, a mirror maze and loads more. As well as the Gardens of Surprise they have the Sculpture Gardens which, again, were lovely to walk around, with a large lake and sooooo many sculptures to look at, we're sure we must have missed a few because some of them were quite hidden and you had to go exploring so find them.

It was a lovely day out to just wander around, luckily the rain held off until about 4 when we had looked around at everything which was lucky, and I'd definitely recommend a visit if you're in the area. They also hold lots of events throughout the year and are home to the Burghley Horse trials if you're into that sort of thing, so it's well worth having a look what's on!