News & Events
Please note that events are for members only and generally have to be pre-booked.
A booking form is sent to members with the newsletter in January and June.
February Visit Event 1
The Picton Garden, Old Court Nursery, Colwall.
By kind permission of the Picton and Barbour families.
Garden at the foot of the Malvern Hills growing over 300 varieties of snowdrops. Winding paths with borders full of woodland plants and bulbs.
March Lecture Event 2
Wollerton Old Hall Garden. Talk by Pip Smith, previous head gardener.
Pip was Head Gardener at Wollerton from 2016 - 2020. He will reminisce on his time at the garden, looking at its early history and development through the last four decades. One of Monty Don's "Great Gardens".
Afternoon refreshments are included.
April Visit Event 3
Overbury Court.
By kind permission of Sir Bruce Bossom and Penelope Bossom.
A 10 acre historic garden nestling in a Capability Brown landscape. Harry Green, the Head Gardener, will give a guided tour, but in particular to view the myriad of daffodils. Vast formal lawns, rills and ponds, formal terrace, mixed borders and yew hedging
May AGM Event 4
Hartlebury Castle.
By kind permission of the Trustees of Hartlebury Castle Preservation Trust.
Visit the garden to see the planting of the beds around the Carriage Circle and along Queen Elizabeth's Walk which were grant aided by HWGT, also the restored peony and iris beds should be at their best.
Garden visit followed by AGM.
Wine and refreshments are included.
June Visit Event 5
High Glanau Manor, Lydart, Monmouth.
By kind permission of Mr. & Mrs. H. Gerrish. 
Following our successful visit last year to the stunning gardens at Mounton House and Wyndcliffe Court, both designed by H. Avray Tipping we will visit another of his creations at High Glanau. This is a Listed Arts and Crafts garden laid out in 1922 and first opened for the NGS in 1927. Original features and impressive stone terraces with far reaching views over the Vale of Usk to Blorenge, Skirrid, Sugar Loaf and Brecon Beacons. Pergola, herbaceous borders, Edwardian glasshouse, rhododendrons, azaleas, orchard with wild flowers.
Includes a tour by Helena Gerrish and afternoon tea and cakes.
July Visit Event 6
Bredwardine Church and Castle followed by Brobury Gardens.
Brobury Gardens by kind permission of Keith and Pru Cartwright.
Starting at the Church with a talk by David Whitehead then walk to castle site. Afterwards to Brobury Gardens which are being restored with garden designer Peter Antonius. In the late 19th century Francis Kilvert, who lived across the river in Bredwardine vicarage, used the southern part of the gardens as his kitchen garden, he also took a passing interest in the gardens surrounding his vicarage but appears to have ignored the extensive 13th century gardens attached to Bredwardine Castle. A Victorian terrace garden was created in the 1880s and subsequent owners have added features such as a Lutyens-inspired pool, bog garden and stream leading to a water meadow. Panoramic views towards Regency-style Bredwardine vicarage.
Visit includes cream tea at Brobury Gardens.
July Visit Event 7
Wollerton Old Hall Gardens, Market Drayton.
By kind permission of Lesley and John Jenkins
Pip Smith’s talk in March will have whetted our appetites to visit this glorious 3 acre garden created 40 years ago around a Tudor house (not open). The current Head Gardener will take us on a guided tour which will include the hot garden and significant collections of rare perennials, roses, salvias, phlox and clematis.
The tea room serves light lunches and teas.
September Visit Event 8
Thenford Arboretum.
By kind permission of Lord and Lady Heseltine.
The 70 acre arboretum features a collection of over three thousand different trees and shrubs, together with extensive herbaceous borders, water gardens, sculpture garden, rose garden and rill, and restored walled garden. There will be a short introduction to the arboretum and then everyone will be given a detailed map to freely wander at leisure
Afternoon refreshments included.
October Lecture Event 9
The Work of The National Landscape/Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Talk by David Armitage.
David is the Landscape Partnership Manager of the Malvern Hills National Landscape and works alongside other organisations to enhance and conserve this area’s special qualities. His talk will slant towards local stories.
Refreshments will be served after the lecture.
November Lecture Event 10
The English Landscape Garden. Talk by Tim Richardson.
Tim Richardson is a well known garden historian and writer. He has just published his 24th book, which is the first fully illustrated study to be published about the 18th century English landscape garden.
It is structured as 20 case studies across the span of the century, from Castle Howard to Picturesque gardens such as Hackfall and includes Hagley Hall. .
Refreshments will be served after the lecture.
PRESS_RELEASE_-_Gardens_Trust_urges_government_to_reconsider_its_plans_V2.pdf
NEWS FROM THE GARDENS TRUST
Government proposal to remove statutory consultee role from the Gardens Trust
The Gardens Trust is appalled that the government is considering removing it as a statutory consultee within the English planning system.
We don’t recognise ourselves in the government’s characterisation of statutory consultees. We only rarely miss the 21 day response deadline (remarkable given that we work closely with local volunteers in forming our responses), and last year objected to less than 10% of our consultations, with the remainder of our responses being simply supportive advice.
The Gardens Trust receives some 1800 planning application consultations each year, and provides local planning authorities with many hundreds of constructive advice recommendations to support positive change. Around 80% of our comments are advice to support approval of planning permission, with only 20% expressing serious reservations about proposals.
To support the Gardens Trust’s statutory consultee work it receives a grant of £42,000 from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
In order to deliver its statutory consultee role, the Gardens Trust’s small team of national paid Conservation Officers and experts working pro bono coordinates a volunteer army across 36 affiliated County Gardens Trusts.
We are passionate about the role that the UK’s world-famous historic parks and gardens can play in supporting positive economic growth and healthy cohesive societies, and eager to continue helping this in our role as statutory consultee. We understand that the government will shortly be launching a public consultation into proposals, and we will contact our members and supporters with an update at that point, if not before. In the meantime, please read the Gardens Trust’s statement. Your support is vital.
MESSAGE FROM OUR CHAIRMAN
We all love Clough Williams-Ellis for creating Portmeirion, but hjs wider, effective legacy is 'England and the Octopus' published 1928, inveighing against ribbon development and the destruction of cohesion of villages. CPRE had been founded two years before.
It is probably fair to say that Sir Simon Jenkins is Clough's lineal successor. In a Times article, Simon sets out how the present government with its ambitions for a Third Runway and the Oxford-Cambridge arc (and the construction of what he designates Starmerville) is dealing with past challenges not the present or future ones. He advocates mending historic towns and cities instead, repurposing old buildings VAT-free. He points out that with modern communications there is no need for new settlements to allow people to work close together, nor a need for a new railway line.
Simon cares about the countryside and its appearance. It is difficult to be convinced that the government's vision is also an aesthetic one.
We are probably about to see compulsory land-grabbing, a hobbled planning system and proliferation of solar farms, battery storage, on-shore wind farms and the cat's cradle of wirescape to link them. We are all keen to harness power and make the country as energy self-sufficient as possible, but the rush for net-zero by 2030 is likely to deliver ill-considered, visually damaging results.
And what of Historic Parks and Gardens? All of Herefordshire's and most of Worcestershire's are on the Historic Environment Record system, but it may be only those officially Registered by Historic England that will get noticed in the present race for development. HWGT, like many other County Gardens Trusts, has been trying to double the number of Registered Parks over the years, but officialdom has been poorly funded in this respect --- so Worcestershire has only 17 Registered Historic Parks and Gardens. It was an uphill battle to get John Webb's Regency parkland at Ombersley Registered a few years ago, for instance.
Please let us know, via this website, when you learn of a development likely to harm an Historic Park or Garden.
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News in 2024
GOOD NEWS FOR OUR PARKS & GARDENS
For many years our historic parks and gardens have been poor cousins of Listed buildings with little of the same level of protection. This woefully inadequate recognition of their cultural and historic importance has slowly improved with successive levels of legislation until now the new Levelling Up and Regeneration Act has given them equal status. At last there is statutory duty to preserve and enhance Registered parks and gardens and the recognition that un-designated sites are also important.
Warwickshire Gardens Trust have indicated that they would be pleased to see members of HWGT at their events. If you are interested in joining them you can find details at Upcoming Events – Warwickshire Gardens Trust
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News in 2023
Malcolm Meikle. 3rd June 1929 – 1st April 2023
Seen here with our Chairman, Jeffrey Haworth.
Malcolm Meikle, our longstanding Gardens Trust member and stalwart committee member has sadly died at the ripe old age of 93. We will all miss him. The following words have been penned by Jeffrey Haworth.
On hearing Malcolm had died, Anne Langton (our Secretary) wrote, “Such a Grand Old Man, always interested and informative - and not afraid of lobbing the odd apple/pear/plum into the conversation.” We have appreciated his amiable insights and help since he joined the Committee 25 years ago, until he stepped down two years ago and even afterwards in phone calls. We've valued his guidance and ability to pull strings after a Worcestershire lifetime.
Malcolm was born at Wick Grange and only recently he and Mima formed a dower house nearby. He attended the remarkable Victorian choir school at St Michael's, Tenbury. He was sad when it folded and I told him about the refectory furniture, in the manner of William Burges, looking so desolate and unappreciated in the Leominster saleroom.
His father died suddenly when Malcolm was 18, so he had to stay on at Wick to help his mother run the large mixed farm.
He had a long association with Wychavon District Council, stepping down as Leader in 2004. Then Malcolm and Mima had more time for HWGT and have been regulars at our visits and lectures and generally conspicuous at our gatherings. They have been so hospitable at Wick, with several group visits there that we remember.
Several of us recall Malcolm being intrigued at his first Committee meeting by one or two of our more eccentric colleagues, John St Bodfan Gruffydd in particular, the decidedly Welsh and opinionated former President of the Landscape Institute (the Committee has never lacked spark). Malcolm was certainly a backbone of HWGT, if an organisation such as ours can have several. Many of us have lost a good friend.
For a quarter century Malcolm had been intrigued by the saga of the Pershore organ, with its novel twists and turns. He was thrilled when at last a new pipe organ was commissioned and entertained that it is Italian and placed uniquely high up near the vaults in the triforium. Delayed by Covid and Brexit, it was given its first major airing at Malcolm's memorial service, bringing the saga as well as his life to a close.