Hallowscream!

Wray Castle has been a hive of activity this week. On Monday we hosted the South Lakes Orchard Group's annual apple pressing day. Rob and Andy brought a selection of locally grown apples and made some amazingly delicious apple juices for everyone to try. We were lucky enough to be left a bottle of juice at the end of the day, which we have been supping in between tours and helping out with the craft activities!

Yum Yum freshly pressed apple juice!



The presser in action!

As well as apple day, this week at the castle has been Halloween themed. Visitors, both young and old have enjoyed making witches and wizards hats, scary masks, creepy spiders and Halloween lanterns. We have also been entertaining visitors after hours with ghostly story telling sessions. Richard and Luke have been a great double act, both dressed in appropriately scary costumes and regaling guests with stories of skulls, severed hands and haunted tea pots! In the cold Autumn evening, victims-I mean, of course, visitors, found themselves in the dimly lit gothic hallway of Wray Castle and were greeted by the ghastly Black monk of Furness-Abbey and a young Undertaker's apprentice who took great pleasure in measuring guests for their coffins! 

Wray Castle's resident undertaker!



One of our most popular activities has been the broom stick making. When Richard the Ranger volunteered his skills to do this back in May I am not sure he quite realised what was in store for him!

Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to make over 100 broom sticks in 5 hours?? Well Richard no longer needs to ponder that question as he has spent two days at the castle this week doing exactly that! On Monday it seemed like a one man production line, but luckily reinforcements arrived as their were some very keen would be witches and wizards all eager to make their own broom stick.

Richard hard at work. Only 55 more to go!

A happy 'witch' with a rather large broom stick!

This is our last week of 7 day opening; but we are going to be open on weekends all the way up until the 23rd of december. There will be lots more craft activities and a giant christmas tree to decorate, so do come along and have some fun!

Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness

It didn't seem much like John Keats' 'season of mists and mellow fruitfulness' this morning as I stood in the pouring rain with my leaf blower on my back, blowing leaves off the car park at Hill Top; but autumn is definitely here.

Different tree species lose their leaves at different times and it's always the horse chestnuts that go first after a rather half-hearted display of autumn colour. Sycamores are next and they don't even try to put on a show, their leaves turning from an unremarkable green to a sludgy brown before they drop ( I don't like sycamore trees, except in my log-pile). Beech trees do much better and their leaves are starting to colour up nicely with the oaks not far behind. A good frost usually speeds things up but we've been spared that so far.

Hill Top garden has a few good autumn colour candidates including the Eucryphia I mentioned in an earlier post, some deciduous azaleas and a Crimson Glory Vine (Vitis cognetiae) which covers the wall of the pub next door.

Crimson Glory vine

Autumn is the time of year for planting bulbs which will flower next spring, and with that in mind, assisted by my hardy group of volunteers, we planted 900 crocus bulbs and 150 wild daffodils in the walled garden at Monk Coniston (one of the other gardens I look after).
Hopefully by March next year we'll have a fantastic display to brighten up the start of the new season.

Sore knees anyone?

And finally this month, I spent an exhausting but enjoyable day with my colleague Neil, manning the apple shy at the Acorn Bank Apple Day. The stall involved throwing small hard pears at an Aunt sally scarecrow and tring to get a pear into one of her buckets or knock the apple off her head. A steady stream of customers both young and old tried their luck and those with enough skill (or perseverance) were rewarded with a nice juicy apple as a prize.


Tiny ones were encouraged to cheat!

 Other attractions included apple tastings, a Punch and Judy show, live drummers, morris dancing, pruning demonstrations, a local food market, craft demonstrations, archery and Acorn Bank's working watermill. Make a date in your diary for next year.

 Oh well, back to those leaves.....

Post and photos by Pete the Gardener.