Might be a little late in posting this blog, considering Will and I took our weekend break to a beautiful Air Bnb in Knotty Green just over 2 weeks ago now. In my defence, I’ve only just got round to looking at all of the pictures we took to see if they are any good… thankfully, I have a few to share.
Just in case you weren’t aware of my new hobby of photography, I’m a beginner trying very hard to get better with the help of my A Year with my camera Workbook. Will also loves getting creative behind the camera so we both really enjoy going for walks together and taking creative shots– annoyingly I think Will is much better than I am. I’ll attempt to correctly label each image with the ‘photographer’ on images that were taken on my Nikon D5600.
So this blog consists of us doing just that, walking and photography in Bucks.
Anyways, so as we were newbies to the area (we chose Buckinghamshire as I have some friends from uni who lived nearby and Will’s Grandpa also lived nearby, so we popped in on them too), we looked to google for attractions in Buckinghamshire and located two national trust properties with huge gardens that we thought would be ideal for our walks.
The first place we visited was Hughenden Manor
Even though the skies were somewhat moody looking (aka. grey and overcast) it was still an excellent day to explore the grounds and the Victorian home of Benjamin Disraeli.
The grounds here were huge and with various forest tracks that weren’t always necessarily on the map, we often played the game of ‘where do we think we are’. We had an enjoyable walk, and we made it back so that’s what counts right?
Usually we go to national house properties for the walks but on this occasion we both thoroughly enjoyed the very interesting and enlightening history of the Manor.
It was once owned by Disraeli (who served as Prime minister twice in the UK), and then during WW2 Hughenden was an undercover location for the map making operations. Pilots would fly over enemy towns and take photographs, these images would be sent back to the map drawers at Hughenden and they would be deciphered into maps used to suggest targets for bombing.
This was, quite probably, one of my favourite National Trust houses to visit: we must’ve been in the Manor for at least an hour. Normally we just pop in for a nosey and a quick summary of the history, but this one really captivated us.
We were equally impressed by the lavish gardens at Cliveden.
Like the children we are, We started off with a hedge maze…
It was actually pretty hard: I underestimated the maze.
The water garden was radiant in the sunshine. It’s a shame it wasn’t a few degrees warmer as we totally would’ve napped in the sun here, it was so peaceful.
Clivedon house was as lavish as its prices. We looked up how much it would cost to spend a night here in a fantasy that we could spend another day in Buckinghamshire…. let’s just say it would’ve cost at least about 4 months of my entire wages for a single bed room.
We did have many jokes that we weren’t posh enough to be visiting Buckinghamshire… especially when the pick and mix in a Sainsbury’s supermarket was not the usual penny sweets, but a selection of Lindor chocolates.
This property sat right by the Thames and is as every bit as lavish as one might expect from the room prices.
Felt bizarre looking out at the view whilst the people in the building behind us were guests having champagne with their breakfast….
We spent most of the day walking around the gardens here and soaking up the sunshine, and playing with the settings on my camera so I’m just going to share a quick spam of some of Will’s images:
We had a lovely time away. It felt long overdue as our last solo trip was a night in London for the Harry Potter studio tours, and then years before that was camping on Dartmoor. I really hope we get to take more trips like this.
If lockdown has taught me anything it’s about taking every opportunity to get out and do something and go somewhere new (obviously, at your own pace and not constantly, you still need breaks in amongst it where you lie in bed for a day).
Thanks all for reading!
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