“Elementary, my dear Watson” –
Have you read in the newspaper
recently about Undershaw, the house in leafy
Now, with broadband, it is
relatively easy to be a desktop Sherlock Holmes and begin to search for
answers. I logged on first to either http://www.old-maps.co.uk
and
http://getamap.ordnancesurvey.co.uk to get a feel of the lie of the land in
Hindhead and the views. Of course, since the house is listed, I could contact
English Heritage to enquire about the garden. Then again, I might contact a
member of Surrey Gardens Trust – one of their researchers will surely know. But, within minutes, I find someone who cares
about his backyard. There is an illustration in a book: “ A BALANCE OF TRUST - Hindhead
is Safe!” by John Owen Smith, the story of fifty Years in the
history of Haslemere and Hindhead, during which the National Trust is founded.
More than this coincidental link with one of the country’s greatest
conservation organisations, I discover (if I have the time) there is an
opportunity to visit by contacting a local organisation, The Arts and Crafts
Movement in Surrey, who plan to visit Undershaw in September 2006.
Gardening crosses boundaries.
Yesterday, a friend telephoned. She has just been on holiday to Italy and
wanted to know more about the Scot, Captain Neil McEacharn who created a
spectacular garden near Lake Maggiore – Villa Taranto. She asked me to look him
up on the internet. It helps of course to have an unusual name to
research. Again, within minutes, I was
able to glean 3 pages of relevant information, some of which I will share with
you, quoting from the Villa Taranto’s website:
“This botanical garden, of about
16 hectares, was created in 1931 by Captain Neil McEacharn, whose Mausoleum can
be visited in the garden itself. He imported flowers and trees from all over
the world and planted them here creating a wonderful scenery and beautiful
views of the lake. The foreshortenings are perfectly studied and in each season
you can admire different kinds of flowers. For example, in April you can see
the mimosas and the 80.000 tulips in flower. In May the magnolias, in August
the hortensias and 300 different kinds of dahlias besides many others. Every
tree or flower has a label showing both its botanic name and its everyday name.
There are also fountains with water-plants and greenhouses full of tropical plants.
Captain McEacharn donated the villa and its garden to the Italian State. The
villa, which is not open to the public, belongs to the Prime Minister and is used for important international meetings.”
But
there was more cyber information about this special man to connect the garden
heritage of Italy, with both Scotland and Australia. His father, Sir Malcolm
Donald McEacharn, bought Galloway House in 1909 having returned from Australia
where he had initiated the frozen meat trade. The landscape is now listed, for
in 1745 Lord Garlies, 6th Earl of Galloway built Galloway House for £2000 and
planted 200,000 trees per annum in the barren hills around. Successive Earls of Galloway improved the
estate, surrounding it with a "Great Wall" built by French prisoners
from the Napoleonic Wars. After an Eton and Oxford
education, McEacharn’s son Neil influenced the exotic planting and
design of the Galloway House garden, but eventually
sold the estate to fund his Italian garden. At
the outbreak of WWII he decided to move his family back to Australia, and on
his death donated his collection of Australian paintings to Australia. In
addition, there remains a plant heritage, with two magnolias named after him,
one given the Award of Merit in 1968:
[M. x loebneri], cv. (Extr. Proc. p. 20, Jour. Roy. Hort. Soc. 87, 1962).
Findlay, Jour. Roy. Hort. Soc. 88: 463 (1963), ‘with tree-like habit.’ flowers
white, like var. stellata. Grown from seed sent by Captain Neil McEacharn about
1953. Jour. Roy. Hort. Soc. 93: 237 (1968), ‘covered in profusion with small
white flowers...received the A. M. (1968).’ Hilliers Man. of Trees and Shrubs,
Ed. 20 1973. ‘A cross between M. kobus and M. Stellata cv. Rosea. Raised at
Windsor...’
Magnolia “Neil McEachern”
[M. stellata], cv. (Magnolia 20(1) [Issue 37]: 17, 1984). ‘Originated at Savill
Garden, Windsor Great Park, England. Form with a flower similar to stellata,
but making a very large shrub.’ John Bond, Crown Estate Office, The Great Park,
Windsor, England (R.H.S. Journal, 1968).”
If
plants are ephemeral, sometimes elements of hard landscape remain to give us
clues as to the original design of a garden. I remember being taken, aged 5 or
6 years old, into the garden next door to our block of flats. Once a Victorian
garden with ferns and pools, it was so overgrown, we could imagine that we were
exploring in some dark continent, fearful of tigers and crocodiles. Today, I am
still intrigued by the remaining craggy rocks, rhododendrons by a stream
meandering amongst council houses built on the site, in Inner Park Road, off
Wimbledon Common. Does anyone know the designer who put them there- are they
Pulhamite rocks? Or could they possibly date back to the pheasantry that was
established in that area of Wimbledon Park designed by the celebrated improver
“Capability” Brown?
Talking
of celebrities of yesteryear, the antiquarian Dr William Stukeley (1687-1765)
was a great admirer of Sir Isaac Newton who occasionally invited him to sit and
talk at Woolsthorpe under the apple tree, with a glass of wine. Stukeley’s drawings are witness to his
absorption with heritage, Roman and Celtic, in his surrounding landscapes, but
he has also left some sketches of gardens, including Grimsthorpe Castle, which
are invaluable to garden historians. Recently, an archivist discovered and
revealed to Northamptonshire Gardens Trust members a previously unknown and
detailed plan of Stukeley’s Grantham garden (long since built over). Later he
moved to stone-built Stamford, in Lincolnshire (the first conservation town in
the country and featured in many TV and film historical dramas.) He continued
to be passionate about the design of his garden there, collecting relics of
mediaeval churches and stained glass windows as garden ornaments, and it is said
that he stole a nearby Eleanor Cross! I
thought the features shown in his sketches, including a hermitage, fountain and
temple, had probably long since disappeared. So I was pleasantly surprised to
see a few Latin inscriptions and gargoyles. In addition, close by a spring that
likely supplied the water for his fountain, stands Charles Gate, an ornamented
archway with rustic niches, in the boundary wall. The story is told that this
is where the fugitive King Charles came in
May 1646. So, a century later, in
1746, Stukeley thought it appropriate to design a suitable pediment with a
Latin inscription above the arch to mark the anniversary. Much of the garden has been changed and built
over, but there remain sufficient layers of garden heritage to make it special,
to influence, stimulate and educate the young children who play there, and
offering every visitor a link to bygone times, events and remarkable people.
The
complexity of garden heritage throws us many challenges and questions. It links
fascinating individuals and families of history with beautiful, vibrant and
romantic places and existing rare plants and trees. It is well worth caring
about the unique landscapes where they grew up, lived, worked and gardened, to
try to discover what inspired them, what problems they faced. Their creative
imagination and their labours leave behind an enriching heritage that will help
and prompt today’s gardening generations to do similar. Unless these gardens
are recorded, they will eventually be lost.
How
about being a garden detective in your own in your own ‘neck of the woods’,
your own garden or suburb? How was it used in earlier centuries? Look out for
any unusual local garden that triggers your imagination, and leads you to
research its history – ask permission to take photographs or sketch, discover
if there are any links to important designers, check with the UK Database of Historic Parks and Gardens. You might help to save the garden from
inappropriate development… Your county gardens trust will advise. Settings can
be as significant and as educational as the historic buildings they surround.
There are, my dear Watson, AGT workshops to help you discover elementary
avenues to go along, in order to research and record garden heritage. You do
not need to be an expert … just curious and observant! Like Sherlock Holmes, it
is both stimulating and rewarding to be a garden detective.
Steffie Shields
Lincolnshire Gardens
Trust
July 2006
PS
Brenda Lewis, Surrey Gardens Trust, has kindly emailed to notify me that Ushaw House in Guildford , a superb Baillie Scott house and garden is the September 2006 destination for the Arts & Crafts Group visit and not Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's house in Hindhead of the same name. Many apologies…..