You may remember my trip to Chenies Manor House in April. We got there, walked to the ticket ladies, and walked away- paying the price for our reliance on small magical plastic cards.

This time we went prepared. May is blessed with two bank holidays, and I had both off. On 3 May we headed off to Chenies, cash in hand for a look around one of the finest 15th century houses in the country. The house is only open for three hours, 2-5pm which does create a kind of ‘virtual bottleneck’- with only three hours to use, the place was incredibly crowded. The car park (a field) was packed, and the queue was extraordinarily long. We paid (cash only, if you need reminding) about £10 for two adults for the house and garden. Immediately we went searching for the house entrance- “where was it?” I thought as we wandered around. We saw a long, slow queue near a hedge which I assumed to be for a tour of the gardens. We moved on into the gardens.

Talk about sardines! The gardens were crammed with people, at least several thousand at one time I reckoned, in a garden laid out in the 1460s! We were reduced to filing along pace by pace which restricted our view but I will ignore that and focus on what I saw.

The gardens are very well kept and recently won the ‘Garden of the Year’ Award for 2009-2010, a great honour considering the number of famous gardens in the country. It was a tad difficult moving around due to the tiny passageways between various sections, but the Brit in me was polite and let others go before me, until some kind person allowed me that privilege.

We ventured into the physic garden, one of the last remaining in the country. We saw all sorts of herbs for medicine, as well as many I could have picked and brought home for dinner including mint, rosemary and thyme. As for a popular culture reference, should I go for Simon & Garfunkel, or that horticultural murder series...?

After squeezing out of there we swam through the crowds around the house, looking for the door. Of course I always have to make at least one wrong assumption on these days out- today was thinking that those people were queuing to go for a garden tour! No! We joined the line and waited. And waited. Until the door opened... and about six people were allowed in. After many minutes of groans of boredom and daydreaming we were allowed in. It turns out the route used for touring the house has several stops, where guides give a brief history. When one guide is finished, she’ll open the plug and let the visitors in her room filter into the next room, then open the tap for more eager faces.

If I’m honest I found the history of the house fairly dull, as histories of historic houses go. Built in about 1460 and in the same family for centuries. Auctioned sometime in the 1950s and bought for a ridiculous amount of money by a Mrs Macleod Matthews- though apparently she and her family are fairly down to earth; they don’t treat it as a mansion but as a family home. That is why the place only opens on certain weekdays and Bank Holiday Monday’s. It’s not unusual (there I go again) for some of the ornate bedrooms we saw to be used as guest rooms, or for elaborate dining tables to be used simply for family dinners.

The house tour was pretty short and when we exited the gardens were just as busy. We found a tea room and by good fortune got the last two pieces of a cake. When I say tea rooms, I mean a room with some trestle tables and a portable boiler; it may function well at less busy times but it wanted to explode with all of us in it. Good thing the cake was nice.

Then we left. It’s not a bad place to spend an afternoon, though if you work Monday-Friday you’ll have to wait till late August to visit! I’m not an architect or gardener so I can’t describe what I saw very well- sorry about that. I would mention that I think the visitor facilities could be upgraded, but it is a family home... erm... that’s my problem. If they want people to come and pay to look around, half of me says they should do more, such as provide better refreshments (a sandwich perhaps) and better facilities for taking payment. The other half of me says keep it as it is. I’m not sure I’d want theme park style entrance booths near my house either...