People : Christopher Lloyd, Great Dixter’s Founder and Gardening Impressario……

Christopher Hamilton Lloyd, OBE (2 March 1921 – 27 January 2006) was a British gardener and author. He was the 20th Century chronicler for the heavily planted, labour-intensive, country garden.

Life

Lloyd was born in Great Dixter, into an upper-middle-class family, the youngest of six children. In 1910, his father, Nathaniel Lloyd (an Arts and Crafts designer of posters and other images for confectionery companies), purchased Great Dixter, a manor house in Northiam, East Sussex near the south coast of England. Edwin Lutyens was hired to renovate and extend the gardens attached to the house. Nathaniel Lloyd loved gardens, designed some of the garden himself, and imparted that love to his son. Lloyd learned the skills required of a gardener from his mother Daisy, who did the actual gardening and who introduced him to Gertrude Jekyll.

After Rugby School, he attended King’s College, Cambridge, where he read modern languages before entering the Army during World War II. After the war he received his bachelors in Decorative Horticulture (Designing and Planning) from Wye College, University of London, in 1949. He stayed on there as an assistant lecturer in Horticulture until 1954.

In 1954, Lloyd moved home to Great Dixter and set up a nursery, specialising in unusual plants. He regularly opened the house and gardens to the public.

In 1979 Lloyd received the Victoria Medal of Honour, the highest award of the Royal Horticultural Society, for his promotion of gardening and his extensive work on their Floral Committee. Lloyd was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Open University in 1996 and was appointed as an officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2000.

Philosophy

Lloyd was firmly rooted in the Arts and Crafts style of garden. In most ways he was, like his mother and Gertrude Jekyll, a practical gardener. He said “I couldn’t design a garden. I just go along and carp.” Despite his extensive work with flowers, he had an appreciation for the garden as a whole. He also understood human nature. One professional gardener likes to quote Lloyd from his book Foliage Plants where he says: “For it is an indisputable fact that appreciation of foliage comes at a later stage in our education, if it comes at all”.

Oeuvre

Lloyd rapidly felt the need to share his gardening discoveries and published The Mixed Border in 1957, which was followed by Clematis in 1965 and The Well-Tempered Garden in 1970. Lloyd had begun a book on the use of exotic plants in British gardens when he died, his gardening friends and colleagues completed the book, Exotic Planting for Adventurous Gardeners, in 2007.

Great Dixter his house in Northiam, East Sussex, England. Was built in 1910–12 by architect Edwin Lutyens, who combined an existing mid-15th century house on the site with a similar structure brought from Benenden, Kent, together with his own additions. It is a Grade I listed building. The garden, widely known for its continuous tradition of sophisticated plantsmanship, is Grade I listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

House

The original Northiam house, known as Dixter, dating from the mid-15th century, was acquired by a businessman named Nathaniel Lloyd in 1909. He had a 16th-century house in a similar style moved from Kent and the two were combined with new work by Lutyens to create a much larger house, which was rechristened Great Dixter. It is a romantic recreation of a medieval manor house, complete with great hall, parlour, solar and yeoman’s hall.

Garden

Lloyd and Lutyens began the garden at Great Dixter, but it was Lloyd’s son Christopher Lloyd, a well known garden writer and television personality, who made it famous. The garden is in the arts and crafts style, and features topiary, a long border, an orchard and a wild flower meadow. The planting is profuse, yet structured, and has featured many bold experiments of form, colour and combination. The garden is currently managed by Fergus Garrett, who worked closely with Lloyd up until his death in 2006 as Head Gardener and introduced a number of innovations into the planting scheme.

In the grounds of Great Dixter are three 18th-century oast houses, under a common roof, and a 15th-century barn. These are Grade II* listed.

Hidden London : Waterlow Park , Who remembers Mott The Hoople ………..?

Waterlow Park is a 26-acre (11 ha) park in the south east of Highgate Village, in North London. It was given to the public by Sir Sydney Waterlow, as “a garden for the gardenless” in 1889.

Lauderdale House is at the edge of the park, used as a tea room and for functions and arts events; none of the interior remains in its original state. It is a much modified very old timber framed house, dating back to the sixteenth century. It is surrounded by formal gardens.

Set on a hillside, the park is set amongst ponds and offers views across the City of London.

It is managed by the London Borough of Camden. After extensive vandalism and neglect it was restored in 2005.

It was referenced by Ian Hunter of Mott the Hoople in their song “Waterlow”, from the 1971 album “Wildlife”.

India : The Amber Palace and Maota Gardens, Elephants Take you up this Jewel In The Crown of Jaipur

Amer Palace (also spelled and pronounced as Amber) is located in Amer (a town with an area of 4 square kilometres (1.5 sq mi), 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) from Jaipur, Rajasthan state, India. It is the principal tourist attractions in the Jaipur area, located high on a hill. Amer Fort was built by Raja Man Singh I. Amer Fort is known for its artistic style of Hindu elements. With its large ramparts, series of gates and cobbled paths, the fort overlooks the Maota Lake, at its forefront.

The aesthetic ambiance of the palace is seen within its walls on a four level layout plan (each with a courtyard) in a well turned out opulent palace complex built with red sandstone and marble consisting of the Diwan-e-Aam or the “Hall of Public Audience”, the Diwan-e-Khas or the “Hall of Private Audience”, the Sheesh Mahal (mirror palace) or Jai Mandir, and the Sukh Niwas where a cool climate is artificially created by winds that blow over the water cascade within the palace. Hence, the Amer Fort is also popularly known as the Amer Palace. The palace was lived in by the Rajput Maharajas and their families. At the entrance to the palace near the fort’s Ganesh Gate, there is also a temple dedicated to Sila Devi, a goddess of the Chaitanya cult which was given to Raja Man Singh when he had defeated the Raja of Jessore, Bengal in 1604. (Jessore is now in Bangladesh).

This palace along with Jaigarh Fort, located immediately above on the Cheel ka Teela (Hill of Eagles) of the same Aravalli range of hills, is considered as one complex, as the two are well connected by a subterranean passage. This passage was meant as an escape route in times of war for the royal family members and others in the Amer Fort to shift to the more redoubtable Jaigarh Fort.

Annual tourist visitation to the Amer Palace in Amer town was reported by the Superintendent of Department of Archaeology and Museums to the Amer Palace as 5000 visitors a day, and 1.4 million visitors were reported during 2007.

Earlier to the Kachwahas, Amer was a small place built by Meenas in the town they consecrated to Amba, the Mother Goddess, whom they knew as `Gatta Rani’ or `Queen of the Pass’. The Amer Fort, as it stands now, was built over the remnants of this earlier structure during the reign of Raja Man Singh, the Kacchwaha King of Amber. The structure was fully expanded by his descendant, Jai Singh I. Even later, Amer Fort underwent improvements and additions by successive rulers over the next 150 years, until the Kachwahas shifted their capital to Jaipur during the time of Sawai Jai Singh II, in 1727.

Many of the ancient structures of the medieval period of the Meenas have been either destroyed or replaced. However, the 16th century impressive edifice of the Amer Fort and the palace complex within it built by the Rajput Maharajas are very well preserved.

Take over of Amber Fort by Kachwahas According to Todthis region was known as Khogong. The Meena King Raja Ralun Singh also known as Alan Singh Chanda of Khogong kind-heartedly adopted a stranded Rajput mother and her child who sought refuge in his realm. Later, the Meena king sent the child, Dhola Rae, to Delhi to represent the Meena kingdom. The Rajput, in gratitude for these favours, returned with Rajput conspirers and massacred the weaponless Meenas on Diwali while performings rituals i.e. Pitra Trapan, it is customery in the Meenas to be weaponless at the time of PitraTrapan, “filling the reservoirs in which the Meenas bathed with their dead bodies” [Tod.II.281] and thus conquered Khogong.This act of Kachwaha Rajputs was termed as most coward and shameful in history of Rajasthan.

The first Rajput structure was started by Raja Kakil Dev when Amber became his capital in 1036 on the site of present day Jaigarh Fort of Rajasthan. Much of Amber’s current buildings were started or expanded during the reign of Raja Man Singh I in the 1600s. Among the chief building is the Diwan-i-Khas in Amber Palace of Rajasthan and the elaborately paited Ganesh Poll built by the Mirza Raja Jai Singh I.

The current Amer Palace, was created in the late 16th century, as a larger palace to the already existing home of the rulers. The older palace, known as Kadimi Mahal ( persian for ancient) is known to be the oldest surviving palace in India. This ancient palace sits in the valley behind the Amer Palace. Amer was known in the medieval period as Dhundar (meaning attributed to a sacrificial mount in the western frontiers) and ruled by the Kachwahas from the 11th century onwards – between 1037 and 1727 AD, till the capital was moved from Amer to Jaipur. The history of Amer is indelibly linked to these rulers as they founded their empire at Amer.

Earlier to the Kachwahas, Amer was a small place built by [Meenas] in the town they consecrated to Amba, the Mother Goddess, whom they knew as `Gatta Rani’ or `Queen of the Pass’. The Amer Fort, as it stands now, was built over the remnants of this earlier structure during the reign of Raja Man Singh, the Kacchwaha King of Amber. The structure was fully expanded by his descendant, Jai Singh I. Even later, Amer Fort underwent improvements and additions by successive rulers over the next 150 years, until the Kachwahas shifted their capital to Jaipur during the time of Sawai Jai Singh II, in 1727.

Many of the ancient structures of the medieval period of the Meenas have been either destroyed or replaced. However, the 16th century impressive edifice of the Amer Fort and the palace complex within it built by the Rajput Maharajas are very well preserved.

Garden

The garden, located between the Jai Mandir on the east and the Sukh Niwas on the west, both built on high platforms in the third courtyard, was built by Mirza Raja Jai Singh (1623–68). It is patterned on the lines of the Chahar Bagh or Mughal Garden. It is in sunken bed, shaped in a hexagonal design. It is laid out with narrow channels lined with marble around a star shape pool with a fountain at the centre. Water for the garden is led from the Sukh Niwas cascades of water channel and also from the cascade channels called the “chini khana niches” that originate from terrace of the Jai Mandir.

Hidden London : Nunhead Cemetery, and Nature Reserve, home to the living as well as the dead. 52 Acres and still has Views of St Pauls Cathederal.

Nunhead Cemetery is one of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries in London, England. It is perhaps the least famous and celebrated of them. The cemetery is located in the Nunhead area of southern London and was originally known as All Saints’ Cemetery. Nunhead Cemetery was consecrated in 1840 and opened by the London Necropolis Company. It is a Local Nature Reserve.

Location
The Main Gate (North Gate) is located on Linden Grove (near the junction with Daniel’s Road) and the South Gate is located on Limesford Road. The cemetery is in the London Borough of Southwark, SE15.

History and description
Consecrated in 1840, with an Anglican chapel designed by Thomas Little, it is one of the Magnificent Seven Victorian cemeteries established in a ring around what were then the outskirts of London. The first burial was of Charles Abbott, a 101 year old Ipswich grocer; the last burial was of a volunteer soldier who became a canon of Lahore Cathedral.The first grave in Nunhead was dug in October 1840. The average annual number of burials there over the last ten years, has been 1685: 1350 in the consecrated, and 335 in the unconsecrated ground.

The cemetery contains examples of the imposing monuments to the most eminent citizens of the day, which contrast sharply with the small, simple headstones marking common or public burials. By the middle of the 20th century the cemetery was nearly full, and so was abandoned by the United Cemetery Company. With the ensuing neglect, the cemetery gradually changed from lawn to meadow and eventually to woodland. It is now a Local Nature Reserve and Site of Metropolitan Importance for wildlife, populated with songbirds, woodpeckers and tawny owls. A lack of care and cash surrendered the graves to the ravages of nature and vandalism, but in the early 1980s the Friends of Nunhead Cemetery were formed to renovate and protect the cemetery.

The cemetery was reopened in May 2001 after an extensive restoration project funded by Southwark Council and the Heritage Lottery Fund. Fifty memorials were restored along with the Anglican Chapel.

Notable burials
Charles Abbott, the 101 year old Ipswich grocer and Charterhouse brother
Sir Frederick Abel, Cordite co-inventor
George John Bennett, 1800–1879, English Shakespearian actor
William Brough, 1826–1870, writer and playwright
Edward John Eliot, 1782–1863, Peninsula War soldier
Jenny Hill, Music hall performer
Thomas Tilling, bus tycoon
Alfred Vance, English Music hall performer

Layout and other structures
At 52 acres, it is the second largest of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries. Views across London include St Paul’s Cathedral.

The Victorian part of the cemetery is currently in a poor state of repair, being best described as an elegant wilderness; locals like to call it a nature reserve. Many areas of the cemetery are fairly overgrown with vines, as visible in newer tourist photos. Numerous tombstones lean to the side. Although the Friends of Nunhead Cemetery are doing their best to restore some parts of the cemetery it is badly in need of care and funding. It is about 52 acres (210,000 m2) and is a popular place to walk.

The lodges and monumental entrance were designed by James Bunstone Bunning. There is an obelisk, the “Scottish Political Martyrs Memorial”, the second monument (the other is in Edinburgh) dedicated to the leaders of the Friends of the People Society, popularly called the Scottish Martyrs, including Thomas Muir, Maurice Margarot, and Thomas Fyshe Palmer, who were transported to Australia in 1794. It was erected by Radical MP Joseph Hume in 1837. It is immediately on the right on Dissenters Road, when entering through the North Gate.

Percy Baden Powell Huxford (named after but not related to Lord Baden Powell), aged 12, was one of nine Sea Scouts who died in the Leysdown Tragedy off the Isle of Sheppey in 1912. A special memorial was built for these Sea Scouts in this cemetery in 1914, designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. Most of this was removed after vandalism, and only the base remains. A new memorial was erected in 1992 (made possible by the Friends of Nunhead Cemetery).

There are a large number of First and Second World War graves in the cemetery, the greater proportion (580 graves) being Commonwealth service burials from the former war. Most of those are concentrated between three war graves plots: the United Kingdom plot (Square 89), holding 266 graves, the Australian plot which holds 23 graves, and the Canadian plot (Square 52) which holds 36 graves including burials of South African and New Zealand servicemen. Those buried in the UK plot and in individual graves outside the three plots are, because of not being marked by headstones, listed by name on a Screen Wall memorial inside the cemetery’s main entrance. A second Screen Wall lists 110 Commonwealth service personnel of the Second World War who are buried in another war graves plot (Square 5), and elsewhere whose graves could not be marked by headstones. There is also a Belgian war grave of the First World War.

A conducted tour of the cemetery is run by the Friends of Nunhead Cemetery, open to all, on the last Sunday of each month, starting from the Linden Grove gates at 2:15 p.m. At the centre of the cemetery is a derelict chapel, its roof gone but its stone walls intact.

In media
The cemetery is the setting for the Victorian poet Charlotte Mew’s exploration of death, insanity and social alienation In Nunhead Cemetery and is the setting for Maurice Riordan’s final poem, The January Birds in The Holy a d, his 2007 collection. The Woman Between the Worlds, a 1994 science fiction novel by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre set in Victorian England, depicts the burial at Nunhead Cemetery in 1898 (in a closed coffin) of a female extraterrestrial. The novel avoids citing a precise location for this grave, in case some reader believes that alien remains can be retrieved from the site.

The cemetery also featured in Episode 2 of the 2008 BBC series Spooks, although it was credited as Highgate Cemetery.

The cemetery features in a number of scenes in the 1971 movie Melody.

St Just In Roseland Church : A Cornish Church With Its Own Tropical Gardens………. Stunning !

St Just in Roseland Church is probably Cornwall’s most photographed church, and arguably one of its most beautiful. The 13th century Church is built right beside the water on a tidal creek.
There is a local legend that Joseph of Arimathaea brought the boy Jesus to Cornwall, and that he landed at St Just in Roseland . St Just in Roseland church is on the site of a 5th century Celtic chapel, the churchyard slopes steeply upwards behind the church. For some 400 years after its foundation, the church was served by Celtic clergy from the adjacent cell of Lanzeague, until Roseland was taken from the Celtic Church by the Saxon Bishops of Cornwall, Crediton and Exeter.
Robert Bishop of Exeter, gave St Just Church to the Canons of Plympton Priory in 1140. But the patronage was bought back in 1190 by John le Sor, Lord of Tolverne for a yearly sum of 13s 4d, which would be paid out of the Benefice to the Priory. This sum is still paid by the Rectors of St Just to the successors in title of the last Prior, who is represented today by the patrons of the living.
The present church was dedicated to St Just on 14th August 1261, by Walter, Bishop of Exeter, and The Chancel with its double piscina is of this date. The parish registers date from 1538.
In the will of John Randall Esq. who died July 23rd 1733, a sum of 50p was bequeathed for the rector of the church to preach a funeral sermon on annually for the next 1000 years.
A 19th century vicar brought in many tropical plants, and the combination of the church on the water’s edge and the wonderful flowers and shrubs in the churchyard are what gives the church its uniqueness. The path down to the Church from the road is lined with granite blocks which are carved with quotations and verses taken from the Bible.
The arcade has seven obtuse arches of granite supported on monolith pillars of the same material. There is a south porch, the entrance arch of which is panelled, a vestry door and a priest’s door. The tower is buttressed at the angles, and embattled, having a the corners stump pinnacles. It contains three bells. The oldest bell was hung in 1684, It has the names of the two church wardens, a small three quartered figure of Charles II, and two copper coins of his reign cast on the bell. There are north and south entrances to the churchyard through Lych gates.

This Place is tranquil, beautiful and very atmospheric and i never tire of visiting here and sharing it with my friends.

Hidden London : Amazing Ecology Park in the Shadow of Canary Wharf

Stave Hill is an artificial hill adjacent to the 5.2-acre (21,000 m²) Stave Hill Ecological Park, it is part of Russia Dock Woodland, and is located in Rotherhithe, London. The woodland park occupies land that was previously Russia Dock and Stave Dock, both part of the Surrey Commercial Docks, which were filled in during the mid-1980s and then redeveloped by the London Docklands Development Corporation.

Stave Hill itself is a 30-foot (9.1 m) high artificial mound in the shape of a truncated cone, with a viewing platform and relief map of the former docks in cast bronze by Michael Rizzello at the top. It provides remarkable views over Canary Wharf, the City of London, and much of south and central London; on clear days the view stretches as far as Wembley Stadium.

It was created in 1985 by the LDDC, using spoil (waste material and rubble) from the works to fill and landscape the areas formerly occupied by commercial docks.

Stave Hill Ecological Park is managed by TCV Urban Ecology as a nature reserve, educational facility, research area and place of recreation. The Park has been designed and managed to form a mosaic of grassland, woodland, scrub and wetland habitats which support a wide variety of wildlife.

This mosaic of habitats have been created from scratch by sowing and planting the poor soil. In some places it has been improved or altered by the addition of sand, spent mushroom compost and a variety of mulches. The Park is intensively managed to conserve the wide variety of wildlife that colonised the area during the years the docks lay derelict and provide a haven for some of the species that lived here before humans so changed the land.

Hidden London : Peckham Rye and Sexby Gardens a Little Oasis

Lakes and Foul

Pergola

Touchs of the Victorian Past

Stunning Dragonfly Bench

Specimen Trees

Rivers and rivulets

Central Fountain is one of many water features

Mark and Stella under the Pergola

Colour and Fragrance

Plantsmans delight

York Paving winds through the beds and borders

Beautiful Day Lillies

Acanthus

Peckham Rye is an open space and road in the London Borough of Southwark in London, England. The roughly triangular open space, managed by Southwark Council, consists of two congruent areas, with Peckham Rye Common to the north and Peckham Rye Park to the south. The road Peckham Rye forms the western and eastern perimeter of the open space. Peckham Rye is also Cockney rhyming slang for tie (necktie).

History

It was on the Rye in the 1760s that the artist William Blake claimed to have seen visions, including one of “a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars. ” The novel The Ballad of Peckham Rye by Muriel Spark is based around this area. The park in the 50’s – 70s was the site for a yearly fair.

The land for Peckham Rye Park was purchased by the London County Council for £51,000 and declared open on 14 May 1894. At that time the park was 54 acres (220,000 m²), 13 acres being occupied by Homestall Farm. One of the first features of the new park, an ornamental ‘Old English Garden’ was created. It was later renamed the ‘Sexby Garden’ after Colonel J.J.Sexby the London County Council’s first Chief Officer of Parks. It was re-developed in 1936 and the paths re-laid with york stone paving.

During World War II, part of the Common became a Prisoner of War camp for Italian prisoners of war.

Today the Park and the Peckham Rye Common provide 113 acres of open space for the public to enjoy.

In 1995 the Friends of Peckham Rye Park was formed. They held their inaugural meeting on the 10th July at Waverley Lower School. The Park was falling into disrepair and neglect. Vandalism (the blight of today’s society) had caused a lot of destruction and other problems, such as flooding of the streams, was taking its toll. It was felt that an action group was needed to stop the Park decaying further. It is one of the most beautiful parks in South London.

A campaign was launched to bid for money from the Heritage Lottery Fund to restore the Park to its former glory. This was successful and the works were started in 2004 and completed in 2005.

The Friends are an important group who care about the Park and the Common. All issues from vandalism to football to the building of the new café for the Park are discussed by the Friends. Ideas and potential problems can then be brought to the attention of the relevant Councillors from Southwark and appropriate action taken.

The restoration of the Park

The greatest achievement of the Friends to date is the restoration of the Park to its former Victorian splendour. FOPRP were responsible for launching the campaign to bid for money from the Heritage Lottery Fund for this restoration, which took many years of hard work but with the help of Southwark Council, the money was granted and the campaign was successful.

The restoration works started in 2004 and were completed in 2005. The works were commissioned and supervised by Chris Blandford Associates and carried out by Waterers Landscape Associates.

The works included:

Drainage of the lake – which involved the removal of all the accumulated silt, rubbish and debris that had collected over the years and made the lake so polluted and dirty. The terrapins and any fish were collected and rehomed.

Clearing the streams and other ponds in the park

Removing all the dead trees and shrubs and replacing with new. This includes the re-creation of the former Elm avenue (see history page)

The total restoration of the Sexby Gardens – one of the largest projects.

Re-building of the bowls pavilion.

Resurfacing of all the paths.

Repair and renewal of all the railings both around and in the Park

New pillars to the main entrance

Installation of a new drainage system to prevent flooding

Various other projects such as repair or rebuilding of bridges, pergolas, water features, rockeries etc.

The restored Park is a joy to the community and a source of civic pride.

One of the terms of the grant from the HLF was that the London Borough of Southwark commit to a 10 year programme of maintenance. This should mean that the works and infrastructure will be maintained to the current standard and it is one of the things that FOPRP members can keep their eye on.

Green Flag status

The Park achieved Green Flag status in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012.