Helmingham Hall NCCPG Plant Sale

For our family day out, mentioned earlier, we set out with our picnic to Helmingham Hall. It is normally open only on Wednesday and Sunday afternoons from May to September, and we've been meaning to go there for some time. It's signposted off the A1120 tourist route to the Suffolk coast and can be found here on the map. But yesterday it was open from 10:30 to host the Suffolk Group of the National Council for the Conservation of Plants & Gardens, who have a plant sale there twice a year.

Here's the Hall. It is surrounded by a moat and the two bridges both have drawbridge sections at the end.

Here's a section of the plant sale. I didn't count them, but I would guess there were about 20 stands selling a large variety of plants.

While Little W and I went to see the knot garden, the girls spent some time foraging at this stand selling lots of unusual herbs...

...emerging with 3 amazing mints (chocolate, blackcurrant and ginger) and a woolly thyme. We also got some chilli plants - Hot Lemon, Chi-Chen and Aji Benito varieties, and 3 free not-quite-so-rare-anymore foxgloves.

"The rain is only supposed to last 2 hours", said The Missus. Hmm. Well I'd got drenched at the Continental market more than 2 hours earlier and it didn't look like it was getting any drier. But we just had to explore the gardens, which are really rather splendid...

...even in the rain. Ooh look. The kids have found some shelter...

No room there for a picnic. We returned to the car looking as drowned as any pack of rats you could imagine. I looked at the roof of the car...

After nearly 11 years living in Suffolk, this was definitely our wettest day out ever. "I know somewhere dry we can have our picnic", I said...

Yes, we went home, got some dry clothes on, and had our picnic at the kitchen table!

P.S. You can see more of my pictures of the Hall and Gardens here on Flickr.