 Hello, thank you for joining me. I've just come out for a drive in my larder today And I've parked here under this very nice golden oak tree at Pains Hill Park in Surrey And in today's video, we're going to go and explore some of the finest 18th century gardens there is to see This is the River Mole. I featured the River Mole before in my videos when we went to the Chantley Heave Semaphore Tower. That's just along the river from here The River Mole plays quite a key part in part of these gardens which we're visiting today So they were designed by Charles Hamilton. Now Charles Hamilton, he was born in Dublin He'd been on a grand tour of Europe and then he eventually came here to Surrey where he set up his Gardens as I mentioned. These are some of the finest 18th century gardens. Now as we turn a corner here We come to the lake which the River Mole feeds I'm looking across there. We can see a ruin, but it's not really a ruin It's known as the Abbey. Now I've been to Verricks ruined Abbey's on my videos before but the funny thing is this was built as a ruin It's a romantic ruin. So it's a folly really and we're going to see plenty of follies in today's videos Of course right now we've got a lake to cross. So what we're going to do? I'm going to follow this path around the lake Enjoy the vistas across at some of these follies They're going to gradually start to reveal themselves and then later on in the video Somehow we'll end up over there and we'll go and explore the folly So let's go and do a do a bit of a tour around the world, but without leaving Surrey Having come further down the lake see some of the bridges start to reveal themselves. There's a Chinese bridge over there And then over there it looks quite exciting. There's some grottoes and then that is the Willock Bridge So what I'm going to do my plan is to basically completely circumnavigate the lake and then come over the hill past the abbey and then we'll make a way across those islands and then Further into the estate. I've now pretty much circumnavigated the lake Just through the trees there is the Gothic temple and we'll go and have a proper look at that in a minute But first we're going to go into the hill Looking like a tunnel here. This is the ice house. It's quite common Most of the states do have an ice house. So you're walking into here. I know it's getting a bit dark But there's a light luckily. Let's come on. So I'll let you have a look Just see so first you don't want ice house is they'll take an ice off the lake in the winter kept in here And it was basically their fridge. We haven't we got there yet, but we'll find on the other side this hill There was a vineyard. I actually grew grapes and made their own wine. So I'm going to continue on down there that will take me back to the entrance And now I'm gonna walk over the top of the hill. We'll go down and look at the ruined abbey and see all the other follies Having now seen the ice house The driveway down there will take us back to the start I'm walking up here to an area of the estate called the amphitheater And this is where now on the top of the hill We should start to see some of these vistas open up. The idea here is you see a vista You go to the focal point when you get to the focal point, you'll see something else and you'll go to that focal point So these gardens or landscape gardens really entice you to explore further. So we get to here. Now, this is the amphitheater A landscape garden isn't really so much about lots of different flowers and everything It's more about well landscapes and I said follies, but you've got a few blanched around here I think if you came here in spring, there'd be a lot of flowers out And then as I mentioned, we caught a glimpse of it through the trees. There is the gothic temple Now that that way there is roped off So we won't go down there. You can see there is some people down there having a look so we will find our way To the gothic temple when I was down in the valley See up to it. So I'm sure when we get there we'll get a really good view But I don't think we have to wait till we get to the gothic temple to get a good view because as we come out here You can see We're up high now down there is The lake where we were at the beginning and beyond the lake is River Mol so as we make our way to here We're going to get a really really nice view And this is why I really like coming to these places because I like to explore and I like to see views like this Talking about going around the world as I said when we were down there I said we were going to go around the world in today's video The vineyard along here. I feel like I'm now in the Loire Valley in France The only thing that gives it away. It's not the Loire Valley If this was a Loire Valley, it would be a nuclear power station just around the corner because there's about four in the Loire Valley But we're in Surrey with a hint of France. I'm going to continue that way We're going to go find the gothic temple up closer and somewhere down there beyond those trees is the ruined abbey So having enjoyed the great views across the valley as promised we come to The gothic temple probably one of the most famous features here at Painsville Park No, it's actually made of wood, but it's been rendered to make it look, you know Like it was built out of stone or brick and rendered. We're going to go inside and have a look now I have a feeling when we go inside there's going to be a vista opened up which will Well a moment ago we were down there in the amphitheater We see it. We see this gothic temple. We may just want to come here. Okay, we couldn't come down here It was better because we went by the valley. We're now in the temple as we walk in First I'm going to show you the ceiling So you've got a nice gothic ceiling now have a look at the view from the temple You see straight out across Hamilton's finest landscape gardens Down there. I can just see the bridge The sun is going to mess us about with that. That's what you get on a bright day It looks looks really weird, doesn't it down there is the bridge and beyond that is the turkish tent So we're going to make our way right down across those islands and up to the turkish tent But first we have somewhere else to go at the beginning of the video We could see the ruined abbey, which I think is probably just down there in the tree So let's go down there and have a look at the ruin abbey The gothic temple is on the hill. We've come down to the bottom of the hill and we've come to see The ruined abbey here it is here in the trees I've always been quite fascinated by this building. Today is my first visit to Paintsfield Park. It's somewhere I've always wanted to visit. I've just never got round to it until today But you know from I've seen about half the no not even half I've seen what I've seen so far. I'm really enjoying and I think it's just going to get more and more exciting Here we are at a ruined abbey now on my channel. I've visited various ruined abbeys in the past none quite like this one because Technically speaking, it's not really a ruined abbey at all. It's a folly But that's the whole point of a folly. No the word folly means something So it's completely folly. It's not ruined abbey. It's a romantic ruin Designed to be a bit like a ruined abbey, but yeah, I still think it's great looking out the windows onto the lake See the facade interestingly, this is actually made of wood That's real rent. Yes, this is brick. That's real render, but these are wooden So, you know, if it was a real abbey also The question of also which part of the abbey this would actually be. Okay, it's gothic I suppose it could be like the gates house To a ruined abbey maybe it reminds me a bit. I've never actually been there someone should go to one day Of battle abbey the pictures you see of the gate house. I suppose it's a bit like that and then you got Yeah, the towers there So it's fascination building. I really like it But it's um, it's the ruined abbey that isn't actually a ruined abbey. Anyway, let's go and find more follies further in paintel park So after exploring the ruined abbey when I was somewhere completely different We're just in a nice little wooded path and we're on our way To china or a chinese part of the estate What we're coming up to is just here now. It's actually closed, but we can still appreciate it quite nicely Looking straight on that's the chinese bridge doesn't look much from this angle But because we obviously can't go over it We're going to go over this pontoon bridge this temporary bridge But that gives us, you know, the opportunity to have a nice look at it So we're on the peninsula at the moment. They call this part of the garden the chinese bridge Peninsula fairly obviously because at the end. Well, that is the chinese bridge over there, that's an island So I always like it when you, you know, when you get a lake with an island On the middle it just sort of adds to the fun of Yeah, the fact that you've had to cross water So there's the chinese bridge as we turn around here Up over there just behind the trees you can watch where I see the whiteness of it is the gothic temple And now we're going on to this sort rather bouncy pontoon bridge, so You actually hire these So it says floating pontoon hights. They've had to hire this While they, or the sun's very bright, while they work on the chinese bridge You can see the ducks quite nicely. See the mirage ducks Yeah, I think that's what I wanted to be featured. I don't know if she's calling to the ducks on this side. Um So yeah We're crossing this It's like walking on a bouncy castle across water. This is it's like it's really I'm not going to bounce it too much, but it's quite bouncy Anyway, we're going to go up here now And I can see a rather exciting looking sign. It says grotto entrance. Let's go and see what that is There's a chinese bridge, which we didn't walk across and there's some ducks As I said, we saw a silent moment ago saying grotto entrance. So I followed this path And it's taking us around here a nice narrow path We're on this island In the lake and I just have a feeling Things are going to get really really quite exciting in a moment Heading down here. I can see all this almost like lava and you've got an oak tree Fending over and then there's another bit down there. I have a feeling technically that's a separate bit of island, a separate island which we'll discover in a moment. Look at all this. If you think all this lava Is impressive Well, it's only going to get better as we walk along here The path almost looks like it's going to come to an abrupt end And it is If you were to stay above ground We're going into the hill on this little island On the, you know, in Surrey. We've got this really quite strange place. We're going into it Down here onto this bit of boardwalk And this is what I said about being two separate islands This is probably one of the most fancy bridges I've ever seen. Look right through there See the other side. That's clearly another island. But if we look here We're going to go Into the rocks Around here and wait and see what's around this corner This Is the grotto There you can see it says don't touch the crystals. I won't but we can have a look closely. See the crystals I'm not going to count me because there's quite a lot Like this. Look all down here and you can see the lights Shining up at them making all sorts of fancy colors And then if we walk through here We get the odd Even in here, we're getting vistas one out there into The water so it'd be quite fun if you had a boat to sail through here And walk down here Then you get to a bit of a junction in the path. You think we'll do our go down there Logically, I'll be thinking to go that way because I was thinking when we came in it's got to be a way out Surely that's going deep into the hill We go into here And well it looks looking really odd, isn't it? and That's a way out but not the humans get out and looking up there I can see there's I can see daylight up there and there's all sorts of flickering lights Going on from down there so we can't get out that way But as I said when we got to this little junction here, there was another path This one this must be the way out We are going deeper into the hill now But as we go deeper It only gets more and more spectacular. Look at this Here we are right inside the hill Amazing grotto. It's really We're just amazing and it's All this blueness and purple mess. It's all quite strange, but really quite fascinating So you've got lots of you've got various water I can hear trickling through And then there let you go even more Water's trickling through And just look at the ceiling and all these crystals Really is probably one of the strangest places I've ever made a video of but really also one of the most exciting And so we can see a bit more water there. Oh, there's a way Looking out out there get a view look at this side looking back across the cross up Can't believe this place has been, you know Here all this time. I've known about it, but I've never come here before I always find out you get to these amazing places like why haven't I been here before? Anyway, here I am. By the way, if you are thinking of coming here, you know, do come and visit Don't come on a Monday because the grotto is closed on a Monday. Some more crystals there. You can see those So, um, you know deliberately didn't visit here on a Monday because it really would be a shame to miss out I mean, it's understandable. They have to close the grotto For maintenance. So that's that's fine. But yeah, if you want to see the grotto Being before maybe you're not worried, but if you want to see grotto, don't come on a Monday I think we're going back outside now As we're emerging today like from our rather unusual trip underground What we're going to do now is we're going to go over the top of the grotto because I think that's It's not the only way off the island. There's The funny old pontoon bridge which we accessed the island from you could go back that way But what we'll do we're going to go over the top of the island And as I saw as we first entered the grotto It was effectively another island. There was a bridge. So we need to go over that bridge And that will take us to the next island and then we'll eventually go back to the mainland go up the hill And see some more follies because I think um I've in additions I could see the turkish tent. There was a greek temple So, you know, we've got a bit more traveling to do yet before we we finished but Even this first part has been pretty exciting. Oh, look, that's funny. Look Looking like a roof of a building. It's got like a roof um On top so underneath or on top of all of That is a roof underneath that roof is all those amazing crystals. You'd never look at that roof. There's like such a mundane roof Although it's quite nice to sleep under you'd never ever Guess what's under there? You might think it's an interesting wall uh, so this we're now on top of So it doesn't feel like two islands here, but like I say technically is because you could sail a boat right under here and out there that's the path Down there, which we entered the grotto in and we were down there in that grotto It looks like there was a huge huge tree here as well. I think if we go around here There's got to be another bridge off yarn. There's like a another bit of grotto there Well, if we look across there I can see there's the five arch bridge and up there's the turkish tent So we've got I say we've got all that excitement yet to come Oh, now here's we did see this bridge Earlier on at the beginning. So that's our little bridge. Take us back to the mainland Well, the lake's looking very nice and calm and We've just come right across there. So we are over there by that big cedar tree It's a little polly here to show you and we can't actually go up to it But this is like a roman triumphal arch. I understand it was built as an arch wherever it's collapsed I'm not entirely sure And as I said, this part is closed. I think in winter what they do they they rope off quite a few grassy areas So they don't get completely eroded away, which is understandable. So I might have to come back in summer one day I'll definitely come here again to see some of the other parts of the garden close up But there's you know more than enough to see one of the day like today Rather perfect reflection. We were over there a moment ago where those two swamp cypresses are I've come over to this side of the lake to want to show you the bridge This is the five arch bridge and again a very perfect reflection We're going to cross that bridge and we're going to continue down to the end of the lake And then we're going to go up into the hills Because as we could see from when we were up on the previous hill the one over there where I can't quite see the gothic temple because there's a couple of trees in the way, but when we were up there We could see down to this bridge and we could see that beyond this bridge. There's more to see Our walk is going to change a bit from you know from this Nice peaceful lakeside walk up to a walk into the woods and the hills Up there is the turkish tent. We'll come to that when we get there I'm quite decided but we're going to just just follow the paths really and see what we can find. So we're on to this bridge You can see there's not much more of the lake left But we might discover how the water gets into the lake when we get up there again perfect reflections And then looking across that way It's not quite a perfect reflection there, but there is the gothic temple You can just see a sort of a fuzzy reflection of the gothic temple in the water. I think that's really nice here I have deliberately chose to visit on a weekday When it's quite quiet because it makes making the video a lot easier So probably if you came in the summer it would be busier But it's a very vast estate. So even if there was a hundred people here, they'd nicely spread out All right, I'm going to follow on up there and see what we can find I've reached the end of the lake and the five arch bridge Really looks so perfect, you know with its symmetry both ways And then you have the reflection of the oak trees. Here we are the very very end of the lake There's a cascade. There's no water actually flowing down it. Maybe it's It's turned off the winter, which is quite common now. That's a river mole River mole is A fair few feet below us now look over there There's a water well. We'll go and have a closer look at that in a minute. I understand that was to pump the water Out of the river mole up to the level as required for the lakes as we pan back around here See water of the river mole water of the lake Fair bit of difference We're now a little way upstream on the river mole, but we can still see the five arch bridge We're coming to what I mentioned out there the water well Which is a really quite important part of the estate because it's this water well Which supplies the lakes we've been walking beside with the water now we get to here See some building you can see the the wheel Let's go and have a look and I'll explain Why the wheel was here and what it does now this building. It's not a water mill So that's a fairly important thing. Don't mistake this for being a water mill because it's not it's not grinding anything I'm going to go down these steps. It's not actually On today. I think it probably does work. It'd be really fascinating to see it working I should think with the amount of water there is in the river mole it would work quite nicely so You can see there's lots of paddles now the water Would flow under the paddles turn in the wheel so When looking at the wheel in this direction the wheel would be Turning clockwise and you see it's a it's a rather big wheel It's not the biggest wheel of water I've ever seen. I think that has to go well To the laxie wheel on the Isle of Man, but I think that's the biggest water wheel in the world So it would be the biggest I've seen Let's go in here now Again, it's not a water mill. Have a look That is the main center Axle that Is will turn these to turn these and then you've got pistons almost like And we're not they're not pistons or such, but it's like steam engine off center that Power's a beam engine up there. It's quite hard to see but there's a beam up there So that is what they call a northern donkey up down up down So there's a center pivot there. So this end will be going up and down driven by the water wheel out that end We're going to go outside and have a look. There's some pumps So it's the beam engine going up and down which power powers the pumps Sucking the water so the water has effectively just been used twice the water Has flowed under here turning the water wheel and then It pushes the wheel only to be sucked up here by these pumps You can see these pumps here. They're powered by the beam engine The water would come out into this trough and then run down and we go out to here It would run down here down this trough You can see to come out the building there. I'd love to see this going. I am going to have to Definitely come back here and then it's a bit hard to see but under there The water would flow off down there and it must all be in a pipe at this point Under there to the cascade because actually the cascade wasn't cascading So I suppose when the water wheels going the cascade were cascading if there's too much water here There's also an overflow Go down there and back into the river molt. So that is how the water as we saw back there Gets up those few feet to get into the lake water powered by water I'll tell you where this part though of the garden reminds me of is um island hall in the peak district It just really reminds me of it. If you want to see see what you think have a look at link on screen now See when I explored island hall estate a few years ago, I'm going to continue up there into the woods Because up there you might just be able to see there's a quick temple up there So we've now just walked up this path and this is called the alpine valley Does feel a bit like we're in the Alps and at the top Is a gothic tower We'll have a closer look at that in a moment because there's some more of the estate as I came up The valley I can see people walking along almost like a hilltop path along here So I'm going to follow around there and see what we can find up in the trees up there Now we've walked through the wood down this path We come to this rather fascinating looking little building. This is the hermitage It sits here right on the edge of the hill and it juts right out. It's having a bit of work done That's why there's scaffolding on at the moment, but if we go to the front door Let's see if we can go inside. Oh, yes, it's open. What are we going to find in here? Let's go in and oh, wow, that's just a nice little room There's a bed there The table and chairs It'll be really fun to come here and spend a night in this little building I don't know what it'd be like spending a night here whether you'd sleep well or not, but it would be quite fun Probably in the summer it'll be a bit cold in the winter. You've got a fat's roof above There's no glass in the windows. The windows are just wooden shutters I can't shut them because of the bar of the scaffold pole So you could shut yourself in you might get the odd spider coming to visit you But I should think it'd be quite quite a fun thing to do in the summer if you can spend a night And the other thing is you get fantastic view Pretty nice to look out across the Surrey Hills across some river mole Just generally really quite nice place to be Let's make our way back out shut the door up So that is the Hermitage. I'm going to follow now the path back through the woods. Let's go find that Gothic Tower So from the Hermitage, I've been walking through the woods Following sort of the lines of these pylons And we get to here. This is the Gothic Tower Now it said it wasn't open today, but I noticed this door is open I think I can guess what's going on. I understand. I was talking to a volunteer back there He said that when the tower's open you can go up it and there's a cafe on the first floor on the map I've got it does point out a sign saying toilets. So I have a feeling we're coming to here. I think yeah, look Is the literally the toilets and then I can't see much but through there that must be the stairs up to the tower So you've got ladies men's toilets and a room And a couple of chairs. So I have got to come here. Definitely got to come here again It needs to be in the summer. So I chose today because I wanted to sort of see today for the first time you know when it wouldn't be too busy, but I definitely haven't fulfilled every bit of my sort of You know curiosities of this place. So I will come back here might not be for a couple of years But some point I'll come back here and I hopefully will get to go up that tower. It looks too good not to do There's a couple more things we haven't yet seen by the way Who put that there looks a bit in the way when I was down there It just was completely in the way. Anyway, um And that's by the way down there. That's the alpine valley So that will take us back down to the watermill There's I think there's another path through the trees because at one point I could see the greek temple Looking very much like the Parthenon in Athens the way it was perched on the hill So let's just have one more look at the really quite cool gothic tower next time I come here Maybe I can go up the top when we go and explore us to your state now So having seen the gothic tower All feeling quite English. We're going to go abroad again I'll tell you what this video would have made a really good one for was um, well, sometimes people do say to me Which other youtube channels do you watch when you're not making videos? And one of my favorite is a channel called the tim traveller now he he does some really brilliant videos Yeah, do check his videos out, but he did a challenge once for his viewers called the international Staycation challenge where you had to find something that looked like it was somewhere It wasn't so like we've seen here buildings from other countries, but they're here in england I went to beckon's court and I made a video there and I did end up in his um, his Montage video of all these different of all his different views have been to these different places So of that kind of thing this would have been a good entry. We're in england. We're in Surrey And here we have a bit of grease we have this fantastic Temple of Bacchus. I've never been to Greece and it's somewhere. I really would like to go to it's got some interesting railways It's got so many fantastic temples. I could probably make Videos that forever they might be if you went to the Parthenon it might be a bit more crowded This is probably a little bit like surrey's version of the Parthenon here, you know on a rock Not quite like the Acropolis in Athens, but it's it's the temple of Bacchus. It's Fascinating. I believe it dates from 1762 when you know the gardens were created. Let's go and have a look inside We come up to these lovely columns interestingly the statues are actually um Just cardboard cutouts or Yeah, they're swimming swimming So, yeah, it's not often I kind of go around ladies legs like that in my videos, but you know, um look that one's um Not even covering herself. Um, again. Yeah, I don't normally Do that kind of thing in my videos, but it's always been really fun. Um Make it man now as well. So this is inside the temple really quite fascinating You can see I don't know too much about great great greek history, but you can see very different um heads and statues On on plinths if my girlfriend was here She would go she knows a lot about this thing. So if she was here she'd be able to tell me all about what we are And she so yeah, and she's the expert on ancient greece Here we are at the other side now of the temple and if we look it's been around and we can see More fantastic views of Surrey. Now going back to the water wheel we saw down on the river mole If you look it looks like there's two rivers. That's the original course. This one. This is the The course dug out for the river mole um water wheel. The water wheel is just down by that uterine Can't quite see it. You can see a bit more the river mole. There's the um the roman Morsoleum I can see a church in a distance somewhere Over the hills must be the charnley heath seven four tower which I mentioned at the beginning of the video Was you know where I went to on the previous video. So here we are. This is it's not really quite like um afin's And the path on on but it's what you're going to the closest thing you're going to get to it here in Surrey We've got one more place to go now in this video. We're going to go from Greece to turkey And just walk through this gate. You can just see over there in the trees That was the temple of backers, which was really quite fascinating as I said, we're going to go to turkey You can't normally you know walk from Greece to turkey in a couple of minutes, but here we can Here we are. This Is the turkish tent Really quite another unusual folly. What we'll do. I'll have a quick look at this. There's a really fantastic view I'm not going to show you that just yet. I'm going to show you inside tent first because I want I think this is This is like the the end Of you know to walk around. So there we are turkish tent. Let's go inside. It's not a huge amount of sea inside But it's a quite fascinating building. It's like elliptical or it's an oval down here It's got circular roof, but the roof sort of spreads out. So that's fine Interesting. So when Charles Hamilton, you know designed these gardens The idea was you walked around roughly in the route that we have But you'd finish up here up at the turkish tent and you would finish by looking at The most spectacular view of the estate we're going to see today. Let's finish with this That really is one of the best views I've ever seen Yeah, it's just it's everything you can see You know leading us from the gothic temple down to the five arch bridge. You can see in the middle of it There's the guatto the whole lake's everything the river mole down there. It's really been a really exciting place I really do recommend visiting Painted Park. They're open most days. I think except Christmas Day Boxing Day So do you know do come and visit Painted Park. It's a fantastic place It's easy to get to it's only just off the M25 and it's in the village of Cobham The village of Cobham in Surrey Cobham does have a railway station. It's called Cobham Stoke Daglam So if you came by train it might be a bit of a walk, but there's probably various buses that pass here So do come and visit Painted Park and you know travel around the world like I did in In a day. It's been great fun. So thank you very much for watching Please do feel free to like subscribe and comment and from this fantastic view. Goodbye