The last time I visited the extraordinary rock garden at Chatsworth House, back in -ouch – 2014, my overwhelming impression was ‘yellow’. It was majestic, of course – the sheer amount of – well – rock – is a jaw-dropper, but I couldn’t have named a plant or noted a specific area that came to…
Category: Garden History
A Butterfly Flaps its Wings: Ellen Willmott and the Japanese Ambassador…
I’ve always been intrigued by a fleeting mention in Ellen Willmott’s previous biography: an invitation to lay out a garden for the Emperor of Japan. She turned it down, we’re told, because she had ‘too much to do in Europe’. Author Audrey le Lièvre admits there is no date and no evidence for the story…
Potentilla Nepalensis ‘Miss Willmott’
Nick Stanley, holder of the Ellen Willmott National Plant Collection, has a theory about the plants named for her. Nick suggests that anything named ‘Ellen Willmott’ was named by a close friend; anything called ‘Miss Willmott’ was more formal; an honour from someone who admired her but was, perhaps, a little more ‘awed’. Of course…
Temperate House, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
When Decimus Burton’s extraordinary Palm House opened at Kew in 1844, the world gasped. Burton’s star, already in the ascendant, had reached dizzying heights. Glory was all very nice, but now he faced a challenge. How on earth could he top innovation on that scale? Kew’s magnificent Temperate House, twice the size of the Palm…
Sheppy’s Cider Farm
Somerset’s rich soil and lush climate cry out for apples. Even the legendary Isle of Avalon, rumoured by some to be Glastonbury, was once known as the Isle of Apples and the county’s most famous product, cider, reaches back at least a thousand years. Cider was vital to the rural economy. Without a good brew…
It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
…at Warley Place, anyway. Most people love Warley for its drifts of daffodils. After all, Daffs mean Prizes – Miss Willmott won RHS medals a-go-go for hers. She even boobytrapped the best ones and carried a revolver in her handbag against bulb thieves. There must still be a few prize specimens in there, it’s a…
A Year at Warley Part V: Things that just fetch up…
Garden archaeology doesn’t come much more exciting than finding something pretty much every time you dig. I’ve been visiting Warley Place for thirty-odd years and every time I go something new has been uncovered by the dedicated team of volunteers. Sometimes it’s a bit of brick wall, sometimes a cobbled path. It might be yet…
A Year at Warley Place, Part IV: Daffodils
Miss Willmott had a thing for daffs. No, really, she was crazy about them. On joining the male-dominated Royal Horticultural Society she promptly invaded the all-male Narcissus Committee and won gold medals in four consecutive years. Warley Place would have been sunshine-yellow with prize hybrids, named for her sister and brother in law, and a much-missed sister…
Painshill, Pride of Surrey
Painshill Park Landscape Garden in Cobham, Surrey, is an 18th Century fantasy of gothic follies, Arcadian vistas, woodland dells and mysterious grottoes, yet by the mid-20th Century it had crumbled to invisibility. Estate Manager Mark Ebdon, who began work 33 years ago as a trainee, still remembers his first day. “It was just woodland,” he…
A Year at Warley Place, Pt III: The Ruins
Part three in my year’s exploration of the extraordinary ruined garden at Warley Place, Brentwood, Essex, looks at what’s left of the house and spectacular gardens. Last time saw a potted history of how Edwardian Plantswoman Ellen Willmott’s cossetted baby became so very ruined and overgrown. This time we’ll take a quick hike around what a…
A Year at Warley Place, Part I: Snowdrops
I have often written about my love for Warley Place, the once-famous garden of Edwardian plantswoman Ellen Willmott. The Essex garden, visited by royalty and bigwigs of the gardening world, was lost before the second world war, but was rescued in the nick of time and is now maintained by volunteers as a stunningly gorgeous wildlife…
Avery Hill Winter Garden
Avery Hill Park, Eltham, Kent. ‘Colonel’ John Thomas North was desperate to leave his humble beginnings behind. He was even keener to leave behind the story of how he made his fortune – selling South American bird droppings as fertiliser. Victorian head gardeners across the country may have been grateful to the Nitrate King but…
The Event Gardener 