LUNCH IN AN OLD GLOVE FACTORY AND CAKE AT THE COURTS GARDEN:
Last Saturday myself and four others filled the car and headed to visit friends who’ve recently moved to Holt in Bradford Upon Avon, Wiltshire. We arrived just in time for some lunch and our local guests suggested a bite to eat at The Old Glove Factory just a few minutes walk away. Intrigued and hungry we headed off on foot towards the older part of the village. As we approached the refurbished factory you could see from the presence of a tall chimney, some grain mills and various interconnecting Victorian factory buildings that this little village was once a hub of industry and making.
The Old Glove Factory Studios was once part of J&T Beaven’s leather factory, a five acre industrial site now known as the Holt Tannery. Lovingly refurbished, some of the site now offers a work space hub, a shop and a cafe.
To the east of the factory buildings a courtyard has been designed, within which a number of shed style outbuildings reside. The largest of which is the cafe, a pitched rectangular timber framed building with an open planned interior and various sized windows and large glass doors.
As we entered the cafe kitchen area, a buffet of many beautiful looking fresh salads and mains greeted us. There were other options from the daily menu but we all went for a main with a little helping from each of the salads. An open chiller offered us a selection of local juices, cordials, pop and locally brewed alcoholic beverages sourced from the nearby Craft Steam Brewery. I went for a bottle of Piston Broke beer which was very refreshing!
It was a blustery but sunny afternoon so we chose to eat in the exterior eating space which borders onto open countryside. The kitchen garden had a quirky and clever domesticated style, with aluminium animal troughs for vegetable beds, potted miniature fruit trees and random old and new garden furniture. It had the atmosphere of eating in a friends garden rather than an establishment which I like!
Half way through our meal it started to rain so we ran into the cafe and settled at one of the long wooden canteen style communal tables. The cafe space can be hired for events, and there were some colourful paper bird mobiles hanging from the ceiling which had remain from a wedding party recently held in there. It’s a flexible space, with lots of natural light, steel panel flooring, white washed walls and ceiling … I didn’t want to leave!
After lunch we walked to a nearby National Trust site, The Courts Garden. We entered through a garden wall doorway and journey’d up a garden path towards a beautiful early Georgian house.
The architect Sir George Hastings laid out these gardens in the early 1900’s. Twenty years later after WWI, Lady Cecilie Goff elaborated Hastings scheme creating a series of pathways and terraces made of stone collected from the then recently demolished Devizes Prison. These pathways took us on a journey through colour and scent, which followed small waterways that opened out into larger pools. While the many different forms of sculpted hedging brought a sense of wonderland to the place.
In 1952, Lady Cecilie’s daughter Moyra Goff planted the arboretum in an area that had previously been pasture land. The arboretum provides the perfect place for a game of chase which both children and Swallows readily did while I was there!
After walking around the gardens we’d built up an appetite for tea and cake in the National Trust Cafe which is located within a small wing of the Georgian house. The wooden panelled room was a wash with teapots, cakes and happy faces. There was over fifteen varieties of cake to choose from that day, so we all ordered something different and tasted a little from each others plates. It was a delicious and perfectly relaxing end to a lovely afternoon in Holt.
Related Links:
http://www.glovefactorystudios.com/
http://www.thetannerysite.co.uk/
http://www.boxsteambrewery.co.uk/
