Conservatory work starts in the new year

Work on the historic Richardson Victorian glasshouse and gardeners’ bothies  is due to commence  early in January, led by Caroe Architects  with project management from Buro Four. The project team  including  Scampston Conservatory Preservation Company (SCPCo) directors and staff  met  in December with representatives from the building contractors William Birch & Sons Ltd for a pre-start meeting.

Richardson catalogue

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.

Project team at the  walled garden / conservatory

Project team site visit

Project team site visit

Oliver Caroe (Director at Caroe Architecture Ltd), was interviewed  about the conservatory building designs by  The creative condition who are making a film about the restoration work and project.

Oliver Caroe

Oliver Caroe interview with  The Creative Condition

Look out for regular updates, photo's,  interesting stories and school newshound reports on the work as it progresses.

Happy New Year from staff and volunteers at Scampston.

Autumn colour, school visits and tulip bulb planting

This November  has  been very busy with School  visits focussing on planting  up four of the circular beds in the walled garden with tulip designs. Thankfully its been a time of perfect autumn weather  with an amazing display of autumn colours in the Scampston  gardens and Capability Brown parkland.

Three school groups form Settrington, West Heslerton and Rillington visited Scampston for autumn activity walks involving journey sticks (gathering natural materials that told the story of their walk), art collages and planting up their tulip bulb designs planned  earlier in the summer term.

Settrington

West Heslerton

Rillington

Tulip bulb planting -Settrington sports design

Tulip bulb planting - Settrington design

Tulip bulb planting -Rillington ladybird design

West Heslerton marking out their  tulip bulb pie chart design

Tulip bulb - Planted pie chart

Nest 

Flower

Cottage

Tree

Tree

Tree House

Tree

George and Tom from The Croft community, Camphill Village Trust (CVT) Malton, 
with Josh Parker their garden manager also visited Scampston to plant up one of the
tulip beds and  to prepare  activity materials for a  local school Science investigation visit. 

A group from The Croft  are planning to visit Scampston on a regular basis in 2014 to help with gardening and the development of new education trails.

The Croft Bulb Planting

Prep for Bark Art

Lisa Ponter's class from Rillington School took part in  Science Investigation  activities during the afternoon looking at trees in the Scampston parkland.

Rillington Science Investigation - Trees

Bark rubbing

Really looking forward to seeing the bulb designs in flower and full colour in the spring, and more school visits using the resources developed over the winter, watch this space.......