Plantation House

This afternoon, under an improbably blue sky, we visited Oatlands, a former plantation house and gardens near Leesburg.

In its heyday the plantation grew first tobacco and then grain crops, with the assistance of enslaved labour.

The house is Georgian with some later additions to make it habitable for a family until it was bequeathed fifty years ago to the National Trust for Historic Building Preservation.

The terraced garden, once created to grow fruit trees and bushes, vines, vegetables and herbs is now largely a flower garden, although the herb garden still flourishes.

In the ponds, some quite noisy little creatures..

In the gardens, which were definitely suffering from the hot and dry weather, there were still some remarkably fresh blooms..

This flower seemed rather unseasonal..  I think perhaps an Autumn crocus?  There was a whole bank of them..