The full story of the lives and work of James Pulham and Son is told in Claude Hitching’s forthcoming book,
Rock Landscapes
– The Pulham Legacy –
Ferneries, Follies, Grottoes, Fountains
and Terracotta Garden Ornaments
These web pages are conseqyently only intended to provide a very brief overview of this remarkable firm of landscape artists, and, for ease of reference, are divided between notes about:
- Who They Were, and
- What They Did.
The Pulham Legacy 
Please can you help me? I have visited the Suffolk town of Woodbridge: in the churchyard of St.Mary’s church – the town’s large medieval church -there is a large classical memorial to JAMES PULHAM. Is this the James Pulham who started James Pulham And Son, or a member of the family?
Hello, Robert, and thank you for your enquiry. The answer to your question is No – I was fooled by this myself initially, but then discovered that the memorial relates to another James Pulham altogether. This one was probably a solicitor, or other notable member of the Woodbridge Society, whose wife had her portrait painted by John Constable, but ‘our’ James Pulham was the third of eleven children from a very poor family at the ‘other end of town’, whose father was a shoemaker. It just so happens that there were two James Pulhams walking around Woodbridge at the same time – ant neither of them probably even knew it . . .
Obadiah Pulham was my great, great, great grandfather, but I have little information about the Pulham family tree. I am descended from his daughter Elizabeth, so the Pulham name disappears there. Do you have any family tree information from these times that you would be willing to share? Many thanks. Simon Thompson
Dear Simon,
I don’t have details of all your family down to the current day, and I only know that Elizabeth Pulham married Ezekiel Allen. However, I can put you in touch with one of your relatives who will almost certainly be able to help, and will email you separately. Regards, Claude