The Betley Court Tulip
There are a lot of tasks that we must complete before we
open Betley Court Gardens to the public. The ‘to do’ list now stretches into
several volumes, and I’m rather pleased that we decided 2019 was to be the year
of the ‘soft launch’, with a few low-key openings for the local community. It
will sensibly allow us to build up slowly.
Number one on the list is, of course, building a visitors’
hub, and good news arrived last week in the shape of official confirmation that
we have been granted planning permission by Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council. This is
exciting news indeed, as the hub will provide toilet facilities for visitors,
and we will be able to offer hot drinks and snacks. When we resume volunteer
working parties it will also give us somewhere as a base.
The building we envision is a single storey wooden-framed
building, with detailing and materials to be sympathetic to the garden woodland
setting – as per the Planning Officer’s guidance. There’ll be a small kitchen, a
large multi-use room with log burner, and an office. I’m quite excited about
the woodland soft landscaping around the hut – I’m thinking foxgloves, wood anemones
and ferns. Lush and verdant planting.
Our Heritage Lottery Fund grant is also helping towards the
cost of repairing the footpaths around the grounds. Several hundred metres of
metal strip arrived this week, ready to be painted and installed as path
edging. Once that gargantuan task is complete, we can look at topping up and levelling
the gravel paths.
Our other big news is the arrival of our new branding
package. We had been using the Professor’s hand drawn logo from the days when
Betley Court had an antiques gallery onsite. The original logo was inspired by
the silhouette of the dove-house part of Betley Court, that once served as
possibly Britain’s most unusual gallery showroom (picture an octagonal room,
with fine china displayed in the roost-holes that used to house pigeons). The
logo is still used by the Emes Society, a volunteer group that has undertaken
working parties in the grounds in the past. However, the Professor’s logo was not designed
with the modern era in mind, and it became apparent that we needed branding
that could be used on mobile phone apps, large format printing, and on leaflets
and merchandise.
This is how a talented Staffordshire-based graphic designer,
Andy Taylor came into our lives. He runs A Spark, A Flame, A Fire https://asparkaflameafire.com/, and had re-done
the brand identity for a creative friend of mine. I really like his work, and
best of all, he specialises in working with small and medium sized enterprises –
like us! After a site visit, and a questionnaire, he came up with a couple of
ideas for us.
This is the one we chose. I call the monogram the ‘Betley
Court Tulip’ – although Andy insists it is not based on any specific flower. Its
clean symmetrical botanical shape is rather clever. Firstly, it’s Betley Court’s
initials ‘BC’ joined together to make the flower shape. Secondly, it’s constructed
with circles of different sizes, and the size of those circles is determined by
the Golden Table based on Fibannacci’s sequence. Anyone, like me with an
interest in horticulture will know that Fibannaccis’s sequence appears throughout
nature in the patterns of seeds in flowerheads, petal on buds etc. so to have this
extra layer of thought behind the monogram is both playful and delightful.
With this monogram, and its associated branding, Andy has
come up with something very special for us as we move forward with Betley Court’s
next phase. It also for me captures something more esoteric about our project.
It symbolises a flower being handed on from one person to another. Not unlike
Betley Court itself, which our generation is maintaining and nurturing so that
it too can be handed on to future generations. Quite in keeping with the Professor's notion of 'Living Conservation'.
All best wishes
Ladybird Su
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