The Garden History Blog

“Loveliest of Trees,  the Cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide...”

Housman’s haunting poem, part of his Shropshire Lad collection written in 1896, is one of the nation’s favourites.

It has been set to music at least 60 times, most famously by Vaughan Williams. [If you don’t know it click here to hear it recited by Judy Dench  or to hear it sung in a performance by Bryn Terfel]  I was reminded of both the poem and the song on a recent visit to Kew on a lovely sunny day when the cherries were just coming into bloom and standing out against a  bright blue sky.

Of course Housman was thinking of our native “wild” cherry [ Prunus avium] but these days we are fortunate enough also to have hundreds of varieties of ornamental ones, almost all from Japan, China and Korea as well, and I wondered about their history – especially since those countries were largely closed to westerners until the middle of the 19th century – and discovered that we owe a huge debt of gratitude to just one man who introduced many varieties to Britain and in the process saved them in Japan as well.

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I’ve just been to Cragside in Northumberland and my first reaction was that its creators, William and Margaret Armstrong,  must have had very powerful leg muscles!

It is a stunning site but there are so many steps and precipitous slopes as to be almost unbelievable. It’s no wonder that the first house in the world to be lit by hydro-electricity, also had the world’s first hydro-powered lift. I could have done with one to explore the rock garden below the house as it covers 4 acres and is the largest in Europe.

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The Armstrongs planted an estimated 7 million trees and shrubs as well as creating over 3  acres of formal gardens and a range of greenhouses and conservatories for plants you wouldn’t expect to survive, let alone thrive, in Northumberland.

They were also philanthropists on a grand scale, supporting parks, hospitals, education and museums, as well as running businesses in engineering, shipbuilding and armaments  which employed over 25,000 people.  But for William Cragside was relaxation. He told a journalist in 1893 “I can’t begin to give you the faintest idea of the pleasure it’s given me… I feel certain that, have there been no Cragside, I should not be talking to you today – because it has been my very life.”

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The National Trust holds many of our greatest historic houses and gardens but I often think its greatest holding is not those but the many less well-known, less grand and yet more typical small country houses and estates.

I stopped off at one of them on my recent rainy and windswept visit to Bournemouth and despite the miserable dreary weather came away positive that this really is where the Trust’s great strength lies. Places like Hinton Ampner   may not be as well known as Stowe or Stourhead, and you may never have heard of Ralph Dutton but he and the house and garden he saved and re-invented are just as important to our national heritage, albeit in different ways.

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