SPRINGTIME

Hokitika Guardian, 26 June 1929, Page 8

SPRINGTIME

IN I’M 10 KING’S GARDENS. GOLDEN HOSTS OF DAFFODILS. SAN DR INGI lAM, Norfolk, Miiy 3. Notwithstanding ilic inclement weather and the backward season, about 1,000 people have visited the King’s gardens at Sandringham in the past four weeks. The privilege accorded the public off roaming through the grounds and gardens and inspecting the beautiful royal memorials in the church of St. Alary Magdalene is exceedingly popular, and numerous early inquiries this yoar caused the “open days” to he started on April 1. It is intended that the public shall he admitted to the gardens and precincts of Sandringham House on Wednesdays and Thursdays, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., until the end of September, subject to any variations that may he necessary owing to the plans of the Court. £1,525 FOR HOSPITALS. Should all go well, the King is expected to come to his Norfolk homo about the middle of June. Whether visitors will then he admitted to the grounds is not yet known. It is there, just inside a little gate in the wall and within full view of the house, that the turnstiles are erected and the fee off sixpence, for sick and nursing charities, taken. When their Majesties paid a brief visit to Sandringham last summer a wide space immediately around the house was roped off. Rut it might be decided to close the grounds and admit the public only to the gardens and church, for which it is not customary to charge a fee. Then the income for charities would suffer.

Everybody at Sandringham, from the King downward, was gratified at tho fine total of fil,ooo visitors last year and an income for the hospitals of £1,525.

Rut the dominant thought of all on tho royal countryside to-day is of gratitude ffor tho King’s recovery, and there is a great eagerness to see him once more in the place that in the most intimate sense is his home. Hero everybody knows him and he knows everybody, and there is always tho happy atmosphere of neighbourhood. Tho King is gratified that so many people see and enjoy his gardens. It pleases his Majesty 6 to think that, though there is no great town or city within many miles of Sandringham, the people come in thousands such long distances, and come again. His Majesty, as is now well known, lias taken a keen personal interest in alterations making for the greater charm of the grounds. Pleasant vistas have neen opened up, and beautiful trees disclosed and given an individual place in the landscapes. I saw from the to'Taco a new. a Scottish, glimpse across the spacious sward, revealed by the removal of an old tree. Before a rugged group of dark Scots pines were rambling thickets of whins approaching full bloom.

Visitors arc finding spring late at Sandringham, but the daffodils are a joy. There are golden hosts of them by the drive through the Norwich gates and again on the banks below “The Queen’s Nest” (tne charming little tea I*llllXO which the late Sir Dighton Probyn gavo to Queen Alexandra, and which is perched above the rock garden). And many another golden spot is a home off daffodils, but the finest display is in the Glade. Tin's is the site of the old road which was diverted when the* estate was made.

It is now a long and noble green way. bordered by magnificent elms and stately coniferous trees in great variety. Here the daffodils stand in random crowds of many thousands. The winter was severe at Sandringham. In one week the temperature ranged from 24dcg. to 2,*_ ! dog. ol frost, Everything is about three weeks late, Inn the permanent damage is not considerable. The wallflowers, planted in masses in the formal hods below the terrace, and the bamboos around the lake suffered most. BIRDS NOT LATE. vjn Ihc other baud', on the terrace, coder tlie sheltering walls ol the house, the beds are bright with tulips, hyacinths, polyanthuses, and other spring flowers. The alpines in the rock garden are beginning to glow, and about tho grounds there are many charming poops of primroses, blue grape hyacinths, and hardy heaths in bloom, whit* the spring-flowering shrubs will soon lie a picture. It was very cosy in the cold wind be r ■.•iflo Hie solid ranks of friendly pines, and though vegetation is late at Sandringham the birds are not late, for tho nightingales have been singing and the cuckoos calling ffor days past-. P. W. D. I.