Public Places
“In total, forty-six nests were discovered and, after two years of treatment, they have finally managed to successfully control the Oak Processionary Moth”
M
Brian Clarke, English Heritage Landscape Manager for London & West Midlands
We continue our occasional series on English Heritage sites by visiting Marble Hill
Park in West London, where the organisation’s Landscape Manager for London and
West Midlands, Brian Clarke, is tasked with overseeing its ongoing upkeep, maintenance and ecology. This includes various sports facilities, an ancient Black Walnut tree, an ice house and a scary looking spider!
Laurence Gale MSc reports
arble Hill Park, one of over four hundred properties maintained by English Heritage, is set in sixty-six acres of outstanding riverside
parkland near Richmond in West London, and is unique in that it is the only English Heritage site that provides and rents out sports pitches to local teams. It is regularly used by fourteen local football teams, four rugby teams and fifteen cricket teams, each of whom provide an important source of income for the site.
Marble Hill House was built for the
remarkable Henrietta Howard, mistress of King George II when he was Prince of Wales, and friend and confidante of some of the cleverest men in England. The house and gardens were intended as an Arcadian retreat from crowded 18th- century London. Its grand interiors have been exquisitely restored and recreated and include a fine collection of early Georgian paintings. There can be few places in England which better recall the atmosphere of fashionable Georgian life. The house and stable block are still in use today and open for corporate events, weddings and education and training days. The park is widely used by the public for walking their dogs, picnics and sports activities.
The park has a team of four Rangers, including Andrea Arthan and John Telfer, this team organise activities on site, mentoring school groups, conservation projects and overseeing the running of the park
The day to day maintenance of the
park is undertaken by local contractors, Scion Estates Ltd., on a five year contract. Brian Clarke, is based in the park has spent the best part of twenty-seven years working for English Heritage, starting out as a gardener and working his way up to his present post of English Heritage’s Landscape Manager for London and the West Midlands. Brian uses a schedule of rates style of contract to control the work required. He was keen for me to see what the park has to offer in terms of its heritage, landscape features and sports provision. Our first stop was to see one of the
rarest and oldest trees on the site, a very large Black Walnut (Juglans nigra). According to the Tree Register of the British Isles (
www.treeregister.org/index.php) it is the third largest Black Walnut in the UK. The area around the tree is protected by a fence to prevent the public climbing it and avoid ground compaction underneath the tree. It has also been braced to prevent the large branches breaking. It is reported to have been planted during Henrietta’s time, around 1725.
The considerable number of trees on the site have all been surveyed and tagged and a long term management programme set in place. However, the recent ‘Big Storm’ did cause damage to some of the mature trees, so Gristwood and Toms, who currently hold a Tree Surgery contract with English Heritage for the London sites, carried out the repairs, removed fallen trees and branches and cleared up the debris. Whilst on the subject of trees, Brian was keen to elaborate on the success of
This Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) is approaching 300 years old ...
72 PC DECEMBER/JANUARY 2014
... and is home to Grey Squirrels
Marble Hill Park is open to all
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