Eggscellent Eggsamples of Eggscentricity…

Posted on 31/03/2018 by The Garden History Blog

On Tuesday I suddenly realised that it was Easter this weekend, before then quickly realising that I had completely forgotten about writing a special festive blogpost. I could have chickened out  but I eggspect you’ll have guessed by now what I decided to  dooodle do.
It’s difficult to be original hens these fowl jokes and this poultry piece inspired by the feathered ladies who lived in my garden last summer. I decided to research where they might have laid their eggs  had they lived in the gardens or grounds of one of our great stately homes in the 18th or 19thc.

Of course this started out as a bit of good humour but I hope you’ll be surprised by some of the things I discovered about housing poultry in the garden. As Lucinda Lambton  commented:  “when building for animals, the builders imaginations could flourish  unbridled –  often with scant regard for architectural convention.”   Even Humphry Repton turned his hand to it!

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Cotehele: zinging in the rain

Posted on 24/03/2018 by The Garden History Blog

detail from “Cotehele House with daffodils on the Bowling Green”, by Rena Gardiner, National Trust

I realised what it was like to be an aristocratic landowner when I  visited Cotehele in Cornwall the other day.  There were no pesky visitors and apart from one or two staff scurrying rapidly from building to building my partner and I had the place completely to ourselves.  Admittedly it was immediately the site opened on a Tuesday morning in February but the main reason for the apparent lordly solitude was the fact that it was raining. And when it rains in Cornwall it rains. And when it wasn’t raining hard it was drizzling steadily through the thick and clinging mist. It was a case of water, water everywhere. But whereas I normally would be sensible and stay at home I was on holiday and determined to see the place…and suprisingly the weather didn’t matter, particularly when I recalled a letter about a garden visit that I’d read written by the Dowager Countess of Mount Edgcumbe in the summer of 1862: “Unluckily it began to pour (at Tavistock – where you know Charles II said it always rained) – & we walked about the charming gardens under umbrellas.”

Your intrepid hero…there is a view across the Tamar and some beautiful gardens behind me- honestl!

And it certainly wasn’t as  bad as  June 1872 when she wrote:” We had a great thunder-storm last Tuesday – with rain really like ramrods. …The rain came thro’ the ceiling of Ernestine’s room, & through the floor, into the Housekeeper’s room below – wetting her books, & soaking some clothes in a drawer. The carpet was taken up as quickly as possible, & hung up to drain – & the rain from the quadrangle ran down 2 steps into the lobby – & 3 buckets full of water had to be taken up before they could lift off the matting on the floor.”

So seeing Cotehele in the mist and rain is nothing out of the ordinary and just meant walking complete with a mac, wellies and an umbrella…and, even at such an inhospitable time of the year, the grounds which she helped create are so stunning it would been worth walking around even without them! Continue reading →

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What’s going on the Shrubbery? And what’s it got to do with Mr Repton?

Posted on 17/03/2018 by The Garden History Blog

The Shrubbery Scene, from the Trial of the Rev. James Altham, 1785

This post started out life months and months ago as a draft piece on eroticism in the garden generally. I’d found some great images and references and was looking forward to surprising you, my readers, with a little naughtiness….surely not on a Parks and Gardens blog!

I  began compiling a list of snippets, references and images to include, and then  thought I’d discovered two unknown women garden designers when I read a paragraph in a 18thc newspaper which said that  “Lady Foley and Mrs Arabin have kindly undertaken to plan the intended shrubbery behind Gower Street – can anyone doubt their capability, who reflects with what art they displayed the beauties of nature in their own gardens.” [Daily Universal Register, 2 Sep 1785]  although that turned out not to be quite the case.

As one thing led to another I realised  there was far too much for a single post, and that there was a good concentration of stories from one particular period, SO here are some tales about what went on in the Shrubbery… and probably elsewhere too … in the late 18thc.

BUT what has all this got to do with this year’s hero Humphry Repton? Read on to find out

 

 

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Camellias

Posted on 10/03/2018 by The Garden History Blog

Camellia donkelaaris from 
The Garden.  [ed. William Robinson], vol. 54: (1898)

Knowing that I was going to spend some time in February in  Cornwall looking at gardens  I realised I’d probably be looking at a lot of camellias.  I’ll probably upset or even irritate a lot of people by saying straight out that I’ve never been  their  greatest fan, partly because the flowers die so miserably, turning brown and refusing to drop, but more disappointingly because despite their glossy leaves, strong structural form, disease-resistance and vivid colours they just don’t smell. And that’s a hard fault to forgive.

Middlemist’s Red
Perhaps the world’s rarest Camellia cultivar

But on the bright side  a couple of weeks touring Cornwall and seeing them as the backbone of so many amazing gardens has made me reconsider.  So I’m going to pay  a visit to the annual Camellia Festival at Chiswick House Conservatory which runs until March 25th and that might just completely overcome my prejudice!

So read on to investigate their history in our gardens, and also to discover an excellent newish  blog by Siân Rees, a professional gardener, who  has written about them this week too…

detail from Single White Camellia / Single Red Camellia, from Samuel Curtis, A Monograph on the Genus Camellia, 1819, Museum of Fine Art, Boston

 

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Saltram: threats and popularity

Posted on 03/03/2018 by The Garden History Blog

We tend to think of properties owned by the National Trust as being protected in perpetuity. Their land is usually inalienable and their pockets to restore and maintain great houses are deep and usually well-filled. But this is not alway the case. Sometimes the threats come from an unexpected place: being too successful. If that sounds a bit crazy the example of Saltram, described by the executors of the 4th Earl of Morley, the last private owner  as a “white elephant”, might illuminate the point.

In August last year I visited Saltram House just outside Plymouth as part of the Gardens Trust conference.  I was in a group taken round by the Head Gardener, and was taken aback by some of the problems he reported, which were not caused by neglect or lack of vision but because of sheer success of the Trust’s policy of increasing revenue  and interest by attracting more and more visitors.

I had the opportunity to revisit a few days ago, and turned up 20 minutes after the gardens opened on a Monday morning in mid-February to find the car park almost full.  By mid-morning the FULL sign went up.  There was a temporary loo block in the entrance area, the small cafes had queues and the circular parkland walk is hard-surfaced in most places and at times was  a bit like a busy High Street in the sales.  So what’s Saltram got to offer that attracts so many people?

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