Japanese Garden, originally uploaded by deegs.
Biddulph Grange is a National Trust house and landscaped gardens, situated in Biddulph near Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England. “Behind a gloomy Victorian shrubbery there’s a gloomy Victorian mansion, but behind that lurks one of the most extraordinary gardens in Britain…it contains whole continents, including China and Ancient Egypt - not to mention Italian terraces and a Scottish glen.
Biddulph Grange, originally uploaded by Mike Rollinger.
In the Egyptian part of the garden, “Two sphinxes guard the mastaba-like entrance to a tunnel, whose darkness is an invitation to explore. Deep inside is a bloody chamber (lit by a hidden window of red-coloured glass) in which squats the half-spooky, half-comic figure of the Ape of Thoth.”
Biddulph Grange, originally uploaded by kev747.
The true brilliance of Biddulph Grange “lies in the way that Cooke and Bateman hid the different areas of the garden from each other, using heaps of rocks and thickly planted shrubberies’ the design locks together as tightly as a jigsaw or a cross-section of the brain.” It contains “a series of Italianate terraces, connected by steps and enclosing small flower gardens’ at the bottom, long, buttressed hedges enclose a dahlia walk.”
Biddulph Grange, originally uploaded by quimby.
