I am greatly indebted to Peter Hobbs, the current owner of St Albans Court, for permission to publish an article that he has written based on his research into the history of his gardens.
(An edited version of this article is in Archaeologia Cantiana 138 2017 291-299) Continue reading “c1877 – St Albans Court, Nonington, Kent”
Dear All,
Well, Spring is here, and it’s time to catch up with what’s been going on in the World of Pulham since my Christmas News Letter. Continue reading “The Pulham Memorial New Letter – March ’17”
Just after the publication of ‘Rock Landscapes: The Pulham Legacy’, I received an email from James Brazier, Newsletter Editor of the Margate Civic Society, who wondered if I knew whether James Pulham and Son ever did any work on a set of steps leading down into the cutting at Newgate Gap, in Cliftonville. Continue reading “1901 – Newgate Gap, Margate, Kent”
Welbeck Abbey is about 3½ miles from Worksop, in Nottinghamshire, and its park, which covers more than 2,000 acres, is part of Sherwood Forest. It is the largest of the estates in North Nottinghamshire that are collectively known as the Dukeries, and is one of the few remaining places in England where they survive almost completely unspoiled. [i] Continue reading “1862-67 – Welbeck Abbey, near Worksop, Nottinghamshire”
This is the last of my current series of ‘Sites of the Month’, and I have saved something very special to occupy this slot. It relates to a lovely garden that I would have included in my book, Rock Landscapes: The Pulham Legacy had it not been for the fact that, at the time of preparing for publication, this property was in the process of being sold, and I did not want to offend the potential new owners by including it without their knowledge or permission. Continue reading “1902 – Dutton Homestall, East Grinstead, Sussex”
As far as I know, their projects around the coastal resorts – discussed in Rock Landscapes: The Pulham Legacy – were among the last undertaken by James Pulham and Son. However, there is one more quite major piece of work undertaken during their final years that should be mentioned. It has not been conclusively documented as being by the Pulhams, although the visual evidence is certainly sufficient to satisfy me as to their authenticity unless or until I can be proved wrong. Continue reading “1929-33 – Exbury Gardens, near Southampton, Hampshire”
There is a small, and fairly insignificant entry in James 2’s promotional booklet, Picturesque Ferneries and Rock Garden Scenery, which tells us that the firm built a ‘Dropping Well’ for a Dr Barry, who lived in S E London, in 1874-75 Dr Barry was born in County Down during the 1820a, and studied Medicine at Trinity College, Dublin and the University of Edinburgh, from where he qualified as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1844.[1] Continue reading “1874-75 – An Exciting New Discovery in S.E. London”
Robert Russell Carew – who made his fortune in India growing sugar and producing gin and rum [1] – purchased the mansion at Carpenders Park in 1862, in the area that used to be known as the Woodwalks, near Watford. Continue reading “1891 – Carpenders Park, Watford, Hertfordshire”
This month’s site is something different. In fact, it is something completely unique in my experience, and I was only made aware of it after the publication of my book, ‘Rock Landscapes: The Pulham Legacy’. A lady told me one day that she had recently been to an ‘Open Garden Day’ in Benington, near Stevenage, and wanted to know if I had ever seen the Pulham grotto there? Continue reading “1883-85 – The Rectory, Benington, Hertfordshire”
In 1845 – three years after he created his first ever rock garden for John Warner at ‘Woodlands’, in Hoddesdon – James 2 was awarded his first landscaping commission by William Robert Baker to build a rockery and rose garden at his imposing Georgian and Regency mansion at Bayfordbury, on the outskirts of Hertford. Continue reading “1845 – Bayfordbury, near Hertford, Hertfordshire”
Bushey House was owned by a prosperous London solicitor, Mr George Lake between c1865 and 1899. He wasted no time in improving and renovating the house – a project that included the installation of a gas works to light the house, and a mains water system to supply the cistern, bathroom and toilets. Nothing much else is known about Mr Lake, apart from the fact that he was partly responsible for ensuring that the Almshouses in Bushey were ‘completed on time’. [i] Continue reading “1901-03 – Bushey House, Bushey, Hertfordshire”
On the edge of Bolton, in Greater Manchester, there is a splendid, rambling Elizabethan manor house called Smithills Hall. It is one of the oldest halls in Lancashire – part of it actually dates back to the reign of King John in the 14th century, and it has been added to progressively since that time. Continue reading “1873 – Smithills Hall, Bolton, Lancashire”
This article is an extract from James Pulham in Scotland, previously published in The Rock Garden Magazine #131, in July 2013
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The final currently known Pulham site in Scotland is Dunira, near Comrie, in Perthshire, of which very little now remains. Like Mount Stuart – see Site of the Moth #50, Jul 15 – these gardens were designed by one of the greatest English landscape artists of all time, Thomas Mawson, and they were also one of the very few gardens constructed by James Pulham and Son after the First World War. Continue reading “1922-23 – Dunira, near Comrie, Perthshire”
Ware Park was only a few miles from the Pulhams’ headquarters in Broxbourne, and comes under the general heading of ‘small projects’. The land on which they worked – at what is now Ware Park – used to be associated with the stable block of Ware Park Manor, which, strangely enough, is located in what is now known as the Hertford suburb of Bengeo.[i]
Continue reading “1880 – Ware Park Manor, Hertford, Hertfordshire”
This article is an extract from James Pulham in Scotland, previously published in The Rock Garden Magazine #131, in July 2013
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James Pulham and Son worked with the eminent landscape architect, Thomas Mawson, on a number of occasions. Their first collaboration was in Belle Vue Park, Newport, Monmouthshire, in 1893 – the first contract that Mawson was awarded for a municipal park project – and they evidently got on well because, when the 3rd Marquess of Bute commissioned Mawson to design a new garden for him to the west of his house at Mount Stuart in 1898, he invited James 2 to work with him again. Continue reading “1898 – Mount Stuart, Argyll and Bute”
Sir Joseph Whitwell Pease Bart – M.P. for South Durham, and grandson of Edward Pease, the ‘Father of the Railways’ – lived in Hutton Hall, near Guisborough, Cleveland, a small market town on the Northern edge of the North Yorkshire Moors, and in 1868 he commissioned James Pulham and Son to construct: Continue reading “1868-74 – Hutton Hall, Guisborough, North Yorkshire”
Baron Lionel de Rothschild – of the famous international banking family, and owner of Gunnersbury Park, in London (see ‘Site of the Month’ #15 – Aug 12) – bought Halton estate, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, in 1853. He did nothing of any significance with it, however, and eventually gave it to his middle son, Alfred, a bachelor and confirmed city dweller.[i] Continue reading “1882 – Halton House, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire”
Mr George Villies purchased ‘Piggots Manor’ in 1884, demolished the small house, and constructed the mock-Tudor building that still stands in its place. George Harrison, the ‘Quiet Beatle’, purchased it in 1973, and presented it as a gift to ISKCON – the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. [i] They renamed the property ‘Bhaktivedanta Manor’, after the Society’s founder, and it continues to serve as the Society’s Headquarters in Britain. Continue reading “1889 – ‘Piggots Manor’, Letchmore Heath, Hertfordshire”
The area of Wigan around Mesnes Park is traditionally known as The Mesnes, after the old manorial demesne land. It was purchased for the Wigan Corporation for £2,000 by the then Mayor, Nathaniel Eckersley, a local mill owner, under the Wigan Rectory Glebe Act of 1871, with provisions for a public park and a Grammar School in the southwest corner. The total area of the land was approximately thirty acres, and responsibility for its development was delegated to a sub-committee of the Council. Continue reading “1878 – Mesnes Park, Wigan, Lancashire”
Edward George Lind bought the Sundridge estate in 1792, and called in Humphry Repton to advise on the landscape. He recommended that the old house should be re-sited on the opposite side of the valley, and that the surrounding farmland should be converted into a park, but, before any improvements had been made to the estate, Lind sold the property to Claude Scott, a wealthy corn merchant, who accepted Repton’s recommendations, and had the new mansion built. Continue reading “1873-74 – Sundridge Park, Bromley, Kent”
There are two small examples of the Pulhams’ work in the Palace Gardens – now the Town Hall and Civic Centre – in Bromley, Kent. A plan of the gardens, with the Pulham sites marked, is shown in Fig 1. Continue reading “1865-71 – Bromley Palace Gardens, Kent”
Chapters 1 and 2 of Rock Landscapes: The Pulham Legacy deals with the early years in the lives and work of the Pulham family, but there was insufficient space available to go into too much detail about their building projects with Thomas Smith. The purpose of this month’s ‘Site of the Month’ feature is to fill in some of the gaps. Continue reading “1827-49 – Working with Thomas Smith”
During the late 1850s, James Harvey Insole – a young colliery proprietor – built a small country house for himself in Llandaff, a leafy suburb of Cardiff. It was near Ely Road, so he named it Ely Court, but it later became known as Insole Court. Continue reading “1878-98 – Insole Court, Llandaff, Cardiff”
This is a very special ‘Site of the Month’, because it introduces a previously unrecorded Pulham site that has just been brought to my attention. I received an enquiry a few months ago from Heather Dyke, whose father, Nicholas Morland, currently owns Court Lodge, in Lamberhurst, Kent. Continue reading “1868-80s – Court Lodge, Lamberhurst, Kent”
Thomas Brassey – the railway magnate – purchased Heythrop Park as a wedding present for his son, Alfred, in 1869. He then commissioned Alfred Waterhouse, the Quaker architect who was also responsible for the design of the Natural History Museum, Strangeways Prison and Pierremont Park in Darlington, Co Durham Continue reading “1880 – Heythrop Park, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire”
At about the same time that he was completing his commission at Belle Vue Park, in Newport, Monmouthshire – see Chapter 20 in Rock Landscapes: The Pulham Legacy – Thomas Mawson was awarded contracts for the design of Hanley Park and Burslem Park in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, for which he again involved the Pulhams for the construction of some rockwork features. Continue reading “1894-98 – The Parks in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire”
Bletchley Park, fifty miles northwest of London, became the home of Herbert Leon, a wealthy City of London financier, stockbroker, newspaper proprietor, company director and MP. He built the mansion as a home for his family in 1883, and developed sixty acres of the surrounding land into a country estate. The Gardeners’ Chronicle reported in 1893 that, in ten years, Sir Herbert had: Continue reading “1885-93 – Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire”
In an Appendix to his booklet, Picturesque Ferneries and Rock Garden Scenery, James 2 lists quite a number of clients for whom the firm built ‘large’ or ‘small’ ferneries, although these were invariably for private clients whose houses no longer exist, or are difficult to trace. Since the booklet was published c1877, it obviously provides no references to any work done after that date.
Thanks to some of those invaluable pieces of ‘information received’, it has been possible to identify later Pulham ferneries, some of which – such as the ones at Dewstow, Merrow Grange and Warren House – are described in Rock Landscapes: The Pulham Legacy. This article discusses two more that are well worthy of mention. One is still in excellent condition, and the other is not, but that is not the only comparison that can be made between these ferneries and their owners . . . Continue reading “1887-91 – A Tale of Two Ferneries”
John Walter II, the then chief proprietor of The Times newspaper, purchased the 8,000 acre Bearwood estate in Wokingham, Berkshire, in 1816, and commissioned William Gilpin to landscape the gardens between 1819-20 – a commission inherited by David Stewart c1822.[i] Continue reading “1879-85 – Bearwood College, Wokingham, Berkshire”
Right in the centre of Brighton’s seafront, in Sussex, is what is now known as the Sea Life Centre. It started life as ‘The Aquarium’, and was officially opened to the public by H.R.H. Prince Arthur in 1872, and has drawn more than fifty million visitors from both England and abroad throughout its long and varied history. Continue reading “1872-75 – The Aquarium, Brighton, Sussex”
There is a small, little-known public space in New Barnet that was once a private garden, where James Pulham and Son went in 1871 to construct a . .
‘Rocky bank, forming cliff, with Dropping Well. For Ferns, Alpines and Shrubs’ Continue reading “1871-1906 – Highland Gardens, New Barnet, Greater London”
One of James 2’s more local patrons of the 1860s was Robert Hanbury, who lived at Hanbury Manor, Poles Park, near Ware, in Hertfordshire, about five miles from the manufactory. Robert Hanbury – a senior partner in Truman, Hanbury and Buxton, one of the biggest brewing firms in London at that time – inherited Hanbury Manor in 1847. He was a keen horticulturist, and, in 1865, engaged James 2 to construct a:
‘Conservatory, fernery and dropping well.’ Continue reading “1865-92 – Poles Park, Ware, Hertfordshire”
One of the church restoration projects with which Pulhams were involved was the Church of St Mary RedcliffeI, Bristol. And what a truly magnificent church this is – having once been referred to by Queen Elizabeth I, while on a visit to Bristol in 1547, as ‘the goodliest, fairest, and most famous parish church in England!’ Continue reading “1845 – Church of St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, Avon”
The ‘Parks Movement’ in Great Britain began during the 1830s and ‘40s as a result of the bad living conditions that had developed in the towns during the early years of the industrial revolution. Continue reading “1864-67 – The Preston Parks, Lancashire”
James 2 died on 11th August 1898, and, in its edition dated 29th August, the ‘Hertfordshire Mercury’ published an obituary that reads:
‘We regret to announce the death of My James Pulham (the head of the well-known firm of Pulham and Son) terracotta manufacturers and rock workers, of Finsbury Square and Broxbourne, which took place, after about a week’s illness, on the 11th inst at Tottenham, where he had resided for the last fifteen years. Continue reading “1896 – Knebworth House, Hertfordshire”
James Pulham and Son only worked on a small number of sites outside mainland Britain, and only four of these were in Eire – St Anne’s, Clonart; Mount Coote, Limerick; Glenart Castle, Co Wicklow, and St Stephen’s Green, in Dublin, which is the best preserved, and the subject of this article. Continue reading “1880 – St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin”
Charles Dyson Perrins was educated at Charterhouse and Queen’s College, Oxford, after which he spent four years in the army before entering the family firm of Lea and Perrins, of Worcestershire Sauce fame. He was only 23 when his father died in 1887 and he inherited the family fortune, but, like his father, he recognised that, with wealth, came responsibilities. He married his first wife in 1889, and followed his father as a Director of Royal Worcester Porcelain in 1891, becoming Mayor of Worcester in 1897, and High Sheriff of Worcestershire in 1899. Continue reading “1901-05 – ‘Davenham’, Malvern, Worcestershire”
The Pulham Legacy 