This is the first lady angler that I’ve seen at the lake! Fortunately she very kindly said she didn’t mind me taking her photo.  The sun was streaming across the lake behind her – back-lighting and high-lighting herself and the trees either side of her.  Perfect!

This single leaf also posed perfectly for me ….

It was a really dazzling sun-shiney day with lots of high- lighty bits of nature to see … this could be titled a patchwork or an abstract I thought.

There is this huge Weeping Willow tree along the path leading to the lake and it looked magnificent on this bright, sunny day ….although the figure and dogs are the focal point of the pic.

I did some searching on line yesterday to see what I could find out about the Ifield Mill Pond and Bewbush Water Gardens and boy – what an interesting history – much too much to tell here … so, just briefly :

A park was recorded here as early as 1295.   The manor of Bewbush seems to have passed down, linked with St Leonards Forest by inheritance to various Earls and Dukes, etc over the centuries, becoming known as the manor of Holmbush/ the Holmbush Estate from 1787 and being sold on to ‘humbler’ folk titled ‘Lord of Bewbush’ and eventually MPs and the like.

Lots of improvements had been  done by a Thomas Broadwood after 1824 and he planted and landscaped much of the estate. Whether it was him or later owners who planted my Bald Cypresses there I don’t know, but maybe there’s a way of finding out?  My source [A History of the County of Sussex] says he created a large Lake and several smaller ones – so I guess that must be more or less where we can walk now, since Crawley Borough Council bought the whole area , now known as the neighbourhood of Bewbush,  in order to expand the housing requirements for all us ordinary folk. And grateful I am too!!