Mount Stewart National Trust

I had a whistle stop Tour of Belfast at the weekend. It was to see friends from University who live in 3 different parts of the UK having met in the late eighties. (Eek!) My Belfast-based pal drove us out of Belfast to see the dodo festooned columns of Mount Stewart and we wandered round guessing at the names we knew certain plants by and trying to identify others by our combined plant knowledge.

It is a truly breathtaking garden laid out in a number of different stages of featured planting and little enclaves opening out onto the landscape around the small lochan.

I love a guidebook to give me facts for this blog but despite hunting the bookshop and several bookshops in other parts of the city I have not located a book. Even Amazon when I got home was a bust!

Please enjoy the pictures…

The lady who came to inherit the property, Lady Londonderry, was known to be quite an eccentric. Hence the menagerie of exotic animals featured on the statuary around the property.