Nowton Park

Beautiful right? Friday my younger sister and I took a walk to nearby (1.6 miles) Nowton Park and we barely entered the Car Park before turning around and heading back toward her house because we had the 1.6 miles back and knew that our Mom also wanted to take a walk... It was already closing in on 3:00 and the sun sets here in the late Autumn shortly after 4:00! 

I did a little research later in the evening and discovered that Nowton Park had tons to offer - including an Arboretum with statues, plenty of walking trails and ponds, sports pitches and more. We decided that we'd order Take Away from Byron's (burgers y'all) and head to the park! 

The burgers were delicious - so very tasty - and served with fries that had been sprinkled with sea salt and herbs! We also got an order of Houloumi Fries... which I'd say are essentially cheese sticks but they aren't in the way that you'd think. Regardless - they are served with sweet chili dipping sauce and they're divine! After having our lunch under the Autumn trees and watching all the people walking the park (including a delightful wee Brit who cheerily kept repeating "kick leaves") we threw away our trash and headed out to walk.

The main walkway led up to a gorgeous manor house that serves as a spot to convalesce and is also a spa; we joked with my sister that it definitely looked haunted. (insert laughter face here) It was a really lovely house and footpaths wound through the woods all around it, leading to forts, copse of trees, small ponds and more than one wolf - and there's a story behind that, which I'll share later! You just never knew what would be around the corner!

The wolf - which I've noticed popping up in several places throughout Bury - has a place in the history of the town. I wondered why I saw so many wolves around the town (in the Abbey gardens, all over the trails at the park, etc...) and so I investigate. It turns out that King Edmund was martyred in the late 800's because he would not renounce his Christian faith during a Danish invasion. As the legend goes - he was shot with arrows and decapitated... his men found his body but not his head. They heard a wolf call out to them and when they found the wolf, he was guarding the head of King Edmund - thus, wolves all over town! Quite the tale, right?

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Nowton Park's pathways lead to the portions of the park designated as an Arboretum and there are several sections both the West and East portions, including a North American section with a giant totem pole! Of course, as good ol' North Americans - we thought we might need to snap a couple pictures with the totem pole! There was also a section that was a Chinese portion that has a panda bear - but we didn't ever find that spot!

Call me a romantic but I feel like the archway and old stone basin we found look like something out of Arthurian times, especially surrounded by the mist of the morning's fog and the sunlight breaking through the damp trees. It almost seems like if you step through the archway you might be transported to another world. *sigh* I can report that I stepped through the archway and no such thing happened but it's still a lovely thought!

I'll end the post with some rather silly pictures - I enjoyed my Byron's burger quite a bit, as you can see in the picture below, ha-ha! And my Mom snapped a picture of my sister in the archway and captured me leaping behind her as well... although it seems that some people have looked at the picture and still not realized the surprise in the background! 

Last but not least - we have spent a good deal of our indoor time helping my sister get her new home organized and if I've said it once, I've said it 100 times to her - "is there a reason you're keeping this?" She may have tendency to be a bit sentimental about things, ha-ha! 

Alls well that ends well though because after a day of park exploring and purging from her home, I was rewarded with some delicious pasta for dinner and a glass of Peach on the Beach - a new favorite from Marks & Spencer that tastes divine! Cheerio mate(s)!