Finlaystone Blog

THE seasons have changed and Finlaystone is looking gorgeous in its autumn colours. The air is fresh and nature is preparing to sleep for the winter.

As well as the usual greens, oranges, yellows and browns you would normally find this time of year, there is an interesting new colour in the woodlands.

Walk over the burn towards the Pirate Ship and you will catch sight of something bright blue up ahead. This is the colour of our new play train. Puffing Billy was retired a month or so ago and he has been replaced by a shiny new engine and carriages. We have been running a competition to name the new train and are pleased to announce that it will be called The Flying Finlay. Congratulations to Lewis Caldwellfor suggesting the idea.

You may remember that in late May we had significant storm damage and one of our large lime trees was uprooted. Mother Nature demonstrated her wrath again in September. The tail end of Hurricane Katia swept through the estate and brought a number of trees down, as well as causing damage to our greenhouse. Fortunately, there was no serious damage and most of the fallen trees have now been cleared away. Every cloud has a silver lining and we are using some of the dead wood to build habitat piles for our local wildlife.

Our gardens have also, of course, seen a lot of activity recently. There is a lot of maintenance work to do at this time of year so we have been strimming, hedge cutting and carrying out other maintenance works. October will continue to be busy as the leaves keep falling and our delicate plants need preparing for the winter. The Acers are one of the first trees to be showing their autumnal colours and the very best examples are at the top of the garden in the shrub borders. The Cornus Kousa are also very interesting this time of year as their red fruits start to attract attention.

Our recent events have been successful. Our ‘Food For Free’ nature walk was interesting and fun as we learned all about things that are found in the woodlands and are safe to eat. The annual Conker Championship was also a success. Despite the wet weather, great fun was had by all and we had some new champions this year. Congratulations to everyone who took part.

Upcoming October events include a ‘Myths and Legends’ Walk (Saturday 8 October) and ‘Halloween night’ featuring the Youth Section of Greenock Players (Monday 31 October). The Halloween event is ticket only, so please contact us or look on our website for information. We also have some craft events in October, such as ‘Scarecrow Making’ (Sunday 16 October – please bring your own materials), ‘Bird Boxes and Feeders’ (Tuesday 18 October), ‘Autumn Art’ (Wednesday  19 October), ‘Recycling’ (Thursday 20 October) and ‘Preparing for Halloween’ (Saturday 29 October  and Sunday 30 October). For more information on these and our other events, please see our website or call us on 01475505540.

Our ‘Facebook’ and ‘Twitter’ pages are building up quite a number of people who either ‘like us’ or ‘follow us’.

For people who visit fairly regularly, you may like to know that autumn/winter memberships are now available. They run from now until 31 March 2012 and cost £33 for a family, £18.75 for a single or £16 for a concession. This allows you unlimited access to our woodlands, formal gardens and any non-ticketed events. We will also be running a special Christmas membership promotion for those who are looking for that special gift.

Talking about Christmas, if you are someone who buys Christmas trees for their work, school, nursery, church, college, pub, hotel, social club or are involved in charity fund-raising with groups such as the Scouts or Guides please contact us to see what deal we may be able to offer on our estate-grown, Norway Spruce Christmas trees. All shapes and sizes will be available!

Craft stall bookings are already being made for the Autumn and Christmas period and we would be grateful for more Craft people to contact us. Our prices are very competitive. The ‘Stables’ which are located in the courtyard between the visitor centre and walled garden are available on a daily or weekend basis. In addition, the Old Laundry Building, Cart Shed and ‘Victorian Room’ are also available. Please ring 01475 540505 if you are interested.

Have you ever wanted to commemorate a special family occasion or do something to remember someone who may have passed away? If so, we have two opportunities which might be of interest. The first would be to provide a commemorative bench for the walled garden and the second would be to plant a commemorative tree. Contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or check out the website for further information.

As the weather is now cooling down we have logs for sale at £4.95 per bag or £19 for 4 bags.