Category: Great Gardens

Great Garden @ Greenway

Filed under: Great Gardens, Heritage Gardens & gardening, Historic landscapes, West Country Gardens — 3 Comments

29/04/2014

Another trip out whilst in Devon recently, involved a rather tortuous journey (and the need to pre book parking) at the former home of Agatha Christie, Greenway, near Brixham. We were a little limited in what we could see of the gardens, and we didn’t get to some of the feature areas like the walled garden and rhododendrons. Another day perhaps….What we did see was a fascinating house (and contents too) and some beautiful riverside sloping gardens full of interesting plants, typical of so many ‘sub tropical’ gardens along this south west coastline.

‘…The beloved holiday home of the famous and much-loved author Agatha Christie and her family. This relaxed and atmospheric house is set in the 1950s, when Agatha and her family would spend summers and Christmases here with friends, relaxing by the river, playing croquet and clock golf, and reading her latest mystery to their guests. The family were great collectors, and the house is filled with archaeology, Tunbridgeware, silver, botanical china and books.

In the garden don’t miss the large and romantic woodland which drifts down the hillside towards the sparkling Dart estuary. The walled gardens are home to the restored peach house and vinery, as well as an allotment cared for by local school children. A visit to Greenway isn’t complete without seeing the Boathouse, scene of the crime in Dead Man’s Folly, and the battery complete with cannon….’

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Further Information: National Trust Website

Old School Gardener

Tags: agatha christie, devon, garden, gardeners, gardens, greenway, heritage, national trust

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Great Garden @ Saltram

Filed under: Great Gardens, Heritage Gardens & gardening, Historic landscapes, West Country Gardens — 5 Comments

27/04/2014

On our recent trip to Devon we visited a few National Trust houses and gardens. We’d been to Saltram, near Plymouth, before, but not in the spring. It was a beautiful sunny day and the photos below show the house and gardens at their best, with deep, sharp shadows adding to the atmosphere.

‘Saltram overlooks the River Plym and is set in a rolling landscape park that provides precious green space on the outskirts of Plymouth. Strolling along the riverside or through the woodland, you can almost forget that the city lies so close. Saltram was home to the Parker family from 1743, when an earlier mansion was remodelled to reflect the family’s increasingly prominent position. It’s magnificently decorated, with original contents including Chinese wallpapers and an exceptional collection of paintings (several by Sir Joshua Reynolds). It also has a superb country house library and Robert Adam’s Neo-classical Saloon…The garden is mostly 19th century, with a working 18th-century orangery and follies, beautiful shrubberies and imposing specimen trees providing year-round interest.’

Further information: National Trust website

Old School Gardener

Tags: devon, garden, gardening, gardens, georgian, national trust, plymouth, saltram, victorian

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Planting Patterns #7

Image

Filed under: Design, Gardening techniques, Great Gardens, Heritage Gardens & gardening, PicPosts- great photographs, Planting Patterns- wow factor pictures — Leave a comment

25/04/2014

Planting Patterns #7

Planting as form at Marqueyssac, France

Old School Gardener

Tags: box, buxus, form, france, marqueyssac, planting, plants, topiary

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Great Garden @ Erdigg

Filed under: Great Gardens, Heritage Gardens & gardening, Historic landscapes — 3 Comments

29/03/2014

WP_20140322_056

Last weekend, whilst staying in Chester, we took a little trip out to Wales, specifically to the elegant house and gardens at Erdigg, near Wrexham. It was well worth the effort as we found a beautiful formal garden stemming from the 18th century and showing evidence of later period garden design fashions.

Erddig was owned by the Yorke family for 240 years. Each of them was called either Simon or Philip. The first Simon Yorke inherited the house in 1733 from his uncle, John Meller. Erddig’s garden was begun in 1685. Each of Erddig’s owners has altered and added to it, but each has respected their predessors work. Today you can still see evidence of the gardens of the past. Erddig’s walled garden is one of the most important surviving 18th century formal gardens in Britain.

The gardens contain rare fruit trees, a canal, a pond, a Victorian era parterre and are home to the NCCPG National Plant Collection of Hedera (ivy). The arrangement of alcoves in the yew hedges in the formal gardens may be a form of bee bole – a cavity or alcove in a wall or a separate free-standing structure set against a wall (the Scots word ‘bole’ means a recess in a wall). A skep is placed inside the bee bole. Before the development of modern bee hives, bee boles were a practical way of keeping bees in some parts of Britain, although most beekeepers kept their skeps in the open covered by, for example, old pots, or sacking. The bee bole helped to keep the wind and rain away from the skep and the bees living inside.

Further information:

National Trust Website

Wikipedia

Old School Gardener

Tags: erdigg, formal garden, gardening, gardens, lime, national trust, parterre, pleaching, wales, wrexham

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Spring with the Crocus King

Filed under: Great Gardens, Heritage Gardens & gardening, PicPosts- great photographs — 3 Comments

25/02/2014

My friend Jennifer sent me these lovely pictures of the spring flowers at Myddelton House, Enfield today.

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This was the home of E.A. Bowles who transformed the garden at Myddelton and, as a keen traveller, especially to Europe and North Africa, brought home with him many specimens of plant. Such was his collecting zeal that, by the turn of the 20th century, he was growing over 130 species of colchicum and Crocus- very much the ‘Crocus King’.

If you’d like to see something of the gardens in summer here’s a link to an article I wrote last August.

Old School Gardener

Tags: bowles, colchicum, crocus, enfield, hellebore, myddelton house, snowdrop, spring

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PicPost: Baroque Brassicas

Image

Filed under: Design, Gardening techniques, Great Gardens, Grow your own food, Heritage Gardens & gardening, PicPosts- great photographs — 7 Comments

09/02/2014

PicPost: Baroque Brassicas

Cabbage beds at Villandry, France

Old School Gardener

Tags: cabbages, formal, france, photo, potager, vegetables, villandry

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Drama at Quinta da Regaleira, Portugal

Filed under: Great Gardens, Heritage Gardens & gardening, Portuguese Gardens — Leave a comment

20/01/2014

So, this is it, the final stop on our final day in Portugal (well, at least this visit). The Quinta da Regaleira is one a group of grand palaces with grand gardens and estates in the mountain top resort of Sintra, a few miles from Lisbon, and famous as the retreat of the royals and the rich.

It consists of a romantic palace and chapel, and a luxurious park featuring lakes, grottoes, wells, benches, fountains, and a vast array of exquisite constructions. The palace is also known as “Palace of Monteiro the Millionaire”, from the nickname of its first owner, Antonio Augusto Carvalho Monteiro. The estate has had many owners through time, but in 1892 it was purchased by Carvalho Monteiro who then set about creating a place where he could gather symbols that would reflect his interests and ideologies. With the assistance of the Italian architect Luigi Manini, he installed in the 4-hectare estate a range of enigmatic buildings, believed to hide symbols related to Alchemy, Masonry, the Knights Templar and the Rosicrucians. The architecture is an eclectic mix of styles, constructed in the first few years of the 1900’s and completed in 1910.

Beutifully carved stone adorns the many structures in the gardens..

After a number of other owners, and a period in which it fell into disrepair, the estate was bought by Sintra Council in 1997. Extensive restoration was undertaken, and the palace and surroundings were opened to the public one year later.

Most of the estate consists of a dense woodland park crossed by many roads and footpaths. The woods are neatly arranged in the lower parts of the estate, but left wild and disorganized in the upper parts, reflecting Carvalho Monteiro’s belief in primitivism. Decorative, symbolic and leisure structures are dotted aorund the park and there is also a mysterious system of tunnels, which have multiple accesses including via grottoes, Chapel, Waterfall Lake, and “Leda’s Cave” beneath the Regaleira Tower. Their symbolism has been interpreted as a trip between darkness and light, death and resurrection.

The “Initiation Well” or “Initiatic Well” (sometimes referred to as the “Inverted Tower”) is a 27 metre staircase that leads straight down underground and connects with other tunnels via underground walkways.Water is a frequent element with two artificial lakes and several fountains and the Aquarium, built as if it were naturally embedded in a rock.

The Initiation Well- looking up…

..and down…

..accessed via dark grottoes and tunnels…

I loved the playfulness of the park and children of course love its quirky touches, secret passages and tall towers. Quite a place and a fitting end to our latest Portuguese trip.

Superb detailing inside the palace..

Luigi Mannini

Source: Wikipedia

Old School Gardener

Tags: eclectic, gothic, mysticism, portugal, Quinta da Regaleira, sintra, tunnels, water, woodland

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What is a Garden?

Filed under: A musing: odd thoughts, Design, Gardening techniques, Great Gardens, Wildlife and Nature — 2 Comments

10/01/2014

The Garden- man made artifice?

‘Let us, then, begin by defining what a garden is, and what it ought to be. It is a piece of ground fenced off from cattle, and appropriated to the use and pleasure of man: it is or ought to be, cultivated and enriched by art, with such products as are not natural to this country, and consequently, it must be artificial in its treatment, and may, without impropriety, be so in its appearance; yet, there is so much of littleness in art, when compared with nature, that they cannot be well blended; it were, therefore, to be wished, that the exterior of a garden should be made to assimilate with park scenery, of the landscape of nature; the interior may then be laid out with all the variety, contrast, and even whim, that can produce pleasing objects to the eye.’

Humphry Repton- ‘Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening’, 1803

Hmmm. what do you think? Repton’s advice about blending the edges of a garden with it’s surrounding landscape has become a tenet of garden design, but what about his words on making the garden itself a clearly ‘man made’ feature? Is the phrase ‘natural garden’ a contradiction in terms?

Old School Gardener

Tags: art, design, gardening, gardens, landscape gardening, nature, norfolk, repton

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Pomp for Pombal at Oeiras, Portugal

Filed under: Design, Great Gardens, Heritage Gardens & gardening, Historic landscapes, Portuguese Gardens — Leave a comment

22/12/2013

The second garden visit on our last day in Portugal took us a little further towards the mouth of the River Tagus, but still within the town of Oeiras. The Gardens of the Palace of the Marquis of Pombal convey an even more prosperous feel and are altogether larger – almost a ‘landscape’ scale. It is easy to imagine these high baroque walks, lawns, borders and water features as the scene of some serious 18th century showing off, flirting and general fun.

: The 1st Marquis of Pombal

The Town Council now occupies the former palace. The Marquis of Pombal, one of Portugal’s most famous leaders, was rewarded with the palace, the title (and the title Count of Oeiras) for his service as first minister to the Portuguese King Dom Jose I in the mid- late 18th century. The surrounding gardens are typical of Portuguese landscape art, inspired by eighteenth century European designs but holding to the tradition of the Portuguese stately house. They are richly decorated with marble busts and statues, low walls and marble staircases along with many murals composed from azulejos (glazed tiles).

Here too is the Poets’ Waterfall, with excellent busts of the four epic poets (Tasso, Homer, Virgil and Camoes) looking out over the gardens and carved in marble by Machado de Castro. At the fountain’s centre lounges the figure of a ‘river god’ modelled on the one that existed at the Belvedere Gardens, in the Vatican, Rome. As in the garden we visited earlier at Caxias, the fountain is a fantastic structure made out of pitted stone which conveys a truly antique feel. There are also splendid views of the surrounding gardens from the stairs that wrap around the sides of the construction.

The gardens form one part of a wider estate which is planned to a rigourous geometry and divides recreation spaces, great gardens and surrounding farms, all reflecting the style of the well-to-do families of the age. The gardens saw cultural events such as theatre, ballet and musical performances, a tradition kept up to the modern day (Roxy Music performed here in 2010!). Here are some pictures of the formal gardens lying to the side of the Poets’ Fountain, with empty pools resting near to the remains of a ‘bousquet’ (a sort of woodland in miniature) and the wonderful (empty) pools and fountains of a large water garden with some beautiful glazed tiles that must look really vibrant when wet.

Portuguese Gardens: Baroque Splendour at Caxias, Portugal

Old School Gardener

Tags: baroque, bousquet, fountains, gardens, marble, oeiras, palace, pombal, pools, portugal, statues, stone, water

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Beer Garden- Elgood’s Brewery, Wisbech

Filed under: Great Gardens, Heritage Gardens & gardening — Leave a comment

14/12/2013

There’s been a brewery and garden here since 1795. Perched on the north bank (or ‘brink’) of the River Nene in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, Elgood’s Brewery remained virtually unaltered until the Second World War.

The established Victorian garden was ripped up and as much land as possible devoted to growing food for the war effort. After being turned over to grass for many years, 1993 saw the discovery of some old photographs of the original garden and it was decided to both restore some of the old spaces and features and to create new areas.

The structure of the garden today owes much to the framework of superb specimen trees which survived over the centuries; Ginkgo, Cedrus, Liriodendron and Salix to name but a few. These were mainly provided by members of Wisbech’s famous banking family, the Peckovers, who themselves established a grand Victorian garden a few paces down river at what is now called Peckover House.

Some important features such as the maze (of Thuja and Laurel and featuring old brewery and garden objects as focal points), walled garden, Japanese garden, rockery, water features, glasshouses and herb garden have been recreated. These are complemented by a modern grass and bamboo garden with contemporary water features. And there are typical Victorian ‘swags’ (ropes) over which climbing roses clamber as well as arbours featuring two varieties of hop (‘Fuggles’ and ‘Challenger’) – both of which feature in Elgood’s beers.

The modern additions have added to what is a typically eclectic mix of curiosities and attractive garden features. Well worth a visit, and can be combined for a full day’s outing with nearby Peckover House and the Georgian town of Wisbech.

: Hops- ornamental and useful for brewing too!

Further information:

‘Banker’s Bonus- secret garden gem

Oranges in the Fens

Elgood’s website

Old School Gardener

Tags: beer, brewery, cambridgeshire, contemporary, elgood's, gardens, maze, nene, peckover, specimen trees, victorian, water features, wisbech

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Nigel Boldero aka 'Old School Gardener'
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Category: Great Gardens

Further Information: National Trust Website

Old School Gardener

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On our recent trip to Devon we visited a few National Trust houses and gardens. We’d been to Saltram, near Plymouth, before, but not in the spring. It was a beautiful sunny day and the photos below show the house and gardens at their best, with deep, sharp shadows adding to the atmosphere.

Further information: National Trust website

Old School Gardener

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Planting as form at Marqueyssac, France

Old School Gardener

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Further information:

Old School Gardener

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My friend Jennifer sent me these lovely pictures of the spring flowers at Myddelton House, Enfield today.

If you’d like to see something of the gardens in summer here’s a link to an article I wrote last August.

Old School Gardener

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Cabbage beds at Villandry, France

Old School Gardener

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So, this is it, the final stop on our final day in Portugal (well, at least this visit). The Quinta da Regaleira is one a group of grand palaces with grand gardens and estates in the mountain top resort of Sintra, a few miles from Lisbon, and famous as the retreat of the royals and the rich.

Beutifully carved stone adorns the many structures in the gardens..

After a number of other owners, and a period in which it fell into disrepair, the estate was bought by Sintra Council in 1997. Extensive restoration was undertaken, and the palace and surroundings were opened to the public one year later.

I loved the playfulness of the park and children of course love its quirky touches, secret passages and tall towers. Quite a place and a fitting end to our latest Portuguese trip.

Superb detailing inside the palace.. Luigi Mannini

Source: Wikipedia

Old School Gardener

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Humphry Repton- ‘Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening’, 1803

Hmmm. what do you think? Repton’s advice about blending the edges of a garden with it’s surrounding landscape has become a tenet of garden design, but what about his words on making the garden itself a clearly ‘man made’ feature? Is the phrase ‘natural garden’ a contradiction in terms?

Old School Gardener

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Related article:

Old School Gardener

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There’s been a brewery and garden here since 1795. Perched on the north bank (or ‘brink’) of the River Nene in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, Elgood’s Brewery remained virtually unaltered until the Second World War.

The modern additions have added to what is a typically eclectic mix of curiosities and attractive garden features. Well worth a visit, and can be combined for a full day’s outing with nearby Peckover House and the Georgian town of Wisbech.

Further information:

Old School Gardener

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Superb detailing inside the palace..

Luigi Mannini