Thank you for downloading this garden cutting from the National Trust. I'm Alan Power, the head gardener at Stourhead in Wiltshire. And today I'm At Croome in Worcestershire, one of Capability Brown's first landscape gardens. The National Trust works in partnership with many landowners
and tenant farmers around the country. But one particular relationship that has developed at Croome Court is a relationship with Karen Cronin and her husband Chris who bought the walled garden and gardeners cottage here in the year 2000. They've been restoring the garden themselves over the past few years and have been opening it recently. Karen, It's a pleasure to meet you and especially to be standing here in such a massive walled garden. The work is
bearing down on top of me. I mean, what was it like in 2000 when you, when you bought the place.
Completely derelict and completely overgrown and wild, but in its own way, it was very beautiful even then. And I think that's what really attracted us to it. We- it was in such a state that we really didn't know what we were buying.
You're, you're productive here already. You know, you've made massive, massive steps forward. Do you mind telling us what you're producing at the moment and what you're growing In the walled garden?
Right. Well, we grow a little bit of everything really. I like to cook so I like the idea of, you know, coming and picking my own produce. We've grown sweet potatoes this year for the first time and they've been successful. We've, obviously, as you can see, we've got lots of fruit trees which are going to be espaliered against those wires. We've got a whole path that are full of old varieties that have come from either Hereford, Worcestershire or Gloucestershire.
And then another path which is full of more modern varieties, the eldest one- going back to 1955 I think the idea there is that people will be able to see the difference of the progress of apples and be able to taste the difference between an old apple and a new apple. We've got espalier of pear tree and of cookers as well. You know, we grow beans, we, you know, we got cabbages, we grow everything.
Heading- heading into the winter and looking at the months ahead, I mean, we can see the work that you've achieved this year with the wires and the espaliers. But what I love in the, where we're standing is the contrast to the left, there's kind of established fruit beds, there's cages protecting next year's crops on the right hand side, there's a JCB, there's a dumper truck. You know, it's a real
story, isn't it? I know that you've mentioned that there's a few Daffodils been planted, isn't there?
Yeah. Well, up in the very top bank there last year we planted 5,500 Daffodils, with some help from our volunteer friends. And this year I've bought just over another 1000 to go below that and then, that's then going to be sowed with, a wild flower meadow, which I thought would be rather nice to help with the pollination. And also for the general public will bring summer colour and also the bugs for the children to look out for and the butterflies and things.
So we thought that would be very interesting. We also, developing another bed further down which again, I've bought a load of tulips to go in for. So that'll be all done in the next sort of, you know, month.
In kind of five years time in the middle of the summer. If we were to put a deck chair out here, what, what would you want to see?
And the Todd Vineary will be fully restored. And hopefully, we might even have managed to start on the hot wall as well. Because our real dream is to be able to fire that up again one day.
It's amazing. I want a hot wall. It's, this hot wall was was heated by furnaces, wasn't it?
There was five underground little fireplaces and in fact, the way that they look, is one that's exposed at the top. We've left it for people to see if you can imagine what, the- in a Victorian bedroom, the sort of size of the fireplace in there. Well, they're about that kind of size but we understand that the main reason that you get a hot wall, is because of the, glass tax, the window tax as people know it. So, if you had a glass house, you had to pay tax on the glass in your glass house.
So it was a way of trying to get, an extended growing season without having to pay the Exchequer a lot of money. So, in fact, when that, when the glass tax was rescinded, most people just stop using their hot walls and I don't think there's that many left now.
It's lovely. I've been to Croome quite a few times and I've kind of wondered at the walls from the other side, you know, and you wonder what, what's in there and, you know, from what you've described, the- the National Trust volunteers get to come through that gate and get that wow factor when they come in and the fact that visitors can see the whole property now, you know, they can see Brown's work outside and they can, you know, visit, visit you when you're open and come in
and see what's going on in here as well. It's been a pleasure to talk to you. It's been lovely to see your walled garden. You very, very best of luck with it. And thanks a million for your time today. Hope you've enjoyed this garden cutting from the National Trust. You can subscribe or follow on your podcast app for the full program. Join us for December in Sissinghurst. We'll see you then.
I'm Bettany Hughes. I've been visiting National Trust Properties all my life. But in this series of podcasts, I'm going beyond the delights of teas and topiary to reveal the surprising European roots of some of the most splendid sites in England. You can subscribe to my series by searching for Bettany Hughes's 10 Places, Europe and us. On your podcast app.