The July open day at the Gardens of Easton Lodge will feature the attraction’s wartime history, with lots to see, experts to chat to and 1940s songs from the Lancashire Belle.
There will be artefacts, photos and stories of the Easton Lodge airfield in the Second World War – with a particular focus on VE Day, to continue marking its 80th anniversary – and also from the First World War, when there was training on the estate.
Other history groups, including the US Army Air Force, the Dunkirk Museum and the Rifles Living History Society, will bring their stories to life, too.
The Lancashire Belle will be performing wartime songs at the open day on Sunday July 20
Visitors will also learn about the military vehicles and Austin 7s on display from chatting to their owners.
For children, there will be garden games and a themed trail, and they love the treehouse and learning about the Countess of Warwick’s animals, including her baby elephant Kim.
The gardens are still looking lovely, despite the shortage of rain. In Edwardian designer Harold Peto’s Italian garden, the water lilies are a range of lovely pastel hues, with dragonflies darting around them.
The Lady of Shalott rose
And in the walled kitchen garden, the roses are stunning and fragrant, and the dahlia border is beginning to fill out a bit.
In both gardens, the lavender hedges are in full flower and attracting clouds of butterflies, whites and commas, and hummingbird hawk moths are regular visitors too. Peacock butterflies, red admirals, bees and hoverflies are taking the nectar from other flowers.
There will be a range of stalls with local produce and crafts to buy, including honey and wax, jams, gins, turned wood products, arts and produce from the walled kitchen garden.
Volunteers from the Gardens of Easton Lodge Preservation Trust provide refreshments, including bacon or cheese rolls and home-made cakes.
Bees and hoverflies are taking the nectar from flowers at the gardens
On Sunday July 20, the gardens open at 11am and close at 5pm, with last entry at 4pm. Children under 16 enter free. Tickets cost £6 in advance online through www.eastonlodge.co.uk or www.Trybooking.com, or £7 on the gate. Dogs on leads are welcome.
The Gardens of Easton Lodge, at Little Easton near Great Dunmow, are Historic England grade II registered.
Easton Lodge dates back to Tudor times. The gardens were refashioned by Peto in 1902 for their owner, the Countess of Warwick, also known as Daisy. She entertained guests regularly and lavishly, including the Prince of Wales, who in the 1890s became her lover for eight years before he acceded to the throne as King Edward VII.
The gardens fell into disrepair after their use by the US Army Air Force and RAF, who were stationed on the neighbouring airfield in the Second World War.
They are maintained and managed by the charitable trust and its volunteers, who work throughout the year to make the gardens the lovely place they are for visitors, progressing restoration of its historic features, gardening and adding new planting. They also welcome visitors and bake the cakes.
Much of the trust’s restoration work to date has been to the Peto inheritance – restoring the balustrade around the large lily pond in the Italian garden and reconstruction of his treehouse in an old oak tree in the lime wood.
The volunteers have brought the historic walled kitchen garden back to life and now grow fruit and vegetables that are available to buy through the season.
A small but expanding Japanese-style garden is being developed at the bottom of the Glade, and the trust is continually adding to the wide variety of specimen trees around the gardens, which include nine regional champion trees and a collection from arboriculturalist Henry Girling.
In addition to the monthly open days on Sundays, the gardens are open every Thursday, 11am-3pm, with no need for advance tickets.
The part of the gardens that belongs to Warwick House, which is the remains of the mansion that was Easton Lodge, is open to visitors on open Sundays, thanks to its owners, but not on Thursdays.