The Garden History Blog

The Castle from the Rose Garden, DM August 2022

Alan Titchmarsh calls  Belvoir “everyone’s idea of what a castle should be”.  However, while it might look like an impregnable fortress in fact it’s  a “fake” stronghold, built in the mediaeval style in the early 19thc. It is the fourth castle on the site which has  been home to the Manners family, earls and later dukes of Rutland,  and their ancestors, since 1247.

Described by Gardeners Magazine around the time of its completion  as “a magnificent castellated structure on the summit of a lofty hill” it  appears to be surrounded by thick woodland but again that’s a slightly false impression because there are also a  series of interesting gardens terraced down the slopes.   The whole castle complex is set in a much wider landscape, partly designed by Cabability Brown whose plans were never fully completed.

Detail of the front page of Brown’s proposals                                  Still from Belvoir Castle’s Capability Brown Landscape on Youtube

In the last decade a huge renovation and improvement project has been taking place overseen by the current Duchess who you may have seen on the telly a few years ago with Alan Titchmarsh, explaining how  more of Brown’s plans were  being implemented even if about 250 years late!  But  as you’ll see she’s not the first of the Manners  family to take a big interest in the estates gardens, plants and landscape.

Still from Youtube video about Belvoir

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From a Book of Hours produced in Utrecht, c1500

Last week’s post ended with this rather strange picture of the Virgin Mary sitting in a garden with a unicorn in her lap and the Angel Gabriel dressed as a hunter chasing after it with dogs.

detail from The Lady and Unicorn tapestries, late 15thc

I asked what was going on, and this week I’m going to try and explain the story, as well as show how and why unicorns had a place in the mediaeval garden and beyond, including on the wall.

The Annunciation from the Buhl Altarpiece, by followers of Martin Schongauer, c.1495

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detail of a tapestry of Virgin and Child with Four Saints, c. 1500 from the Upper Rhine

If I asked you to think about mediaeval gardens  I’m sure a few things would quickly come to mind…. monks, monasteries and herbs and then if you recall paintings you might have seen  on Christmas or greetings cards you might remember seeing people – particularly the Virgin Mary – sitting in a walled or hedged garden.

That walled or hedged garden is  often referred to as a Hortus Conclusus which is simply Latin for an enclosed garden.

But is it what mediaeval gardens were really like? Is it really a garden style?  Or maybe it has symbolic meaning instead?

detail from The Little Garden of Paradise, by the Master of the Upper Rhine, c1410-20

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The Warwickshire Pendant 

I’m sure many of you saw the news earlier this year of the discovery in a Warwickshire field of this golden locket dating from the 16thc. While the front  has the initials of Henry VIII and his first wife Katherine of Aragon,   the back  is more interesting being decorated with a red and white Tudor rose motif entwined with a pomegranate bush.

But why a pomegranate? If you mention them to most people today, or ask about its symbolism and use, you’ll probably get something of a blank look or a comment about how difficult the fruit is to eat or that its just a posh ingredient  used in Ottolenghi or Waitrose recipes. And almost no-one seems to know what they look like in flower or realises that they’ve been grown in England [ok not very successfully until recently!] since the 16th century.

Read on for the back story of this extraordinary fruit and the locket…and to discover how and when pomegranates featured on English coins

Pomegranate flowers

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