If you're wondering of
what to do in Hampshire or places to visit in Hampshire, there are plenty of National Trusts sites to keep you busy! We love exploring a new house or garden and learning about the history behind the site. This week we visited
Hinton Ampner - a historical house and gardens located near New Alresford in Hampshire.
In the spring, Hinton Ampner is supposed to have
beautiful blooms across the gardens and a gorgeous bluebell woodland walk - just pick a sunny day as there are plenty of long walks to do outside the house! I think we went a little too early in spring as there were some blooms but you can tell that it's just not warm or sunny enough yet for most of the flowers to appear.
It was still beautiful though!
The first thing we did was grab a coffee and a bite to eat at the cafe - my go to is always a
big cheese scone, and this one did not fail me! It was delicious - made fresh onsite, we actually walked past the
kitchen in the main house which is being used to prepare food to this day. There's plenty of indoor and outdoor sitting to enjoy your hot or cold drink (
or even a glass of wine if you're not driving! Or as we witnessed, an older couple donned in tweed jackets enjoying a bottle of wine from plastic cups in their car in the car park... Brings up so many red flags but I'm sure the driver only had the one...?), and a homemade plate of food.
There is always plenty to do at National Trust sites for families with kids like trails and hunts, or themed weekends. And the team at Hinton Ampner are
lovely and helpful at the cafe and entrance, however I would be lying to you if I didn't point out that on the day we went the
ladies volunteering at the main house were like hawks - to the point where it felt uncomfortable to even walk around and look at things. I personally got yelled at by a volunteer within 2 minutes of entering the site: flash is not allowed in the main house -
and I totally get that, plus I think flash makes photos look a little
tacky at times so I hardly use it. But when she spotted my camera which has a small light on the side that comes on when I take a picture (
very much not flash) she ran over and proceeded to quite rudely argue with me that I was using flash and that's not allowed. This was going on for minutes, to the point where I physically had to point out to her that my settings were set on
flash off and literally show her the picture of a flash in a circle,
crossed out for her to stop and listen to me. There was no apology after she yelled at me, no nothing - she just walked off with a bad attitude. And a couple of minutes after that we witnessed a child being quite angrily approached by another volunteer because he had wondered
about a meter away from his father looking at an exhibit. You could tell both the child and the father felt uncomfortable and just wondered off - I'm guessing like us, they just wanted to get out of the house reigned by these volunteers, and be able to actually breathe without feeling like you've done something wrong. It just dampened the experience! I honestly hope that it was just a
bad day these volunteers were having as everyone else was so lovely and we've never had this experience at any other NT sites over the years - in fact usually the volunteers are the
most interesting people to talk to about the houses because the know all the fun historical facts!
I've made a note to come back to Hinton Ampner in Hampshire over the summer and go for a long walk around the grounds and gardens in the sunshine - will you be visiting Hinton Ampner National Trust?
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