In the 1800s, this Walled Garden would have been at the cutting edge of farming innovation, from its trapezoid shape to catch as much sun as possible, to its steam-heated walls for growing peaches and pineapples and the underground mushroom house. It employed around 20 gardeners, six days a week and each earnt 1s 8d a day.
“A kitchen garden of several acres is walled and subdivided, the walls well-stored with the choicest fruit-trees, with very extensive ranges of hot-houses, in which the pineapple, the grape, the peach, the fig, and other varieties of hot-house fruits, flowers and plants are cultivated in the highest of protection. One of the hot houses is heated with steam, in which melons and cucumbers are produced in perfection at all seasons.
The gardens are a kind of Academy for the study of Horticulture, in which young men enter themselves to assist without pay, for the purpose of improving themselves and gaining knowledge in the art.”
William Pitt, A Topographical History of Staffordshire, 1817
Today, the Walled Garden still includes the Gardener’s House, though the original glasshouses have since been lost. Our team are working with Small Wood willow weavers to re-imagine these magnificent buildings through living art.
