Old Orchard and Pond
To the right of the driveway, facing the house, is the Orchard with its distinctive pond feature. Robin wrote in detail about its development and the thought and care given to its layout, planting and design.
Here, he writes about the initial changes they made in order to develop the character of the garden as a whole:
“It was originally an orchard, with eight or nine various apples, pears and plums, carpeted with rough grass; now only three trees remain and much of the grass had been dug up, but what is left forms a tolerable but somewhat mossy lawn, For some time, the view from the turnabout was blocked by a Victoria plum tree with an exceptionally twisted and misshapen trunk. We were greatly attached to this tree, and therefore gave little thought to what it was hiding. Yet I gradually became aware that the initial impression on entering the garden was disappointing and eventually it was apparent that the plum would have to go. The effect was a revelation.
The view is centred on a small pond with a prominently sited pine tree growing on the far bank, which serves to give character to the view; pines are a most individual genus and form a recurrent theme in the garden. The pond was formerly much smaller, its size restricted by the plum tree. With this gone, we were able to enlarge it to dimensions more in harmony with its surroundings.”
Robin describes how the pond was his father’s idea, developed as it was, to celebrate the Spencers’ silver wedding anniversary.
“We couldn’t wait for the anniversary celebrations- two years away- but dug a trench at right angles to the line my father – a surveyor – thought the culvert would take ; we found it almost immediately, a well-formed old stone culvert. I enlisted the help of an uncle and a friend and we began to dig out a pond. The job was not quite the mammoth one we had imagined; we made a foot – high concrete dam and in no time, it seemed we were waiting for the water to overflow. “
With the pond in place, Robin writes about the choices for the planting and garden ornaments in this area. Here, he describes the cast iron urn at one end of the pond:
“ … it is a most formidable piece of Victorian craftsmanship and ingenuity and positively exudes the enthusiasm of the innovators of the Industrial Revolution. The design is highly original and simple; at the base is a flat, circular disc with holes cast in it and into these fit fifty flat cast iron sections, each one in the form of the profile of the urn. Then, round the edge of the urn a piece of metal banding is pinned in place, to each separate member, ensuring they are equidistant. Erection of the urn takes less than five minutes and when finished it looks like as though it were made of three- dimensional lace. “
In the same article, Robin talks about his choices of planting for the urn. This was originally ivy, interplanted with crocuses, but later changed to a yucca, surrounded by purple and white iris. Around the pond was planted white flowered skunk cabbage, ranunculus, and astilbes. Foliage plants included New Zealand flax, Phormium and Monterey Cypress. Nearby he planted blue poppies, Lady’s smock and mauve double stocks. Variegated bamboo, Carex and Arum were also grown here.
In her talk 'York Gate 1965' Sybil describes a picture of the scree bed created at the end of the orchard, close to the driveway, in 1959 as follows "This is a view of my very tiny scree under the weeping Birch. This is a particularly lovely form of Birch called Betula pendula Youngii. It has a mushroom shaped head and never grows very big. I would recommend anyone with only a small garden to try making a bit of scree. Mine is only about 4ft x 6ft. It needs 4ft of drainage. This sounds a lot of work but on a small area it is not so bad. A scree should have plenty of water underneath, we compromised by laying land drains in the bottom, then lots of coarse rubble, finally topped with limestone chippings." While in her tapes she says "... it's made a delightful feature. We have a few alpines and clumps of snowdrops, crocuses and cyclamen. It is gorgeous in the spring now that the trunk of the birch has got its lovely silvery bark."
Robin wrote how he thought the “best show” in the orchard came from the North Border, close to the road. He describes the trees and shrubs he planted, not all successful (such as Rhododendrons).
“We made some terrible blunders, and we certainly did not appreciate the limitations of the aspect; we thought everything we planted ought to grow………Slowly we began to learn and our successes still survive.”
At the opposite side of the orchard, originally the “Bulb Border”, was one of the first parts of the garden to be made. It was planted with what Robin called “a profusion of treasures and oddities”, such as Euphorbia, Arum italiculum, Yucca gloriosa, Eleagunus Pungens and several varieties of Viburnum.
To replace the fence that was originally erected to divide the orchard from the duck run, a semi-circular area of crazy paving was laid, backed by a copper beech hedge.
“At the further side of the paving, against the hedge, we placed a short curved stone seat; the top was cut from a single piece of stone by the local stone mason and the base was built up of small narrow stones. . . . . . . This seat, incidentally, has always been referred to as “Mother’s Tomb”, because (according to my father) the curve of the seat just echoes her bent posture when weeding!”
The following extract from Robin’s description of the Orchard, displays the thought and planning behind the integral design of York Gate garden:
“Before we leave the Orchard, we will walk to the old apple tree at the head of the pond and look across to the Folly. This is a view which has been created over some years, not as successful as I hoped, but illustrative of the way in which a view is made up of its component parts. In this case, it effectively cuts diagonally across some of the boundaries of the separate compartments of the garden. The Folly, with its conical roof, the central feature here, also forms the focal point of at least three other vistas. If you mentally take away some of the trees or shrubs or imagine the site empty, you begin to get a clearer idea of how comparatively easy a view, a picture or a vista may be formed, or indeed improved.”