Taken in the Cockpit Garden. It is believed that there was a garden below the castle walls in the Middle Ages, but little trace of it remained. As a millennium project, landscape architect Neil Swanson designed the new garden which has now matured nicely.
Swanson wanted visitors to sense 'something of the unseen, human struggle which took place there.'

Thinking of struggles, here's a little story that may amuse you...

On Monday we laid my mother's ashes to rest in her parents' grave, in a little country churchyard in Deepest Hampshire.
When we arrived at the church we were very relieved to see Bradley the undertaker waiting with the casket of ashes, we had been agreeing that none of us actually knew where they had been stored since the cremation in June.
We were however puzzled to see the grave undisturbed, apart from a cane stuck in the ground with a note of Mum's name. I said to Bradley 'Would you normally expect to see a hole dug at this stage?' He said 'Yes'.
The vicar arrived in all his finery. He seemed puzzled too, and rather nonplussed as to what to do next.
Discreet phone calls were made... It appeared that the gravedigger had taken himself out for the day and could not be contacted. His wife offered to come and do the job for him, but not immediately. Meanwhile Bradley had located a spade...
In the event, we sat with the ashes in the church, which was nice and cosy and had a loo, while the undertaker (in his smart black suit and polished shoes) and the vicar (in his white surplice, I didn't check out his footwear) dug into solid Hampshire clay. Every so often the vicar would pop back to borrow the casket, to check for size.
As we left afterwards the vicar, still all in white, was filling in the grave.
I was longing to grab a photo. Somehow I think it would have been bad form.
Mum would have enjoyed it, she had a subversive sense of humour.
Thanks for looking,
Moira

Tags: Castle Trees Richmond Landscape and travel