A World In Miniatures...

Rachel and I have been talking about visiting Leonardslee Gardens in Sussex for ages and finally, this weekend, decided we could procrastinate no longer.

Leonardslee is a magnificent sprawling garden, which slopes down in a sleep dip to a series of lakes. It just so happened that when we went (yesterday) there was a model boat regatta on the lakes, otherwise I don't think Rachel would have got me down the sloping paths to the bottom of the valley (the long-winding path back up out of the valley nearly finished me off as it was!)

The regatta was a splendid array of radio controlled boats, of all different sizes and designs, from a pirate ship (pictured above) to a tug boat (see video below), aircraft carriers, plenty of yachts etc

Just past the greenhouses at the entrance to the garden is a small collection of buildings hosting a selection of displays. In one is half-dozen Victorian cars, which I believe do the London-Brighton run every year. One of them once belonged to the 19th Century inventor Sir David Salomons, whose house Rachel and I got married in!

There was also a sculpture exhibition on while we were there, but the building that really caught our eye - and one of the main reasons we came to Leonardslee - was "Beyond The Dolls House" exhibition.

Believed to be the largest dolls house display in the country, this isn't just a single, elaborate house, but a whole village - with a pub, church and graveyard, department store, a large farm, numerous smaller dwellings.

Everywhere you look in this display something is going on, as well as having some of the figures animated mechanically, none of the 1/12th scale characters are in static poses; everyone is caught in an active pose that really gives the display a sense of vibrancy.

I managed to take a few photographs, but they're rather blurry because the dolls were behind protective glass and my poor, old camera isn't the best for zoom focusing. However the Leonardslee website has an entertaining video that should give you a better idea.

Rachel and I were also rather smitten by the field of wallabies behind the main stately home (which is closed to the public, but appears to be available for business conferences and such like). There were even quite a few of the rare white/albino wallabies.

Pictures from around the gardens (including the regatta, the wallabies, the sculptures, the rock garden etc) can be found here.

If all that wasn't enough, the gardens have an excellent restaurant where I enjoyed a gorgeous cottage pie for lunch, followed a couple of hours later by a cream tea. I wouldn't call the restaurant cheap, but I'm pretty sure all the food was hand cooked and the staff were very generous with their portions.