2019 – The Walled Gardens at Croome Court

January

A dusting of snow in the gardens on a cold January morning.

February

A little sherd of medieval pottery found inside The Walled Gardens, has been taken to Explore The Past for identification by NT Croome archaeology volunteer Ken MacDonald.

Remember those 5000 purple crocus bulbs Evesham Rotary Club and the students from The De Montfort School and Prince Henry’s High School planted in the gardens last October on World Polio Day?…

March

The new Mediterranean Garden is coming along nicely…

April

The olive trees have a new home!

The Walled gardens are back open to visitors for another season!

May

We had a selection of indoor and outdoor exhibitions featuring work from talented artists Ian Marlow, Frans Wesselman, Sharon Mcswiney and Angela Palmer.

The exhibition ran from Sunday 9th June, and all exhibits were available to purchase.

Thanks to Peter Young for the photos.

The rose garden in full bloom…

June

The 2nd series of this season’s art exhibitions were on display in the gardens from Friday 14th June until Sunday 4th August.

Chris and Karen welcomed Laura Hickman Artist, Jeannette Therrien, Joe McLaren Illustration and Neil Spalding.

Thank you to Peter Young for the photos.

July

Exciting work has been underway this year on restoring the Tomato House.

This is a key project for The Walled Garden and our carpenter Dave has been making the window and door frames in our in-house workshop, He brings each bespoke completed piece out individually and then constructs as a kit.

The side hung windows will open outwards, and this design creates a chimney effect, meaning that once the windows are fitted on the roof there will be a through draft. The timber for the ridge and rafters has now arrived, so next week work will commence on putting the rafters up.

Some of our visitors have noticed, and have been asking why, the door frames are so high. It’s not because we’re planning on having a game of rugby, the reason is simply that the timber came in those lengths and will be cut above the rafters.

We have been using a type of wood called ‘Sapele’, a managed and sustainable African hard wood. This type of wood is used because we know that unlike most hard wood, it will take paint well. We also used Sapele wood when restoring the porch in the old cottage part of the house. When coating the wood we use a special painting technique which starts by applying a very thin coat (wash coat) as a base, otherwise the paint tends to sit.

We’ll keep you updated on the progress, and you can come and see for yourself as the gardens will be open every Fri-Sun (plus August Bank Holiday Monday) until the end of September.

Photos courtesy of Peter Young.

Have you visited our visitor centre gift shop?

August

It was the annual Friends of Croome wine & cheese evening at The Walled Gardens last night.

As always it was a great pleasure to host ‘the friends’ and share our progress stories with the group.

Kate Wrigglesworth’s exhibition is on display from Friday until the end of September.

All of these amazing pieces are on display and available to purchase in the gardens until the end of September…

Thanks to Peter Young for these photos at our ‘meet the artist’ day today.

The work of Darren Rumley, Claudia Petley and Paul Shepherd, Kate Wrigglesworth and Ali Tregaskes will be on display and available to purchase in the gardens until Sunday 29th September 2019.

Have you seen our new Mediterranean Garden? We’ve still got some finishing touches to compete, but the olive trees are pleased to finally be in their new home…

Thanks to Peter Young for the photos.

September

One banana, two banana, three banana, four…

These fantastic photos of a Common Carder Bee and a ‘Painted Lady’ butterfly were captured in The Walled Gardens by photographer Roger Plant.

October

We can’t believe that another season is now over!

We’d like to say a HUGE thank you to each one of the volunteers, visitors, artists, Fiona for sourcing and organising the art exhibitions, NT Croome staff, supporters and every body who in one way or another has been on this journey with us so far.

We can’t wait to welcome you into the gardens again from Easter 2020. In the meantime, please keep an eye on our website and social media pages for updates over the winter months. See you next year! Chris, Karen & Victoria.

Photo courtesy of Peter Young.

All of the artwork has now been collected from the gardens, but there were a few pieces that we felt belonged here and needed to stay, including the Moongate (eclipse) by Darren Rumley.

We’re already working on organising an evening event for later in the season next year so visitors can see the Moongate lit up, as it comes to life at night!

These incredible photos were captured by photographer Dave Mackay.

Collecting pumpkins for NT Croome

There’s one last piece of the wall to finish, but work is fully underway!

Thanks to Peter Young for the photos showing the fencing back in August before the work started, and an update on the progress. We’ll keep you posted when its finished…

Pumpkins for days…

The visitor centre has transformed into a paint workshop whilst we continue to work on the Tomato House over the winter months..

A group of students from Simon de Montfort Middle School and Prince Henry’s High School, together with Evesham Rotary Club, will be returning to The Walled Gardens at Croome on Thursday 24th October 2019 to plant 4000 crocus corms, helping to raise awareness for World Polio Day.

There will be an opportunity for the public to see all the bulbs in bloom when the Walled Gardens at Croome Court re-open from Easter 2020.

Purple is the colour of the dye placed on the little finger on the left hand of a child to show they have been immunised against polio, hence the name Purple4Polio.