As I type, it really does feel as if Spring has arrived with all sorts of bright colours everywhere, including corners of suburbia where wonderful yellow, pink and purple blossoms vie for attention. It really does encourage one to visit gardens!

Liz Ware’s Blog on the Association of Gardens Trusts’ website (www.gardenstrusts.org.uk), comments on several issues concerning the importance of our public parks. I fully support the concept that such amenities contribute to our well-being. Indeed, I really enjoyed visits to several of Reading’s public parks (and open spaces) recently when 4 of us walked from Tilehurst station via Arthur Newbery Park, McIlroy Park and Lousehill Copse to Prospect Park and then on to Reading’s Forbury Gardens.

The Arthur Newbery Park contains a wonderfully landscaped hill with a huge avenue to the left and good views. McIllrory Park, named after its original owner who ran a Reading department store, has some well-placed seats from which to admire its even more tremendous views towards the Chilterns, the River Thames and Reading, including the old brick-producing areas of Tilehurst.  Lousehill Copse, new to all of us, is more of an untamed ‘wildlife corridor’, snaking its way between housing estates, with some surprising vantage points and dips to cross small streams in the woods, which are currently punctuated with white anenomes and yellow flowers. Just before reaching the slopes leading up to Prospect Park, there is a decorative ceramic design and plaque on the edge of one small estate denoting the premises of the last brickworks in Tilehurst.

Following lunch in Prospect Park’s white stuccoed Regency mansion (now a very popular ‘value for money’ Harvester), with splendid, almost unimpeded views across the Kennet Valley towards Hampshire, we carried on into Reading along the Holy Brook, so admirably researched by Adam Sowan in his book (published by Two Rivers Press, a local Reading company which also published the Friends’ 2012 Caversham Court Gardens – A Heritage Guide, which I will be reviewing shortly on Berkshire Garden’s Trust’s website and, more briefly, in our newsletter). After the interest of the Coley Park Farm Estate, parts of which date from the 16^th century with properties, including a listed dovecote, now converted mainly into private accommodation, there were big skies above the water meadows, some venerable willows, plane trees, and a variety of gardens to view on the opposite bank.

Our walk ended at the confluence of the Holy Brook with the River Kennet after it runs under offices and amongst remains of parts of Reading’s Abbey. From here it is a short stroll into The Forbury Gardens (Grade II), recently restored with assistance from the Heritage Lottery Fund (see illustration below).  On this occasion, we did not continue via the Eldon Square (Grade 11) Conservation Area, within which Watlington House sits, or over the river to Caversham Court (Grade II), an extension well worth considering if you don’t stop in central Reading.

The total walk described above is about 6 miles and while access is not always immediately obvious to those new to the area, there are maps and information available on Reading’s website http://www.reading.gov.uk.

 Details about this event has been posted to members. For more information or any queries please phone Ben Viljoen on 0118 984 3170. This event is confined to members.

The year’s Programme kicked off in March with a fascinating talk at Purley Barn by Chris Sumner, a founder member and former Chairman of the London Parks and Gardens Trust. His topic was Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, the now very well – restored Walpole villa on the banks of the Thames at Twickenham. Though on a subject out of our County, this excellent session was well-attended because of the current interest in the building and its grounds; by coincidence, Berkshire Cambridge Society were arranging to visit the place in early October, and on the back of Chris’s talk, several Berkshire Gardens Trust members were able to join the Cambridge trip later in the year.

HM the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Year will be remembered for poor weather, and our Open Gardens day in June, though not a wash-out, was chilly, overcast and distinctly the opposite of a “Flaming June” day! However, about 60 people visited the 3 West Berkshire gardens- Ingle Spring in Stanford Dingley, and two Upper Basildon gardens The Well House and Honeycroft House, which were greatly enjoyed by members and guests. Intrepid garden enthusiasts won’t be put off by the cool and the damp, as we all know!

Watlington House in Reading is our next major physical garden project, a re-creation of a 1689 garden. Two of our members, Gaila Adair (our scheme designer) and Clive Williams, were invited to speak about the history of the House and Garden and our project, at the Hungerford Arts festival in July, and this also enjoyed a good attendance.

Our first completed garden restoration, the Hungerford Tragedy Memorial Garden, was officially renewed in early October by the Lord Lieutenant, the Hon Mrs Bayliss JP, and was a triumphant milestone in the Trust’s history. The Lord Lieutenant was joined by our President, Lady Wroughton, by many civic dignitaries, the local MP (Fisheries Minister, Richard Benyon), but most important of all, by relations and family members of the victims of that terrible happening way back in 1987.The Garden is now a very fitting monument to the Hungerford townspeople and others who lost their lives that tragic day.

The year ended triumphantly with Ben Viljoen’s excellent talk on Purley Hall, attended by, staggeringly, over 90 members and guests. A wonderful climax to the year!

A seminar on the importance of settings  hosted by the Trust will be held on Wednesday 13th March 2013, 1pm to 5pm at Hall Place, Berkshire College of Agriculture Burchetts Green

The key speaker will be Dr Andy Brown, Planning Director South East, English Heritage and author of The Setting of Heritage Assets.

There will be a field exercise led by Dr Brown and Verena McCaig, Historic Landscape Project Officer – SE Region, Association of Gardens Trust.

Places £15 , (£10 for BGT members,) obtainable by sending a cheque made out to the Berkshire Gardens Trust and an sae to Chilton Lodge, Speen Lane, Newbury, RG14 1RN.

Please phone 01635 34491 if you have any queries.

I can’t believe we are now 2013. I hope this update is of interest and wish you all the best for the New Year … … !

In my role as Trust Secretary, the late summer and early autumn of 2012 was taken up with various matters associated with the AGM in September and Ben Viljoen’s excellent November lecture. Then, in addition to submitting views on ‘Local Listing’ of  eritage assets to West Berkshire Unitary Authority, we also we ‘put our hands up’ to actually attend and give evidence at the Examination in Public into Bracknell Forest Council’s Draft Allocations Site Policy Document on which we submitted comments last November and also in March 2012.

The Examination was the first time that the Trust has been involved in something like this and, given the financial and resource constraints upon the Garden History Society and building development pressure on land in the South-East in particular, it is  sadly unlikely to be a ‘one-off’. The public hearings, with representatives from Parish  ouncils, various groups of residents and experts including the RSPB and the Berkshire,  Buckinghamshire and Oxon Wildlife Trust, as well as Bracknell Forest Council and the  prospective developer interests, took place at the Hilton Hotel near South Hill Park where the Trust held a successful study day in September 2011.

The mid-Victorian designed landscape at Broadmoor is currently a nationally registered Grade II landscape and also on the EH At Risk Register. Berkshire Gardens  Trust’s main interest relates to the proposals to build housing within the Walled Garden and how the designed landscaping of the impressive terraces at the core of Broadmoor Asylum’s secure site are likely to be adversely affected by development proposals. Needless to say, very few people have ever visited the secure site. However, it is actually quite well documented with plenty of photographic illustrations of the various important features, which were designed to provide therapeutic benefits to those resident within their walls. Although the site is on the English Heritage At Risk Register, many of these features are still currently in fairly good condition overall and rare survivors of such mental asylums, which is why they are considered to be such nationally significant heritage assets. They also form part of the wider Crowthorne Character Area, with views to and from publicly accessible land.

An Examination is not somewhere to “pull rabbits out of hats”, but an exercise in which those participating respomd to questions the Inspector has raised in the context of national planning  policy, reiterating key points to emphasise their views. Also, as  anyone who has ever taken an exam or been part of something similar will know, there always seems to be a wealth of information to be digested and understood  beforehand and then not much time to share this with those participating around the table and the Inspector.

Only time will tell whether or not our efforts will be successful in requiring a re-think of the proposals currently on the table, although Bracknell Forest Council have already been asked to propose some changes to the plans. Meanwhile, I’d like to leave you with one of my favourite photographs of the Marjorelle Gardens in the north-west of Marakkesh, Morocco, which I visited in November. Designed by Yves Saint-Laurent and his partner, they contain examples of exotics from across the world; a  peaceful haven in a very different way to that of Broadmoor’s designed landscape.

Tranquillity, Marjorelle Gardens

Friday 30th November, 7.30 for 8pm

The Barn, off Beech Road, P urley on Thames, RG8 8DR

Ben Viljoen, a founder member of the Berkshire Gardens Trust, will be giving an illustrated talk on the turbulent history of Purley Hall.

This lovely secluded Thames Valley manor house, situated between Pangbourne and Purley on Thames, has witnessed many changes. Both local and national events have shaped its history.

The house was built in the 17th century by an ardent Catholic family, whose determination to keep faith with the old religion meant financial ruin.

By the early 18th century, scheming and conniving new owners heralded an age of luxury and vice. The gardens were laid out by one of the great early garden designers, and the scandalous behaviour of a wayward daughter appalled polite society.

The ‘virtuous’ Wilders bought the badly deteriorating property in 1777 and set about restoring it. Their collection of early photographs provide a unique record of the property and surrounding area.

Places £6 for BGT members, £8 for non-members, obtainable by sending a cheque made out to Berkshire Gardens Trust and a stamped addressed envelope to Chilton Lodge, Speen Lane,Newbury, RG14 1RN

Please phone 0118 984 3170 if you have any queries.

These courses relate to areas of activity in which all county trusts are being encouraged to become involved and also reflect the objectives of the Berkshire Gardens Trust. As mentioned in our Newsletters, we are trying to develop our expertise in such activities so that we can contribute to saving, developing and enhancing designed landscapes in the Royal County of Berkshire.

Indeed, West Berkshire Council has already invited BGT Trust to help them list landscapes which may not be sufficiently nationally or regionally important to be English Heritage Registered Landscapes despite their significance more locally. It is also important when providing input to planning consultations and management plans to understand the key characteristics of such landscapes and be able to demonstrate the importance of their location or setting, including views to and from them.

We would love more members to come and help us and are therefore keen to promote these courses which are being co-ordinated by Verena McCaig, Historic Landscape Project Officer – SE Region, Association of Gardens Trusts.

On Wednesday 17 October there will be a further course entitled Responding to Planning Applications affecting Historic Designed Landscapes. This will be held at the Orchard Centre, Basingstoke.

For more details on all these and other courses and to make bookings, please visit the Association of Gardens Trust website www.gardenstrusts.org.uk.

All Gardens Trust members are also encouraged to join in with the discussions and exchange ideas at the Historic Landscape Project CGT Web Forum – which is open to all County Gardens Trust members through a simple registration process. To become a Forum Member, please visit http://www.gardenstrusts.org.uk/12-proj-historiclandscape.html.

Well, summer is here at last, with sunshine on the herbaceous borders after all the chilly rain we have had, which while needed, is usually less conducive for garden
visiting.

As members of the Trust and visitors to this site may already know, I am a great supporter of the varied public parks and gardens which so many of our towns and villages are lucky enough to have. It was therefore great to hear about the importance which the Garden History Society also attaches to them at their July AGM at the Garden  Museum in Lambeth. Jonathan Lovie, the Principal Conservation Officer and Policy Advisor to the GHS’s Conservation Team, who is also involved with the National Trust Council, emphasised the crucial role and contribution of County Gardens Trust research and planning activities regionally, especially given the ’choppy waters’ in which the NT, English Heritage and other similar organisations currently operate. Jonathan stressed the need to be vigilant about the increasing risks to public parks, even where they are registered designed landscapes. This was good to hear given the recent support which the Berkshire Gardens Trust has given to those seeking to ensure that Reading’s relatively recently Heritage Lottery funded The Forbury and Caversham Court gardens did not suffer from possible Council cuts (see full article in our Spring/ Summer 2012 Newsletter). The results of any cuts would have been to the own’s etriment and a missed opportunity for those who live, work and visit, including those enjoying the delights of the river and its banks.

I was very aware of Jonathan’s words and the pressure on such areas, when I went on a guided tour of Brighton’s public parks gardens and open spaces with the Birkbeck Garden History Group (BGHG) in mid-July. The tour was led by Virginia Hinze, previously the Landscape Architect for English Heritage’s South East Region and a staunch supporter of the garden history world, especially within Sussex.  I was not aware that Brighton had such a good horticultural reputation, nor that it has the national collection of elms, survivors of the 1970s Dutch Elm disease disaster which affected so many in this country. Virginia described Brighton’s Green Mile as “a linear series of designed spaces that form a physical and temporal progression in Brighton’s history”. Dating from the early 17^th century, they are now virtually all publicly accessible, with the hope that Preston Park Manor’s walled garden, at the northern extent of our trip, will ultimately become a community garden or allotments.

Summer Borders at the Pavilion

Just to the north of the Pavilion, the Victoria or Valley Gardens act as a green ribbon and corridor between the busy north-south main road. Originally subscription gardens for the surrounding middle-class houses, they were opened to the public from the late 19^th century. There has been some recent re-planting commensurate with the ‘tiered bedding’ introduced by the Parks Superintendent Captain Bertie MacLaren in the 1920s which enlivens what would otherwise have just become another grassy urban landscape fringed by a line of trees, alongside which motorists would pass without another glance, of which MacLaren would not have approved!.  Through the addition of grasses as yet another texture, the contemporary planting also has a ‘prairie’ feel, especially when the sun shines.

We then traversed The Level. This final section of ‘the green mile’ area remains an important open space for the playing of games, with the later addition of playground areas, including a skate park, among formal floral beds. There are plans to move the skate park to the remaining open area adjacent to an asphalt football pitch, a move which the majority of the locals who use the area want though others are less keen; illustrative of the sorts of tensions which all local authorities face in the management and development of their open spaces. Stone-flags support the slightly higher  perimeter, encircled by fine elms, in the northern part. North again from the Level is Park Crescent, a horseshoe of villas built by Amon Henry Wilds on the site of  Brighton’s first public cricket ground (donated by the Prince of Wales in 1791).

Our tour concluded with a traverse of Preston Park, formerly part of the Stanford Estate and purchased as “the People’s Park” in the 1880s. Today the park has two  cafes, the prettier of which is in the form of a rotunda designed by MacLaren in 1929 and almost surrounded by his extensive, surviving rose garden of 1929 now planted with David Austin roses. The park incorporates old estate hedgerows, which include some ‘champion trees’, as well as what is called the tile house, with a pleasing  patterned tile-clad walls and built in the 1920s as an exhibition piece to show a firm’s wares (currently a keep fit club’s centre).

Preston Park's 'Tile House'

We ended with the magnificent and dramatic 1936 rockery designed by MacLaren, who had trained with James Backhouse, one of the leading rock-garden specialists of the period. It was a complete surprise, especially given its modern setting above the London to Brighton road. It uses stratified rock on its very steep upper levels which give way to gentle moraine slopes and grassy meadows dotted with rocks. Windy paths, a rustic bridge across a steep cascade and a stepping-stone crossing in the meadows area add to the surprises of what Virginia refers to as “… a huge palette of plants from true alpines to hardy herbaceous and shrubs, conifers … and “kaleidoscopic patterns of colours and forms … “. Sadly, it was raining extremely hard by this point, so sadly no photos were possible. Many thanks to Virginia for an excellent tour and ccompanying notes as well as BGHG’s committee for arranging it.

A copy of the letter and other relevant documents can be downloaded by clicking on Governance above.

The Well House, Bethesda Street, Upper Basildon, RG8 8NU

The grounds include a surviving village well with its Edwardian Gothic stone enclosure. Beautiful gardens with interesting features including a formal box garden, herbaceous borders, vegetable garden and specimen trees. Woodland walks.

Parking at Basildon Village Hall, Bethesda Street RG8 8NU

Honeycroft House, Pangbourne Road, Upper Basildon, RG8 8LP

With far reaching views across to the Chiltern Hills this garden has interesting features including herbaceous borders, three rockeries, a herb garden, specimen trees, a pond, unusual contemporary sculpture and a “Morrison gate”.

Parking at St Stephen’s Church, Pangbourne Road, Upper Basildon RG8 8LS.

Ingle Spring, Stanford Dingley, RG7 6LX

Beautiful gardens overlooking water meadows. The garden includes the source of the River Ingle which flows around an island created by the owners before joining the River Pang. Unusual plants, specimen trees, orchids, vegetable garden and a bridge crossing the stream. Collection of poultry, chickens, ducks and guinea fowl.

Parking in lane.

Gardens Open: from 2pm to 6pm Cost of Tickets: £8 for visitors, £7 for trust members.  Tickets admit to all three gardens and include introductory timed talks by the owners and refreshments from 3pm at The Well House. Tickets available from Dr Christina Hill Williams on 01491 671 631, Mrs Susan Balchin on 0118 978 1561 or at the garden gates on the day.

Click here to download the flyer/application form

Click here to download poster