Dahlia delights

The Dahlia Festival at Anglesey Abbey

Magenta dahlia

I was lucky enough to visit Anglesey Abbey with friends this weekend on the penultimate day of the Dahlia festival. The gardens around the Abbey are a complete delight and the dahlia garden is no exception.  It is planted in such a way that you can't see one end from the other, it curves around and draws visitors in so they can see what is around the bend.  The planting is in colours from whites and pale yellows at one end through oranges and pinks to reds and purples at the other end.  It is stunning in full bloom.

Dahlia garden

Elsewhere within the gardens dahlias appear in unusual places, crowning statues, climbing up trees, on the top of low hedges and scattered on the ground.

Dahlias climbing up a tree

Dahlias crowning statues in the garden

Dahlias on the ground

In the abbey itself there are dahlias dangling from chandeliers and one of the bathrooms is decorated with dahlias showering from the shower head over the bath and into a colourful bath full of blooms.

Shower of dahlias

Bath full of blooms

Dahlias hanging from a chandelier

Anglesey Abbey is a National Trust property near Cambridge and it is a popular place to enjoy the wonderful gardens and parkland as well as the abbey which was the residence of the 1st Lord Fairhaven from 1926.

In winter there is a lovely winter garden and riverside walk to admire. For more on this see this post. The snowdrop season is in late January/ early February, there are hyacinths in the formal garden in spring, roses in summer and, of course, the dahlias in late summer / early autumn (until the first frosts).

The Lode Mill can be visited, this is a working watermill grinding fresh flour at one end of the grounds. After this a cup of tea and a freshly baked cake or scone in the cafe is just perfect!

Link: Anglesey Abbey

Simple beauty