Hever Castle

Hever Castle in Kent is the childhood home of Anne Boleyn, and a fine example of Tudor architecture. It also has a hedge maze, a wooden maze, a water maze, an adventure playground, and one weekend in early September, a small but really lovely quilt show. We try to make an annual event of it. Especially because the weather in early September is almost always sunny and lovely. We missed the show last year, but this year, we managed to make it.



We had a picnic lunch on a bench by the lake, looking across to the edge of the Italian Gardens. Some ducks came to join us...






...and later a swan.



There was a lovely border of every kind of dahlia under the sun - this is only a small selection.



We found our way through the hedge maze to the middle...





...admired the topiary...



...swung on some swings, ate ice cream,



and finally, made our way through the water maze - we even remembered to take swimsuits and a towel this year (it is, I can vouch, entirely possible to make it through the maze staying completely dry, but if you are a 7 year old boy or a 10 year old girl (Sarah not being with us on this occasion), that's not really the point...).



And here's Olivia at the top of the tower in the middle of the maze.