| (A)dressing
the Garden This
is a partnership project with Coventry Carers Centre and
The Herbert (Art Gallery & Museum). Working with renowned
Birmingham jeweller, metal worker and textile artist Rita
Patel, a group of Asian Elders have created a touring craft
exhibition using Kenilworth Castle’s garden design
and garden heritage as inspiration. Their design work has
been influenced by historical records of the Elizabethan
garden as well as personal experiences, memories, culture,
heritage and their own gardens.
The
group of participants have visited traditional gardens within
the West Midlands including Kenilworth Castle, Baddesley
Clinton and Packwood House and took part in a series of
workshops, learning new skills and techniques such as metal
pressing as well using more traditional craft skills such
as embroidery. During the workshops this group of carers
also expressed how they felt about caring for someone and
this was included in the final artwork.
The
final exhibition piece will be on display at Kenilworth
Castle in the future. Watch this space for dates!
To
find out more about English Heritage Outreach click
here.
Elizabethan
Gardens Archaeology Update
Two seasons of archaeological excavations at Kenilworth
Castle have recently come to an end.
What
were we looking for in the excavations?
In 2004 trial excavations established that remains of a
famous garden survived beneath the ground. The entire area
of the garden has now been uncovered and has revealed for
the first time the layout of the garden described in a letter
written in 1575.
That
letter was written by Robert Laneham (or Langham) who was
usher to Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, and describes
the garden as it was when Elizabeth I visited the castle.
The Queen stayed at the castle for 19 days in July 1575
and Leicester laid on a sequence of lavish entertainments
for her during the visit, all described in the letter.
The
garden she saw was centred on an octagonal white marble
fountain. The lower octagonal basin had in its centre a
plinth on which stood two carved male figures which in turn
supported an upper bowl from which the water fell into the
lower pool of water. On the south side of the garden was
a grass covered terrace, on the north side against the north
curtain wall was an elaborate aviary. The area between was
divided into four quadrants around the fountain, and in
the centre of each quadrant was a tall obelisk, described
as
being of stone, but most likely of wood which was painted
to look like stone. The use of timber for such features
was common in this period and allowed aristocratic patrons
to create extravagant gardens quickly and cheaply.
An artist’s reconstruction of the Tudor
garden based on Laneham’s letter
Until
the recent excavations it was not thought that any features
from this garden survived. In the early 1970s some excavation
was carried out but this failed to locate any of the elements
described in the letter. As a consequence of this, the Tudor
garden planted in the 1970s was laid out based on a survey
made in 1656. That garden was laid out with box, yew and
holly topiary, and though attractive, has now been proved
through the excavation and documentary research not to represent
the garden known from the letter. As part of the current
programme of works being carried out by English Heritage
to improve the facilities at the castle it was decided to
remove the 1970s garden and recreate a more original version.
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Discovering the fountain
In 2005 the southern half of the garden was excavated and
this revealed for the first time the complete surviving
fountain foundation. Associated with it are two stone built
culverts, one bringing water to the fountain, the other
draining the water away. Fragments of white marble found
above the foundation have confirmed that Laneham’s
description of the fountain was accurate.
It
is likely that it was carved in northern Italy and imported
in pieces to be re-erected at Kenilworth. This must have
been an enormously expensive venture at the time.
Did
we find the other features of the garden we were looking
for?
To the east and west of this foundation a series of rubble
filled pits have been uncovered which appear to represent
bases for some of the timber decorative elements such as
the obelisks. Sections cut through the terrace have revealed
that a large ditch was dug along its base at the beginning
of the English Civil War in the 1640s. Sadly this ditch
removed the front of the terrace and along with it any evidence
for steps leading into the garden, though fortunately the
letter describes the terrace as being ten feet high and
twelve feet broad at the top so it can still be
re-made.
After the Civil War ditch had been backfilled and the Castle
Keep partially demolished, to build up its defences against
Royalist forces, the garden was cultivated as a vegetable
garden and orchard until the 1930s.
In
2006 the northern half of the garden exposed more bases
for the decorative features and the former line of the north
curtain wall has been revealed. This part of the garden
is very important to the re-making of the garden as it formed
the northern boundary against which the aviary was built.
Though no remains of the aviary have been found due to the
way in which the north wall was later removed, again the
letter provides vital information as it provides full dimensions
of the feature and describes how it was elaborately decorated.
What
other finds did we make?
During the excavations a wide range of finds have been made,
varying from domestic pottery from the twelfth century to
broken garden tools from the twentieth century, with many
others from periods in between. They include a silver penny
of Edward I, bronze belt buckles from the fourteenth century,
musket balls from the Civil War period, clay pipes from
the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries and many flower
pot fragments.
Other
finds include three complete skeletons of farm animals:
two cows and a horse. All date from the nineteenth century
and appear to have been buried to provide nutrients when
grape vines were planted in the area as recommended by garden
writers of the period.
The
future plans for the garden
The next stage is for the trenches to be filled back in
with soil. All of the features including the foundations
of the fountain will be recorded and preserved. On the completion
of the field archaeology investigations a report will be
written describing the results, and at the same time work
will commence to re-landscape the garden and install a new
fountain and other elements of the garden.
This
type of collaboration between field archaeology and documentary
research is vital in the understanding of most historic
sites, though it is rare for a garden of this period to
have such a complete written description. Work on re-creation
of the garden will be taking place in 2007 using a combination
of evidence which will allow a new garden to be created
at the castle. We will gain for the first time in over four
hundred years an impression of the garden which was seen
by Elizabeth I.
For
further information about the gardens project please contact
Brian Kerr 02392 856796, email: brian.kerr@english-heritage.org.uk
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