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Calendar Girls and Front Covers #7

...wall is a French invention, the idea being that the recessed design element gives an uninterrupted view of the landscape beyond, so a small wall above ground and the rest below ground next to the ditch which also stopped animals jumping into the garden. It was so called due to the element of surprise when people came upon it – ha ha! The Bakewell gates before their repairs   Anyway, back to the girls! Pictures in the house were taken reclining on the sofas in the Library and standing next to suits of armour in the Long Gallery. The shoot took all day and we were allowed to watch some of it and help carry things around the house. My dad didn’t seem to...

Meet the Neighbours - Trentham Gardens #83

...spired by French trends, the landscape architect Charles Bridgeman influenced the layout of Trentham by including wide avenues, a boating lake, a deer park, a causeway and canal which created beautiful gardens for the family to walk around and plenty to do on the water! By 1759, Granville, 2nd Lord Gower was the owner of the park and he engaged the famous landscape designer, ‘Capability’ Brown to redesign the grounds.  The formal gardens, walks and walls were replaced by a mile long serpentine lake with a single island, lawns, sweeping gravelled walks, a bowling green and woodland walks.  All very typical of his style!  A sweeping drive extended up the w...

Victorian Courtship - gloves #92

...This is the second blog in the series on Victorian courtship and is all about the use of gloves. During the Victorian era, gloves were deeply connected to the notion of the “perfect hand” which were to be “shapely, finely made, white with blue vein, taper fingers, rosy nails and slightly arched”.  They were seen as social markers and accordingly, ladies wore gloves which were too small for them in order to shrink their hands. Following an old French practice, glove length was traditionally measured in buttons based on the distance between the base of the thumb and the top edge of the glove.  Until Queen Victoria’s reign gloves were quite short.  F...

Queen Alexandra - my family #50

...after the French Revolution of 1848 and spent some time living in the UK. When the Italo-Turkish War broke out in 1911 she trained as a nurse and cared for wounded soldiers aboard a hospital ship. During the First World War she became the head of the Italian Red Cross nurses and spent much of her time near the front line. She is known for greatly improving sanitary conditions in the military hospitals and was awarded the Italian Silver Medal for Bravery. She also won many other medals during the war and wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty despite her privileged background.    The terrace at Sandringham  Here is a view along the terrace at Sandringham Ho...

Bacon's 'Essay on Gardens' # 56

...from the French 'plesser' which means to plait or interweave. Lime trees were considered the best tree for pleaching and as the trees grew they were trained to form a cover over the path by weaving them together. There are two such walks at Hoar Cross, one at each side of the gardens. The pleached walks of lime were regarded as one of the finest examples in England of that class of work. The pleached 'Lime Tree Walk'   In the gardens typical of this age, between the flower-beds, lead or stone vases were sometimes placed, either filled with flowers or merely for ornament. Fountains were a further feature. Bacon writes, “For fountains, they are a great...

Calendar Girls and Front Covers #7

...wall is a French invention, the idea being that the recessed design element gives an uninterrupted view of the landscape beyond, so, a small wall above ground and the rest below ground next to the ditch which also stopped animals jumping into the garden.  It was so called due to the element of surprise when people came upon it – ha ha! Anyway, back to the girls!  Pictures in the house were taken reclining on the sofas in the Library and standing next to suits of armour in the Long Gallery. The shoot took all day and we were allowed to watch some of it and help carry things around the house.  My dad didn’t seem to mind supervising and was keen to have oth...