Category Archives: Events

Bio-diversity at Great Dixter – a talk by Fergus Garrett

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It was a privilege to welcome back to the April meeting of Aldersbrook Horticultural Society, Fergus Garrett, the Head Gardener at Great Dixter and Chief Executive of The Great Dixter Trust. Fergus is one of the most influential garden designers and horticultural educators in Britain today, he lectures internationally, is an adviser to RHS Wisley, and has received both the RHS Veitch Memorial Medal and the RHS Victoria Medal of Honour for outstanding contribution to the practice of horticulture. He began his talk by telling us about the House at Great Dixter, redesigned and enlarged by Lutyens for the parents of Christopher Lloyd. He spoke about Christopher Lloyd, at work in the garden at Great Dixter from childhood to his death aged 85; he developed the garden into an internationally known garden where new ideas were developed, becoming a hub of horticultural learning. He was the writer of 25 books and columnist for The Guardian and The Observer for many years. 

When Christopher Lloyd died in 2006, Fergus Garrett became Head Gardener and Chief Executive of the Trust that was established. In 2006 the gardeners at Great Dixter stopped using pesticides, used only organic fertiliser, bedded out fewer plants and watered less. Self sown, natural plants thrived like Cow Parsley and Foxgloves and the 3 acres of formal gardens looked more natural. The 35 acres of woodland were managed more effectively by cutting down trees and using the wood for hurdles etc, and in the grassland mosaic planting was introduced encouraging, in both areas, a wider variety of planting to encourage a greater range of wildlife. As a very old garden, Great Dixter has a rich seed bed and is deliberately planted with a long season of layered planting. The planting in the old walls and stone areas provide habitats, as do log piles and green roofs. After working with a number of wildlife groups starting with the British Arachnological Society which Fergus encouraged to come to the garden by offering them a venue for their annual conference once they were there they visited the garden, discovered 77 different species of spider in the compost bins and a species of spider that was last recorded in Sussex in the 1920s. Fergus got money form the Heritage Lottery Fund and commissioned a biodiversity audit led by Andy Phillips who discovered one of the richest sites for biodiversity he’s surveyed in 30 years and also discovered that the greatest range of biodiversity was actually in the 3 acre formal garden not in the surrounding meadows as they had expected. The results of their biodiversity audit is well documented and through their training programmes, the range of students who learn and work at Great Dixter and Fergus and his team’s energy and enthusiasm more and more gardeners are gardening naturally to encourage biodiversity in their own gardens. 

On the 14th June, members of Aldersbrook Horticultural Society will be visiting Great Dixter, and we have been invited to stay later, after the gates have closed, to enjoy the garden in all its glory.

The Gardens of Copped Hall – a talk by Nicola Munday. 

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Nicola Munday

At the March meeting of Aldersbrook Horticultural Society, we were pleased to welcome Nicola Munday, who has been a volunteer at Copped Hall since 1996, in 1995 the Copped Hall Trust was established with the aim of renovating some of the house and surrounding gardens. The parkland is now looked after by Epping Forest. 

Nicola talked us through the history of the Estate, first given to Richard Fitz Aucher by King Henry II in the 1170s, he built a manor house on the land, later in the Middle Ages the estate came under the possession of the Abbot of nearby Waltham Abbey and by the 1530s Copped Hall was a massive hunting lodge. After the monasteries were dissolved by Henry VIII the Hall was bought by Sir Thomas Heneage in 1564, who built an elaborate mansion on the grounds, and it is said that Elizabeth I visited Copped Hall on two occasions. In 1623 the Hall was bought by the Earl of Middlesex who improved the house again with an elaborate gate in the style of Inigo Jones and a turning circle in front of the house. At that time records show that the gardens produced asparagus, cauliflower, apples and yellow tulips (during the time of Tulip Mania). After the English Civil War King Charles II was a fairly regular visitor to the Hall and hunted and dined there often. During those years two fountains and a pool were added as well as a real tennis court. In the 17th and 18th Centuries the house was purchased by a number of aristocratic families and in 1742 John Conyers inherited the house from his father and decided to build a new house on the site but this time in the parish of Epping (the original house was in the Parish of Waltham Abbey). The new house was built between 1751 & 1758, the old one being demolished in 1748. This was a true Georgian house with a landscaped garden, taking in views across two valleys with a HaHa to keep out deers and other wandering fauna and a four-acre walled garden. 

By the beginning of the 20th Century the Estate was owned by George Wythes who had made his money building railway lines in India but in 1917 the house was gutted by fire caused by an electrical fault. The family moved into Wood House on the estate and during the Second World War the garden was looked after by local women and a couple of men unfit for service. In 1950 the house was sold and stripped of desirable building materials with many statues and pieces of architecture sold to other stately homes. 

In 1995 the Hall and surrounding land was purchased by the Copped Hall Trust – a group of people with the aim of preserving the ground and first floor of the house and some of the gardens. She showed us some lovely pictures of the garden as it is now – from fruit trees in the walled garden, bluebells, in surrounding grassy areas, specimen trees on the lawn and Spring bulbs in the rock garden. We hope to organise a trip to Copped Hall in the Autumn.