Chirk, July 2014 |
Unlike last month, in February’s tree celebration we’re not
focusing on one particular tree. Instead, we celebrate the Lime Avenue .
Initially, I was confused about the local Lime tree –
where was the fruit? In fact, these are not the citrus trees that produce the
limes that make your caipiroska taste so refreshing. This tree is a completely
different beast, also known as the Linden
tree. That name comes from the Anglo-Saxon word Linde and is the reason many parish and wood names in England are preceded by lynd- or lin- (as in, for
example, Lincolnshire )
– the name refers to the presence, either now or in centuries past, of the Lime
tree. [1]
Great Budworth, November 2014 |
These are perhaps two of the reasons the lime tree
has been used so frequently in the planting of tree-lined avenues, a landscape
design feature that is centuries old. According to Glynis Shaw’s article ‘Tree
Avenues’, one of the oldest tree avenues in Britain is the Spanish Chestnut
avenue at Croft Castle in Herefordshire, which was planted with seeds from the
Spanish Armada wrecks in 1592. [2]
In the 17th and 18th centuries, highly structured
landscape design was the fashion, and tree avenues were a device to extend the
formal design of the gardens around a mansion or castle into the surrounding
parkland. The diarist John Evelyn is credited by many with introducing the idea
of the avenue to England, by praising the French and Dutch plantings he had
seen in his 1664 publication Sylva and subsequently planting the first double
avenue of limes at Sayes Court in Deptford.
Here in Cheshire , we
have several wonderful lime avenues and a lime walk close to where I am
currently living and, last summer, I was also privileged to see the magnificent
planting at Chirk Castle in Wales .
Chirk, July 2014 |
Chirk
Castle
According to the Gardens of Great Britain website, the Lime Avenue at Chirk is the ‘surviving central axis of the seventeenth-century
formal gardens’. Chirk’s magnificent oak-studded parkland was landscaped in the
late eighteenth century by renowned landscape gardener William Emes, who has a
long list of gardens to his credit.
As well as the impressive line-up of trees, I
particularly liked the placement at one end of the avenue of a version of the
Farnese Hercules, one of the most famous statues of antiquity. This particular
copy, cast in lead and dating from around 1720, was originally one of a pair of
classical sculptures (the other was a figure of Mars) that stood outside the
castle’s entrance. Hercules was moved to the surrounding woods in 1770 but
relocated (with the help of an RAF helicopter!), restored and repositioned as a
focal point for vistas up the Lime
Avenue in 1983. A visit to Chirk is a must-do!
Lyme Park, July 2014 |
Returning to Cheshire ,
last summer I also enjoyed a superb day out at Lyme Park ,
with its 300-year-old Lime Avenue . According to English Heritage, 'The partial imposition of a geometric plan upon the park, with avenues
and viewpoints, took place before 1676. It has been suggested that it was
conceived by Richard Legh (1634-87), who was probably familiar with the work of
the leading French landscape designer Andre Mollet (d c 1665).The principal
view down the Lime Avenue
formed the central spoke of a patte d'oie
which radiated from the Hall. One lateral spoke focussed on Paddock Cottage to
the south-west, the other on Game Keeper's House, at Bowstones, to the
south-east.'
The original Lime Avenue was replanted in the 1840s
but has also been receiving some much-needed maintenance in more recent years.
For those fascinated by the details, the methodology and mechanism behind this
maintenance are discussed in Samantha Gibson’s article ‘Exploring Every Avenue’.
Marbury, November 2014 |
Aston Park, February 2015 |
The rather grand country house at Aston Park
was built in 1715 and seems originally to have been part of nearby Arley Estate
as the Warburton family of Arley Hall lived at Aston Park
between 1755 and 1763 while their own hall was being modernised.
In his1903
book Picturesque Cheshire, Thomas
Coward is of the opinion that the house ‘must have been more
interesting still when it had its old front—for the front is much later than
the rambling back—and its avenue of stately firs, which were replaced by the
limes.’ I haven’t been able to establish when the limes replaced the firs.[3]
Tatton Park, July 2014 |
With a Tudor-era Old Hall and a Neo-Classical
Mansion set in 50 acres of landscaped
gardens and 1000 acres of parkland, Tatton Park is one of Cheshire ’s gems. At about the same time as the earlier house was being
remodelled, between 1780 and 1813, the surrounding parklands were also being
sculpted by the hand of man. Though a movement towards a more free-flowing
landscape had by then largely replaced the earlier more rigid structural designs,
the planting of lime avenues was still popular and the double Lime Avenues at Tatton Park
are an excellent example, having been created during the latter part of the
eighteenth century. [4] Humphry Repton
is the landscape designer credited with ‘re-routing
roads, sweeping away hedges and buildings and then planting thousands of trees
and shrubs’. [5]
Great Budworth, January 2015 |
Great
Budworth
Rather than a grand estate, Great Budworth is a small
village of ancient cottages, clustered on a hillside not far from Northwich.
And, rather than a grand avenue of limes, Great Budworth has a most beautiful
lime-lined walkway no more than a couple of metres wide. Though parts of the
village are much older, the village formed part of Arley Hall estate from 1469
right through to the 1940s, when much of the estate was sold off. I have not
been able to find any information about the planting of the limes, but I assume
the village’s close relationship with Arley may be the reason we can now enjoy
a stroll down this sublime avenue.
Great Budworth, February 2015 |
[1] Richard Mabey, Flora Britannica, Sinclair-Stevenson, London , 1996, pp.116-19.
[2] Glynis Shaw, ‘Tree Avenues’, Welsh Historic Gardens Trust Bulletin,
LXII, March 2012.
[3] T. A. Coward, Picturesque Cheshire, Sherratt
and Hughes, London and Manchester , 1903, p.79.
[4] Maggie Campbell-Culver, A Passion for Trees: The Legacy of John
Evelyn, Eden Project Books, Random House, London , 2006, p.126.
[5] Norman Bilsborough, The Treasures of Cheshire, Shanleys Printers, Bolton ,
1991, p.121.
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