May 2017

Planting begins to fill out the spaces. You can begin to see 
what this area could become.

I spend more time in May than I had expected. It is a  month for planting as well as battling with the nettles. The western section of the fountain area is now beginning to look very different. Many of the plants are ones transplanted from the paths and woodland edge. At present I am only planting wild flowers that are already present in the woodlands, among them forget-me-not, red campion, mint, wood sage, foxglove, cowslip, primrose, snowdrop, grape hyacinth, germander speedwell, comfrey, herb-robert, bugle, giant snowflake, creeping buttercup, ground ivy, periwinkle, columbine.There are some spectacular spear thistles too. The muntjack deer are thrilled. They enjoy eating the flower heads, and have been presented by a ready-made smorgasbord of delicacies to nibble at.
The black plastic is still down around the fountain, and in a seating area on the east side of the fountain. It will all look very different when that is taken up and the paths are created, hopefully in the next few months.
Some heavy spells of rain have done much to improve water levels in the fountain, and I have also improved the collection of water from the garage roof into the water butt. Every drop will be precious as the Summer arrives. As a trial, I have also placed some marsh marigold and purple loostrife in the fountain to see how they get on. There are frogs, toads, at least one newt, pond skaters and water beetles. The thick moss has been removed from the fountain itself, and some of the broken stone (which mostly seems to be decorative rather than structural) has been taken out, but some left too to give places for wildlife to hide.

Wellingtonia gigantica

As the area develops I have plans for a herb garden that everyone can use on the west side  between the main ride and the wall, by the compost area and the log pile, and I have established a path that follows the line of the walk towards the lake that existed in 1915 out towards the lone wellingtonia.
A final historical note: these wellingtonia or giant redwood trees were a famous feature of the Sudbourne estate. They were first introduced to England from California in 1852  when a plant hunter, William Lobb, returned from the US in a ship full of seeds, saplings and shoots.These were seized upon by Victorian horticulturists, and would have been the latest craze when Sir Richard Wallace bought the Sudbourne estate in 1871 and planted out the gardens. (see more in the item by the National Trust on the web. The Americans wanted to call it Washingtonia, but it was named Wellingtonia gigantica after the Duke who had recently died. This was not an altogether popular choice in the US!)

March/April 2017

 Two visits in March and early April led to considerable progress around the fountain. The weather has been dry, however, and the water depth which had built up to several inches in the fountain has dropped and it has nearly dried out.There has been no progress recently on the surrounding stones, as I am waiting for Sir Edward's men to clear the two tree stumps that are damaging the edging. The work is scheduled, but I do not know when it will take place.

The path on the west edge

Meanwhile the nettles are beginning to emerge once more, and Linda and I set about clearing nettle roots out of a large area of the West side of the site.
The pathway alongside the retaining wall which I cleared earlier this year has remained largely nettle-free, so I am hopeful that once cleared we will have the nettles under control. The plan here is to leave a border of one metre, and a path of two metres which will be levelled, covered  and then surfaced with a layer of wood chippings. This path is clearly visible on the 1925 Ordnance Survey map.

The large cleared area on the west of the site

Here you can see the newly cleared area. We have left sections of ivy which will regrow as ground cover, and we have also replanted a small selection of native wild flowers that are already present in the woodlands. Some of these were transplanted from the middle of rides and paths which are being cleared by Sir Edward as he continues with the management plan, and some were bought from stalls outside private houses for a nominal sum. They have been planted around the tree stumps so that it is clear where they are, and include forgetmenot, snowdrop, grape hyancinth, primrose, cowslip, wood sage, and foxglove.

Primroses by the lake

Over the next few months there will be much more planting of this area, not in twos and threes but in larger drifts of wild flowers, trying to emulate these primroses flowering by the lake in April. Later on there will also be native spring bulbs to bring the area alive next year,  and some planting in the fountain itself.
Meanwhile if you go and look at what is happening round the fountain you could really help in two ways, by putting some water on the planted wild flowers which will be suffering in this dry spring, and secondly by taking up any nettles that re-emerge in the area we have cleared.
I will be back for a few days in mid-May and again in June, and I am hoping to make progress on the planting, the pathways and the fountain itself.

January/February 2017

This blog records work on restoring the fountain at Sudbourne Park.  New readers will find it makes more sense to start at the earliest entry. The blog will be updated every couple of months.

The weather in January is too cold for setting stones in mortar, and in any case the remaining sections of the coping stones cannot yet be completed because of the two large tree roots. Sir Edward has promised to have them cut back for us.

There is still plenty to be done of course. A reinforced hose is sunk into a trench leading to
the fountain from the water butt at the garages.
With luck the winter rains will gradually fill up the fountain. Once it is full the summer rain should replace water lost through evaporation. It is guesswork really how much will be needed. I notice on the 1926 o/s map that there was a wind pump next to the eastern end of the lake. I wonder if this not only filled the lake but also provided the pressure for the fountain?

The capping stones that used to top the pillars
along the brick walls that surrounded the gardens
can be found discarded around the area. They have clearly been removed, possibly to get at the bricks, as most of the pillars are much shorter than they were originally. I am collecting them to be able to re-cap the pillars at a later date. Each cap had two stones  a larger one like that on the right, and a smaller one on top like those on the left. Be careful if you try to move them - they are very heavy!

One advantage of working in the winter is that the nettles do not fight back. There used to be a wide gravel walk along the western edge from the terrace walk by West Hall towards the lake. I have cleared as much nettle root as possible from this walk. Experience from last year suggests that once the main roots are removed there is much less problem keeping the paths clear in Summer.

The snowdrops are pushing up - a reminder that Spring is round the corner. I will be back twice in March to see what else is growing.

November/December 2016- stonework

As mentioned before, the surrounding stonework of the fountain had been damaged both by tree and ivy growth, and by tree-felling machinery. Many stones were dislodged  by root growth or broken. It was also not clear how the fountain had been powered, or where the overflow was.

A damaged stone, lifted and re-set, nearly as good as new!

Winter is a good time for such work, and as these two pictures show, even a badly damaged stone can be taken out, cleaned and reset to look almost as good as new. Certainly once there is some plant growth around the fountain once more, the damage will not be evident.

The large tree stumps around the fountain posed more of a problem, but bit by bit the sections of stone were removed, roots cut away, and reset in mortar. As I write, at the end of January 2017 there are only two sections still to be completed, and by the spring of 2017 it should be finished.

Meanwhile the cracks in the bottom and sides of the fountain have been filled with mortar though it is not entirely sure if the fountain will hold water to one foot deep as it used to.

As for filling the pond, and the overflow, a water butt has been attached to the drainpipe of the garages of West Hall, which should allow a greater inflow of fresh water to the fountain to offset evaporation, and the original overflow pipe was discovered on the east side of the pond, leading to a soak-away, which will need to be unblocked.

Looking to the future, I have been researching solar powered pumps which might be a way to bring this wonderful feature to life once more.

The fountain in Dec 2016 - progress being made.

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.