Greetings for 2024!

Greetings from Betley Court. Hope the start of 2024 finds you safe and well?

This is the first of twelve planned blog posts for Betley Court Gardens, where we will share what’s coming up for the months ahead. We’ve planned this year’s six weekend events for the year, and hope to see some of you at Betley Court!

Public Events for 2024

Date	Event	Details
24th & 25th February	House Tour of Betley Court	A tour of Betley Court following the fire of 2019 and subsequent rebuild including access to the attic restoration
23rd & 24th March	Daffodil Walks	A chance to view our collection of Victorian daffodil species and enjoy the gardens
27th & 28th April	Bluebell Walks	A chance to walk around one of Staffordshire’s finest bluebell woods
1st & 2nd June	Picnic on the lawn	Join us for the old tradition of picnicking on the lawn
6th & 7th July	Open Gardens	Opening of the gardens for walks
24th & 25th August	5th Anniversary opening	To mark 5 years since the fire in 2019, tours and exhibition of the rebuild

A first floor room in current state of restoration (Photo: Su Hurrell)

Tickets for the first event, House Tour of Betley Court will be available from 12^th January 2024 from our website. It’s a chance to find out what we’re up to inside Betley Court. Nigel and I will be on hand during the tours, so if you have any burning questions about the rebuild, it’s the perfect opportunity to ask. We’ll take the tour through some of the rooms of the main house. Then we’ll climb to the top of the house up one of the newly installed staircases, to view the marvellous new roof from the inside. This will include the carefully restored and unusual horizontal chimney that Historic England got very excited about, and the vast steel frame that holds up our beautiful roof. As always with the house tours, we advise stout footwear and sensible clothing, as building work is still going on.

TICKETS: www.betleycourtgarden.co.uk/events 

Barron’s Yew Screen

It’s a year since we began the restoration of our yew screen, a topiary feature created by the notable Victorian landscape gardener, William Barron in 1865. The first stage of the restoration was topping all the yew trees that make up the yew semi-circle, and reducing them by half in height. We undertook this after seeking advice from the arboriculture experts at the Botanical Gardens at Kew, and the Head Gardeners at Elvaston Castle (where a collection of topiary specimens planted by Barron are still maintained).

Barron's yew screen a few days ago. Note how the yew is growing back from the trunk, and how taking the tops of each tree down has let light flood the base of the screen. (photo: Su Hurrell)

Whilst the rest of the country might have felt grumpy about last summer’s rainy weather it was a blessing to us, as it ensured the yew trees suffered as little stress as possible and remained well-watered during the hottest part of the summer. They are, after all 159 years old!

Whiskery growth sprouting from the trunks. Over the coming years, this will be clipped to gives us a neat topiary headge screen.

Restoring topiary on this scale takes patience. After the first cut was made to reduce the height, we were advised to wait a year before making any more cuts. This is the best way to prevent the yews going into shock and dying. The good news is that the hedge is making a good recovery, and whiskery growth is sprouting from the trunks of the yews. Next, we will cut back one side of the screen’s curve; either the convex or the concave side of the screen. Then we will have to be patient again and allow the yews to recover over another calendar year.

If you visit the gardens this year, you can see how the screen is coming along. It is at the end of the raised terrace, on the southern elevation of the house to the right-hand side. You can also read a little about the background of this restoration HERE. In the meantime, we just need to keep our patience so we can bring this horticultural curiosity back to how it looked when Barron planted it.

All best wishes

Ladybird Su