Day Tripping – Family Day Out to Harewood House Seeds of Hope Exhibition

When we visited Harewood House last time, we didn’t get a chance to visit the Seeds of Hope Exhibition. Holly’s tooth had been hurting and she had just wanted to go home, so we did. No point making an unwell child do something they don’t want to do! We were at a loose end one day in the school holidays so we decided to go back again. I lured her in with the promise of ice cream and a boat ride. It turned out that Holly loved the exhibition!

It’s to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of World War 1 and is set up to tell the story of Jack Hobbs, who’s 16 at the time. He is a garden labourer and is writing to his brother who is serving on the front line, telling him of all the changes and goings on back home. The Bothy is set up as though it had been abandoned for 100 years and has just been discovered. It’s so interesting looking at the artefects from that time!

Out in the walled garden there is a beautiful Peace Meadow, made up of a field of white cosmos flowers. These are one of my favourite flowers, and they are a spectacular sight en masse. A path had been mown through them. No flowers were trampled in the creation of these photos!

The old glasshouses were full of sunflowers. During WW1, Harewood House was transformed into a hospital which cared for soldiers wounded in battle. The team at Harewood have planted 1,269 sunflowers, each representing a soldier cared for at Harewood.

The whole of the walled garden is a thing of beauty. The orchard is stunning and gave me many ideas for my own apple trees at home. The French-style pottager was also lovely, full of flowers and vegetables all nestled together. There are lawn games for children of all ages to play, including quoits and croquet. There are chickens and goats too see too.

Back in The Courtyard they had a childrens activity of planting a sunflower. It only cost £1 and Holly got to decorate a pot, plant some seeds and we’ll see how they get on at home. I imagine they’ll be neglected and die in the next few weeks but we shall see!

We also paid another visit to the bird garden. Holly loves the flamingos and penguins there! She’s obsessed with Harry Potter so loved the snowy owl too.

If you get chance to visit, you definitely should!