The Welsh Historic Gardens Trust (WHGT) is a national organisation campaigning to save historic gardens and parks from neglect, indifference, insensitive planning and planting, for future generations.

The Welsh Historic Gardens Trust pays tribute to HM The Queen

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The Welsh Historic Gardens Trust joins the nation in mourning the passing of HM Queen Elizabeth II who dedicated her life to public service. 

Throughout her reign The Queen planted more than 1,500 trees all over the world and enjoyed parks and gardens.

Her life has been long connected to Royal gardens, begining at Royal Lodge, Windsor, where she grew up and where her parents, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, established a woodland garden.
On her sixth birthday the People of Wales gave her a miniature thatched Welsh cottage, Y Bwthyn Bach, or The Little House with its own small formal garden laid out in 1932, placed in the grounds at Royal Lodge- pehaps the Queen’s very first garden.

Princess Elizabeth Y Bwthyn Bach Little House Situated Garden Royal Lodge Windsor Great Park Berkshire England This Miniature Cottage Was A Gift Her People Wales Princess Elizabeth Future Queen Elizabeth Ii Seen

 

In 1940, Princess Elizabeth was photographed, with her younger sister, Princess Margaret Rose, in the grounds of Windsor Castle to promote the ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign.

Elizabeth and Margaret worked on their garden as part of the ...

In 1952 The Queen became the Patron of the RHS on the death of her father, carrying on the royal dynastic association with the RHS which had begun in Victorian times. During the 2009 Chelsea flower show she presented our patron Prince Charles with the RHS Victoria Medal of Honour (VMH) – the Society’s most prestigious award – as a tribute to his deep interest and expertise in horticulture.

Her Majesty took a keen interest in the gardens of her Royal residences at Sandringham in Norfolk, Balmoral in Aberdeenshire, and at Buckingham Palace in London. Buckingham Palace is the largest and most biodiverse private garden in the capital, home to more than 350 types of wildflowers and 150 mature trees. These include the National Plant Collection of Morus (mulberry trees), which grow in the gardens both of Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace.

At  Windsor Castle, a new Jubilee Garden was commissioned In 2002, from Tom Stuart-Smith, the first new garden to be made there for many years.
Shortly before the Queen’s 90th birthday in 2016, her cousin, Lady Elizabeth Shakerley proposed a Birthday Garden at Frogmore House in Windsor Home Park, which has always been a private retreat for the Royal Family. The Birthday Garden was planted in the autumn of 2016 and spring of 2017, with a choice and varied mixture of trees, shrubs (many of them ericaceous) as well as roses.

In 2018, The Queen was filmed walking informally around the garden at Buckingham Palace in the company of Sir David Attenborough, for the ITV broadcast The Queen’s Green Planet, as they discussed the development of The Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy. This was an initiative of forest conservation and tree planting in the 53 countries of the Commonwealth.

 2021 saw the launch of The Queen’s Green Canopy, an initiative led by Prince Charles, to plant trees throughout the United Kingdom in celebration of Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022.

During the Covid pandemic in the spring and summer of 2020 and to celebrate RHS National Gardening Week, a video was released sharing  the rhododendrons flowering in the garden at Buckingham Palace.
Her Majesty also broadcast a warm message of support for Virtual Chelsea, an online event to replace the live show, and chose lily-of-the-valley as her favourite plant, since it had featured in her Coronation bouquet.

One of the Queen’s final public appearances this year was in May when she attended RHS Chelsea Flower Show, exhibiting her usual enthusiasm for meeting exhibitors and viewing displays, as she had done for so many years and she will be much missed by all who share a love for gardens.

We extend our deep condolences to the Royal Family and to our Patron HM King Charles III

WHGT AGM 2022

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AGM 2022 Programme

To be held at Brecon and Radnor this year in the Castle at Hay on Wye in what must be one of the greatest restoration projects in Wales this century.

Cocktail party at 6.30pm on Friday 9 September at Pontsioni House, near Aberedw, Builth Wells LD2 3SQ hosted by Trustees Jonathan and Sue Reeves
This is located in the Wye Valley near the Aberedw Rocks on the B4567.
Dinner  can be booked at a nearby restaurant, Foyles in Glasbury on Wye. Please book numbers on the booking form.

The AGM will start at 10.30am on Saturday 10 September at Hay Castle and chaired by our President, Stephen Lacey.  

Coffee will be available in the castle on arrival and unlimited parking is available below the castle.
Following the AGM there will be a conducted tour of the castle in small groups.  

!2.30pm, Lunch at  Llangoed Hall, Three Cocks, Brecon, LD3 0SU
This is a house designed by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis about 15 minutes drive from Hay Castle.
John Edmondson will be selling books at Llangoed Hall

Afternoon visits to:
Old Gwernyfed, Manor, 2 Penpound, Velindre, Brecon LD3 0SU
On NW side of road from Talgarth to Felindre. where our trust logo, the gate pillars, are in the middle of a field below the house.  

and
New Gwernyfed Walled Garden, Three Cocks, Brecon LD3 0SG
Tea will ne served in the recently restored Messenger glass houses.    

Sunday 11 September visit to Hergest Croft near Kington HR5 3EG
This 50-acre garden has been developed over the last 100 years by four generations of the Banks family and has a unique collection of over five thousand rare plants, trees and shrubs as well as more than ninety “champion” trees.  There are flower borders, a traditional kitchen garden, an azalea garden, Maple Grove and Park Wood. This is a magnificent garden owned, by the Banks family of Banksian Rose fame.

A light lunch will be available in the garden café. 

 http://whgt.wales/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/AGM-2022-booking-Form-webpage-1.html

We do hope you can join us!

150th Anniversary of Reginald Cory’s Birth

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Sunday 31st October 2021 marks the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of Reginald Cory, the man who, with assistance from the landscape architect and garden designer Thomas Mawson (1861-1933), created Dyffryn Gardens in the Vale of Glamorgan.

Outside Wales Cory is known for his very remarkable support of such organisations as the Royal Horticultural Society, Cambridge University Botanic Garden, the Linnean Society and for his sponsorship of plant hunters, notably George Forrest (1873-1932). He was also a man who appreciated beautiful porcelain, some of which was left to the British Museum and the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.

This article by Jean Reader concentrates on how he was involved with horticultural matters in Wales.