Bothies, boilers and bustards

Work  on the   £1 million Heritage Lottery Fund  restoration project to save from collapse the Victorian Conservatory at Scampston continues.  The restoration work is being led by Caroe Architects, with project management from Buro Four, and building contractors William Birch & Sons Ltd. The superstructure of the conservatory has been minutely researched and removed to a warehouse for restoration. This will be returned to site in autumn 2014

Bothies and boilers

Thomas Green and Son Boiler 

Work over the last month has focussed on the bothies involving replacing the roof and internal work on the walls and floors. This work has revealed some rather interesting old boilers in the cellars. One of these was manufactured by Thomas Green and Son Ltd 

Ideas for how this may be displayed longer term are being discussed by the project team.

Photos of restoration work.....

View from the walled garden

Heritage Volunteers tour of  the bothies with project leader             Caroline Legard.

Fireplace in the bothies

Bothie roof work

Conservatory foundations

Bothie chimney

Bothie roof / slate work

School Visits

Meanwhile, its been a  busy  time for School visits with groups from the three local primary Schools (Rillington, Settrington and West Heslerton)  coming to Scampston to see their tulip beds, design summer cut flower beds and  gather ideas on great bustards!

Garden design work under cover

Parkland explores'

Bustards....

Bustard collage

Bustard with designers

Great Bustard design

Real  Great Bustard pictured near the Palladian Bridge Scampston c1891

A renowned ornithologist, ‘W H’ St Quintin (1851-1933) kept a collection of Great Bustards in a quarter-acre enclosure at Scampston  between 1886 and 1909.  They were supervised by Arthur Moody, his falconer and ‘bird keeper’.   The old aviaries now form part of the cascade trail and a willow bustard will be installed later on the year as part of the interpretation work and garden design work with local schools. 

Volunteers from The Croft, Camp Hill Village Trust and their gardener Josh, continue to work hard maintaining the Scampston Explorers' trails and keeping the cut flower beds in check.

Fiona weeding the bed

George and Josh 

Heritage Walks

Finally, the 14th May saw the first of the Heritage Guided walks exploring parts of the wider parkland and gardens.  Future walks will be held 2.00-3.30pm on:  Weds , 11th June,  9th July,   13th Aug,  10th Sept and 8th Oct  (£3 per adult,  children £1.50).  

The walks start from the walled garden ticket office and explore parts of the cascade trail. Come along and discover more  about the history and heritage of the conservatory, gardens and parkland and some of the people / stories that have shaped them.

Monthly Heritage Walks   - Sylvia Gallagher - Heritage volunteer

As a Heritage Volunteer at Scampston Hall, Walled Gardens and Conservatory, I was delighted to be involved in the first Heritage Guided Walk in the Hall Grounds. 

What a wonderful day for a stroll it turned out to be. The sun shone brightly and  brilliant blue sky contrasted with the many shades of green within the parkland.

A lady who joined us had visited the walled garden several times in the past. She was Dutch and an enthusiastic follower of Piet Oudolf the walled garden designer. Surprisingly, this lady had never ventured out into the parkland before and found the experience very rewarding.

Everyone on the walk found the many features pointed out to them very interesting. All in all the walk was a great success and I look forward to the next five.

Scampston Heritage walk in the Capability Brown Parkland

Conservatory restoration work continues

Work  on the   £1 million Heritage Lottery Fund  restoration project to save from collapse the Victorian Conservatory at Scampston continues.  The restoration work is being led by Caroe Architects, with project management from Buro Four, and building contractors William Birch & Sons Ltd. The superstructure of the conservatory has been minutely researched and removed to a warehouse for restoration. This will be returned to site in autumn 2014.

After deconstruction work involving carefully labelling and taking photos of  all  key parts of the structure, William Birch & Sons Ltd   are now moving onto constructing the foundations, drainage work and restoration of the bothies. These will become the heritage learning centre, interpretation rooms and  volunteer room.

Conservatory restoration in progress

Digger moves in to start foundations

Conservatory foundations

Bothies - roof removal

Inside the bothies

Man at work...

Inside the bothies

Meanwhile our heritage volunteers continue to work on the oral history project and research work,  as well as helping develop education  and interpretation materials for the first exhibitions. The volunteers and Liz Smith (Oral Historian), have been piecing together stories of Scampston: Indoors and Out and finding out what life was like on a country estate during the latter half of the last century. They have talked to gardeners, gamekeepers, woodmen, household staff and villagers, all of whom have kindly shared their memories with us. 

Some of the research material will be used  to develop our  first  heritage guided walk  around the Scampston hall ground, on Weds 14th May 2-3.30pm. These walks will become a regular event held on the 2nd Wednesday of each month.

One of the most recent and exciting discoveries  followed an interview by Di Ford (Heritage Volunteer) with  Helen Nesom the great great granddaughter of the conservatory designer,William Richardson. This research has uncovered several photos of Richardson and his family, as well as extracts from Richardson's diaries. More on William Richardson and  his conservatories as part of the 1^st exhibition later in the year.

William Richardson
Photo courtesy of Helen Nesom

In 1894, W. Richardson & Co. of Darlington provided William H. St. Quintin Esq. of Scampston Hall with a set of working drawings for a ‘Range of Glasshouses’. It is clear from the surviving drawing that Richardson always intended to incorporate existing buildings, including the gardener’s cottages (bothies), into his plans. However, Richardson’s design would substantially extend the facilities by providing late and early vineries, a stove house and an elegant ‘projecting conservatory’ at the centre of the range.

Richardson Conservatory design

School  tulip bed designs

Part of the more colourful display in the walled garden this year are are tulip beds. These were designed and planted  last November by local School groups from Rillington Community Primary School, Settrington All Saints' Church of England Primary School  and West Heslerton CE Primary School.

  

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A fourth bed was planted by volunteers from the The Croft community, Camp Hill. 

Their team of volunteer gardeners have  also been working hard to develop the education and interpretation points,  helping to install new signage and with general  gardening / path work around the heritage trails.

Volunteers from The Croft  planting tulips

Tom testing a new stile....

George installing trail signs

Enjoy Scampston 

Finally get ready to enjoy Scampton this spring as the Walled Garden and new explorers' trail open this  Friday (18th April). There’s an Easter quiz for the family to do together in the Walled Garden. Explorer packs are  also available to help children discover more whilst on the hunt for Scamp the mole or other wildlife.

Scamp

Immediately after the Easter weekend we will be launching a new Walled Garden Trail and we also have several new family friendly events coming up during the school holidays this year. The first of these is a short Family Activity Walk on 29th May.

Natural art....