The Garden History Blog

Travel poster for Gunnersbury showing the Temple and Round Pond 

Let’s  begin with a conundrum:  what’s special about Gunnersbury Park?  More specifically, why does it boast not one but two large houses,   both built around 1800-1802 which stand  side by side almost within touching distance of each other?

Nowadays Gunnersbury  is a popular large public park stretching to 186 acres, hemmed in by the M4, the North Circular road and dense suburban housing, but for most of its nearly 700 years of documented  existence it was  home to a succession of wealthy families  – and even to a princess.  All but one of them lavished money and attention on the site, leaving their mark  on its gardens and buildings. The exception was  a property speculator, John Morley,  who planned to redevelop the site,  for housing, luckily largely unsuccessfully.

But that doesn’t provide an obvious answer to the  question of why the two houses? So read on to find out more about Gunnersbury and its not-quite-twin mansions

The two mansions

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Evelyn Cheesman

“Pushing through the scrub, beautiful sprays of orchids forced themselves on your attention by brushing your face. The next few steps would have to be tunnelled through climbing fern, and then more orchids on trees with moisture continuously dripping off fringes of moss. Large clusters of a leguminous bloom like white acacia drooped from small trees. There were cream, pale lemon, and brilliant blue orchids, but the colours orange and scarlet predominated, flaming out of the green”

Who do you think wrote that ?

When I first read it I wondered if  was an extract from the journal of an intrepid but rather romantic Victorian plant hunter.  In fact it’s an extract from an admittedly Victorian-explorer-sounding book called  Six-legged Snakes in New Guinea, and  as you’ve probably gathered from the title of the post the author wasn’t quite the bearded pith-helmet wearing explorer that  I’d imagined  but  instead was an extraordinary woman: Evelyn Cheesman.

Cheesman wasn’t primarily a plant hunter but that was an adjunct to her principal passion: entomolgy. Both interests led her to travel all over the world,  notably the South Pacific where she went on eight one-woman expeditions, and in 1938 discovered a new blue orchid.

The blue orchid she discovered

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Studley Royal park © Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal/National Trust

Last week’s post saw us follow John Byng’s trip from London to Yorkshire where he spent a lot of time peering at medieval ruins, exploring gardens and admiring picturesque landscapes.

In this week’s post he does all three in the same place:  the estates of the Aislabie family: Studley Royal, Fountains Abbey and Hackfall.

Byng was clearly enthusiastic from the outset. He’d spent the day travelling to Ripon  but “tho’ it was a gloomy threat’ning evening, yet, not to lose time  I determined upon a survey of Studley Gardens, 3 miles distant.”

Was he impressed?  or was it to be another verbal demolition job as we saw several times last week.  At least it starts off well because “the Park is pleasant, with famous hawthorns, good trees, and fine views towards Ripon, and its old black Minster.”  Will it continue in the same positive vein or will Studley Royal, Fountains and Hackfall disappoint?  Have a guess and then read on to find out if you’ve judged Byng’s taste correctly.

‘View of Fountains Abbey’ (1768) by Balthasar Nebot

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Plumpton Rocks looking south, by Turner, 1798. Harewood House

John Byng by Ozias Humphry, 1796 from The Torrington Diaries

“At 12 o’clock, Saturday May 26th 1792, I had taken the Paddington Road, which the rains of last night had made nice riding, and the face of nature gay”  So begins the  account by  Colonel the Honourable John Byng.  of his journey from London to explore  the sites on the road  to Yorkshire.

So what, you might think.  After all Byng was just the younger son of  a not-very-well-known aristocratic family, who followed the normal career path for younger sons, choosing the army over the navy or church and ending up as a tax official. In the last few weeks of his life he inherited his brother’s title and became Viscount Torrington, but none of this is the stuff of great novels or an obvious way to get  written about on The Garden History Blog.

Plumpton Rocks looking north,  by Turner, 1798. Harewood House

However, John Byng was also a great traveller and better still a great diarist, and he kept a detailed account of his many tours around Britain.  His journals are often sharp, acerbic and amusing [if only by default]  and from them we get an 18thc gentleman’s insights into the British landscape, its great houses and gardens  and  much more…including on this trip a less than flattering  account of Humphry Repton. Continue reading →