Summer Time is Lime Time

My view of 'the office' from the shade of the Cedar of Lebanon

The weather over Betley Court Gardens has been sweltering this week! Such a contrast to last week’s thunder storms. I’m glad the weather’s calmed somewhat though. The rain was some of the worst we’ve seen in the gardens in 40 years. Incredibly, the run-off during one cloudburst was sufficient to wash the gravel and hardcore off the new path we laid last autumn.

Washed away bank in the car park

The washed away gravel, scoured right through to the hardcore

How frustrating! Two steps forward, one step back. Shane spent the earlier part of the week armed with a rake, dragging the gravel and hardcore back uphill, to repair the ravines (six inches deep in places) the storm created.

In the house, the clearance progresses steadily. I don’t envy the lads working in full safety gear in this sweltering weather, but I understand Betley Post Office is doing a roaring trade in cold drinks and food. I’d wondered how the contractors were going to tackle clearing the cellar, and today I got my answer. They’ve installed a nifty little industrial elevator between the ground floor and the cellar, just in from the door well to the drawing room/Nash room.

A glimpse of the contractors using 

The little platform glides up and down to audio accompaniment of a warning beeper, and carries a man and digger bucket. They fill the digger truck bit-by-bit, then reverse [beep-beep-beep] it out of the house into the courtyard to the rubbish pile. They have removed tonnes and tonnes of the debris that clogged the cellar with this method.

We’ve acquired a few more architectural finds during this work, and I heard a rumour today that they have recovered what we think is our ‘Tommie’. We’d bought a silhouette of a World War One soldier – known affectionately as Tommies - some time ago, as part of the There But Not There fundraising campaign for armed forces and mental health charities. We’d intended to install it for Armistice Day in the Peace Garden, but, of course, the fire happened and our Tommie was assumed lost. I haven’t seen him myself yet, and I understand he’s a little bent out of shape, but hopefully we can reshape and finally install him, when we reclaim the Peace Garden from the contractors.

This is an example of a 'Tommie' at the Tower of London

The scorching weather has also coincided with the flowering of the lime trees in the garden. For those of you unfamiliar with lime trees – also known as Linden (as opposed to the citrus fruit tree), they have the most delightful fragrance.

Lime tree, or Linden flowers, the source of the fragrance in the garden

We’re very fortunate at Betley Court as we have not just one, but an avenue of lime trees, so the perfume wafting through the garden during warm June days is intoxicating (although I should mention that the men-folk in the family can’t smell the aroma, so lime-flowering season largely passes Nigel by). For me, the lime trees flowering is one of the highlights of our horticultural year.

The Wilderness, heading south at the turn of the century

The Wilderness in 2020

I mentioned that we have an avenue of lime trees, but that is figuratively and literally a half truth. We have 50%, or specifically one side of the avenue within the gardens. The other half of the avenue lies across Main Road, and if you’ve driven through Betley on the A531, you’ve passed through it. It’s known locally as The Wilderness, and creates a shady tunnel between the Clock House and Betley Court Farm. The avenue may well have been planted by John Cradock, the founder of Betley Court. Certainly, instructions were left, following his death in 1758, for the maintenance of the avenue: 

“the lime trees planted for ornament shall be kept in good order by frequent and necessary dubbing, and that all parties shall bear an equal share of the expense.” 1

The trees were the subject of a court case in 1744, when it was questioned whether they had been planted upon a public road or not. It appears there was concern Cradock had undertaken a sneaky expansion of his territory. However, the jury ruled that the row of trees had been planted “on the said John Cradock’s land of inheritance”. However, Cradock was required to remove posts and stones “lying betwixt the trees and the common street.” They also ruled that the limes standing on the other side of the street, stood upon  Lord Chetwynd’s waste (uncultivated land), and were planted there “by the said lord’s order and direction.”

In 1910, Francis Randle Twemlow mentions the lime avenue at Betley Court, in his catchily-titled family history “Twemlows, Their Wives and Their Homes From Original Records”. He alludes to how the avenue may have appeared in Cradock’s time, stating,

  “The avenue of lime trees which still shades the public road was kept closely clipped, as those at Fontainebleau are still, and must have given endless trouble. When this was discontinued does not appear, probably very soon after John Cradock’s death.”1

The lime trees on our side of the wall

The phrase “as those at Fontainbleau” is an interesting one. Those familiar with grand European court gardens will know that the Chateau de Fontainbleau boasts fine formal avenues and neatly clipped trees in the French formal style. This style of gardening is all about instilling order on the wild, gardening nature into submission through the use of straight lines and symmetry.

A local example of a closely clipped treeline, at Englesea Brook, Cheshire East. 

Avenues of clipped trees were created to make shaded walkways for the well-to-do to enjoy walks shielded from the sun, leaving those further down the social ladder to crisp to a tanned brown in the sun (it’s interesting how tanned skin, as a marker of one’s social status has changed back-and-forth over time). Perhaps a gentile canopy was the purpose of Cradock’s avenue? Or perhaps my father-in-law’s hit the nail on the head with this point, from his essay, Reviving Arcadia, 

“This name [The Wilderness] seems singularly inappropriate today but it may be due to the notorious state of this road in the eighteenth century when it used to be the boundary between Staffordshire and Cheshire.” 2 

Whatever its purpose, those of us that know Betley can still enjoy a lovely shaded fragrant walk beneath a chartreuse canopy at this time of year, not so very different from how it was in Cradock’s day.

Lime trees on Main Road, circa 1900

The tree canopy in 2020 is much denser!

Remember to keep hydrated in this strange COVID 19 summer we're having.

All best wishes, Ladybird Su

1.  Twemlow, Their Wives and Their Homes From Original Records by Francis Randle Twemlow is published in facsimile form by Lightening Source UK Ltd and available from Amazon. An original copy is also held at Newcastle-under-Lyme Library. The Brown family’s original copy was lost in the fire of August 2019.

2.  Reviving Arcadia by Professor Godfrey N Brown, an essay from a presentation given to Betley Local History Society, and forms part of its archive.