We made another amazing discovery lately (maybe you already looked at my last post, relative to Cliveden? This will be another unavoidable National Trust treasure…). We were told we would visit a place where nature met history. That was all true and I warmly recommend to go to Hughenden to admire the gardens and know more about the history of the house. Indeed, the house once belonged to the Victorian statesman Benjamin Disraeli and then become a secret RAF base. A day full of discoveries, I told you…

Surprising gardens

As we stepped into the “Walled Garden”, we met lovely people looking for volunteers to take part in funny trails. Of course kids were in. As we were, actually. Everything there was designed in a so funny and well-arranged way that we stayed much more than expected.
The gardens were full of wonderful and colorful flowers, but the interest was also in finding either pictures of animals or even several unfriendly bugs hiding among the plants…
We all had great fun there, which was to add to the pleasure of meeting the volunteers there, giving advice on vegetables, flowers and … cooking ideas!

An historic house

This was the house of Queen Victoria’s favourite Prime Minister. Benjamin Disraeli and his wife Mary Anne bought it in 1848 and its history was made of political ambitions, royal inclination and love story.
We discovered many things regarding the way Benjamin Disraeli lived and more about his uncommon personality. He owned a large collection of books, written in many languages as he inherited the books from his own father, who was already quite a learned man.
He had modern habits and in particular shared his room with his wife, which we were told was still quite unusual at this period of time. The house was equipped with full modern comfort. It offers today some peculiar discoveries as this below poster explains, giving us a precise idea of the man’s character…and the impact it had on his wife.

The House during World War 2

It was only known very recently that the house was hiding map-makers during the World War 2. The basement is dedicated to that secret history and you can see how the hidden men and women there were working and living.

The main gardens at Hughenden

The gardens are well-organised and thus show a similarity with Cliveden. Mary Anne designed several planting schemes. She was really concerned about the overall aspect of the gardens, that show an Italian influence.
Despite the formal atmosphere in the gardens, I was surprised to see that the visitors were allowed to enjoy some freedom…At lunchtime, the lawn was literally invaded by children playing football among the flowerbeds and parents were all bathing in the sun!
The place is quite romantic and we can’t help but think that it would make a wonderful memory for a wedding…
Don’t wait and visit this very interesting place … Sunny days are ahead (in theory…)!