On our mystery jaunt we ended up at the village of Goodnestone to find it has a privately owned estate and mansion open to the public with one of the few gardens in Kent that is listed as well worth seeing… not that we did. However the park is typical of English parkland which is a visually pleasing, if somewhat contrived and, I assume, unique to this land.
Away from where we went is a long avenue more like a French chateau’s, nor is there a ‘folly’ or lake which are often features of such estates.
The parkland I assume had the original function of a place to hunt deer before Capability Brown just made it a fashionably picaresque addition to the family seat.
Odd to see such long shadows as it was not long after midday.
It is attractive but feels oddly contrived and less pleasing than either the totally natural landscape or that created by man’s use for coppice, farm or industry that is often no longer extant, but the way it molded the land lives on.
