Walled Kitchen Gardens Network – Forum 2024, KnightshayesBack to the grapevine

11th and 12th October, at Knightshayes near Tiverton in Devon

Dear friends, we are delighted to announce the Forum this year will be held at the exceptional National Trust property at Knightshayes.

We are enormously grateful to Will Woodman, head gardener, and his team at Knightshayes, for inviting us to hold the Forum at this historic property, with its woodland gardens and important plant collections, and the elegant, restored walled kitchen garden. There will be more information to follow, and we’ll send out details of speakers and gardens in the next few weeks.

The turreted Kitchen Garden at Knightshayes was originally laid out by William Burges in the 1870s, the original kitchen garden site being used to build the current House. The ‘new’ kitchen gardens remained in production for generations before eventually being grassed over in the late 1950s – there is a huge amount of history before and since, but the National Trust began a restoration project in 1999, reopening as a productive kitchen garden in 2003. Plans are again underway to reorganise, and revitalize the layout and planting, bringing a revived interest both in the garden and to develop ideas to add new and different planting schemes.

With a great social and cultural history alongside the research and restoration work in the Kitchen Garden at Knightshayes, we have the ideal location for our theme this year, discovering what lies beneath these gardens – the archaeology, evidence in the walls and structures, and use of remote sensing methods such as LIDAR.

Booking is open if you’d like to get ahead, and full details of speakers and gardens will be sent out soon, and will also be on the Events and Training page

OTHER NEWS

European Symposium, September 5th & 6th – don’t forget to book your place for the next European Symposium in Holland you will need to book soon, and its a great opportunity to see and learn about the wonderful dutch kitchen gardens.

For the full Symposium programme and to register:

Unexpected opportunity has come up for a kitchen gardener, in a fully productive kitchen garden on a private estate in North Yorkshire – details below. CV and covering letter to Roger Pugh, Grounds Manager, Mount St. John Estate

Can you help to resolve the question of “His Grace the Lord Archbishop’s Brough Oven”?

This request was supposed to have gone out earlier in the year, however research is ongoing at the walled kitchen garden associated with the Archbishop of York’s Palace, in Bishopthorpe near York, dating from around 1767. Read on below, and if you can help, please contact Jenny Lever direct, or through the Grapevine.