| I can't believe that!" said Alice. "Can't you?" the Queen said in a pitying tone. "Try again; draw a long breath, and shut your eyes." Alice laughed. "There's no use trying", she said: "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice", said the Queen. Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) |
Levens Hall
Rising above this Tudor estate is a grey stone Elizabethan mansion with its great square pele tower. Soon after he came to live at Levens Hall in 1688, Colonel Grahme commissioned Monsieur Guillaume Beaumont to reconstruct the garden and park. By 1694 together, with incredible topiary, they had made Levens an object of admiration and amazement. Later, Colonel Grahme's daughter, the Countess of Suffolk and Berkshire, doggedly refused to save money by doing away with the intricate parterre. She insisted on every item of her childhood memories being preserved. The house and garden have subsequently passed down the family with little change to the present owner, Hal Bagot.
Fanciful shapes of yew, both golden and common, and of box, many billowing and mishapen with age, are scattered about. These include spirals, bells, chess pieces and other wierd shapes. Among them beds are filled with bedding plants making brilliant blocks of colour whose boldness goes well with the monumental topiary (Photo 1). Although the extraordinary topiary is the best-known feature of Levens there is more to see. On one side, behind castellated yew hedges, are excellent borders (Photo 2), a herb garden and an ornamental potager. Beaumont's extraordinary beech alley opens out into a giant circle and a path leads to a field with a ha-ha - the first in England and presaging the English Landscape Movement.
There is a delightful small 17th century walled garden containing only plants that would have been available at that time (Photo 3). There is a working exhibition of steam engines and a gift shop. In the park is a herd of black fallow deer, and a small herd of Bagot goats, a rare breed that they are trying to maintain and encourage.
A staff of four gardeners grow and plant the colourful displays of bedding and maintain the many herbaceous borders and lawns. Clipping of the beech hedge starts in mid August and is usually complete by mid October. Clipping of the yew topiary and box edges then continues until December (I have a parterre at my house which entirely descends from clippings from one souvenir box plant bought at their plant nursery in 1994).