Of the Walled Garden

Just as more of the scaffolding comes down around Betley Court, flowers are beginning to show around the gardens. There’s an optimistic air around the place. We’ve introduced new contractors to the work inside the house, and they are filling the void that MCL made when they departed. Tanya, our gardening volunteer and I have been clearing a bit more of the thatch by the visitors’ hub so we can sow more native wildflower seeds, and soon the Heras fencing protecting the formal flower beds will be dismantled. It feels like we are getting our house back.

I came across two items of interest whilst having a tidy up. They are both connected with the walled gardens Betley Court once had. The walled gardens were sold off prior to the Brown family’s purchase of the old house, and had been slated to become the setting for sheltered accommodation and a residential home. This proposal was abandoned in favour of the small housing estate of Court Walk that is present today.

The first of my finds is a photograph that shows this area of Betley Court after it had ceased to be a productive kitchen garden, but before the land was built on. I’m afraid I can’t date or credit the photo, but of anybody has any idea about either, we’d love to hear from you. Betley Court is shown to the top right of frame (A). (B) marks the old laundry, demolished due to safety fears over its condition. Usefully, it freed up land to allow Court Walk’s access road to be built.

(E) marks the gardener’s cottage, a home provided to the head gardener, complete with extensive gardens of its own; a reminder that wealthy folk used to provide benefits of this kind to their lowly paid workers. (F) denoted the stove-house that heated water for the peach house and other heated greenhouses. (I) is the kitchen garden, providing seasonal fruit and vegetables to the ‘big house’. Note the expansive half-span glasshouses along the south-facing wall. (K) contained a sophisticated flower garden, not only as a pleasant place in its own right, but provider of cut flowers for the house, and St Margaret’s church

A	Betley Court house
B	Old laundry block
C	Stables and Clockhouse
D	Estate worker’s cottages
E	Gardener’s cottage
F	Stove-house
G	Potting shed
H	Garden walls
I	Vegetable and fruit garden
J	Heated glasshouses (including peach house)
K	Flower garden
L	Apple store

Mr Leath in the flower garden. Date unknown. Photograph originally shared with Prof Godfrey Brown for his book 'This Old House' by permission of Miss Leath. 

As today’s newspapers are filled with stories of rationing of certain fruits and vegetables (tomatoes unobtainable, peppers, cabbages and celery being rationed here, with Brexit and bad weather blamed), it is interesting to note how much of these Betlian gardens are given over to food production during this period! (D)

The second item is a facsimile page of the nursery ledger for Betley Court from 1933-36.  The original can be found in the William Salt Library in Staffordshire Records Office in Stafford (D3098/11/4). It concerns the sale of nursery stock on 11 November 1936

It reads:

C. Fletcher-Twemlow (formerly C. Royds)

Nursery stock sold by auction at The Old Elms 11 Nov 1936.

LOT		£/s/p
86	Office furniture: oak desk	0.12.0
92	??
101-169	Plants	19.3.6
203	Bamboo canes	1.0.0.
208-212	Wire netting (20 rolls)	3.11.6
219-222	Seed boxes	0.12.0
227	Glass	0.5.0
233-234	Flower-pots	1.6.0
238-243	Frames & lights	5.15.0
244-246,249-252	??? & other produce	1.9.0
247	Peat	0.9.0

 

Page from the Nuresery Ledger

Cursive writing is somewhat challenging for the modern eye, and I can’t decipher all of the items, but it gives an idea of the kind of things sold that Wednesday all those years ago. It is a little glimpse as to what was happening around Betley Court too. Note the acknowledgement of Charles Royds’ change of name to Charles Fletcher-Twemlow, a condition of him inheriting the Betley Court estate from his great uncle George Fletcher-Twemlow.

All best wishes

Ladybird Su