Secrets of the Lost Garden
What happened in an Irish ‘Big House’ garden 100 years ago, who did what, what did it look like, where did the plants come from and how were they grown? These are interesting questions because these beautiful hidden worlds were where many thousands of people were employed and where so much beauty and food were produced – in a way and on a scale that went into decline after the First World War and had almost disappeared by the Second.
There were over 2,000 Big Houses in Ireland in 1919, many of them with walled gardens; by the 1990s effectively all of them had fallen into neglect, and their records lost.
However, in recent years there has been a great revival of interest in heritage gardening, and some of these gardens have been rescued. We only have to look at Heligan in Cornwall, or Kylemore Abbey in Connemara to see what can be achieved.
Much of our knowledge about these gardens has been gleaned from the few records that have survived, records such as Geraldine Mayo’s Garden Book, now reprinted in a beautiful title, Lady Mayo’s Garden. Geraldine Mayo actually kept a diary of her garden at Palmerstown from when she moved there in the late 19th century, and she and her father illustrated it with watercolours. With these we get an unprecedented view of what was going on.
Clockwise From top left: Head gardener, Doyle, appointed in 1893. Borders in the walled garden. A page of Lady Mayo’s beautifully illustrated diary
Geraldine Ponsonby was born in 1863 at her parents’ London house; she married Dermot Bourke, 7th Earl of Mayo, in November 1885, and came to live at Palmerstown; she was 22 and he 34. She was soon left in charge of the house, the household, and garden.
Palmerstown House had been built directly as a result of a terrible family tragedy, indeed a murder. Dermot’s father Richard, the 6th Earl of Mayo, was appointed Viceroy of India in 1868. He left England that year and never returned, being assassinated by an escaped convict in the Andaman Islands, a penal colony.
It was built for his family as a Memorial from a grateful nation. It was a large comfortable house done in a late Victorian Queen Anne style, with 18 bedrooms and an old walled garden, to which Geraldine was to devote so much energy.
Clockwise from left: Geraldine Mayo’s illustration of tulips, 25 March 1896. Geraldine Mayo, 8 July 1896. Lady Mayo’s diary entry. Palmerstown House in County Kildare was deliberately set ablaze and burnt down in the Irish Civil War.
Geraldine was a disarmingly pretty blonde girl who had grown up in smart London. There was, though, a lot more to her than that. She was an accomplished cellist, a devout Christian and a very accomplished watercolourist.
In many of these things she had taken a lead from her father Gerald Ponsonby, and it’s clear that he was the abiding influence.
It was probably he who gave Geraldine the handsome volume of blank pages bound in vellum with GARDEN BOO K stamped in gold on the spine that she wrote and painted in for the next 32 years.
Clockwise from top left: Illustration of a plant from Sierra Leone, 1909. A gravel walk edged with rich planting. The walled garden was a place for serene relaxation
Lord and Lady Mayo led very busy lives. They often visited friends and relations in Ireland and England, and they regularly went on foreign travels. Dermot was a Representative Peer and was frequently away in Dublin and London. On top of this they became very involved in the Arts & Crafts movement; they jointly founded the Irish Arts & Crafts Society in 1895, which held two major exhibitions.
All of these activities meant that she could never devote as much time as she wanted to her garden, and rarely saw it in the height of summer – to her immense regret.
She and Dermot had no children, but she was immensely fond of her three nieces. After her death in 1944 it was written ‘From her youth she had united a gracious personality with a wide range of culture and a keen love of outdoor amusements, a combination seldom found.’ These qualities come out in her Garden Book. It is her exquisite legacy.
This is an edited extract from Lady Mayo’s Garden: The Diary of A Lost 19th Century Irish Garden by Kildare Bourke-Borrowes, published by Double-Barrelled Books, priced £25
Visit www.lady-mayo-garden.com
There were over 2,000 Big Houses in Ireland in 1919, many of them with walled gardens; by the 1990s effectively all of them had fallen into neglect, and their records lost.
However, in recent years there has been a great revival of interest in heritage gardening, and some of these gardens have been rescued. We only have to look at Heligan in Cornwall, or Kylemore Abbey in Connemara to see what can be achieved.
Much of our knowledge about these gardens has been gleaned from the few records that have survived, records such as Geraldine Mayo’s Garden Book, now reprinted in a beautiful title, Lady Mayo’s Garden. Geraldine Mayo actually kept a diary of her garden at Palmerstown from when she moved there in the late 19th century, and she and her father illustrated it with watercolours. With these we get an unprecedented view of what was going on.
Clockwise From top left: Head gardener, Doyle, appointed in 1893. Borders in the walled garden. A page of Lady Mayo’s beautifully illustrated diaryPalmerstown House had been built directly as a result of a terrible family tragedy, indeed a murder. Dermot’s father Richard, the 6th Earl of Mayo, was appointed Viceroy of India in 1868. He left England that year and never returned, being assassinated by an escaped convict in the Andaman Islands, a penal colony.
It was built for his family as a Memorial from a grateful nation. It was a large comfortable house done in a late Victorian Queen Anne style, with 18 bedrooms and an old walled garden, to which Geraldine was to devote so much energy.
Clockwise from left: Geraldine Mayo’s illustration of tulips, 25 March 1896. Geraldine Mayo, 8 July 1896. Lady Mayo’s diary entry. Palmerstown House in County Kildare was deliberately set ablaze and burnt down in the Irish Civil War. Geraldine was a disarmingly pretty blonde girl who had grown up in smart London. There was, though, a lot more to her than that. She was an accomplished cellist, a devout Christian and a very accomplished watercolourist.
In many of these things she had taken a lead from her father Gerald Ponsonby, and it’s clear that he was the abiding influence.
It was probably he who gave Geraldine the handsome volume of blank pages bound in vellum with GARDEN BOO K stamped in gold on the spine that she wrote and painted in for the next 32 years.
Clockwise from top left: Illustration of a plant from Sierra Leone, 1909. A gravel walk edged with rich planting. The walled garden was a place for serene relaxation Lord and Lady Mayo led very busy lives. They often visited friends and relations in Ireland and England, and they regularly went on foreign travels. Dermot was a Representative Peer and was frequently away in Dublin and London. On top of this they became very involved in the Arts & Crafts movement; they jointly founded the Irish Arts & Crafts Society in 1895, which held two major exhibitions.
All of these activities meant that she could never devote as much time as she wanted to her garden, and rarely saw it in the height of summer – to her immense regret.
She and Dermot had no children, but she was immensely fond of her three nieces. After her death in 1944 it was written ‘From her youth she had united a gracious personality with a wide range of culture and a keen love of outdoor amusements, a combination seldom found.’ These qualities come out in her Garden Book. It is her exquisite legacy.
This is an edited extract from Lady Mayo’s Garden: The Diary of A Lost 19th Century Irish Garden by Kildare Bourke-Borrowes, published by Double-Barrelled Books, priced £25
Visit www.lady-mayo-garden.com