Cherie's Place » Topiary

52 Photos Project – Gallery 12 – I Went For a Walk and This is What I Found

CherryPie — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 21:18:42 +0000

On my recent visit to London I walked along Victoria Embankment to visit my first port of call which was Westminster Abbey.

After an enjoyably visit to the Abbey it was time to walk to the nearby London Eye. After the London Eye experience it was time to walk to the tube station and this is one of the things I saw along the way.

More ‘This is what I found’ can be seen in the gallery.

PS: This is my final photo in the London series

Wenlock Priory – St Michael’s Chapel

CherryPie — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:06:07 +0000

The chapel is on the first floor and is not open to the public. Like first-floor chapels at other priories it is dedicated to St Michael and would have been used by the prior for private worship. The chapel is above the remains of the church which can be seen in the last photo.

In the nineteenth century a garden was created to enhance the ruins. Part of the garden can still be seen in the cloister.

Chirk Castle – Formal Garden

CherryPie — Sat, 08 May 2010 14:25:31 +0000

It is now time to go and find those bluebells that I mentioned. To do that we have to first walk through the formal garden which consists of topiary yews and hedges. These were planted by Richard Myddelton Biddulph in the late 19th century in order to give shelter to the plants that were growing by the castle walls. I can see why it is very open around the castle and on the day I visited there was a chill wind.

Chirk has a full-time garden staff of three, supported by a small band of volunteers. Pruning the yew hedges takes two of them from mid-August until the end of October, and produces two tons of clippings.

The guidebook goes on to say:

In 1653 the second Sir Thomas Myddelton laid out a garden to the east of the castle in the formal style favoured by the French King. Sir Thomas may have been quietly making a political point, as the French were then harbouring the exiled Charles II, to whom he had recently transferred his allegiance. He certainly saw it as a way of providing work for his poorer tenants.

Sir Thomas Myddelton II on his mid-17th-century garden:

‘When first, I did begin, to make
This Garden, I did undertake,
A worke, I knew not when begunn,
What it would cost, ere it was donn,
… But I repent not, for ye poore,
… Doe there finde worke; had none before.

I found some worke for every trade,
Some walles did make, some Arbours made,
Some mowed ye Allys; some I putt,
To preuine ye vines, and Hedges cutt,
… And some poore weomen, that had neede,
…I kept, & payd them, for to weede.