Walled garden
A walled garden is a garden enclosed by high walls, especially when this is done for horticultural rather than security purposes, although originally all gardens may have been enclosed for protection from animal or human intruders. In temperate climates, especially colder areas, such as Scotland, the essential function of the walling of a garden is to shelter the garden from wind and frost, though it may also serve a decorative purpose. Kitchen gardens were very often walled, which segregated them socially, allowing the gardeners, who were usually expected to vanish from the "pleasure gardens" when the occupants of the house were likely to be about, to continue their work. The walls, which were sometimes heated, also carried fruit trees trained as espaliers.
Historically, and still in many parts of the world, nearly all urban houses with any private outside space have high walls for security, and any small garden was thus walled by default. The same was true of many rural houses and other buildings, for example religious ones. In palaces and most country houses, the whole plot, including even a very large garden, was also walled or at least fenced, sometimes with (much more expensive) metal railings along those parts of the boundary giving the best views to show off the splendour of the residence, as at the
The horticultural, and also social, advantages of a walled garden meant that kitchen gardens often form or formed a walled compand within a larger walled compound. Sometimes this was for the security of the plants; in the 1630s the royal botanical garden of France (now the Jardin des plantes), itself walled all round, had an inner walled-off tulip garden, as the bulbs were valuable and prone to thefts.[1]
Metaphorically, "walled garden" may be used in many contexts (often pejoratively) to indicate a space, usually not a literal physical location, which is or is seen as closed to outsiders. One example is the closed platform in computing.
Creation of microclimates
The shelter provided by enclosing walls can raise the
Most walls are constructed from
The ability of a well-designed walled garden to create widely varying stable environments is illustrated by this description of the rock garden in the
The garden is protected from sudden changes in weather conditions and from harsh winds, thanks to its hollowed out terraces and the big trees .... The gardeners make the most of the northern or southern exposures and the permanently shady areas of this little, sheltered valley. Within just a few metres, temperatures can range from 15 to 20 degrees C, what one would call a micro-climate![2]
Heated walls
A number of walled gardens in Britain have a hot wall or fruit wall, a hollow wall with a central cavity, or openings in the wall on the side facing towards the garden, so that fires could be lit inside the wall to provide additional heat to protect the fruit growing against the wall. Heat would escape into the garden through these openings, and the smoke from the fires would be directed upwards through chimneys or flues. This kind of hollow wall is found at Croxteth Hall in Liverpool (England), and Eglinton Country Park and Dunmore House, both in Scotland. At Croome Court an 18th-century cavity wall had a number of small furnaces to supply gentle heat (see below). In the 1800s, such walls were lined with pipes and connected to a boiler, as at Bank Hall in Bretherton.
Design
The traditional design of a walled garden, split into four quarters separated by paths, and a
Kitchen gardens
In the United Kingdom, many
Susan Campbell, in a book devoted to walled kitchen gardens, mentions several factors which contribute to how productive a kitchen garden is. Productivity depended upon the suitability of the situation, and successful gardens depended on the availability of water, manure, heat, wall space, storage space, workrooms, and most importantly, a dedicated team of gardeners.[3]
Examples
British examples of walled gardens can be found at Alnwick Castle, Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens, Fulham Palace, Goodnestone Park, Luton Hoo, Osborne House, Polesden Lacey, Shugborough Hall, and Trengwainton Garden in England; Bodysgallen Hall (Wales); Edzell Castle, Muchalls Castle and Myres Castle (Scotland).
The walled kitchen garden at Croome Court, Worcestershire is reputedly the largest 18th-century walled kitchen garden in Europe. It is in private ownership and has been restored by the current owners. In about 1806, a 13 ft (4.0 m) high free-standing east–west hot wall was built, slightly off-centre, serviced by five furnaces; this is historically significant as it is one of the first such structures to be built.[6][7]
The walled kitchen garden at Chilton Foliat, Wiltshire, was the subject of the 1987 television documentary series The Victorian Kitchen Garden.[citation needed]
In literature
In the story of
In John William Waterhouse's interpretation of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, Psyche lived in Cupid's walled garden.
Much of the storyline of
"Rappaccini's Daughter", a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, takes place almost entirely within the confines of a walled garden in which Beatrice, the lovely daughter of a mad scientist, lives alongside gorgeous but lethal flowers.[10]
In The Last Enchantment, the third book in Mary Stewart's novels of the Arthurian legend, Merlin constructs a heated wall for his garden at Applegarth.
See also
- Media related to Walled gardens at Wikimedia Commons
References
- ISBN 1862056609
- ^ Rodolphe Trouilleux, Unexplored Paris. Paris: Parigramme, 1996, 2009, p. 61
- ^ a b Susan Campbell, Walled Kitchen Gardens. Oxford: Shire Publications, 2013 (1998), p. 5.
- ^ Susan Campbell, Walled Kitchen Gardens. Oxford: Shire Publications, 2013 (1998), p. 6.
- ^ Susan Campbell, A History of Kitchen Gardening; Jennifer Davies, The Victorian Garden (1987, based on a BBC series)
- ^ Tovey, Jill (Archivist for the Croome Estate Trust) (2011), A Summary of the History of Croome Walled Garden, Friends of Croome Park
- ^ Historic England. "Garden Wall to Walled Garden to East of Croome Court and Gardener's Cottage in NW Corner (1349527)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 2 March 2017.
- ^ Adele Reinhartz, "Better Homes and Gardens: Women and Domestic Space in the Books of Judith and Susanna", Stephen G. Wilson and Michel Desjardins, ed., Text and artifact in the religions of Mediterranean Antiquity, 2000, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 325-339, p. p. 334.
- ^ "Great Maytham Hall, Kent: the most famous garden in literature". National Garden Scheme. 2020-05-26. Retrieved 2021-04-22.
- ^ Lesley Ginsberg, “The Birth-Mark,” “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” and the Ecogothic", - Dawn Keetley and Matthew Wynn Sivils. ed., Ecogothic in Nineteenth-Century American Literature, Routledge, 2017, 114-133, p. 115.
Further reading
- Walled Kitchen Gardens - Susan Campbell - Google Books
- The Elements of Organic Gardening: Highgrove, Clarence House, Birkhall - HRH Charles Prince of Wales, Stephanie Donaldson - Google Books
- Garden Plants for Scotland - Kenneth N. E. Cox, Raoul Curtis Machin - Google Books
- The Roman Frontier in Central Jordan: Final Report on the Limes Arabicus ... - S. Thomas Parker - Google Books
- Heaven - Randy C. Alcorn - Google Books
- The Hidden Places Of Ireland - David Gerrard - Google Books
- Georgina Campbell's Ireland for Garden Lovers - Georgina Campbell, Marianne Heron - Google Books