The Italian Gardens at Trentham, Staffordshire

After quite a traumatic week, I met up, to cheer myself up, with a great friend and we spent the day in Trentham Gardens, dodging the showers and having a great meal - and lots of putting the world to rights.

Of course I took the camera and as well as the main shot, I took individual flower shots in the spectacular Italian Garden.

pink beauties

not a thistle

blue flower


More background to the park

Trentham Gardens are formal Italianate gardens, and an English landscape park in Trentham, Staffordshire on the southern fringes of the city of Stoke-on-Trent, England. The house was demolished in 1911 by its owner the 4th Duke of Sutherland, but the gardens and the park with its lake and woodlands have been preserved. One of the reasons for the demolition of the house was pollution of the River Trent, which flows through the grounds. The pollution, along with much of the pottery industry that was the cause of it, have long gone and there are now kingfishers in those same grounds

The gardens and park at Trentham currently cover some 300 acres (1.2 km²). They were designed as a serpentine park by Capability Brown and Henry Holland from 1758 onwards, overlying an earlier formal design attributed to Charles Bridgeman. However, in the twentieth century Trentham Gardens was principally known for the surviving formal gardens laid out in the 1840s by Sir Charles Barry, who also created Italianate gardens at Harewood House and Cliveden.

The gardens were the site of the Trentham Ballroom, which opened in 1931 and closed in 2002. Many dance, rock and pop bands performed at Trentham Ballroom, including The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Who and Led Zeppelin. The Ballroom also hosted degree ceremonies for North Staffordshire Polytechnic.

The Trentham estate is undergoing a major £120-million ($200m) redevelopment by St Modwen Properties plc as a leisure destination called "The Trentham Estate".

The project at Trentham includes restoration of the Italian gardens and woodlands, and creation of a garden centre. The aim is to avoid noisy theme park-like attractions, and instead to offer "authentic experiences" to older people and younger children. Recently a monkey forest, the first of its kind in England, has opened. Visitors can roam through the park where 140 Barbary Macaque monkeys wander free in the woodlands. There are no fences in place to stop the monkeys from interacting with the visitors, although it is against park rules to touch the animals and wardens are on standby to ensure the safety of the visitors.