Elvaston - St Bartholomew's Churchyard
w/e 17 February 2019
All of this week's pictures were
taken with a Kodak DX6490
People travel from miles around to visit Hopton Hall
in Derbyshire or Hodsock Priory in Nottinghamshire just to see
the snowdrops at this time of year but there are plenty of other
places as well and we didn't have to go far.
We could have returned to Shipley Country Park where we have
seen snowdrops several times in previous years. We could have
gone to Holme Pierrepont Hall just outside Nottingham. Instead
we opted for St Bartholomew's Churchyard at Elvaston, near Derby.
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The carpet of white behind the notice board at the entrance to
the churchyard was a foretaste of the thousands of flowers and
the sights to be seen within.
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One of those sights however was not snowdrops at all. A wall
behind the church where it backs on to Elvaston Castle provides
an unusual perching place for pigeons.
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But before we reached that wall we walked down the path to the
church between the topiary bushes and that carpet of snowdrops.
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On the other side of the path there were many more snowdrops
around the headstones in the graveyard and around this ancient
tree.
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The flowers are all around the churchyard but why someone should
discard a soft drinks can among them is beyond me although I
hadn't noticed it until I uploaded this picture.
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That's because my attention was elsewhere. I was going to caption
this picture "Spot the squirrel" but just as I pressed
the shutter it disappeared behind the headstone never to be seen
again.
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As we returned down the path out of the churchyard, we once again
saw the carpet of flowers stretching across the ground to the
headstones.
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And the graves near the entrance were not only surrounded by
snowdrops but daffodils were also starting to put in an appearance.
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It was snowdrops that were the dominant flower though. However
when we returned home via Risley, both side of the road there
were lined with daffodils already in flower. Spring is on the
way!
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