Answers on a postcard

Postcard circa 1919

One of the most frustrating things about modern life has to be digital photography. I don’t mean taking the photos. I love the fact that even my cheap mobile phone can take great photos, and enhance them with filters, or special settings. What really frustrates me is the vast amounts of digital files it generates, and the problem of finding what you want when you need it.

Take this week. I have a distinct memory of taking a sneaky photo of an image at an exhibition. The exhibition was one of those local history events, with stands by different societies, along with traders selling vintage postcards and books. The particular stand I was taken by had vintage postcard images of Betley Court; my father-in-law’s house, displayed. Amongst the views of the garden, the south elevation of the house, and the view from Main Road, was a group of people sitting in front of a neatly clipped yew hedge. “That’s Barron’s yew screen!” I said to Nigel. In that moment, I was positive, and took a picture to verify it. And of course, that image ended up on a backup hard drive, or SD card or in the ‘Cloud’, or lost on an old phone’s memory. Suffice to say, I’ve spent too long trying to find this image to no avail.

In desperation, I contacted Betley Local History Society in the hope the image was in their possession. A lovely researcher, Shirley, got straight back to me, having rifled through the society’s collection of images. No, they didn’t have that photo, but a postcard of the gardens in the 1920’s, and a picture of a “Miss Royds with a group of people sitting in front of a neatly clipped hedge in the 1950-1960s though I feel that  this photograph is taken elsewhere probably at Doddlespool and not in the date range you describe.” I’m starting think I’ve imagined this photograph, and it doesn’t really exist at all!

Betley Court gardens in the early 20th century, complete with thatched summer house, and lawns rather than Barron's scrolls and topiary. C. 1919

A lot of the surviving images we have of the gardens at Betley Court are from picture postcards, which is incredibly fortunate, as they can still be found on online auction sites, and second hand shops. Postcards were invented in 1869 in Austria-Hungary, as a way of making letter writing less formal and cheaper to send. As photographic printing became more widely used, a picture postcard of their stately home became a must have for every well-to-do family. Lucky for us that the owners of Betley Court were no exception. For a garden historian like me, scrutinizing these sepia coloured images offers up a wealth of information. One perennial problem with researching historical landscape plans is that you have not idea what was actually built and planted, unless it still exists, or you have some other historical artifact that proves it was. Another is that when an alteration occurs, but you have no documentary evidence of when.

Barron's scheme. Italianate scrolls with topiary specimen shrubs.

I’ve mentioned in this blog before, that we have no date for when William Barron’s ornate Italian parterre was ripped up and replaced with the four rectangular and two circular flowerbeds we have today. By studying some of our old postcard collection, I am a little closer. We have several from the second half of the 19^th century, clearly showing Barron’s scheme, laid out as described on the plans held in the collection at the William Salt Library. A more recent postcard shows that a large part of the scrolled parterre had been removed, and laid back to lawn. The remaining scrolls appear to contain bedding plants, not topiary specimen trees. The date on the back of the card: February 1919. There is also a rather nice thatched summer house. The date, franked onto the back by the General Post Office is significant for another reason. World War One ended in 1918, and all grand houses had to make adjustments as young men were sent to war. Was the parterre simply rationalised during these times for that reason? After all, Italianate parterres, with their coloured gravel infills, and finnicky edging were notoriously labour-intensive to maintain. Not to mention, very old-fashioned by this time. By the date of that postcard’s manufacture (1919 or earlier), the Italianate parterre had partially gone. The Ordinance Survey map of 1925 shows the flowerbeds in their current arrangement, and nothing left of the parterre. Who’d have thought a picture postcard could’ve answered that question?

An early photo of Betley Court gardens, and Barron's scheme. I wonder who the full-skirted lady, and two workers were?

It always causes mirth in the family when we spot images of Betley Court in incongruous places. One local pub, after a major renovation decorated its rooms with pictures from Betley village life, mostly images enlarged from picture postcards. The Squire in his riding pinks, embarking on a fox hunt, pastoral views, children playing in the Wilderness (part of the main road), and pictures of Betley Court. I remember my son being quite perplexed when we went to this particular pub for a family meal, exclaiming, “Why have they got pictures of Grandad Godfrey’s house on their walls?”.

Betley Court from Main Road. The triumphal arch has yet to be replaced by the present day scrolled brickwork. Gracing the wall of a pub, somewhere near you, probably!

All best wishes

Ladybird Su