CORNWALL GARDENS TRUST

including

BOOK REVIEWS 2013

Obituary

Dr Angela Stubbs MA PhD

Although born in Pakistan, Angela already had strong Celtic connections – her father was born in Ireland, her mother in Scotland, and her grandparents had moved to Cornwall in the 1930’s. There, an uncle went to the Camborne School of Mines, another lived in St Ives with his artist wife, and her aunt worked as a water diviner near Devoran.

Angela’s mother, then a war widow, returned from India to Cornwall, where she worked for a while on a flower farm at Mawnan Smith. Angela went to school at the convent in Falmouth, and later attended Mayfield School in East Sussex. Before embarking on her university life, Angela met Michael at a cricket club dance at County Wexford, and they were to later marry. They both studied at Trinity College, Dublin, where Angela got her first degree in 1962. In addition to a busy life raising a family of three children, Angela also had a career in teaching English at St Marys, Ascot, and continued this while also studying for her doctorate of Medieval History and Civilisation at the University of Reading. Latterly, Angela and her husband Michael eventually retired and moved to Cornwall in about 2001.

Angela became a member of Cornwall Gardens Trust in 2005, and soon joined the group of recorders becoming involved in researching historic gardens. She also stepped in to the breach when we needed someone to take over the task of seeking out new gardens to visit. She used her tremendous network of friends and distant relatives who lived in the county, to arrange a varied and very well received programme of garden visits for the members of the trust. She enjoyed this work greatly, and which she continued with for a number of years up to and including the visits for 2013.

When the trust was looking for a volunteer to be the new Chair and to take over from Sir Ferrers Vyvyan, Angela again stepped up to the mark, and agreed to take on that additional role in May 2008. She continued to serve in that capacity, despite a recurrence of ill health, until she found that the treatment became too debilitating. Angela decided to stand down from that role in November 2012 in order to devote her energies to recovering full health. Sadly, despite valiant efforts to fight the disease, Angela died peacefully at home on 20^th February 2013.

Angela was unfailingly patient and gracious, and many people – her family, friends, pupils at the local Catholic school where she helped with reading skills, members of her Italian conversation classes, and members of Cornwall Gardens Trust, will be the poorer for her passing.

Annual General Meeting

The 2013 Annual General Meeting is being held in the main hall at Ladock Community Hall on Friday 19th April commencing at 1-30pm.

The trust is currently in a dilemma and possibly facing an uncertain future. Major decisions will have to be taken shortly on the best way to drive the trust forward and ensure that it can continue with the really important work that it was set up and tasked with doing. With the ever increasing pressure from developers to find land for housing and industrial use, it is becoming ever more important to help to conserve the garden land and designed landscapes that exist in Cornwall and the Isle of Scilly, and to make sure that these are preserved wherever possible.

This is going to be a significant meeting and may mark a turning point in the future of the trust. It is hoped that both our President Sir Richard Carew Pole, and our Vice President Sir Ferrers Vyvyan, will be able to attend this meeting and to set out and amplify the problems and possible solutions that are now being actively considered by the trustees.

As members, you also have a very important part to play in the running of the trust. Your attendance at this particular Annual General Meeting is your opportunity to have your say in the preferred way forward for the trust, and you are therefore urged to make every effort to attend.

It would be really helpful if members would contact the Secretary, Peter Fairbank before the end of March with their views and suggestions as to the way forward and also to offer their services in the way of being active committee members. (Telephone: 01326 372293 or e-mail [email protected])

 

BOOK REVIEWS 2013

WHAT ARE GARDENS FOR?

Visiting, Experiencing and Thinking About Gardens

by Rory Stuart

Publisher: Frances Lincoln (2012)

ISBN 978-0711233645 Hardback £16.99

I was particularly interested in reading this book because working in gardens and visiting gardens has been my main passion, and also because the author, Rory Stuart (not to be confused with a Conservative MP with the same name), seems to have followed a similar career path to mine, working first in teaching, then in horticulture. He leads garden tours, and now gardens in Italy.

There, the similarity ends, as he is immensely knowledgeable, and was Stephen Fry’s English teacher, and (as far as I know), I have no grateful famous ex pupils.

In the first chapter, my heart sank as he quoted some of the virtues that gardening induces: caring, self-discipline, humility, optimism, patience. Patently, this is not true in this age of makeovers when you can throw a lot of money at a garden for instant effect, and the owner of a small plot can display a less than caring ruthlessness when a plant has fallen out of favour.

The author then goes on to talk about the spiritual and healing power of gardens. There is no doubt something very satisfying about the mixture of mindless work such as raking leaves, and the acquisition and application of knowledge in creating and caring for a garden. It is true, as the author states that gardens are where we can express ourselves as artists, even on a small scale and with very little money. This is why it is so difficult to be critical of other people’s gardens, without seeming to attack the owner’s taste and personality, like some gruesome episode of ‘Come Dine With Me’.

This is where the book comes into its own, approaching garden criticism as if it were literary criticism: using criticism to describe, classify, contextualise, interpret and finally evaluate the garden. He stresses the importance of viewing the garden in the context of its culture, in order to understand and appreciate, for example, a Chinese garden.

I found myself in agreement with many of his views on the gardens I have visited. In his description of Ninfa, there is a slight error, in that the creators of the garden were the English woman, Ada Caetani, her daughter in law the American Marguerite Chapin and Marguerite’s daughter Lelia Caetani. Stuart does not criticise that strange design feature of a lavender edged path through the grass going nowhere, nor does he warn you not to go on the odd Sunday when it is open to the public, when you are marched through in an enormous group, lectured to in Italian and kicked out again after 40 minutes. It is a garden to savour slowly.

He finishes by naming the world’s 10 best gardens. You are unlikely to have the same list unless you are very, very well-travelled, but it is fun to make up your own list. At present, my favourite garden is Marsh Villa in Par, but there is no room here to tell you why; you will just have to go and evaluate it for yourself, after reading this book.

Joan Farmer

PHOTOGRAPHING TREES

by Edward Parker

Publisher: Kew Publishing (2012)

ISBN 978 1 84246 476 2 Paperback £18

 

When I was first sent this book to review, the current ash dieback situation was just a bad dream that surely would never really happen. But the nightmare has become a reality and the need to produce a photographic record of our trees has now taken on a new urgency and meaning.

So what if, like me, you have a simple digital camera that did not cost the Earth? Well this books starts with reference to a group of professional photographers being sent out with such cameras and their subsequent results were stunning, proving that it’s not about the most expensive but how you learn to better use the equipment you have.

So is this book for a coffee table or reference? I think it does both extremely well. The stunning picture of an old oak with a thick covering of rime frost whets one’s appetite for more of the same and the book does not disappoint.

The images furnish the clear and helpful guidance that if followed will dramatically improve the standard of images you produce, reducing the quantity that are either deleted or computer enhanced when downloaded. The biggest thing I always forget is the background when photographing a tree, which often leads to many disappointments when I am long departed from the subject and have been eagerly waiting to rekindle my memory of the tree. All this and more is addressed in the book. From bark to fruit to flowers, foreground to background and view points, they all get a section and very importantly what not many do well, planning ahead. I now even feel I might just take the plunge and set the setting switch to manual and take control of my exposure and shutter speeds and the like.

The invention of the digital camera and its ability to help even the worst of David Baileys out there can now only get better after reading a book with such a clear, easy to understand explanation of what many think is an area that only those with an art or photographic degree can begin to master.

Ian Wright

EDWARDIAN COUNTRY LIFE

The Story of H. Avray Tipping

by Helena Gerrish

Publisher: Frances Lincoln (2011)

ISBN 978-0711232235 Hardback £35

 

I first came across Tipping in an article about this book by Robin Lane Fox in the Financial Times. I hadn’t heard of him before but in fact he was one of the most influential English gardeners of the early 20^th Century.

In his book The Garden of Today, published in 1933, Tipping wrote: “I was given a garden when I was seven. I am now seventy-seven and I still garden… Experience, therefore, I have and I trust some of it has been transformed into fruitful knowledge.”

This book proves that statement to be true. Reading it is rather like wandering through one of Tipping’s own gardens. It starts by taking you straight ahead with a biography of Tipping and glimpses of his achievements. Then each “aspect” of his work – particularly his houses and gardens - is explored in more detail.

At Country Life Tipping produced not only articles on “notable” houses, their contents, and their gardens but also books, including, in 1925, English Gardens - the first Country Life folio to present the history of gardens. His colleagues at Country Life, also his friends, are a roll call of the skilled and famous: Gertrude Jekyll, William Robinson, Edward Hudson, Harold Peto….

After selling the family estate in Kent, Tipping moved to Monmouthshire where he restored a medieval bishop’s palace, built an Arts and Crafts country house and, after World War 1, commissioned his ideal “retreat”. The houses seemed beyond restoration but Tipping’s philosophy was to make each one “habitable as a place of modern residence with as little serious interference as possible with its picturesque aspect and archaeological interest”. The gardens he created around the houses combined formal features, “the eclectic beauty of the cultured”, with informal, natural elements, “the grace and feeling of the wild”. His final house was at Harefield, in Middlesex, where, with the help of 10 gardeners, Tipping transformed the grounds.

Tipping also designed gardens for others, notably at Chequers and Dartington Hall. Amongst his extensive writings he produced a practical gardening column for the Morning Post. He was a member of the first committee of The Gardens of England and Wales Scheme (now The National Gardens Scheme) and opened his own garden at High Glanau. Some eight decades later, it is still opened once a year.

The author, Helena Gerrish, herself lives at High Glanau. For this book she has traced elusive documents and diaries (with no family, Tipping ordered all his papers to be destroyed on his death, and he left his fortune to his gardener) and she has uncovered unknown paintings, photographs and sketch books. Virtually every page of this large book features illustrations, many of them full-page – mostly photographs but also sketches and plans.

Overall it provides a picture of Edwardian life as lived by the privileged, a vision of England that we can often picture when visiting gardens today. Taking it one chapter at a time I enjoyed reading it and, even more, I enjoyed looking at it.

Shirley Barnes

 

GARDENS OF EARTHLY DELIGHT

The history of deer parks

by John Fletcher

Publisher Windgather Press (2011)

ISBN 978-1-905119-36-3 Paperback £25

Deer parks have always fascinated me: whilst bringing up my children we lived overlooking Bushy Park, one of the royal deer hunting parks adjacent to Hampton Court. Bushy Park was our front garden, full of intrigue and fun for a growing family. In the autumn to hear the annual rutting was amazing. So when asked to review this book I jumped at the chance.

The author John Fletcher is a specialist deer vet having spent all his working life with deer, in deer parks and farms, often his work entails sitting in a magnificent oak or beech tree waiting for deer to drift below to either dart for medical reasons or to move to a new place to start a new deer park. He claims the book aims to help us remember the long traditions which entwine the lives of our ancestors with those of deer. The most prolific animal once the large predators were gone.

He is ‘the deer man’. However, having done no primary research to write this book he claims not to be a historian but has put together this wonderfully informative book by drawing on already published material. It is written with passion and in an easy to read style.

The book delves back into prehistory and works through time to explain the deer parks today as ecological oases and urban lungs.

He talks about the history of the word “park” which is linked to the word “paradise”. The word originates from the old Persian word “pairidaeza” which means “enclosure” or “park”. Parks and deer historically have been about status while hunting is deep in the human psyche.

He covers the early hunting enclosures from Alaska to China, the sacred role of the hunt, affinity with royalty, and the powerful symbolic value of the deer in the temperate north; with large predators gone deer became the ultimate status symbol. In 1100 AD Britain had 2-3000 deer parks, yet deer were never domesticated. He explains the status of owning deer and the symbolism of venison as an elite gift. He covers the Tudor era in all its splendour, the destruction due to the civil war and up to the 21st century where some are now urban lungs for busy town dwellers.

What he has achieved is a well written and well put together book about the history of the deer park. This is a thoroughly informative read.

Hilary Bosher

 

HORTICULTURE ON THE ISLES OF SCILLY

by Douglas Ellory Pett

Publisher: H.M. & G.M. Grose (2012)

ISBN 978 0 9545337 17 Paperback £16.99

It was in the early 1980s that the distinguished horticulturist Fred Shepherd VMH appealed to someone to record the history of horticulture in Cornwall and to commemorate the people involved, fearing that this social history would be lost for ever. The challenge was taken up by the late Dr Douglas Ellory Pett who initially studied the Isles of Scilly as a preliminary to the greater task.

Much of the research was done on the Isles in the winter of 1985 with the co-operation of the Scilly Museum. The book is in two distinct sections; first is a comprehensive history of the islands, set out in chapters from ‘the beginning’ to the twentieth century. It records in detail the progression of landowners, tenants, horticulture, agriculture and the way of life for these people. Detail comes from numerous contemporary accounts and articles such as ‘A Scilly Bulb Field’ written in 1884. One thinks of daffodils as the mainstay of horticulture on the islands but this book informs us of the wide range of ornamental and food crops grown as well as animals. From the book we learn of the hardships of making a living off the land in difficult circumstances and how the Scillonians overcame these to create a prosperous horticultural industry. Chapters are well illustrated with historic photographs.

The second part of this book is a most comprehensive subject bibliography of everything you wanted to know about the Isles of Scilly and its horticultural industry; I am very impressed. There are 60 pages of references set out in easy-to-find headings.

Unfortunately, Douglas never saw the work published and it is thanks to the skill and enthusiasm of his widow Mary that this book has come to fruition.

David FJ Pearce

Fern Fever

by Sarah Whittingham

Publisher: Frances Lincoln Ltd (2012)

ISBN 978-0-7112-3070-5 Hardback £35

 

When I first moved to Cornwall I was impressed by the number of ferns growing in my garden and indeed still have to remove many as invasive weeds, but I have learned to love them for their elegance. However, my interest in these plants is nothing like the Victorian passion for ferns of all types described in this carefully researched and magnificently illustrated volume by the historian, Sarah Whittingham, who was assisted by members of the Devon Gardens Trust.

Until the late 18thC, when a two-volume work on British ferns was published, the public knew very little about ferns; an increased interest may well have resulted as a consequence of the ‘picturesque’ movement which advocated having caves or grottoes in the ‘wild’ landscape; the presence of ferns certainly enhanced the ‘Gothic’ appearance of such structures. At about the same time, the exploratory voyages of Captains Cook and Bligh resulted in many new species of plants arriving in this country. Their successful transportation over the long distances involved was mostly due to the use of Wardian cases. These portable greenhouses proved invaluable in providing a controlled, moist atmosphere, not only for the import of many different plants, but also for subsequent cultivation of many types of fern, and subsequently were a feature of many Victorian homes. However they were bulky and early plant hunters sought in vain for ‘seed’; they did not understand how plants without flowers could reproduce. The discovery that ‘fern seeds’ (i.e. spores) were the basis of ferns’ reproductive processes meant that the introduction of many more types of fern became possible. There followed an explosion in the importation of ferns from many parts of the world; the great plant collections all had their ferneries, but the use of the Wardian cases meant that Victorian sitting-rooms could have their fern displays. Greenhouse walls were constructed with special pockets for fern cultivation; larger gardens had special ‘ferneries’, a sort of sunken greenhouse, often with rockeries and a stream running through. Some of these remain and a list at the end indicates some places where they may be viewed (although there are some in Cornwall that are not listed). Many gardens, particularly in the South West, where glass protection is not necessary, also have fern grottoes or valleys.

But the enthusiasm for ferns was not restricted to their cultivation; it resulted in an outpouring of publications about all aspects of ferns. More than 600 publications are listed at the end of this book. ‘Fern fever’ fed into the then popular fantasies about fairies who were thought to live in ‘ferny glens’. Moreover, the elegant profile of ferns was used as a design motif for many different objects ranging from textiles, marquetry in furniture, cut glass, jewellery, ceramics, and even cigarette cards and biscuits. This book provides an enjoyable, well-written and comprehensive guide to a strange obsession.

Alison Newton

FOLLIES

Fabulous, fanciful and frivolous buildings

by Gwyn Headley

Publisher: National Trust Books (2012)

ISBN 9781907892301 Hardback £8.99

 

This is a small book (19.6 x 15.2 cm) but a delightful one in which the author takes us on a tour of 40 follies owned by the National Trust. They therefore tend to be “grand” follies, many of them actual buildings, rather than a small “ruin” at the bottom of the garden, which is what comes to my mind when I think of a folly.

Each double page spread is dedicated to one folly, with a full-page colour photograph. I found the accompanying text (to echo the sub-title) fabulous, fanciful and frivolous but also factual as it goes into the folly’s history, setting, and possible reasons for its creation. The three entries for Cornwall illustrate the range of follies covered: the triangular Prospect Tower at Cotehele, built by Lord and Lady Mount-Edgecumbe in 1789 possibly to commemorate, the author proposes, their elevation to earldom; The Birdcage, a tiny house in Port Isaac, built in the early 1830s and now a National Trust holiday let, although the holidaymakers are “obliged to be small and thin”; and Doyden Castle – “a tiny jewel of a castlet”, which straddles the coastal path at Port Quin.

However, I think the most amusing folly in the book is Shamhenge at Alderley Edge in Cheshire. A Neolithic settlement was discovered here but the visible evidence was disappointing so, the story goes, in the late 18^th century the Stanleys enhanced the scene by the addition of a circle of stones – now that’s a folly I can imagine erecting at the bottom of my garden!

Shirley Barnes