Gardening


In The Garden


with John Ladlow - professional gardener and Estate Manager for over 50 years


Working in gardens all my life especially if I have been creating a new feature has always thrown up the possibility of unearthing something interesting. Bits of glass and pottery, old clay smoking pipes, bits of iron, sets you thinking about their origins and who originally used these things. Just occasionally I have come across something a bit more spectacular.


In 1984 I was making a model of a Ransome 1901 horse plough which was a hobby of mine at the time. At that time I was preparing a new garden at a country house. Using a rotovator I struck a large piece of iron. I stopped to see what this was, and it turned out to be the coulter of an old iron plough, not only that, it was of the very same model that I was making in miniature at the time so I knew exactly what it was.


A few years later on the same estate it was decided to create a small lake for conservation purposes, this was to be at the lower end of a terrace in a somewhat boggy area. We designed the size and shape of the lake and I


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organised the necessary machinery and labour to undertake this project. I started at the wettest end and where it was to be deepest first so that if the weather changed we would have less risk of being bogged down. After stripping off the topsoil we started to dig into the clay, much of the spoil we were able to disperse locally and landscape it. On the second day of digging the machine operator hit a piece of wood which looked as if it had been laid there on purpose. We got spades and cleared this wood carefully just in case it turned out to be important. It was good job that we did as it soon became evident that it was the remains of an old elm water pipe. Careful exposure revealed two lengths of 3 metre sections of wood, joined together by a lidded section of wood. Realising that this could be a fairly important discovery we contacted the Nautical Archaeology Society and Dr Valerie Fenwick and her colleagues, who were currently restoring the ‘Mary Rose’ in Chichester, came very quickly to examine this object and were very excited about it. It was necessary to keep the wood wet as if it dried out it would have soon disintegrated. It was measured, and dated then finally lifted carefully and wrapped in tarpaulin and then submerged again in a small pond excavated specially for the purpose. We continued digging the lake, created an island and landscaped the surrounding areas. The finished pond has become a successful haven for wildlife.


We eventually got the results from the archaeologists who confirmed that it was part of the balancing system of an artificial fishpond that had been created in medieval times for providing food for a local monastery! Colin Tuffrey produced a watercolour of the lake, which I am proud to own and is a lasting reminder of an interesting event.


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