Bennetts Water Gardens

[puddleshark]

Yesterday, a Bank Holiday visit to Bennetts Water Gardens. I was expecting the Bank Holiday traffic to be horrible in Weymouth, but, perhaps because the weather was looking a bit chancy, there were no delays at all. I arrived shortly after the gardens opened at 10am, and for a short while had them all to myself.




The Monet Bridge.

Once the site of clay pits for a local brickworks, after the brickworks closed down in the 1950s, the flooded pits were used by a local businessman, Norman Bennett, to farm water lilies for a pond plant business. He acquired many of his water lilies from the same nursery in France that supplied Claude Monet for his garden in Giverny.

Norman Bennett's son, Jonathan, began landscaping the old pits into gardens.



The Water Gardens here are definitely the place to go if you like Water Lilies - they hold part of the national plant collection.





For some reason, I always find Water Lilies really hard to photograph. I don't think I really managed to capture their elegance in any of my shots.













There are half a dozen ponds and lakes on the site, and little grassy paths that wind around the margins, form causeways between them.














The sun came out as I walked, and suddenly the gardens turned into an Impressionist painting.



Damselflies and dragonflies appeared.


Blue-tailed Damselflies.


Norfolk Hawker (Aeshna isoceles ), which, according to my field guide, is only found in Norfolk. So what it's doing in Weymouth, I have no idea. (I'm pretty sure of the ID. Those green eyes are very distinctive.)


Black-tailed Skimmer.





The Water Lilies were beautiful, but it will probably be the dragonflies that lure me back for a return visit. I could watch dragonflies for hours.







Afterwards, a visit to the Café Monet, for the all-important tea and scone. Sat out on a little terrace in the sunshine, looking out over the now-busy gardens. A little girl in a white dress - escaped from an Impressionist painting - ran along a bank, accompanied by her reflection in the bright green water of the lake. At the neighbouring table, two nurses on a Bank Holiday jolly, tackling their cream tea with a battle-cry of "Jam first!"*


*It is hotly debated between the counties of Devon and Cornwall, which should be applied to the scone first: cream or jam.

Comments

[mallorys_camera]

I don't think I really managed to capture their elegance in any of my shots.

I would disagree. 😀

But then I didn't see them in real life.

[puddleshark]

Thank you!

I suppose the glare of reflection from the water makes it hard to catch subtleties, when photographing water lilies. Everything's too hard edged.

[asakiyume]

What a delight. Thank you.

[puddleshark]

You're welcome!

Such glorious gardens. I'm glad I made myself brave the Bank Holiday traffic.

[nikonf3]

Such a nice thing to do to a previously industrial site.

[puddleshark]

It's amazing how quickly and how thoroughly old industrial sites get transformed, once the industry stops. We have another disused clay pit near here that is now a famous beauty spot.