Right underneath the flight path of planes taking off from the nearby Birmingham International Airport, mere yards from a modern housing estate and a few miles from the centre of the modern city of Birmingham is a tranquil reminder of a time when the surrounding area was just country side.
Today we visited Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens
The house was built in 1599 by Sir Edward Devereux and extended by Sir John Bridgeman I about 100 years later. The Gardens were then developed by several generations of the Bridgeman Family reaching a peak of excellence around 1760. The Gardens fell into decline during the twentieth century until they were rescued by the Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens Trust in 1985.
These 10 acre walled gardens are a rare example of formal English garden design of the style popular before Capability Brown brought in landscape gardens and formal gardens went out of fashion . They are being restored as near as possible to the period 1680 to 1762 when the Bridgeman family moved to Weston Park.
The Green House and Summer House have been restored: