Mother of all Yews

Started the day with a cycle round Florence Court.

The entrance to the estate is wonderful; seemingly manicured lawns skirting a perfect little switch-back road. This took us up to the main car park before the house beside the walled garden.

The walled garden is currently being reconstructed. An original plan shows it to be quite huge with an Italianette entrance flanked by apple orchard. The apple blossom was especially striking with perhaps half-a-dozen mature trees crowded close together overloaded with blooms. By the entrance too were several varieties of Narcissus. So far work is progressing really well and looks to be near finished just waiting for the plants to mature.

A stone wall separates this part from the rest of the garden and of course out of sight, behind the wall and the garden is barely under control. Mostly seeded as lawn with the paths barely defined. Evidently this is work in progress. At the top is a small cottage available for rent. Constructed as the other walls are in a rather unusual brick pattern, the cottage looks an ideal holiday retreat. At the other end are more apple trees and quite a few saplings only planted very recently. FInishing the garden is a large wall stretching the full length with a couple of architectural features. What interested me most were several wisterias twisting their was up the brick-work. A few were even in bloom.

From here we cycled round the back of the house following various trails past the sawmill, ice house and such into woodland. Skirting pasture at times and just about staying within the boundaries of the estate we came to the FLorencecout or Irish Yew. According to a stone before the tree, it was found between 1740 and 1760. Being female it can only be propogated by cuttings and this has led to some severe pruning of the tree. See the Wikipedia article for more information and pictures. Despite this, the tree seems relatively healthy after almost 300 years!

From the tree, paths led back toward the estate entrance road crossing in front of the house far enough away to give a grand view of the house. Its not quite as I remember it when I played with Niall and Steve & Lynne Majury's eldest in the cut grass by the steps of the front-door - must have been well before 1984...

Back at the van, we set off quickly having planned our search for a new launch point. Just above the Share Centre and Smith's Beach is Killy Quay. We arrived here and started to assemble the boat. Considering this place is on the road to nowhere, it was like Picadilly Circus will all sorts driving by. Two sets of young fellas arrived with their flash motors which they drove right to the edge of the Quay so they could take photos.

Anyway we got the boat into the water again avoiding getting wet. This whole region is supposed to be very shallow - less than a meter as far as we could see. Indeed right out in between the bigger islands were patches of reed poking through the water - quite bizare. The wind was up today though and seemed to catch the boat quite badly. Made steering difficult and hard work paddling into the wind or even across it. We did not feel so confident in these conditions and came in fairly quickly.

On our way back to the Florencecourt site we were stopped by a force of 6 PSNI officers and nearly as many squad cars. Remarkable more for the fact they were all female.