Snowdrops at Burtown House

Cliona Kelliher

22 Feb, 2015

Snowdrops in Spring at Burtown House.

It's been a cold and miserable day and I thought that our plan to go to Burtown House in Athy to see the snowdrops was not going to be an option but with a little break in the rain, we decided to head off anyway and I'm so glad we did.

I've been to Burtown House before and had a lovely walk around the gardens and a most delicious lunch - the food is fresh and nutritious and most of the supplies are grown organically in the walled kitchen garden or sourced from local organic suppliers.
The reason for our visit today was a talk on snowdrops by Assumpta Broomfield which sounded really interesting, so interesting in fact that we arrived to a crowd spilling out of the lecture room and it was decided to have a second talk which gave us plenty of time to walk around, admire the plants and have a coffee.
There were masses of snowdrops of all varieties, crocuses, winter aconite and many other dainty spring flowers peeping out from the flower beds and lawns.

Snowdrop & Crocus

Winter Aconite

Purple Crocus Grouping

We had coffee and cake in the lovely cafe, mine was chocolate and orange cake, very moreish with a dollop of cream and Mark had a coconut and gooseberry cake, yum!

The talk was great, so interesting and I'm like a magpie when it comes to information and I like to store all sorts of random snippets in my head. Lots of information about all the different varieties of Irish snowdrops and just as fascinating were the stories of gardeners and characters from Irish history who were connected in some way with snowdrops and the arrival of different varieties to our country.

I took time to wander around and take some photos, the house itself is beautiful and there are also pieces of sculpture to look at in the green areas around the house as well as a small gallery housing a collection of photos and botanical art.

Burtown House Path

Scupture Burtown House

It's a truly beautiful place to visit and the welcome is warm and friendly, what more could you want!

If you are interested in seeing the snowdrops, make haste as the season is short but Burtown House is lovely any time of year - check out their website or Facebook page for upcoming events and opening times:

Here's a little selection of the photos I took, too many to post them all because it was hard to resist trying to capture everything :)