The Secret Story Behind World Topiary Day

A Cumbrian historic house and gardens is preparing to celebrate the fifth edition of a day that has brought gardens around the world together in a shared celebration of the art of topiary and also made ‘topiary tourism’ a very real phenomenon.

Levens Hall and Gardens, based near Kendal, founded World Topiary Day in the midst of the pandemic in 2020, celebrating its first event  on May 12, 2021.  The date had been carefully selected.  For one, May is when the topiary is looking sharp and clean, with little growth since its over-winter trim.  

The second reason for the date section was rooted in history.  This was a day that had been that of the Radish Feast – a raucous event held from 1700 to 1877.  The feast was one that everyone of any note in the local area attended and was intended to make Levens Hall the main place of note for local dignitaries.

Attendance involved drinking copious amounts of the property’s home-brewed, secret recipe Morocco Ale, drunk out of huge ‘constable’ glasses still on display today.  To go alongside this, there was the culinary delight of radishes, served with oatcakes and butter, laid out on trestle tables on which the radishes were heaped high.

Newbies to the event were also initiated, by being asked to drink a ‘constable glass’ of Morocco Ale in one go, whilst standing on one leg and raising a toast ‘Luck to Levens whilst t’Kent flows’ (the Kent being the nearby river).  All inebriated male attendees would then also be blindfolded and asked to walk the green in a straight line, attempting to reach a pathway accessed through the opposite hedge.  It all added to the fun amongst what were solely male attendees.

World Topiary Day was never expected to follow in the footsteps of this event, but did have validity, in terms of its date’s selection.  One event rooted in tradition was to be replaced by a 21st century, rather more sober, occasion.

However, the day was also created to help the garden remind garden lovers of its very special place in world garden history.  The awareness day underlined the fact that this South Lakes garden is a Guinness World Record holder by virtue of being home to the oldest topiary garden in the world.  With this legitimacy behind its day, Levens Hall and Gardens hoped to unite the topiary world in a shared celebration at what was a difficult time for all.

In fact, its first event was staged at a time when lockdown only allowed the gardens, and not the Hall, to open.  Brits were still just getting used to being allowed to venture out again and enjoy some leisure time.  Little wonder the unique tours arranged with head gardener, Chris Crowder, proved a hit.

Levens Hall and Gardens had thought ahead when considering its world celebration.  Having created a logo for World Topiary Day, it translated that into several different languages, so that it could have meaning for gardens across the globe.  It then reached out to the European Boxwood and Topiary Society, explaining its vision for the day and encouraging other gardens to get involved and help spread the love of topiary across the world.

Levens Hall’s words resonated deeply in France.  The European branch of the EBTS is absolutely passionate about growing the topiary garden community and saw World Topiary Day as a fantastic opportunity for its garden membership to come together.  It was so passionate about the whole idea that it staged an official launch of the concept in winter 2022, at Versailles, deciding that it would make World Topiary Day a weekend-long celebration, not just across France, but in member gardens in the USA, Belgium, Spain and  Portugal too.

Meanwhile, Levens Hall and Gardens carried out its own outreach, in the UK and further afield, gaining the participation of gardens such as Elton Hall, Kentwell, Grimsthorpe Castle, Mount Ephraim Gardens, and Plas Cadnant Hidden Gardens, not to mention the coup of involving the Monumental Gardens of Valsanzibio, near Padua, Italy.

Podcasts, with Chris Crowder, the EBTS’s Patrick Salembier, and Armando Pizzoni Ardemani owner of Valsanzibio, have fuelled the passion for the event worldwide, leading Levens Hall and Gardens to embark on something even more dynamic last year.

The very first ‘Topiary Tourism’ guide was published ahead of World Topiary Day 2024, featuring 35 worldwide gardens and highlighting what joys a visitor might find in each.  This publication can still be downloaded from the Levens Hall website, by those wanting to base itineraries around topiary.

Then, Levens Hall staged a Topiary Message in a Bottle relay.  A bottle left Levens Hall and Gardens and travelled to Valsanzibio, where a black swan checked out the contents in a compelling social media video.  From there, it winged its way to France, to prestigious topiary gardens such as Marqueyssac in the Dordogne and La Ballue in Brittany, and then on to British gardens.  Topiary messages and other items were placed inside the bottle, which eventually came back to Levens Hall, having caused a media stir.

This year, Levens Hall and Gardens will be celebrating World Topiary Day with an initiative based around secrets.  Early on in World Topiary Day’s history, it appealed for information about the garden’s founder, Monsieur Guillaume Beaumont, the French gardener who is somewhat elusive, to say the least.  Beaumont founded the garden in 1694, for the master of the house, Colonel Grahme.  Grahme had held the very senior positions of Keeper of the Privy Purse and Keeper of the King’s Harthounds and Buckhounds in James II’s court. His wife, Dorothy, had also been a maid of honour to Catherine of Braganza, wife of James II’s brother, King Charles II.  

The fall of the Stuart monarchy in 1688 did Grahme few favours, hence his purchase of Levens Hall and Gardens in 1689 - a property a good distance away from the political scene in London and a place where he could lay low.  Out of sight and out of mind was perhaps his thinking, although he was arrested and imprisoned for a time, before making the move north.

The exiled Stuart monarchy was living in France and it would be only a matter of 21 years between the Levens Hall garden’s foundation in 1694 and the first Jacobite uprising of 1715, which sought to re-establish them on the throne. Beaumont was head gardener at Levens Hall and Gardens until his death in 1727, throughout a period in which plots to reinstate the Stuart monarchy were being planned.

Levens Hall and Gardens found no information about Beaumont, neither in the UK nor in France, following several appeals.  A portrait hanging inside Levens Hall says ‘Monsieur Beaumont: Gardener to King James 2nd & to Col. Jas Grahme. He laid out the Gardens at Hampton Court Palace and at Levens.’  This is intriguing, as Beaumont was not the head gardener at Hampton Court.  It may be that his contribution to the royal palace’s garden design was its Wilderness. Similar vague references suggest that he worked at the Palace of Versailles under Andre Le Nôtre.  Yet nobody has so far come forward with any information about him whatsoever, either here or in France. 

There is now such mystery about the man that there is a suggestion that perhaps he was not all he seemed.  Could he actually have been, as many gardeners of the time and of earlier eras were, a spy?  Gardeners were able to come and go with relative ease and also had that great advantage of eavesdropping in the gardens in which they worked.  It does not seem too far-fetched to think this might have been the case with the French Beaumont, working for a master with undoubted loyalty to the Stuarts, living in Beaumont’s home country of France.

Beaumont also, for many years, travelled between Levens Hall and Grahme’s residence in the south, Bagshot Park, where he was already on the payroll in 1689.  In fact, between 1694 and January 1697, having set plans for the gardens in motion, he returned to Bagshot.  He only became more permanently based in Cumbria in 1699, when Beaumont’s Cottage was created in the gardens – the residence of the head gardener to this day.

So, Levens Hall will be sharing a secret relating to Beaumont and sending this in a coded tube, so that gardens across Europe can try to decipher the code, unlock the tube’s contents and again create a social media stir around World Topiary Day.  They will then oblige by sharing one of their own secrets and returning their tube.  

Back at Levens Hall and Gardens, there will be a celebration of all that World Topiary Day has done to embed the garden firmly on the formal gardens world map.  Chris Crowder will be sharing the secrets of how he tends the Levens Hall topiary garden, where 100 pieces, of all shapes and sizes, from Queen Elizabeth I and her Maids of Honour to Darth Vader and Homer Simpson, create an Alice in Wonderland mood.  Chris will explain all required to maintain, shape and trim over 100 pieces, whilst leading two special tours around the topiary garden.  This will be timed for Sunday 11 May, when the rest of the world is also celebrating.   

Whether he is talking about the difficulty of trimming the two Giant Umbrella trees, both over 330 years old and around 10 metres in height, thus requiring cherry pickers for the task, or the need to go with nature and change some of the shapes over time, visitors should find it fascinating.  There will also be music and fizz in and around the gardens, replacing the radish eating and Morocco Ale consumption of yesteryear.  All will be included within the standard entry price.

Meanwhile, across Europe and the USA, gardens will be creating their own take on World Topiary Day and continuing to grow the topiary movement.  The fact that Highgrove, the residence of King Charles III, which only established a topiary garden over recent years, has dedicated a full page of its website to World Topiary Day and its own celebration there, says everything about Levens Hall and Gardens’ success.  The pandemic initiative has become a global triumph, with Levens Hall and Gardens, as its founder, literally at the top of the topiary tree in terms of thought leadership and generating headlines across the world, year after year as May approaches.

Whether or not the secret of Guillaume Beaumont will be unlocked, however, remains to be seen.  This could be one part of the Levens Hall garden’s story that is never clarified.

Ends

Editors notes

Levens Hall & Gardens is a historic house in the South Lakes, Cumbria, close to Kendal and home to the world's oldest topiary gardens, dating from 1694, created by French garden designer, Guillaume Beaumont. The Hall is a stunning Elizabethan house built around a 13th century pele tower and has close links to the Duke of Wellington, as well as various items which once belonged to him and Napoleon Bonaparte. Levens Park is home to the rare Bagot goats gifted to the Bagot family and a place in which to stroll and enjoy nature. Levens Kitchen is the contemporary new cafe, full of delights for cake lovers and foodies alike.