Dear All,
Welcome to my first News Letter of 2018, and I hope you had a happy time over the Christmas break. We had a quiet but enjoyable time, but, as I think you will agree by the time you get to the end of this Letter, quite a lot has been happening at Pulham H Q since then. Continue reading “March ’18 News Letter”
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,
Time flies, doesn’t it? I just can’t believe that it is now three months since my last News Letter, but my calendar assures me that it is, so it must be time to catch up again. I hope you have all had a good summer, and can look forward to a nice warm, comfortable few months ahead. Continue reading “November ’17 News Letter”
Dear All,
It’s been a fascinating few weeks since my last Letter. More people have sent me details and snippets of information for me to pass on, and I’ll get to those in a minute, but, before I do that, I want to start with an item that concerns me personally. Continue reading “August ’17 News Letter”
I have to start this Letter by saying how delighted I am with the reactions I have received to my last two Letters about the Pulham Memorial Project in Broxbourne earlier this year. But it’s now time to catch up with all the other news that has been coming my way over the last few weeks – and what a mailbox I have had! My sincere thanks are due to all my readers who have been in touch with me, and sent me items of varied interest that broadly fall into two main categories – landscape and terracotta – but integrate into a nicely linked sequence.
Dear All,
It is only a few weeks since I published my last News Letter, but a lot is happening at the moment, and I have been able to put quite a Bumper Bundle together for Christmas. We even have two video clips for you to access . . . Continue reading “Christmas 2016 News Letter”
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”
The weather is getting warmer, and summer is on its way. Now is the time to get out the diary, and plan your visits to all those Pulham parks and gardens that you want to see. Or perhaps you will be able to come to meet us at one of our presentations? There are some interesting bookings coming up over the next few months. Continue reading “May 2016 – News Letter”
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”
Dear All,
This is a very special occasion! Two wonderful pictures have come my way over the last few weeks – both from people I had never met or heard from before – and I thought they were both worthy of sharing with you in a special News Letter. Continue reading “March 2016 – News Letter”
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”
Dear All,
It is unusual for me to produce two News Letters within one month of each other, but Christmas is almost upon us, and this one is rather special. Continue reading “Christmas 2015 – News Letter”
Dear All,
The Autumn Season has got off to a flying start for Valerie and myself! Our ‘Pulhams of Broxbourne’ Presentations have gone down very well, and we had a fascinating day in Woodbridge. Let’s get down to the details: Continue reading “November 2015 – News Letter”
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”
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”
Abberley Hall was first brought to my attention in 2011 by one of the Trustees of the Abberley Hall Foundation, who told me that they had a fine example of a Pulham garden, and were putting together an application for a restoration grant from the Country House Foundation. Continue reading “November 2014 – News Letter – Part 2”
Dear All,
I hope you have had an enjoyable summer, and that the following notes relating to our own activities will be of interest.
Following a short summer break, Val and I did a presentation for Hertfordshire Libraries at the Hoddesdon Library on Thursday, 25th September, and another for the Ware Society at the Ware Priory on Wednesday, 29th October. Continue reading “November 2014 – News Letter – Part 1”
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”
People and Places Discussed and Pictured in Chapter 37 of: more
The Pulham Legacy 