Summer 2016 - wildlife assessment

Over the Summer of 2016 the battle was on to keep the nettles under control and to keep open the pathways that had been established.  Nettles grow very quickly but do not like disturbance, and I found that where the roots had been largely removed there was little regrowth. The ivy which is everywhere will provide good ground cover as the project proceeds and will not need to be entirely removed.

Red campion,and Forget-me-not in the woods- a lovely combination. 

 The first step when one thinks about how to develop a natural looking area is to see what already lives and grows in the woods, and a survey over the Spring and Summer revealed many wild flowers, such as forget-me-not, red campion, primrose, cowslip, wild iris, rosebay willowherb, broad leaved willowherb, periwinkle, hemp agrimony, scentless mayweed and different spring bulbs: snowdrop, crocus and various daffodils. Bird life in the woods included buzzard, sparrowhawk, tawny owl, nuthatch, treecreeper, great tit, blue tit, coal tit, long tailed tit, spotted flycatcher, robin, wren, green and great spotted woodpeckers, song thrush, blackbird and several others.

Heavy and dirty work!

Frogs, toads and grass snakes were also seen, as well as muntjack deer, stoat, grey squirrels and of course rabbits.The variety of wildlife will increase as new species are attracted by the increase of light following the woodland  management.

 As for the fountain, it was unclear if it would still hold water, so the work began to remove the mud and leaf litter with which it was filled to take a good look. This took some time and we were well into autumn before Dan and Nathalie removed the final section.

May 2016 A plan and a start is made

The plan for restoration of the fountain area has to be a limited one. There is no question of restoring the area to the formal and elegant rose gardens of years gone by, both on grounds of expense and the sheer labour required.  A more realistic plan would be to restore the fountain as far as possible, to re-establish access paths and to enhance the wildlife potential of the area. The aim could be to create a peaceful and attractive area, with seating, to bring this historic feature of the estate back to life once more.
The work done by Sir Edward has cleared the overgrown and fallen trees, and cut back the ivy that was strangling many of the existing trees, but the task in March 2016 was a daunting one: the whole area was covered in nettles, ivy and debris from the felling, such that it was difficult to approach the fountain at all. Although the fallen trees had been taken off the fountain itself, it was filled with many years of leaf litter, and the surrounding stones were extensively damaged and dislodged, both by tree and ivy growth and by the huge machines used for felling and removing the timber.

The fountain in March 2016, surrounded by undergrowth. The  cherubs and dolphins revealed!

 Overcoming the regrowth of weeds will be a continual problem, and an early task was to clear the area for three metres around the fountain, and cover it with plastic sheeting for six months so that a surrounding path can be remade in 2017, probably using wood chippings as a surface. This in turn allowed access to the fountain pond itself and to the surrounding stonework.

Plastic sheeting to inhibit weed growth once the area had been cleared.

The Fountain - When and why was it built?

The first question might be, when was this fountain built?  At present I have no records of who designed it,  and when.
As outlined in the history, the gardens were laid out by Sir Richard Wallace in the 1870s, but it was not then that the fountain appeared. The OS map for 1905 clearly shows a circular structure in the position of the present fountain, with a path approaching it from the West, but at this time the area was a  rose garden. The picture below, published in 1901, was taken from a position near the present Italian garden, looking South. You can see a trellis to the west, behind which is a  path leading to a circular rose bed.*

The rose gardens South of the terrace in 1901

By the time the survey for the 1927 OS map was done in 1925, it clearly shows that new steps had been built to link the circular feature to the Italian garden, as well as retaining walls and a new path leading directly to it from where the 1901 picture was taken, and a further structure behind it. Clearly a good deal of money had been spent to highlight this area of the garden, and it is reasonable to suppose that the ornamental fountain was installed as the centrepiece. One might further suppose that such an expensive feature would not have been built after 1914 when the war intervened, after which estate began to decline, and the fountain would most probably date from the years 1909 to 1914, at which point Sir Kenneth Clark was spending money freely on his shooting parties and entertainment.

* Country Life in 1901: "The rose garden is a particularly good one, and lies just below the terrace to the right front of the house, the collection  being a representative one. Many of the beds are devoted to a single variety, such as La France, Marie van Houtte or China roses."   There is no mention of a fountain.

The Lake and Fountain area

The area to the South of the site of the Hall, between the house and the lake, has  remained largely untouched, apart from limited use for raising pheasants and occasional duck shoots, for ninety years. What were originally rose gardens and formal walks soon became overgrown, largely by sycamore, elder ivy and nettles, and the lake, the footbridge and ornamental features were buried beneath undergrowth and fallen trees.

The lake in 1901, showing the bridge.

In January 2016 the current owner of the estate, Sir Edward Greenwell, began work on an ambitious project to restore some of the historical features of the estate and gardens. Work began on dredging the lake and then opening up the woodland with selective felling and woodland management to recreate some of the rides and clearings that had existed to the South of the Hall. Just to the South of the Italian Garden there is an ornamental pond, of some 10m diameter, with a fountain in the centre consisting of four dolphins, each supporting a cherub, on top of which is the fountain itself. The whole structure is made of stone, and stands about 2m high.
Sir Edward has given permission for local residents to work on the restoration of this fountain, and that will be the main focus of  this blog, as well as the development of the woodland restoration as a whole, in terms of historical features, ecology and habitat creation.

                                       The fountain in 2006 - hidden in the woods

Sudbourne Park - a brief history

This blog traces the regeneration of the woodland and lake adjacent to the site of Sudbourne Park, and in particular the efforts to restore the ornamental fountain and the area around it  The woods which lie alongside the original site of Sudbourne Hall have been transformed in 2016 as part of a project by the landowner, Sir Edward Greenwell to restore some of the original rides and vistas of the estate and rediscover some of the historical heritage of the area.

Sudbourne Hall, South side

A LITTLE HISTORY
Records of Sudbourne Manor go back to Saxon times. The manor house, originally known as Chapmans, was built by Sir Michael Stanhope in 1621, and became Sudbourne Hall. The Hall was rebuilt in 1784 in Palladian style and the estate was bought in 1871 by Sir Richard Wallace MP who organized famous shoots in the 1870s for, among others, Edward, Prince of Wales. He also refaced the building with brick, built the stable courtyard in 1875 and laid out the gardens to the south.
In 1909 the Estate was bought by the wealthy industrialist Sir Kenneth MacKenzie Clark who held lavish shooting parties in the pre-war years 1909-14, employing two dozen gamekeepers and shooting as many as 6000 pheasants in a day. His son, also Kenneth MacKenzie Clark b.1903 ( later to be the famous critic, art historian and broadcaster), lived in the house as a boy at this time, and was brought up largely by servants and nannies as his parents lived an extravagant lifestyle in London, Monte Carlo and on their yachts in the Mediterranean.
After the war the economic situation was more difficult even for those as wealthy as Clarke, and the estate was sold off piecemeal in 1917, 1918 and 1926. The Forestry Commission bought much of the land in the 1920s.
The whole area of Sudbourne was closed for tank training in the second world war, with the Hall becoming the Officers' mess. After the war the Hall was in poor repair and was demolished in 1951.
The remaining wings of the house, and the courtyard buildings and game larder were converted in the 1980s into residential units, now known as Sudbourne Park.