Newsletter of the Staffordshire Gardens and Parks Trust. Registered Charity No. 1013862. WINTER 2012 ISSUE No. 4­­7 News Staffordshire Gardens & Parks Trust Published by the Staffordshire Gardens and Parks Trust. c/o South Staffordshire LETTER Council, Wolverhampton Road, Codsall, Staffordshire WV8 1PX. Tel: 01902 696000 “BACK TO ITS FORMER GLORY!” At half past four on the afternoon of August 30th, 1894, following a civic luncheon attended by 250 guests, the Mayor of Burslem, Alderman Spencer Lawton, led a procession seven thousand strong to Burslem Park behind a banner proclaiming “Success to Our Park”. After delivering a speech from the terrace, Cllr. Bowden, Chairman of the Baths and Parks Committee, with due ceremony unlocked the ornate gates with a silver-gilt key which he and his wife had donated. On June 23rd, 2012, a re-enactment took place to celebrate the re-opening of Burslem Park following the recent restoration. As part of the ceremony a copy of the original banner was carried through the park with a few thousand in attendance

Various features of the new park were testimony to the munificence of local industrialists and the skill of local manufacturing: the two ornate terracotta fountains, were donated in memory of Arthur Wilkinson by his wife and daughters; gates, seats, shelters and drinking fountains made from terracotta were all donated by local industrialists.

The origins of the park can be traced to the development of the pottery and mining industries which had transformed and despoiled the landscape of the area; by the end of the nineteenth century, Burslem had become a thriving Potteries town. Its rapidly-expanding population lived in high-density terrace housing and the atmosphere was polluted by the high number of coal-fired kilns in the town. The City Fathers quickly recognised the need for a healthy work force, and the fashion for creating public parks caught their imagination.

The cascade

continued overleaf The pavilion

Thomas Mawson, the leading garden such as restoring the cascades and the the restoration and repair of all the designer of the day, was initially rose garden, and, in 2006, applied to terracotta which has been such a employed to design Hanley Park, and the the Heritage Lottery Fund for a grant to distinctive feature of the Park. commission was than extended following initiate the restoration. a competition to design Burslem Park. Planting has been an important element The site chosen was colliery wasteland The initial ‘Round 1’ application process in the restoration, and arrangements still dotted with numerous hidden mine commenced in 2007 with a Conservation were made for contract-growing of the shafts, all of which had to be filled and plan produced by Ashmead Price which plants with two nurseries: Boultons of capped. The work of laying out the new set out the history of the park and the Moddeshall provided the herbaceous park was undertaken by unemployed budget cost of the park restoration. perennials and rockery plants, while miners and pottery workers and entailed Local people were fully consulted on their the shrubs were supplied by Boningale the importing of seventy load of soil to preferences and priorities throughout Nurseries, Wolverhampton. cover up the spoil from the mines. the work stage. The application was successful, and The Heritage Lottery In future, the park will be at the centre Most of Mawson’s planting succumbed funded a ‘Round 2’ development stage of community activities, hosting popular to industrial pollution, and it was difficult of the project in 2009. A maintenance events and encouraging local residents even to get the grass to thrive. The and management plan was developed, young and old to accept ownership of fountains had to be switched off only a setting out a commitment to increased the park by involving themselves in its year after they had been commissioned management of the park. In 2012, the management and supervision. owing to subsidence, and in 1921 the lake Heritage Lottery Fund awarded a grant drained away down an old airshaft! of £1.6 million towards the total project The members of the Trust who took part cost of £2.1 million, which was to include in this visit were accompanied on the By the 1980s and 1990s, the park was the restoration of the Pavilion. walk through the Park by Mike Watson, experiencing a period of neglect and of the Burslem Park Partnership, and slow decline, until, in 2001, growing local Ashmead Price won the contract to Sarah Ashmead, of Ashmead Price, who concern led to the formation of the deliver and supervise the restoration of greatly enhanced the enjoyment of the Burslem Park Partnership, a voluntary the park, and, in May 2011, a contract afternoon by their first-hand knowledge organisation, supported by Stoke was let by the City Council to G. F. of and their undoubted enthusiasm for -on-Trent City Council, dedicated to the Tomlinson of Derby to undertake the this lovely park. regeneration of Burslem Park. Beginning civil engineering and building restoration at first with small restoration projects, works. The one-year contract included

The heritage mosaic Terracotta fountain at the main entrance “PAXTON’S PROTÉGÉ” This newly-published book by John stations, manufacturers (including Josiah 6 Rowley Avenue, and Holmcroft Youth Craddock chronicles the life of Edward Wedgwood), government departments, Club, both in Stafford, for George Milner (1819 – 1884), apprentice the RHS at Wisley and Chelsea, and the Venables (1950). gardener at Chatsworth, who was King of Sweden. given the opportunity to study in Paris The book chronicles the development and became Paxton’s assistant and Other clients included H. G. Wells, of one of the most significant landscape superintendent of the gardens of the Joseph Chamberlain and Norman garden practices in this country since its re-located Crystal Palace at Sydenham. Hartnell. establishment by ‘Paxton’s Protégé’.

After gaining design experience with As well as the work for Wedgwood at Sue Gregory, November 2012 Paxton, Milner set up his own firm, Barlaston, Staffordshire sites connected which later became “Milner White” with the firm include Hartshill A copy of this book, which has been and received commissions for work Cemetery (1833-4), The Cedars, Stone printed in a limited edition of 250 copies, throughout the United Kingdom (in (1917), Foremarke Hall, Burton (1915- may be obtained by sending a cheque for thirty-two counties) and abroad (in 8), Ingestre Hall (1937), Rangemore £20. 00 made out to “J. P. Craddock” at 9 seventeen counties), working for Hall, Tatenhill (1875), Sandon Hall Plash Drive, Stevenage, SG1 1LW. Postage titled people, MPs, local authorities, (1913), Hill Top House, Stoke-on-Trent and packing is free, churches, prisons, barracks, power (1922) and Harestone,

“A little sort of imitation Greek temple”

Whether P. G. Wodehouse had The Temple of Diana at Weston Park in mind when he was describing the temple in the grounds of Blandings Castle is a matter of conjecture (his family lived for a time at Stableford), but it was certainly erected “in the days when landowners went in for little sort of imitation Greek temples”, orangeries in particular being in vogue in the second half of the eighteenth-century. not visible from the house, and of the Jeffrey Haworth, the Chairman of Clee Hills and The Wrekin beyond. the Hereford and Worcester Gardens The Temple of Diana served a Trust, who gave members the number of purposes; apart from being privilege of a guided tour of what an orangery, it also combined a tea is now his home, and the Trust is room with panels painted with scenes most grateful to Jeffrey for providing depicting the life of Diana, Goddess such an enjoyable and memorable of Hunting, an octagonal music room afternoon. and a dairy, above which was “an exceeding good bedchamber” for the dairy-maid.

This last amenity, coupled with the fact that it was such a distance from the house and that there was no water-course nearby, has encouraged speculation as to whether its true An unusual rounded door purpose was not to provide a convenient rendezvous for the Earl’s Designed by James Paine, who also liaison with its occupant, diary-maids worked at Chillington Hall, where at that time having a strong romantic he designed the Gothic and Grecian appeal! Temples, it was built in 1760 on ground which gave a commanding The rooms behind the orangery view of Capability Brown’s landscape, have now been converted into a The Chairman speaks - Jeffrey listens! dwelling, at present tenanted by A Walk Round Trentham Park Led by Michael Walker, Head of Garden and Estate, and Greg Williamson, Estate Supervisor, twenty-two of the Trust’s most hardy members followed a challenging circular route round the parkland at Trentham. Two hours became four, but, throughout, the party remained undaunted by mud and steep slopes, their attention riveted by the account given by Michael and Greg of the ambitious enterprise in the historic North Park which, when completed, will be one of the Woodland Trust’s sixty Diamond Woods marking the sixty years in which Queen Elizabeth II has reigned as our monarch.

The project began with the removal of the pine tree forest which had been planted as a commercial crop half a century ago and will continue with the re-planting of the area with native sessile oak at the end of this year. Selective thinning will reveal more of the eighteenth-century rides and paths beneath the present sprawl of natural regeneration, and restore the parkland to its eighteenth- century character. The bracken which at present infests the area will this year be attacked with chemicals and thereafter kept under control by the possible introduction of red poll A work in progress cattle, the future use of chemicals being banned by the EU. then began its development as a Trentham’s continuing evolution. Trentham was first mentioned in the leisure park, having sold the most The plantings were designed by Domesday Book, and an eleventh- northerly section of the park to create Tom Stuart-Smith, with supporting century priory once stood on the Trentham Park Golf Course, but, in borders on either side by Piet Oudolf, site. Following the dissolution of the 1984, the National Coal Board bought both of whom are garden designers monasteries in the sixteenth-century, the estate so that it could make good of international reputation. the priory was replaced by a Tudor the damage done to the lake and house. Successively remodelled over gardens by mining subsidence The second phase of development the next two centuries, it was finally coupled additional shops and remodelled by Charles Barry at the St. Modwen Properties purchased restaurants within the shopping same time that he was laying out the the estate from British Coal in village with an iconic contemporary gardens, 1834-47. After Staffordshire 1996 and, following a protracted garden designed by Piet Oudolf in County Council had declined to planning procedure which ensured the eastern Pleasure Garden. It is still take it over – it might have become that conservation and ecological intended to build a five-star hotel on the campus of Staffordshire’s first issues as well as local sensibilities the footprint of the demolished Hall, university -, the Hall was demolished were balanced against the demands but this ambitious project will need in 1911, pollution from the Potteries of landscape management, began a substantial investment and has, for having made it uninhabitable, and ten-year plan to restore and develop the time being, been put on hold. the family sold their estates here both the Garden and Estate five years Following initial work by Elizabeth and in Shropshire, retaining only later. The first phase included the Banks Associates, a long-term the ancestral home of the Sutherland creation of a commercial shopping restoration and management plan clan, Dunrobin Castle, in Sutherland. village incorporating a premier was drawn up by a team from Land For the next hundred years Trentham garden centre by Blue Diamond and Use Consultants led by Dominic became a place of public respite, its the Premier Inn hotel. At the same Cole, who had previously worked best-known feature being perhaps time, the structure of the estate was at the Eden Project and the Lost the 1930s Arts-and-Craft lido, restored, including ecological and Gardens of Heligan, whilst to this still fondly remembered by older landscape conservation throughout pool of talents were added those of Potteries residents. the estate, together with Barry’s Michael Walker, who took up the Italian Garden, compete with appointment of Garden Manager in The estate was later sold to John loggia, balustrading and fountains. 2003, having worked at Waddesdon Broome, the entrepreneur behind Vast new perennial plantings Manor for the previous nine years. the development of Alton Towers were commissioned to make a as a premier leisure attraction. He contemporary contribution to Meanwhile, in sixty acres of the informally placed near the west anywhere but would have provided parkland at the southern end of the entrance to the hall and that the vistas. About twenty years later, estate, Trentham Monkey Forest ground on each side of the drive rides were cut through the Coppy provides a unique visitor attraction should be sloped upwards. It took which were intended to provide within the UK and is home to 140 the Duke two years to decide on views to local features. Barbary macaques. which of the two recommended gradients should be implemented, Finally, the group returned down the Today, Trentham Gardens are one of eventually he settled on 1:4 as this line of this drive and concluding a the UK’s premier tourist attractions; would be cheaper.1 very informative commentary on the last year there were 3.2m. visitors to progress of the work, Michael said Trentham, of whom 400, 000 paid to Our itinerary took the group up that when completed, ten thousand enter the gardens. through King’s Wood via the steep trees will have been planted, many route of the early eighteenth-century through an imaginative sponsorship During the period 1759-1780 Beech Avenue (which was fully scheme through which, for just £15, Lancelot Brown worked at Trentham displaying all its autumnal glory) members of the public can plant a three times, removing formal which Brown had retained and tree in memory of a loved one or to features including two of the three which replaced an earlier Fir Tree commemorate a significant event in avenues. This was confirmed by Avenue dating from circa1599, which their lives. In doing so, they will be a contemporary witness Viscount was itself destroyed by a hurricane. supporting a most worthy cause, The Torrington who commented that Douglas Macmillan Cancer Support Brown was ‘too severe upon Kings Wood was once known as who have already received £27, 000 avenues’. The line of the most Trentham Coppy, when it was from the Trentham Tree Dedication southerly of the three avenues was managed to supply coppiced timber Initiative to date. retained and extended by Brown for estate use, the surplus being to form his Green Drive which led sold as cratewood for the pottery Members left determined to return through twin lodges to the new manufacturers such as Josiah Spode. in five years’ time when the project entrance at Strongford. A further The two oldest paths, known to will have been completed, although revision, this time by Barry, brought have been in place by 1599 but Michael has promised that, in twelve the line of the central avenue back probably medieval, led from the months, the site would be looking into use as a carriage drive leading hall to Hanchurch in the north west substantially different. through Gravel Pit Lodge towards and Beech in the south west. Three the road to the family’s Shropshire avenues were added in between 1 Sue Gregory ‘The Historic Gardens at estate. W. A. Nesfield was employed these paths at the beginning of the Trentham’, Transactions of Staffordshire to landscape this drive and his 18th century which were entirely Archaeological and Historical Society, plan specified large limes and elms ornamental as they did not lead XLIV, 2010.

Foundations of WWII hut, part of Trentham’s heritage Blithfield Hall

Blithfield Hall stands on high ground between two rivers, the River Blythe, from which takes its name, and the River Trent, and from where it commands extensive views over the neighbouring countryside, which now includes the Blithfield Reservoir, opened by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in 1953.

The North Front

No trace remains of the original moated architecture (Some of his drawings are almost certainly spared when, in 1948, mansion which once stood on the site, to be found in The William Salt Library, Caryl, the Sixth Baron, bought back the nor of the village mentioned in the in Stafford). Hall and thirty acres of land surrounding Domesday Book. The present Hall Like many other historic estates, the Hall and, aided by grants from The dates back to the sixteenth century, Blithfield Hall suffered a decline in the Historic Buildings Council, he and Lady but was extended in the 1740s and next century, the greater part of it Bagot set about the task of rescuing it remodelled in the fashionable Gothick becoming virtually uninhabitable, since from dereliction. style by John Buckler for the second it lacked basic amenities like bathrooms, Lord Bagot in the 1820s which has electricity and heating other than open A condition for accepting the grant given it its distinctive turrets and fires. was that, in return for receiving public battlements. Buckler, who also funding, which had allowed the roof worked for Lord Bagot at Pool Park, in When, in 1938, the South Staffordshire to be replaced and dry rot to be Denbighshire, is best known nowadays Waterworks Company decided to eliminated, the Hall should open its as a topographical artist whose drawings buy the Hall and most of the estate in doors to the public, and, between 1956 of now-demolished or radically-altered order to create Blithfield Reservoir, and 1977, the principal rooms were buildings are a valuable source of the Hall even faced the prospect of re-decorated and displays of costumes information on the history of British demolition, a fate from which it was and clothes put on show. The eighteenth-century Orangery

Members of the public were able to century, though extensively re-modelled west garden, though it is not certain enjoy the splendours of one of the since, and notable for its Regency how much of their design was ever oldest of Staffordshire’s stately homes. Gothic plasterwork by Francis implemented, and nothing now remains Bernasconi, one of the most successful of it today. Sadly, this privilege ended when The carvers and ornamental plasterers in Historic Buildings Grant withdrew its Georgian England; the Drum Hall, so An estate map dating back to the early funding and the expense of opening to called because a drum rather than a eighteenth-century shows that there the public became too great for the gong was used to summon the family to was once a parterre, a patte d’oeil and family to sustain, and the Hall is now meals (a custom that once caused alarm a wilderness, all features associated divided into four separate properties, amongst Cavalier soldiers billeted at with Charles Bridgeman and Stephen the main rooms being in the ownership the Hall during the English Civil Wars, Switzer, though there is no evidence of the Bagot Jewitt Trust, while Nancy who thought that it was a call to arms!); that either actually contributed to their Lady Bagot and the Bagot Jewitt family the Chinese Room with its eighteenth- design. remain in residence. century Chinese wallpaper; the Great Staircase, which dates from the time of What does survive is the very fine Happily, members of the Trust had Charles II. Orangery which dates from the 1770s the opportunity of visiting the Hall and which once housed an exhibition this September, when Cosy Bagot But what special attractions does of the Bagot coaches. It was designed Jewitt, whose husband, Charles, Chief Blithfield Hall offer the garden historian? by James ‘Athenian’ Stuart, who was Executive of the National Memorial Well, for a start, this is one of the also employed by Thomas Anson at Arboretum at Alrewas, is custodian estates which ‘Capability’ Brown did Shugborough and by the first Lord of the Hall, conducted them round not ‘improve’! The park has never been Lyttleton at Hagley, which the Trust will the principal rooms of the Hall before landscaped, and several ancient oaks be visiting next year.. entertaining them to tea in the Great survive. Hall. The underground chamber beneath Other well-known names are associated the Orangery presented members with Much of the Hall’s earlier magnificence with Blithfield, however. In 1704, the a challenge as to deciding its original remains in evidence: the Great Hall, fourth Baronet commissioned George purpose; uses suggested included a which may date back to the fifteenth London and Henry Wise to lay out the plunge bath and a cheese store!

continued overleaf The afternoon also included a visit to collection of medieval bench ends in St. Leonard’s Church. The present Staffordshire. St. Leonard’s, which stands just over 100 yards from the house, dates Another rare feature is the double and from the late thirteenth century with triple sedilia. The interior contains many fourteenth and fifteenth-century magnificent memorials to the Bagot additions, though it replaces an older Family; continuing the Bagot family’s church mentioned in the Domesday association with the church, Charles Book. In the nineteenth century, the Bagot-Jewitt is one of the church chancel was heavily restored in the organists. medieval style by George Edmund Street, one of the most prominent This proved to be a popular visit, and ecclesiastical architects of the Victorian the Trust is extremely grateful not only era, and not much survives of the to Cosy for her hospitality, but also original medieval work, though the oak to its Chairman, Alan Taylor, who roof, restored in 1853, is an exact copy conducted the party around the church, of the original. However, the wooden enhancing the interest of the visit with pews are believed to be four hundred his extensive knowledge of church years old and offer visitors the best architecture. The carved Jacobean staircase

A Date for your Diary

Wilkins Pleck, in North Staffordshire, is a modern garden according to Tim Mowl, ‘worthy of Hidcote’, and in in the Arts and Crafts tradition covering six acres, whose the NGS Yellow Book as ‘a kaleidoscope of colour and features include a formal parterre, formal yew hedges, a creativity’. knot garden, a pleached lime avenue and a timber loggia The Trust will be visiting Wilkins Pleck, which is at fronting a rectangular pool. Whitmore, near Newcastle, on Saturday, January 20th, 2013. The creation of Chris and Sheila Bissell, it has been included by “The Reader’s Digest” amongst ‘the most Details of this visit, together with the full programme of amazing gardens in Britain and Ireland’, its colours, summer visits in 2013, will be sent to members shortly. Officers of the Trust

President: The Lord Cormack of Enville, FSA AGT Representative: Ann Brookman Chairman: Alan Taylor Members of the Council of Management: Sarah Company Secretary: Haydn Baugh-Jones Ashmead; Ann Brookman; Francis Colella; Andy Goode; Treasurer: Catherine Thorpe Sue Gregory; Joe Hawkins; David Jacques; Jackie Moseley; Website Managers: Richard & Jackie Moseley John Phillips; Bryan Sullivan; Alan Taylor; Catherine Archivist: Sue Gregory Thorpe. Membership Secretary: Bryan Sullivan Acknowledgment

This issue of the Newsletter has been put together by Earlier issues of the Newsletter may be viewed by visiting the Trust’s Editorial Committee – Francis Colella, Bryan the Trust’s website: Sullivan and Alan Taylor – with additional help from www.staffordshiregardensandparks.org Sarah Ashmead, Sue Gregory, Cosy Bagot Jewitt, Howard Price and Michael Walker, to whom the Committee offers grateful thanks.