Issue No. 54 April 2017 Patron: The Viscount Ashbrook Newsletter Company Limited by Guarantee, no. Charity Number Patron: The Viscount Ashbrook Company Limited by Guarantee, no. 05673816 Charity Number 1119592 www.cheshire-gardens-trust.org.uk Inside: Some future events: ∗ Crematoria to die for – Hilary Grainger ∗ CGT AGM Norton Priory – 27th April ∗ Malmö to Gothenberg ∗ Dibleys Nursery – 10th May ∗ W for Water Gardens ∗ John Clowes’ garden – 15th June GGGooolllddd aaannnddd CCCooolllddd::: TTThhheee IIImmmpppeeerrriiiaaalll GGGaaarrrdddeeennnsss ooofff SSSttt PPPeeettteeerrrsssbbbuuurrrggg On a somewhat chilly, grey February day, CGT including a visit to Manchester, for 18 months and met at the recently restored Lion Salt Works at was greatly influenced by the Dutch – both in Marston near Northwich. Thankfully the visitors’ architecture and garden design. He was centre was comfortable and warm and, after a personally involved in planning the Summer welcome coffee, we settled down to be guided by Gardens in the Dutch style, which included Ed Bennis through some fascinating gardens in St Mikhailovski Gardens, although these were Petersburg. altered later into the fashionable English Style. First there was a quick history lesson relating to The Field of Mars was a parade ground in 1831 some of the rulers of Russia. Russian history is but was later returned, relatively intact, to a not my strong point but I recognised Peter the formal garden. Within the Summer Gardens is Great and Catherine the Great, both of whom the Summer Palace, one of the first stone-built featured in the history of the gardens. palaces in St Petersburg. There are also several THE SUMMER GARDENS fountains including the particularly attractive Peter the Great (1672-1725) toured Europe, Crown Fountain which has been recreated. 2 PAVLOVSK PALACE AND PARK In 1777 Catherine the Great gave land to her son, Pavel (Paul) I, together with a modest house in the Dutch style. In 1780 a house and garden in the English style were designed and built by Charles Cameron. The design included an orangery in which fruit was grown such as apricots, pineapples, peaches, grapes – no mean feat when the temperatures can plunge so low. Spring bulbs were grown in the garden, including hyacinths, tulips and narcissi which were brought from Holland. The Crown Fountain The area is on an island, surrounded by 3 rivers and a canal. Flooding occurred in 1777 and again in 1824 leading to much repair work. By the late twentieth century the gardens were in need of restoration so plans were developed in the 1990s and work started in 2009. In 2012 the gardens Private garden of Maria Feodorovna were opened to the public and in 2014 the European Garden Heritage Network PETERHOF (PETER’S PALACE) acknowledged the restoration work with an award. The grounds around the palace are divided into the upper and lower parks. The style of the upper garden is French; Peter (the Great) had visited Versailles in 1716 and Jean-Baptiste Le Blond, a student of André Le Nôtre, is credited with the plan of the garden. The lower gardens mix the ideas of Dutch, French and Italian gardens. During World War II both the Germans and the Russians destroyed the palace and the park, but the lower park was re-opened to the public in 1945. Everything has now been restored. The Summer Palace St Petersburg is very cold in winter with temperatures dropping to -24°C, so hard landscaping features are more successful than planting. Sculptures are wrapped and boxed. They are actually copies and the originals are safely stored in the Mikhailovski museum. Yew and box do not survive the cold so a variety of juniper, (Juniperus communis), is used for hedges and Vacinnium vitis-idaea, a plant similar to cotoneaster, is a substitute for box. Lime (Tilia) is the most common tree and acer is largely used. An English Oak tree exists, possible planted by Peter the Great. Samson and the Lion 3 There are 140 fountains gravity fed from reservoirs gardens, including the botanical gardens founded constructed in the grounds. In the upper garden is by Peter the Great. the Triton fountain. This was cast in 1660 for Nuremburg and purchased by Tsar Paul in 1799. In the lower garden there are fountains along the canal and throughout the grounds. Other features in the garden are the Golden Mountain which has gold on the step risers, gilded statues and “joke fountains” (see opposite). After the talk some of us ventured into the museum of the saltworks where as little as possible has been altered in order to allow visitors to experience what it was like for the The Golden Mountain men to work there. When the salt works were After the death of Peter, his daughter Elizabeth and in production, temperatures would reach 50°C. later Catherine the Great both continued to The day we were there was so cold that we enlarge the palace and the gardens. curtailed our wander around the museum – definitely a visit for a warm day! If this short report has whetted your appetite for Julia Whitfield more and you have access to the Internet, Photographs Ed Bennis information and photographs may be found at Aerial photograph of Peterhof courtesy of http://www.saint-petersburg.com/parks/ Andrew Shiva St Petersburg is well endowed with parks and Malmö to Gothenburg – Swedish Travels Part 2 Sofiero means ‘Sofia’s rest’ named after Sofia of Nassau, wife of Oscar, Crown Prince of Sweden and Norway. In 1864 they acquired the site and had the house built as their summer residence. In 1905 they gave Sofiero to their grandson Gustaf and his wife Margareta. We learnt from our excellent guide Lucia Dieden Sofiero On Saturday morning we left Malmö for Gothenburg stopping off to visit Sofiero and Tjolöholm en route. The turreted and gabled building at Sofiero is set back from the road, overlooking an expanse of lawn and framed by mature trees. The real that midsummer celebrations are held here every surprises and delights here are to be savoured year, and that a week before our visit was the from the use of topography and the varied areas of annual two day Grand Garden Festival with 36 planting within the garden, and from the show gardens. ‘We believe people should walk spectacular views out across the Öresund to on the grass here’ Lucia told us, ‘we say “it needs Denmark. 4 the massage”’. She knew we would love to hear that instruction. To Lucia the park is a perfect example of an English romantic garden. At the beginning Margareta was not so enamoured with Sofiero and let her mother know that it looked ‘like a railway station’. But evidently from her books she got stuck in early on with her transformations of the grandparents’ garden. Gustaf too was developing his skills and reputation in botany and archaeology, and the deep and long gulley was taken over and skillfully planted with his now famous collection of rhododendrons. Blue and white formal garden in the restaurant, with its fascinating long view Some of the first plantings included fruit trees, and out to the sea, we continued our drive north. It ancient apples and pears from that time survive. It was through pleasant bumpy terrain, past mixed feels like an old and established garden with its grazing land and forests, and smallholdings with mature trees, woodland areas and peephole small red oxide farm buildings. hedges (below), but there is a vitality and energy The ancient estate at Tjolöholm (below) was purchased in 1892 by James Frederick Dickson and his cousin and wife Blanche, to have more pasture and space for their stud farm. The Dicksons did not care for the previous owner’s pile, built in 1867 in the style of an Italian renaissance castle. Instead they wanted to demonstrate their wealth and Scottish background. They held an architectural competition for ‘an Elizabethan style castle’. The British Tudor style of the 1500s was apparently alien to Swedish architects at that time, but this about the place through the introductions of new may account for the rather odd “tudorbethan” designs and combinations of plants. nod tacked on the front of the building. The original structure of four different rooms was A 27 year old Swedish architect, Lars Israel planned by the Danish garden designer and Wahlman, apparently influenced by Morris, Shaw horticulturalist Julius August Bentzien and these and Baillie Scott, as well as Swedish vernacular survive as the dahlia garden, a labyrinth architecture, was appointed. The present ‘arts (Margareta’s idea), Queen Ingrid’s scented garden and crafts’ style castle was designed and built (Ingrid was their only daughter and mother of the between 1898 and 1904 and there were current Queen Margrethe), and the jubilee garden, apparently many controversies between client including an area with tall pillars of evergreen and and architect. deciduous hedging plants standing in grasses and The plan of the castle is in the English tradition. salvia. There is a newly planted flower walk, To the untrained eye, its lumpy granite dress inspired by Margareta’s ideas, with grading from resembles Scottish baronial on the outside. cool to hot colours, and some of her sketches are There are some charming and humorous details reproduced alongside the beds to better of carved animal heads peeping out of the rear understand what you are seeing. Following lunch elevation, and lovely arts and crafts/art nouveau 5 metal work details for balconies and hopper parkland. Tjolöholm’s position is spectacular, heads (see below). located on a peninsula overlooking the Kungsbacka Fjord. To his client he wrote this about the garden (in translation): ”The garden! It probably surprises you to find how much we have spent on the garden – that is not common in Sweden.