Cockscomb

Today I took a visit to the 18th century garden at Painshill; a landscaped garden created by Charles Hamilton who following his two "Grand Tours" of Europe had a vision to create "living paintings" of what he saw,  and created a garden with follies, serpentine lake and a crystal grotto. This new style of garden led to the English Landscape movement which went on to influence garden design across Europe.

Since my last visit in 2021 the visitor's experience has been enhanced by more panels giving the history of the park which was nearly lost after being divided into lots and sold off following WWII, with many of the follies and paths falling into ruins or completely lost.  In the 1970s the local borough council started to buy back much of the estate and a charitable trust was formed in 1981 with the objective to restore it to its 18th century splendour. The work is ongoing, but I think they have achieved their aims.

As part of the landscape movement, there are few flowers to be seen for BikerBear's Flower Friday challenge, but I did find some beds representing the exotic plantings collected during the grand tours, and was rather taken by this red flower, appropriately named cockscomb. The bees seem to like it too!