Henry Moore - Perry Green

This a little further from Ampthill, and certainly different type of day out.  I admit I went as 'helper' with the school quite a few years ago, and wasn't sure if it was going to be my thing.  But it was lovely wandering around seeing the enormous pieces of art that Henry Moore had produced.












So if you love statues then it is worth a visit.  There is also an exhibition of screen printed fabrics that he also designed.  You can defnitely lose yourself around the grounds on a lovely fine day, I wouldn't recommend going in the rain.  They have a website and the facilities have changed since I went it is looking great on the website www.henry-moore.org, it opens for the season on 1 May.





There is a place to eat a picnic, or I would recommend combining the visit to Hopleys plants it is a lovely nursery with extensive grounds and a really nice tea room, selling homebaked quiches amongst other things.  It is only about 1 mile from Perry Green.

Hitchin Lavender

We popped over to Hitchin Lavender last week, it is about 20 minutes drive from Ampthill, and easy to find, the village of Ickleford is lovely to drive through also.



The Farm is a working farm with a huge field of lavender that looks magnificent as it goes up a slope. The smell and the sound of the bees was fantastic.  You walk along rows of lavender cutting as you go as they provide a bag and scissors for you to trim the sides of the plants to your hearts content.






We also had a leisurely lunch there, they offer a selection of sandwiches and paninis and also quiche and salad which is what we chose.  They were very busy so unfortunately some of the quiches had gone - but second choice was just as good and service quick.  They also had cakes - but didn't partake :)




Along with the lavender they have planted a field of sunflowers that you could pick for 50p each - this was a challenge in itself with the supplied scissors ...but worth it, my 3 sunflowers looked great and soon perked up having had stems cut and put in loads of water.

Having spent all that time in the field getting quite hot we sat and had a homemade lavender ice cream afterwards, apparently also made in Hitchin, but cannot recall the name!



There is plenty of space to sit and have a picnic and lots of families were enjoying the sunshine and lavender.

Here they are - light was fading and they had were loads better an hours or so later:

Shaws Corner - National Trust

The journey is around 45 minutes drive from Ampthill (22 miles), a pleasant country drive.  It is the former residence of Sir George Bernard Shaw. 

I would think unless you are a really big fan of GBS you will only spend an hour or so around there.  It was a nice afternoon out and lovely to take a picnic, as there are no catering facilities there, just some ice-creams.


The garden is lovely and slopes away from the house, but I did feel that it could do with some attention, particularly the flowerbeds, the orchard and wooded areas are fine.  GBS had a writing hut which is still in the garden.

As you can see the house in not a 'stately manor' just a large house with servants quarters.




There are some seats around the grounds and we did take a picnic and enjoyed just sitting in the grounds in the sunshine.










There is a lot of information about GBS in the house and there are volunteers that take you through a lot of the history.  If you enjoy the history of the writer there is so much to see, and it is still as he left it.   

Parking can be a bit tricky, as the car park is quite small, but there is a steady stream of people coming and going.

As we are National Trust members it didn't cost us anything for the entry, I did think that the entry price was a bit high at the time.