Jane Lark | Author, Jane Lark's stories

Kingston Lacy Avenue

If you’ve read my early blogs I have spoken before of my passion for old trees, which may sound silly, and my daughter definitely thinks is silly, but when I see things like this avenue at Kingston Lacy I cannot help but be drawn into imagining who has walked past these trees before me, over the same soil. It’s funny because I don’t think about it in the same way when I walk through the house. Kingston Hall was completed in 1667 and it looks as though this avenue was planted then.

When these trees were perhaps ten years old, the Duke of Ormonde lived in Kingston Hall. He was close to King Charles II, having shared the King’s years of exile and was given his title on the King’s restoration. He was in his 70’s when he lived at Kingston Hall, and would have possibly arrived along this avenue, having lived a tumultuous life, in and out of favour in a back stabbing court and holding Ireland for the Crown in the Civil War. He must have had a lot to contemplate as he looked down upon the avenue from the windows of Kingston Hall in his last days.

Then there is the history of William John Bankes, a second son, born in 1786 (The gentleman who explored Egypt and brought home the obelisk). He later became heir and formed a lifelong friendship with Lord Byron, beginning in 1804, when they met at Trinity College,Cambridge. William competed with Byron for the attention and the hand of Annabella Millbanke. He had his own proposal rejected in 1812. Byron writes of him ‘He is very clever, very original and has a fund of information; he is also very good-natured, but he is not much of a flatterer…’ Annabella was clearly not interested in anything beyond perhaps encouraging his adulation and continued attention. ‘One of my smiles would encourage him, but I am niggardly in my glances.’

Of course Byron was not so lacking in flattery. All I have read of him and the letters he has written show a very intelligent man who was extremely capable of flirtation, manipulation and seduction. I would say, if he wished to, he knew how to charm people. We certainly know he had a gift with words. He married Annabella in 1815, after she fell for his fame following the publication of Childe Harold – she read a copy Byron gave to William and William loaned to her. Annabella wrote to Byron then, ‘I am afraid he will hear of us with pain, yet he cannot lose hope, for I never allowed it to exist’.

In an earlier post I showed this picture of the pelisse Annabella is believed to have worn on her departure for her honeymoon, following her marriage to Lord Byron, it is in the possession of the Fashion museum inBath.

I can only wonder if either Byron or Annabella travelled along this avenue, on foot, by horse or carriage. I think there are strong odds that Byron did, as his friendship with William Bankes lasted so many years even surviving his failed marriage to Annabella, though Byron had fled England after this.

Stourhead

Then there are my favourite trees from Stourhead, which out date the Georgian house by centuries, it is believed they may be a 1000 years old, which means they have stood along this entrance way since the medieval period. An army of knights may have ridden past here, escorting carts piled high with household belongs perhaps, as the families moved from residence to residence – their tack jangling, the sound of the horses hooves a low thunder and the bright colours of their clothing and heraldry tabards and banners fluttering in the breeze. Yes, I can imagine it. I have spoken of them before, but now I have a picture.

Old Wardour Yew Alley

My last find however was at Old Wardour, last week. This alley of yew trees was planted in 1730, along a surviving terrace from the second era of the ruins as an element of a ‘formal’ pleasure garden. The terraces had railings along their edge when established and steps. This one overlooked a bowling green, with the ruins as its backdrop. My imagination of course pictures the gentlemen who must have climbed the ruins and engraved their names walking along beside these trees, perhaps flattering a woman, Byronic style. And notably the greatest amount of graffiti is in the entrance facing the site of the bowling green which would match the date of this formal garden. Perhaps these were carved as they waited for their turn or watched a game of bowls.

Jane Lark is a writer of authentic, passionate and emotional love stories.

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Prior Park is positioned on a hill looking down onto the City of Bath. It is the ultimate example of landscape gardening. It was developed by Ralph Allen, an 18^th Century entrepreneur. Ralph Allen made his money by establishing the postal service in Great Britain, which enabled him to rise from a mere Postmaster in Bath in 1712 to the owner of the longest Palladian mansion in Britain at the time, by 1752. His beautiful house still stands, perched on the hill, with Bath as the feature of his ornamental garden.

Ralph also invested the money he had made from the postal system into the purchasing of local quarries to supply Bath with its distinctive pale yellow stone; making a further fortune by establishing a railway and clearing the river Avon to Bristol to enable the stone to be transported more widely. Prior Park mansion and its follies, is a showcase for the stone which he quarried and transported.

Ralph Allen was a popular man of his era, with many influential friends and a penchant for the cultured clique, including Alexander Pope who was a close friend and frequent visitor at Prior Park and who helped Ralph design the garden. Also among this group was the author Henry Fielding, the actor David Garrick and William Pitt the elder (a man whom I have recently discovered my husband may be a descendent of – exciting).

Pope’s interest in the art of designing nature was shown in the Epistle IV he addressed to another friend, Lord Burlington;

Consult the genius of the place in all;

That tells the waters or to rise, or fall;

Of helps th’ambitious hill the heav’ns to scale,

Or scoops in circling theatres the vale;

Call in the country, catches opening glades,

Joins willing woods, and varies shades from shades,

Now breaks, or now directs, th’intending lines;

Paints as you plant, and, as you work, designs.

There was once a Gothic Temple in the garden, among other follies, but as Ralph Allen had no heir and the estate was sold off after his death, eventually becoming a school, the garden features were not all preserved. One folly, The Sham Bridge, has recently been restored. I have included a picture of this at the head of a formal lake.

However the most impressive architectural folly in the Garden is the Palladian Bridge stretching across and damming the lower ornamental lakes. It is a focal point for nearly every view and with the City of Bath as its backdrop, if you look down from the house, it would have been a perfect picture to constantly enjoy.

Ralph Allen opened the park to visitors on Thursday afternoon, but as he died in 1764, and Jane Austen was not born until 1775 and she did not come to Bath until the early 1800’s when Prior Park was a Seminary, I cannot say for certain whether she ever walked the Prior Park paths.

More on Prior Park, its Grotto and Graffiti next week.

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/history/item269128/

http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/Plans-uncover-Prior-Park-grotto/story-11349806-detail/story.html

Jane Lark is a writer of authentic, passionate and emotional love stories.

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