Category Archives: Gardens
English Gardens: 19th-Century Brodsworth Hall In South Yorkshire
The mid-19th-century Gardens of Brodsworth Hall in South Yorkshire are striking. House and grounds are a perfect complement of Italianate green architecture and are linked by formal terraces with three staircases decorated by marble urns and recumbent — probably Italian — greyhounds acquired by the Italian sculptor Chevalier G. M. Casentini.
If this all feels rather unlikely in Yorkshire, that is because it reflects the taste of one man, Charles Sabine Augustus Thellusson, who came into an extraordinary inheritance in 1858 and devoted much of it to creating the hall and its gardens in his own personal style.
‘Today, he would be an oligarch,’ says Michael Klemperer, senior gardens advisor for the North and Midlands regions at English Heritage (EH), which now looks after house and gardens. ‘The money he received from the will was £700,000, which, with interest, equates to £140 million today.’ With the cash came the estate that had belonged to his great-grandfather Peter Thellusson, a Swiss financier, who had moved to London in 1760 and built up a fortune as a merchant and banker.
Charles Thellusson was an avid traveller, sailor and photographer. ‘He was a big, robust Victorian gentleman, a patrician walrus,’ notes Dr Klemperer, who sees Brodsworth as representing a transition between Continental styles and the Victorian era. ‘It is a garden that is interesting on a number of levels,’ he adds, citing influences as varied as Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) and Blackpool pier.
Views: How Dandelions Conquered The World
This master engineer uses advanced aerodynamics to conquer vast territories. This is the Dandelion.
Dandelion is a plant with yellow flowers. Taraxacum officinale is the most common variety of this plant, and it grows in many parts of the world. Botanists consider dandelions to be herbs. People use the leaves, stem, flower, and root of the dandelion for medicinal purposes.
British Estates: St. Peter’s House, Island Of Jersey
A traditional country property with about 20 acres of grounds, St Peter’s House is ideal for a buyer looking for a private retreat.
The interiors are full of charming features, including original panelling, moulded ceilings, stained glass and working fireplaces. The main residence has a striking reception hall with minstrel gallery, five elegant reception reception rooms, five main bedrooms and four secondary ones.
Garden Walks: Kamakura Hydrangea Temple, Japan
Kamakura is one of the most popular day trip destinations for both Tokyoites and tourists, uniting the beauty of nature with the majesty of history. It’s a stunning place to explore no matter the time of year, but Japan’s rainy season clads the ancient city in a breathtaking dress of blossoming hydrangea flowers. The elegant flowers can be admired at various sites, including the famous Hase-dera Temple. However, there’s only one place so stunning, it earned the nickname “hydrangea temple:” Meigetsu-in. Come with us on a journey to a world full of petals, raindrops, and little discoveries.
Walks: Hydrangeas At Hakusan Shrine, Tokyo
The Ajisai (Hydrangea) at start of summer in Japan are in full bloom at Hakusan Shrine in Tokyo.
Reviews: Pros & Cons Of Indoor Smart Gardens
Can smart gardens really grow delicious vegetables inside your apartment? WSJ asked Timothy Hammond, an urban gardener and educator in Houston, to test out Rise Gardens hydroponic smart garden to see how the vegetables compare with his own outdoor garden. Photo: Ben Hallock for The Wall Street Journal
Walks: Giverny – Monet’s House & Gardens, France
The Fondation Claude Monet is a nonprofit organisation that runs and preserves the house and gardens of Claude Monet in Giverny, France, where Monet lived and painted for 43 years. Monet was inspired by his gardens, and spent years transforming them, planting thousands of flowers.
ItalIan Views: Villa Astor, Sorrento, Amalfi Coast
Villa Astor, the most prestigious property in Sorrento, is a magnificent edifice towering above the Gulf of Naples. The Villa and the distinctive garden, one of the 20 most beautiful gardens in Europe on two hectares (4+ acres) of land, face outwards Naples and the Vesuvio with a sheer drop to the sea.
The three story Villa has large terraces. Moreover, the domain includes an annex, a garden with fountains, lily ponds and a small pool as well as two private accesses to the Mediterranean and several large roman caves. The property includes the remains of a Roman villa and a collection of 145 archaeological pieces of great cultural and historical interest.
English Country Homes: 17th-Century Urchfont Manor In Wiltshire, UK
Within a few years of buying Urchfont Manor in 2013, Chris Legg and Eleanor Jones, with the help of a friend, landscape architect Paul Gazerwitz, had given their home a new vista that unites house and garden, as well as evoking the formal Baroque of the house’s late-17th-century past.
Their aim was to balance historical integrity with the development of a new garden. Continuity would be kept by preserving the garden’s bones, such as the walled garden and the fine trees beyond open lawn to the south and east. Work began on the rectangular walled kitchen garden.
The architecture on this side of the house is engagingly uneven and this is picked up in the new garden, which is neat and formal, but appropriately domestic in scale. The kitchen garden has been laid out afresh, with 16 rectangular patches divided by narrow gravel paths and with a square of four greengages in the centre. Crops are rotated and, every year, one bed celebrates an unusual plant, such as borlotti beans or root ginger. Elsewhere are nurtured asparagus and strawberry beds and a fruit cage with raspberries and gooseberries.
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