World Topiary Day Marks Legacy of 11 Gardeners Who Shaped the World’s Oldest Topiary Garden

As it plans its third World Topiary Day, set for Sunday May 14, 2023, Levens Hall and Gardens is celebrating the 11 head gardeners who have shaped the world’s oldest topiary garden in its little haven in the South Lakes, Cumbria, UK.

The first – Monsieur Guillaume Beaumont – laid the gardens foundations in 1694.  The present head gardener, Chris Crowder, has been lovingly tending to and augmenting the topiary within the garden since 1986.

The 11 head gardeners have together been visionaries, horticultural influencers, pragmatists and, for the most part, hard-working men who have held a deep affection for the Levens Hall topiary garden and done all they could to maintain it, sometimes in trying times.

Backing them have been the Levens Hall and Gardens owners, without whom the topiary garden might not exist today.  Despite the many changes in gardening fashion since 1694, the original plans laid down by Monsieur Beaumont have largely remained in place because the owners did not succumb to the latest ‘fashion’.  

They stood firm throughout the Romantic era, in which the gardens’ character was viewed as too formal in an age in which a wilder appreciation of the landscape and nature was the order of the day.  They also withstood accusations of it being ‘old-fashioned’ or ‘old-style’ and have, most recently, put it at the centre of the world topiary stage, as the founder of World Topiary Day, a worldwide celebration of the art of topiary and topiary gardens globally.

Focusing on the 11 head gardeners highlights the extraordinary story of the Levens Hall garden. It explains what it has taken to make it the matriarch of topiary across the world. 

Head Gardener no. 1 – Monsieur Guillaume Beaumont 

(Head gardener from 1694 to 1727)

Relatively little is known about Monsieur Beaumont’s origins or earlier life.  Levens Hall and Gardens even has an ongoing ‘search’ for more information about him, in a hope keen genealogists can reveal more.

Inside Levens Hall, there hangs a portrait, inscribed with the words, ‘Monsieur Beaumont: Gardener to King James 2nd & to Col. Jas Grahme. He laid out the Gardens at Hampton Court Palace and at Levens.’

This in itself 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 Notre, but this is again something that Levens Hall and Gardens would like to verify.

Working for James II would probably brought Beaumont into contact with Levens Hall owner, Colonel James Grahme, however.  Grahme, who bought Levens estate in February 1689, had fought alongside James (then Duke of York).  His wife, Dorothy, was also a maid of honour to Queen, Catherine of Braganza, wife of James’s brother, Charles II, and the Grahmes lived in St James’s Palace for a time.  In 1679, Grahme became attached to the Duke’s household and soon became Keeper of the Privy Purse.  In 1682, he became Keeper and Ranger of Bagshot Park, Surrey, and took a lease of Bagshot Lodge.  When James became King, Grahme became Keeper of the Privy Purse and then Keeper of the King’s Harthounds and Buckhounds.  

Following the deposition of James II in 1688, Levens Hall became a potential base at which to escape court intrigue and persecution, with supporters of the previous king being in a tricky position. Although Grahme did not instantly move North, and did indeed suffer imprisonment, he eventually perceived the benefits of being far away from London and its politics.

The Levens garden was little-known in 1689.  The ornamental part of it was in the area where the topiary garden now stands, overlooked by the Hall’s main rooms. There were many elm trees obliterating the view, a wet meadow, stables and maybe an orchard.

Monsieur Beaumont was already named as a £10-a-year earner on the Bagshot payroll in 1689.  It would seem that plants and trees were developed there, for transfer to Levens Hall.  In the early 1690s, the work carried out at Levens Hall was on house alterations and the creation of a south wing and brewhouse.  This provided a major axis for the new garden and aided the development of an inner courtyard.

The ground began to be de-stoned and eastern and western boundary work commenced, with ditches cleared and a new wall constructed.  It was not until Beaumont’s arrival, on November 1, 1694, however, that the garden was truly created, with the walks and borders, which we see today, already in progress two weeks later.

Records show Beaumont’s work was intense –  taking place seven days a week, backed by the intention to “fast as he cann cut all the walkes and level the ground”, according to Grahme’s agent.  He was said to be delighted by the depth of “soyle” and ready to plant very quickly.  

The quarters – four areas of Levens Hall gardens that you can still see today – were laid out at this point.  Two broad grassy pathways were formed to cut across each other at a central circular enclosure, quartering a large area.  Today, the north-south axis is lined by the great beech hedge, whilst double herbaceous borders (pastel and red/purple) distinguish the east-west axis.  All continue to cross over and open out centrally into the peaceful area that is the Levens Hall Beech Circle.

Orders flew in for vegetable seeds: peese, carrot, oynion, leeke, Savoys, collyflower, raddish and more.  Beaumont quickly created ‘boarders’ all around the house and planted trees. The main walks, which define the garden today, were also created.  These are the broad walk, running east to west behind the south wing and the two north-to-south walks.  The latter comprise the long east walk, along the boundary and the west walk, bordering what was known as ‘the Aire’ – a wet field on the opposite side of the garden.  Just a short while later in the agent’s correspondence with London-based Grahme, “evergreens” are mentioned.

The work bordering the Aire became significant, leading to the creation of England’s first ha-ha – a sunken, stone-built retaining wall that allowed for drainage and protection of the garden from the nearby River Kent, but which also allowed for an uninterrupted view of the Lakeland landscape.

Once work was in progress, Beaumont returned to Bagshot for a time, only arriving back at Levens in January 1697.  The garden was well prepared, with the help of between four and 23 labourers.  Plants and other items continued to be brought up from Bagshot and ‘Eiw’ trees are detailed.  In Spring 1697, Beaumont planted the parterre in the Topiary Garden – a pattern of grassy paths around flower beds, that was intended to showcase the topiary.

A new ‘plantation’ was also developed – the Wilderness.  This complex geometric pattern of grassed pathways ran between woodland groves and selected chestnut, lime and beech trees.

When, in summer 1699, Grahme made Levens his principal country house, Beaumont too became more permanently based in Cumbria. A house, known as Beaumont’s Cottage these days, was built specifically for him, at the end of the stable block, complete with three rooms, garret stairs, a fruit room and cellar.  This has been the residence of Levens Hall’s head gardeners ever since and overlooks the topiary garden.

In October 1701, violent storms led to the loss of around 200 trees in Levens Park, in which visitors to Levens Hall often like to walk and picnic.  This led to Beaumont’s involvement in tree re-planting and tree strengthening, through staking, within the park.

Grahme exited his political wilderness when Queen Anne came to the throne, in 1702, and Jacobites were no longer viewed as traitors.  Following Dorothy’s death in 1701, he also remarried a rich widow, suddenly having more funds for the garden.  Fruit trees were planted and by 1703 Beaumont was levelling and laying a Bowling Green, for Grahme’s amusement.  By September 1704, the garden had been “made very fine”, according to visitor, Bishop Nicolson.  1708 saw the planting of the great oak avenue along the carriage entrance to Levens Hall – the one major project for Beaumont that year. 

Beaumont’s health in later years became a concern for Levens Hall staff, with references to ‘distemper’ and ‘ague’ in 1723 and a note that he was “indifferently well in health” in 1725.  In 1726, talk of distemper returned and, in December 1727, Beaumont died and was buried at the local village of Heversham.  

Head Gardener no. 2 – Thomas Tyson

(Head gardener from 1727 to 1758)

Thomas Tyson was a natural successor to Beaumont, having worked under him at Levens Hall.  Throughout his tenure, however, there was a feeling that he was profiting from the private use and sale of fruit and vegetables grown in the gardens.  Despite this, we know that, in 1755, the ornamental part of the garden and its hedges, trees and walks were in good order, despite the “Great Age of some trees.”  The kitchen garden was also weed-free but certain things, such as the orange trees, were neglected and the “exotics” were left to the ravages of frost and snow, rather than being carried to the greenhouse.  That probably helped determine his fate, as the then owner of Levens Hall, Lady Suffolk, who inherited the estate on the death of Colonel Grahme in 1730, was known to much love the orange trees, despite not living permanently at Levens Hall.  A “hurricane” of 1756 may have underlined some of his neglect, with many oaks in Levens Park blown down.  In 1758, Tyson was sacked, having abused his position for too long and shown himself too lazy to mow the grass walks or tend to the ornamental part of the garden “but by compulsion.”

Head Gardener no. 3 – Archibald MacMillan

(Head gardener from 1758 to 1810)

MacMillan had worked under Tyson for 20 years, so would have been well aware of his predecessor’s failings.  He was head gardener to both Lady Suffolk and her successor, Mary Howard, Lady Andover and appears to have somewhat put the gardens back to track, following Tyson’s years of neglect.  In 1759, it was noted that “Levens Garden looks very Gay” and that, “There is now the greatest shew of fruit in Levens Garden that has been remembered for many years past.”  

In 1772, William Gilpin noted of Levens Park, “There is a happy combination of everything that is lovely and great in landscape”.  

Although he described Levens itself as being in a “neglected state”, he noted that it was capable of a rebirth that would make it comparable to almost any scene in England.  The criticism may have been partly due to changing fashions, with the arrival of a trend to remove gardens of their previous formality – something at odds with Beaumont’s designs.

Despite the Romantic Era having arrived, and in spite of Wordsworth and other Lakes Poets virtually living on the doorstep, the Levens Hall topiary garden remained untouched.  Although described as being in the “old stile of gardens”, it was not ripped up and reshaped, maintaining its unique appeal.

Although, in 1792, Joseph Budworth described the yew as “too formal to be interesting” and “the heavy taste of a man that had deformed the beauties of Nature,” the garden survived.  Levens Hall’s female owners seemed to have been rather attached to the gardens.  Their husbands, if spending on gardens anywhere, would have been doing so at their other properties.  Lady Andover is known to have loved the romanticism of her Levens Hall garden, being full of “trailing honeysuckle, sweet smelling mignonette and roses.”

One of MacMillan’s big contributions was the 1780 planting of a cedar tree, next to the house, which became a notable feature on subsequent sketches and photographs.  It survived until January 2005 as a memorial to Lady Andover’s era, this owner enjoying it until her death in 1803, when MacMillan then became head gardener to her beneficiary, Frances Howard, wife of Richard Bagot.

Head Gardener no. 4 – Alexander Forbes

(Head gardener from 1810 to 1861)

Alexander Forbes’s tenure as head gardener saw horticultural excellence re-established at Levens Hall.  Box edging needing replacing and 1811 saw the arrival of 22 box trees and 200 yards of dwarf box.  Plant buying also increased and Forbes’s enthusiasm was clear.

By the time an 1814 sketch of the Topiary Garden was produced, by architect John Buckler, the vista of the garden shows care and attention applied to the area.  The Lady Andover cedar tree is fast-developing, the box-edged parterre can be viewed and well-established late 17th century yew topiary is clear to see.

In 1820, three years after the death of France Howard and the arrival of new owner, Mary Howard, Scotsman Forbes published ‘Short Hints on Ornamental Gardening’, detailing his adherence to the fashion of laying out flower gardens on grass lawns, surrounded by shrubbery, with cottage-garden flower species planted “promiscuously” in the shrubbery’s foreground.  He also believed walks should intersect the plantings, to add to the viewer’s enjoyment of the flowers.  Beaumont’s design at Levens Hall must have been a joy for him.

However, even greater interest seems to have been shown in the kitchen garden, with Forbes’s publishing showing a great knowledge of fruit varieties that we can no longer enjoy, including apples such as ‘Seek no Further’, ‘Wiltshire Cat’s Head’, ‘Poor Man’s Profit’ and ‘Carnation Apple’.  He lists a large number of other fruits and seems particularly knowledgeable about gooseberries.

In 1822, an article in the Lonsdale Magazine and Kendal Repository described the gardens, “under the care of Mr Forbes” as being “justly esteemed for their beauty and tasteful antiquity.”  From this, we also learn of a bower of “living yew” which opens up into a spacious walk, where privacy seems to be afforded, but where two narrow concealed walks, leading into the very heart of the clump of yew, could allow eavesdroppers to profit on seemingly private conversations and lovers’ assignations.  This yew bower is today’s ‘Judge’s Wig’. 

The article also describes the “neat” green walks, bowling green and “numerous yews cut into all kinds of grotesque figures”, which are “extremely amusing.”

Topiary was swinging back in to favour during Forbes’s time as head gardener and a visit by Francis Gibson of Bridge End in Essex, in 1834, noted the “fantastically clipped yew trees.”  The garden was described as “the most perfect specimen of the kind ever seen.”  By his retirement in 1861, it is fair to speculate that Forbes’s contribution had been significant.

Head Gardener no. 5 – Robert Craig

(Head gardener from 1861 to 1883)

Robert Craig’s era was that of an age of photography and the first surviving photograph of the Levens Hall garden was from the end of the 1860s.  The Topiary Garden is very recognisable, but it was clear to see that clipped hollies had been planted between the trees.

An 1874 account of the garden notes that the box-edged beds in the Topiary Garden are filled with herbaceous plants and roses.  It notes that this has reversed a trend in which summer bedding would replace the herbaceous plants.  The plants being used in 1874 included carnations, roses, gladioli, scillas, dog’s tooth violet, penstemon, phloxes, asters and lilies.

Robert Craig also appears to have adopted the Victorian craze for ferns, boasting “a magnificent collection of all the choicest in cultivation.”

It was during Robert Craig’s time, and after the passing of Mary Howard in 1877, that the raucous tradition of the annual Radish Feast ended at Levens Hall.  Having been held on the Bowling Green, on May 12, since Grahme’s time, and having involved the laying out, on huge trestle tables, of four wheelbarrows of radishes that it had taken four men a full day to clean and prepare, it was time to put an end to this event.  No longer would dignitaries, tenants, friends of the family and others, head to Levens Hall, to dine on radishes, oat-cakes and butter, washing this dubious culinary delight down with Levens Hall’s secret-recipe and rather strong Morocco Ale. 

The affair’s cancellation brought an end to a unique tradition in which newbies would be challenged to drink a ‘constable glass’ of Morocco Ale in one go, standing on one leg and raising a toast ‘Luck to Levens whilst t’Kent flows’.  All inebriated male attendees would also be blindfolded and asked to walk the green in a straight line, attempting to reach a pathway accessed through the opposite hedge.  The constables are now on view inside Levens Hall.

Whilst Robert Craig continued to work under Mary Howard’s beneficiary, General the Hon. Arther Upton, who had lived at Levens, in part, since 1866, his death and the arrival of Mary Howard’s father’s great-great-nephew, Josceline Bagot, also saw the arrival of a new head gardener.

Head Gardener no. 6 – Alexander Milne

(Head gardener from 1883 to 1895)

Remarkably little is known about Alexander Milne’s work at Levens Hall during these years but we do know that his foreman gardener, William Gibson, arrived in 1891 and took over from him in 1895.

Head Gardener no. 7 – William Gibson

(Head gardener from 1895 to post World War I)

William Gibson was head gardener at a time when some Canadian seedlings were grown in the park and surrounding woodlands, as Josceline Bagot sought to introduce species he had become familiar with, whilst working in Canada.

Photography shows there was mixed planting in the box-edged beds and that newly planted topiary was developing alongside the originals.  The 19th century was the time in which the golden yews, evident at Levens Hall today, would have been planted alongside the older, darker green yews.  Many of the box figures also belong to this time.

An 1899 Country Life article clearly showed the parterre, with this now extending under the cedar tree.  

We know that, what is now the larger gingko tree in the Topiary Garden, was planted around 1900, so presumably William Gibson oversaw its arrival.  The older fruit trees in the Orchard today were also introduced around this time.

In 1904, William Gibson published, ‘The Book of Topiary’, offering practical topiary advice and technical guidance, presumably being viewed as something of an expert.

The acclaimed Gertrude Jekyll described the garden in 1906, in the publication, ‘Some English Gardens’, which also featured Samuel Elgood watercolours.  The effects of light descending on the clipped evergreens was described as “a delight to the trained colour-eye.”   

She also described the experience available to so many visitors today, “For the trees, clipped in so many diversities of form, offer numberless planes and facets and angles to the light, whose play upon them is infinitely varied.”  The notion that shaping the trees into “fantastic forms” was “childish”, was also dismissed.  As she said, “Would that all gardens were childish in so happy a way!”

We know rather more about the Gibson era than we might otherwise do, due to an audio recording made by William’s son, Charlie.  Ten men worked the garden with William, five working in the Bothy and five as labourers.  All started at 6am, had breakfast at 8.30am and a one-hour lunch-break from 12.30pm to 1.30pm.  The day ended at 5.30pm, or a little earlier in winter and on Saturdays.  The team worked on Boxing Day and Bank Holidays and got just  one week’s holiday, despite the Bothy team being “five old gentlemen.”

Mr Gibson clearly had high standards. “Everything was absolutely kept up spick and span” and a “showpiece”, according to Charlie and the five key men each worked in one of the greenhouses, or in the potting shed.  Here, bedding plants, stunning carnations, melons and grapes were grown. 

William would regularly put produce grown at Levens Hall on the train to London, so the absent owners could enjoy a fresh taste of their estate, be that from potatoes, peas, or other food in season.

The Levens Hall lawns were mowed by Jessie the horse, fitted with leather shoes and pulling a lawn mower no man was strong enough to pull.  She mowed and rolled both the lawn and all of the grassed paths. 

The kitchen garden was trenched throughout winter and all leaves raked up in autumn, with not one remaining.  All were turned into leaf-mould, not touched until it was five years old.

Charlie’s insights explain how the Levens Hall garden had begun to open to the public, on Thursday afternoons alone.  Visitors had to go to the yard outside Beaumont’s Cottage and wait to be seen.  Mr Gibson would then take the visitors on a tour, with two or three hundred people arriving on a Thursday afternoon, many by horse-drawn charabanc.

Unfortunately, this team of gardeners was split up by World War I, following a recruitment meeting in Levens village on September 3, 1914.  To his chagrin, all of William’s younger men headed to war, with only one, named Gerald, returning.  

Throughout the First World War, the gardening efforts were carried out by William, a lady from Windermere and one from Stoke-on-Trent, plus two or three official land army girls.  These temporary ‘staff’ worked alongside his older gentlemen.  Another man – Joe Penny – was also brought in ‘out of the woods’.

William Gibson left Levens Hall after the war, to become a market gardener and, later on, a jobbing gardener in Lancaster.

Head Gardener no. 8 – F.C King

(Head gardener from 1919 to 1954)

By the time F.C. King arrived as head gardener, Josceline Bagot had died (1913) and the first male heir for over two centuries, Alan Desmond Bagot, had inherited the estate.  This was run by trustees, as Alan was too young to take charge.  Tragically, he then died of pneumonia in 1920, with the estate then passing to his uncle, Richard Bagot, who, in turn, died in 1921.

The property then passed to seven-year-old, Oliver Robin Gaskell, the son of Josceline Bagot’s eldest daughter, Dorothy (Mrs Gaskell).  Given his age, the trustees let the house out, so F.C King’s ‘masters’ were the Reynolds family, Lancashire cotton magnates.

By 1927, the parterre under the cedar tree had been removed, with the area grassed.  The Wilderness had been turned into an Italian water garden, boasting two new pools.  To the west of the Hall lay a paved formal garden, whilst three grass tennis courts had been marked out on the Bowling Green and a hard court now overlaid Beaumount’s original quartering design to the west of the garden.  At this point, the Topiary Garden had been extended, to take over the melon ground and frame-yard that Beaumont had constructed near his cottage.

In the late 1920s, the Reynolds moved out, but not before the arrival of two young gentlemen from Massachusetts in the United States, known as ‘The Bicycle Boys’ – the subject of a Garden Trust exhibition in 2022.  These intrepid young men, using bicycles and public transport for longer journeys, visited over 80 UK gardens in three months, including Levens Hall, where they arrived on July 14, desperate to see the renowned topiary.  

Being a Saturday, there was no chance of visiting, as Mr King’s wife informed them.  The owner had apparently banned visitors, for fear of damage.  Her husband was out playing cricket and all she could do was offer them a quick peek and the chance to take a few quick photographs, from one spot in the garden.

By the time of the Reynolds’ departure, Oliver Gaskell (known as Robin), who took the surname Bagot (by Royal Licence in 1936) was old enough to take charge.  He and his mother were delighted to show Queen Mary around the gardens, during a visit in 1937.

During the Second World War, Robin was captured and held in a German prisoner of war camp.  His wife, Annette, oversaw the arrival of evacuated nuns at Levens Hall, rather than a billet of soldiers, which could have seriously damaged the gardens. 

We know that the Topiary Garden still enjoyed an annual wartime clipping but the huge beech hedge fared less well.  It grew across the alleys, forming dark tunnels, with all available ground given to wartime food production, not leisure considerations.  The Bowling Green, some fields and a new kitchen garden extension were all turned into food producing areas.

This may have led to Mr King’s fascination with organic principles and his belief in the value of compost, humus and earthworms. His enlightened views were way ahead of their time and led to him publishing a pamphlet – ‘Is Digging Necessary’ and two books, ‘The Compost Gardener’ and ‘Gardening with Compost’.

The post-war period led to the need to carry out much renovation.  The beech hedge was cut back and the pools in the Wilderness filled in.  Box-hedge renewal took place throughout the garden and the current form of box patterning, in the Rose Garden and gingko beds within the Topiary Garden, was introduced.  Much effort was devoted to market gardening and the sale of produce, to ensure the gardens made a contribution to estate income.

A 1950 picture shows the gardeners clipping the Great Umbrella tree in the Topiary Garden, using a generator for power and the first electric hedge-clippers.  These were based on a modified electric drill. 

In 1954, Mr King moved on, having seen the gardens through another difficult period.

Head Gardener no. 9 – Mr Robertson

(Head gardener from 1954 to 1980)

Mr Robertson’s time as head gardener continued to see a focus on market gardening and there was the establishment of a hardy plant nursery.  However, the need to cater for tourists was also evident, with the gardens now welcoming visitors five days a week.  Their need for parking facilities meant that part of the ha-ha was filled in, to create enough space for what was 10,000 visitors a year, by the late 1960s.  A new garden centre generated plant sales of potted plants.

Mr Robertson’s time saw a huge legal battle waged, to try to prevent the end of the M6 link road cutting through the end of Levens Park.  A public enquiry took place, after vigorous lobbying against the scheme by Mr Bagot.  Ultimately, the park – and Beaumont’s legacy there ­– was saved and the highway was built slightly to the north.

Head Gardener no. 10 – Mr Robertson

(Head gardener from 1980 to 1986)

Mr Robertson’s son, Brian, inherited the position of head gardener in 1980, continuing his father’s work for six years.

Head Gardener no. 11 – Chris Crowder

(Head gardener from 1986 to present day)

Current head gardener, Chris Crowder, arrived at Levens Hall in 1986 and immediately fell in love with the Topiary Garden and the magnificent Beaumont-designed gardens all around it.

Much of what we know about the previous 10 Levens Hall head gardeners comes through Chris’s careful research and his book, ‘The Garden at Levens’, published in 2005.

Chris has always appreciated inheriting a 300-year-old-garden as his workplace, but has also seen that years of growth and decay overlay it.  He values the efforts of all the gardeners who have gone before him, in maintaining, improving and making the garden relevant for the audience of their time.

Chris tends the living landscape of the Levens Hall garden with great care and passion, with his favourite time of year actually being that at which the majority of the hard work in the gardens is required.  This is the period between September and March, when the gardens are closed to the public and when the topiary and huge beech hedges require their annual clip. He describes his passion for this part of the year in this recent podcast https://bit.ly/3zsQYDo

Electric and two-stroke petrol trimmers, trestles and lightweight scaffolding and cherry pickers are all deployed to tend to the topiary, with the original topiary trees planted by Beaumont now being many metres high and extremely wide.

Chris has also added his own personal touches to the topiary garden, with many of the tiered trees within it being his own contribution to the centuries-old garden.

His dedicated gardening team grow over 30,000 bedding plants on-site, ensuring there is both a spring and summer planting in the beds and borders.  The display is never the same two years running, with much trial and experimentation when it comes to varieties, colours and scents being constant.

In the late 1980s, Chris revitalised the rose garden, grubbing up the sickly post-war plantings and replenishing the soil.  David Austin’s English roses were planted in mixed groupings throughout, to try to breathe life back into a rose garden that has existed since Beaumont’s time.  Hard pruning follows in winter, to keep everything tip-top and to ensure that the topiary is set amidst an array of stunning colours and intoxicating scents.

Quinces, medlars and damsons have been added to the Orchard, to increase the variety of fruits grown there, with all located on the original planting grid, to maintain the intended plan.

In the early 1990s, the Bowling Green, which had never quite recovered from the war period, was renovated.  Trailer-loads of moss and thatch were removed, soil fertility increased and weeds controlled.  What had become an area of long and poor grass, is now a surface on which bowls and croquet games are played – a nod to the Grahme’s era.

The gardening team are also nowadays focused on maintaining two distinct border areas – the pastel border and the red/purple border.  In the pastel borders, a yellow and blue spectrum of early spring gives way to pinks, mauves and whites.  Digging, composting and splitting the plants is a job arising once every few years.  Plantings on either side of the path always mirror each other.

In the red and purple borders, the strong colours are often softened with lighter silver and grey plants but again the symmetry, either side of the grassed walkway in-between, is striking.

In 1994, Chris Crowder oversaw the tercentenary celebration for the gardens, 300 years on from when Beaumont began to realise his plans.  This led to the creation of a new Fountain Garden, in an area that Beaumont had quartered with a large circle and four cross paths.  It had later become the hard tennis court and then a food-production area.  

Here, flanking borders had to be reduced, new yew hedges planted and vistas redefined.  A formal circular pool, with simple jet fountain, now stands in the centre, with a seating area equipped with four ornamental oak seats.  Those resting in this area are protected from breezes (and view from beyond their outdoor atrium), by a circular screen of pleached lime.  Entrance to this area is by paths that are tunnel arbours, with pleached lime again providing the screening and the arbours made of red-twigged lime.  This is pruned back tightly each winter.

The herb garden was also modified in the 1990s, replacing invasive medicinal herbs with culinary varieties and introducing more structure, through the arrival of box cones around the entrances and wooden pyramidal supports around the circle.

Chris’s challenges in the garden have included various flood episodes and the arrival of box blight and algal growth on the topiary’s leaf surfaces in shadier, damper areas.  In January 2005, the long-established cedar tree was lost in a violent storm, crashing to the ground and damaging some of the topiary shapes.  A new vista of the house and garden emerged, however – lighter and more spacious. 

Chris has also led the gardening team through the pandemic and again proved that out of adversity comes triumph.  The crisis led to the creation of World Topiary Day in May 2020 – a chance to bring the global topiary community together virtually, at a time when domestic and international travel was impossible.  This celebration of the art of topiary, led by what is the home of the world’s oldest topiary garden has, like the ‘evergreens’ grown and grown. In 2021, it involved over 50 gardens worldwide, in the UK, France, Spain, Madeira, Belgium, the USA and Australia and maybe others places of which Levens Hall and Gardens is unaware. 

Chris proudly described developments around the second World Topiary Day in this podcast, speculating with Monsieur Beaumont would have made of it all - https://bit.ly/3FwouMV

The plans are in place for an even bigger celebration in 2023, when Levens Hall will, for the first time, not celebrate it on the day of the infamous radish feast (May 12) but on the Sunday following.  This will enable it to truly share the day with the worldwide gardens who have embraced this day and appreciated it as one on which to prove that the love of topiary is enduring and that, whilst fashions may come and go, the structure and joy that topiary provides will always be in keeping with the current trend.

Perhaps the owners of Levens Hall and Gardens always knew that deep down.  Thanks to their commitment to the Topiary Garden, each of the 11 head gardeners who has had the privilege of tending it, has been able to support a living legacy.  Beaumont’s vision is still very much alive and breathing in the South Lakes, Cumbria.

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.