Rosemary Verey OBE | Favourite Water Gardens Chatsworth Joke Fountain
My favourite water gardens and water features? They are an absolutely endless list. First of all I thought of Sezincote, near Moreton-in-Marsh in Gloucestershire. It has an exotic oriental water garden by Repton and Daniell with lake, pools and meandering stream, banked with mass perennials.
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At Chatsworth you have got the joke fountain tree.
In the 18th century, water jokes were often played, where if you walked through a trip it would set a waterspout going. There at Chatsworth there is this tree with pipes of water that come out of it. It doesnt happen automatically but if you happen to be with somebody that doesnt know the trick, all they have to do is just tread on something in the ground and who ever is standing under the tree gets a really good shower.
And of course you have got all the jokey features in the Italian gardens: when you walked into alcove or grotto, once you got in and the water started spouting from various places, how could you get out? You couldnt without getting absolutely soaked. So never mind.
Chatsworth also has this wonderful cascade put in by Joseph Paxton for the Duke of Devonshire. He was also responsible for the Crystal Palace in 1851.
Then there is Westbury Court, which is a National Trust garden, that was created around about 1740. There is a long narrow canal and also another bit of water. The interesting thing about that bit of water is that each side of it has got evergreen hedges, which I think are yew and reflect in the water very well.
Westbury
Court
And you have got a deep garden, next door to Hidcote, at Kiftsgate belonging to Mr and Mrs Chambers and was very influenced by Mr Johnstone, the American. Mrs Chambers mother was responsible for putting the fountain there. The water is like a raised bed but with water in it and you can sit on the edge. Depending on which way the wind is blowing you get sprayed by the fountain or not.
American Favourite Fountains
There surely are some fountains up in the North of England, which is where we should be remembering about. But now my mind is going to America because Ive been fortunate enough to travel to America several times a year when I havent broken my hip. In fact at this minute I should be in San Francisco. But........at Long Island where I spent a lovely happy 2 or 3 days last October, there is a very well laid out English style garden with borders and at the bottom of it you have a water feature with a semi-circular building round it, water spouting out in all directions.
If any of you ever go to Washington DC, you really must go to Dumbarton Oaks. This was a garden that was made at the beginning of this century by Beatrix Farrand, the earliest of the American women garden designers. If you go, you can look down on this scene. It is like looking down on a knot garden made with water and pebbles and stones.
Then of course in New York, you wouldnt expect to see amazing water features but there is a very good fountain in Central Park. Also one of the most satisfying gardens is in the Krik museum which was designed by Russell Page and its.....You cant walk in it, you can only see it through iron railings on the road. There he has made a large still water, surrounded by paving.
In New York of course there are pocket parks, pocket handkerchief gardens, which are just one site. These are marvellous although there arent many of them. They are the site of where one house could have been, (the Rockafellers have done one) but the great thing is that people can go and sit in them at any time of the day when the noise of the water (because there is always a water feature) probably coming down at the back, drowns the sound of the traffic. I have just been told by Barry Ferguson who lives on Long Island, that it was very important to have the Air Rights as well as the ground rights where these gardens were, because if you didnt have the Air Rights it then had to be dismantled whilst another storey was built above, because you wouldnt have the light coming down.. That probably that wouldnt happen to you here.
Rosemary Verey (Author, Garden Designer And Gardening Guru To Prince Charles) At Her Internationaly Famous Garden At Barnsley House In Gloucestershire Talks to Peter J May About Her Life In Relation To Water Gardens.
Rosemary Verey was a famous British garden designer and writer (born Dec. 21, 1918, Chatham, Kent, England and died May 31, 2001, London, England)