GTNEWS 16 Summer 2021 Research • Conserve • Campaign Front cover image: “The East Pool, or Basin, end of Mr Goldney’s Bristol grotto features two pillars ‘encrusted with Bristol diamonds’. The extraordinary shell work is surely our Mr Warwell’s work.” (see the article on p.22). Our photographer Lin Baldock has said “it was always difficult photographing in the grotto”. So true, GT but I love this image Ed. NEWS 16 Summer 2021 Join Us If you or someone you know is not a member, please join us! Contents Your support is vital in helping the Gardens Trust to protect From the Garden Chair 4 and campaign for historic news & campaigns 6 designed landscapes. Benefits Engaging with our Future 6 include GT News, our journal Celebrating Gardens Trust Volunteers 7 Garden History, and access Historic Landscape Project update 8 to exclusive member events. Norfolk GT and Mr Repton 9 A special rate is available Greatford Hall, Lincolnshire 10 to County Garden Trust Planning Reform 13 members. Join today at: Parks for People 16 thegardenstrust.org/support-us/ 17th Annual Mavis Batey Essay Prize 18 11th New Research Symposium 18 from our contributors 19 Management regimes for lawns and hedges 19 John Warwell — the mystery man of Goldney grotto 22 Stoke Poges Memorial Gardens 25 David Marsh - The Shed online 29 www.thegardenstrust.org GT Events 30 The Gardens Trust head office: The Gardens Trust AGM 30 70 Cowcross Street, Study Tour to France – update 31 London EC1M 6EJ phone: 020 7608 2409 Study Tour to Palermo and the West of Sicily 32 general email: GT North Yorkshire weekend 2022 33 [email protected] Company number: 03163187 other events & news in brief 34 Registered Charity number: 1053446 Major accessions to repositories 34 Mystery airmen revisited 36 Copy deadline for Autumn 2021 Painshill’s appeal 37 Copy deadline for issue 17 Artists and the Garden Conference 37 1 October 2021 for distribution Officers 38 in November 2021 Events Diary 39 From the Garden Chair Peter Hughes obert Browning’s poem, R‘Home Thoughts from Abroad’, contains the line ‘All will be gay when noontide awakes anew’. It is particularly apposite now, we all yearn for freedom from the pandemic. Spring is a time of renewal, but it is especially so this year like no other year. Here in the Lake District, its arrival was promised in April but then delayed and only as May gave way to June did everything finally awaken anew. One of the highlights of spring for us are the local Meconopsis betonicifolia ‘Lingholm’. They originate from the Lingholm Estate which borders our garden. After an initial Hughes Peter struggle, we have established a Meconopsis betonicifolia ‘Lingholm’, now flourishing at High Moss, Cumbria. small colony which is growing year by year. Another delight is important that we carefully we depend on everyone to report the rhododendrons and azaleas, monitor the situation. Our issues of concern. especially the luteum with their members and supporters in the These are exciting times for the heady scent. GT and in the County Gardens Gardens Trust. In March, we Last year, members of County Trusts are our eyes and ears, and received news from the National Gardens Trust around the country expressed concern about the care and maintenance of gardens during the pandemic while gardeners and volunteers were absent, and concern that some gardens might not re-open at all. I see from the National Trust website that Rievaulx Terrace is now re-open again but only for one weekend a month, and that the grounds of the Kymin in Monmouth are open daily, but not the Round House. We have to accept that it may take time for some gardens to get back to their pre-pandemic standard and that the lasting financial impact of the pandemic may necessitate some economies and restrictions Hughes Peter in opening times. It is, though, A ‘random rhododendron’ at High Moss, enjoying this year’s long cool spring. 4 GT NEWS 16 Summer 2021 From the Garden Chair Lottery Heritage Fund that we quality of the papers which have Finally, some sad and some good had been awarded a grant of been submitted, it will be split news. In the last GT News, I £75,700 towards a total project into two online sessions, the featured our two dogs. Our elder of £95,700 to enable us to first on Saturday 4th September, flat coat, Mungo, died suddenly undertake a thorough review of the second on Saturday 20th in April. He went, as he lived, in our organisation and to plan for November. saintly fashion, without suffering our future. The work will focus on The National Trust has recently and peacefully, having enjoyed a number of areas – expanding our announced the appointment of a his last day in the garden. He left membership, bringing what we do new Head of Gardens. He is Andy us and his mate, Bembo, bereft. and the importance of protecting Jasper, and he joins the Trust from The photograph of Bembo was our gardens, parks, and designed RHS Wisley where he has been the taken by an American garden landscapes to a wider audience, Programme Director. He worked photographer, Ellen Rooney, improving our website, and formerly at the Eden Project as when she visited us recently to making more effective use of social Head of Evaluation and Research. photograph the garden. Some of media. Over five years on since the He takes up his appointment in her photographs of the garden can Gardens Trust was formed, and as August and follows in a line of be found on her website. we are, hopefully, coming out of distinguished occupants of the role, On a brighter note, the Gardens the worst global pandemic for a Graham Stuart Thomas, John Sales, Trust is to feature in an article in hundred years, the time is right to a Vice-President of the Gardens Country Life. It takes the form of undertake such a review. Trust, and Mike Calnan, who an interview with me as the new The grant enables us to appoint a now serves as a valued member Chairman of the GT. I met the part-time Audience Development of our Conservation Committee. Gardens Editor, Tiffany Daneff, and Engagement Officer. By the It is two years since Mike retired recently, and her article is due to time the GT News reaches you we from the National Trust and the appear in the issue of the 14th hope to have that person in post. post of Head of Gardens has been July. The real value of something It is intended that what we learn vacant since. Andy Jasper takes like this is that it helps to bring from the review will be shared over at a critical time for the Trust the GT, the work that we do, and with County Gardens Trusts and as gardens, forcibly closed by the the contribution that we make, to that they too will be able to benefit pandemic, re-open to visitors, and a readership who may otherwise from the work. gardeners return from furlough. not be aware of us or understand At the end of March, we made We wish him well and hope that what we do. The GT News should the difficult decision not to go we can establish the same sort of arrive with you around the time ahead this year with the annual supportive relationship that we the article is published, and I hope conference and AGM in North have enjoyed with his predecessors. you get the opportunity to read it. Yorkshire. I know that some felt that we were being over-cautious, and, with the luxury of hindsight, they may yet be proved right. Delaying a decision, though, risked adding to the inconvenience and uncertainty to members and the financial cost of cancellation. The Board was concerned that members might not be prepared to travel and spend the weekend in a conference hotel in sufficient numbers to make it viable, and that restrictions such as social distancing might still be in place. Instead, the AGM will be held like last year online, and the New Research Symposium will go ahead. Because of the high © ellenrooneyphotos.photoshelter.com/archive GT NEWS 16 Summer 2021 5 news & campaigns Engaging with our Future The Gardens Trust secures a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant to help us grow for the future. e are delighted that the Running through this all will be The Gardens Trust Chairman, WGardens Trust has just been a concerted effort to reach more Peter Hughes QC, says, awarded a second grant from the diverse audiences so that we “We are so grateful to Lottery National Lottery Heritage Fund. can help ensure people from all players for this grant, which will The project is designed to backgrounds can come together to enable us to reach more people and grow the GT’s resilience for the enjoy and care for historic parks become stronger for the future. future, particularly by improving and gardens. We are particularly delighted to our ability to reach new people We are thrilled that the grant will be able to recruit a new Audience from a broad range of cultural also enable us to recruit a part- Development and Engagement backgrounds. We are excited time Audience Development and Officer, and look forward to about ensuring that our work can Engagement Officer, particularly seeing how we connect with new have more impact and on broader focussing on inclusion and friends from a range of different foundations. diversity. We expect that they will backgrounds.” The total project cost is £95,700, of be especially active developing our which £75,700 is coming from the digital offer (see opposite).