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NorfolkNorfolk GardensGardens T Trustrust Autumn 2017 No.24 norfolkgt.org.uk 1 Welcome Contents Chairman’s Report - Autumn 2017 I imagine this summer has been a good already manifest and I hope he will be with Chairman’s Report ................................................................. 1 one for anyone engaged in the lawnmower us for quite a while. business. The rain has kept the grass As always, we are on the lookout for Orchards in the Landscape - Tom Williamson...................... 2 growing and those who have old machines, gardens for our members to visit in the as I do, may be contemplating replacing summer months. I open our garden every Update on the Norfolk Gardens Trust’s research into them. Humphry Repton in Norfolk - Sally Bate .............................. 8 other year with others in our village to This edition contains some details of a trip raise funds for the church and I am only The John Innes Historical Collections: a resource for to Herefordshire which the Trust arranged too aware of the hard work involved in garden history - Sarah Wilmot ............................................... 11 in June. It was spectacularly successful the process. I hope that other garden taking in five gardens in all, including Sir owners may consider sharing the benefits What’s in a Name: a brief history of the pelargonium Roy Strong’s garden at Laskett. Sir Roy of their labours with an enthusiastic and - Lucinda Skinner .................................................................. 14 was there to meet our group and was his knowledgeable group of NGT members. amusing self. All five gardens contrasted So please contact Karen Moore if you The Garden at Hindringham Hall - Lynda Tucker ................ 19 with each other giving those on the trip think you can help us. an opportunity of considering their The Pabulum Cafe Charity Happiness Garden preferences. Many thanks go to our Events - Peter Woodrow ...................................................................... 23 Organiser Karen Moore for flawlessly arranging this trip for 32 members of The How Hill Rose Garden - Roger Last ................................ 25 the Trust. Read Lesley Cant Cunneen’s account of our trip. The Grapes Hill Community Garden - Fran Ellington ......... 27 As readers may recall, the Trust was in receipt of a bequest from the estates Readers’ Gardens - Jackie Moss .............................................. 31 of Mr and Mrs Tate a few years ago. The Committee gave most careful Sculpture in the Garden at East Ruston Old Vicarage consideration as to how to handle the - Alan Gray .............................................................................. 32 money; consequently we made a grant to Finally, you may recall Becky Priestley’s How Hill to enable that charity to carry article on Norfolk Landscape History from The NGT Summer Garden Tour - Lesley Kant Cunneen ..... 36 out a scheme of improvement to the rose our spring edition. Becky’s research for garden which involved the commissioning her master’s degree was supported by a Book reviews ........................................................................... 40 of wrought iron gates and benches. In this NGT scholarship at UEA and it is a great edition, Roger Last describes how these pleasure to report that our Chair and Vice Dates for Your Diary ............................................................... 44 additions augment Edward Boardman’s Chair were recently able to see original ideas for his rose garden. I hope Becky graduate. About the website, David King ............................................... 48 Mr and Mrs Tate, who lived near How Hill, would have approved the outcome. Matthew Martin Cover: East Ruston Old Vicarage. See page 15 Credit: Paul L G Morris Roger Lloyd has joined the Committee as Back cover: Harriet Mead sculpture - Readers’ Gardens. See page 31 Secretary. His administrative expertise is 1 Norfolk ‘Capability’ Landscape Brown History - Norfolk Gardens History Norfolk Landscape History Orchards in the Landscape by Tom Williamson Everybody loves orchards. They lie at fungi, wood-boring insects like the noble that fascinating interface of history and chafer, wild flowers, and lichens all natural history, of nature and culture thrive in the oldest and best-preserved and - laden with fruit in late summer, or examples (Fig.1). But orchards are also bright with blossom in the spring - have central to our social and cultural history. an irresistible appeal. Those managed Before the start of the twentieth century on more ‘traditional’ lines, with tall they formed part of the daily experience trees and minimal use of herbicides, of almost everyone. Gentlemen took are also important for wildlife and were particular pride in amassing extensive recognised in 2008 as a UK Biodiversity fruit collections but the ‘middling sort’ Action Plan habitat: they have a rich were likewise enthusiastic fruit growers, grass sward, are often surrounded by a as were small farmers and – insofar as band of scrub in the form of hedgerows, space would allow – even cottagers. and above all have their trees – an Landowners and clergy might provide important reserve of dead wood as well fruit trees for the local poor: the agent as an abundant source of nectar. Rare of the Marsham estate was ordered in 2. Robin pears growing at Threxton House. Before the nineteenth century most orchards in Norfolk contained a high proportion of pears, and other fruit, in addition to apples. 1736 to buy ‘6 aple trees & 2 cherry trees fruit was a valuable and vulnerable crop, to set in Ann Watsons yard & 2 apel but this also reflects the fact that owners trees in Jexes orchard at 8d a piece’ and derived pleasure from blossom, fruit and fruit and nut trees were even sometimes birdsong. The seventeenth-century writer planted in churchyards for the good of William Lawson typically described the poor, as at Briningham in 1750. The how ‘whereas every other pleasure appeal of orchards remains strong, and commonly fills some one of our senses, recent decades have seen an increasing with delight; this makes all our senses interest in historic fruit varieties and swim in pleasure, and that with infinite especially those deemed to be associated variety, joined with no less commodity’. with particular regions and localities A gentleman’s fruit collection was a mark (Fig. 2). of status, and much correspondence was Not surprisingly, orchards also form devoted to discussion of plans, varieties an important aspect of garden history, and suppliers. At such social levels, in Norfolk as elsewhere. The majority orchards – like many other aspects of the of early orchards were situated close productive landscape, from fish ponds to to houses and adjacent to the garden. rabbit warrens – were at once useful and This preference was partly dictated by practical and aesthetic features, and in 1. A ‘traditional’ farmhouse orchard near Wymondham. practical and security considerations for many sixteenth and seventeenth-century 2 3 Norfolk Landscape History Norfolk Landscape History Orchards, like other practical called the Summer, with instructions for facilities with a semi-ornamental planting’. role – dovecotes, warrens and Only a small proportion of surviving the rest – were, together with orchards in Norfolk formed part of formal gardens, progressively eighteenth and nineteenth-century removed from the immediate country house landscapes. Most are vicinity of large houses in either ‘traditional’ farmhouse orchards the course of the eighteenth – usually dominated by tall, spreading century. Capability Brown and varieties of trees on vigorous rootstocks, his contemporaries had little capable of attaining a significant age enthusiasm for such clutter, and thus of high conservation value - or instead designing landscapes larger commercial concerns, established in which houses appeared to 5. Old fruit trees growing in a kitchen garden in Suffolk. since the mid-nineteenth century, usually stand in open parkland, flanked of kitchen gardens, as in the walled containing trees on dwarf or semi-dwarf only by lawns and ornamental 3. Channons Hall, Tibenham. The moated orchard, shown on gardens of old, or trained on wires rootstocks and, if still actively managed, pleasure grounds. Yet fruit trees a map of 1640. and frames flanking paths (Fig 5). And often featuring a closely mown sward and orchards continued to owners continued to list, with evident subject to regular chemical treatments gardens there was a fine line between the be valued and visited, like the kitchen pleasure, the diverse varieties of fruit they (Figs 6 and 7). But a significant orchard and the wilderness, or woodland gardens with which they were usually cultivated, and exchanged trees over long proportion have a rather different origin, garden. At Stiffkey Hall in the 1570s associated – even if they now lay at distances with friends and family. The for many orchards were created, from the the orchard was ‘pared’ to create allées some distance from the mansion. Fruit Reverend William Gunn of Smallburgh late nineteenth century, in the gardens with paths of sifted gravel, while at Stow continued to be espaliered on the walls Bardolph in 1712 the ‘quarters’ of the made many such gifts, as in 1807 when of large suburban or semi-suburban wilderness were planted with ’14 pears, he despatched to Thomas Hearn of houses or other middle-class dwellings. 14 apples, 14 plums, 7 cherries all for Buckingham ‘some beefing plants, This reflects the influence of ‘arts and standard