The Shipley Estate - Studies in History

Chapter 10 - THE GARDENS OF SHIPLEY HALL

Brian Taylor

Early Beginnings

A description and inventory of 1601 made for Philip Strelley, presumably because he was seeking to sell Shipley to meet family debts, tells us that there were gardens and orchards, comprising the Halle Yarde of some four acres, attached to the Hall. We know nothing more about those gardens but the will of Lady Elizabeth Strelley, who died in 1564, states that she was "of Shipley" and, with the revival in gardening during the reign of Henry VIII; perhaps she had some form of ornamental garden.

The earliest, known map (right) showing the Hall, dated 1713, is on a small scale and shows no real detail other than to indicate an enclosed area to the south and east of the Hall. Part of this is labelled "Hall Orchard".

The first definite garden

Some years later, maybe about 1729-34 when the marriage settlement between Edward Mundy and the heiress of Shipley, Hester Miller, was being negotiated, a larger scale map of Shipley Hill was made. This shows a formal garden layout, labelled "Pleasure Ground", in the 1715 enclosed area. By this time a Kitchen Garden had been laid out in a north-south direction to the back, or southwest of the Hall and Stables. The boundary of the whole of the gardens area appears to have a ditch, or ha-ha, on the southern edges. The Pleasure Ground layout is shown as quite formal with intersecting paths and planting beds. Such layouts of intersecting shapes, with axial but asymmetric formats and intricate gravel or sand paths winding through densely planted areas, were popular around 1750. It is interesting to note that the curator of the famous Chelsea Physic Garden at that time and author of a gardening encyclopaedia, was Philip Miller; perhaps he was a member of the same family as Hester and her father, Humphrey Miller.

Drastic changes

In 1772, William Emes, who started his career as Head Gardener at Kedleston Hall, near Derby, and had become a popular landscape "Improver", furnished a quotation for work proposed at Shipley. This was to be "laying out in the neatest manner the Ground immediately around the house at Shipley". Included was the filling in of the hollow road on the north of the House; levelling out the ground to the south of the House, including filling in the ha-ha; and various other works, among them the laying of 604 yards of walk. Lost, unfortunately, is the plan which Emes had drawn and to which he refers in his quotation. It was not until 1775 that legal authority was obtained to move the old hollow road (the original village street) some distance northwards away from the house. Presumably, Emes then did the work because he was paid for his work in 1782.

The advent of deep-mining for coal had improved the Miller Mundy fortunes substantially in the late 18th Century and a scheme was drawn up to build a canal to transport coals down the Nutbrook valley to join the new Erewash Canal. This was to alter the Shipley landscape dramatically as large reservoirs of water were needed for the canal. A plan of the proposed canal, drawn by Nuttall in 1792, shows a blunt triangular shape for what became Shipley Lake. An Estate map of the early 19th century, however, shows three lakes curving up the valley on the north of the Hill. In his later career, William Emes acquired a reputation for making lakes and his style was for the lakes to taper down and then bend into woodland. This was exactly the form of the Shipley Lakes but we have no proof, however, that Emes was responsible for their design.

During the period 1776 to 1782, there are records in the estate account books which show that active gardening was underway. Example entries are: 1772, Gardiner bd.14 weeks, £14/18/0d; 1778, Gardiner wage 1/2. year, £8/8/0d; 1779, for seeds Messrs. Brunton & Forbes, £7/8/0d; 1782, Kennedy & Lee?, Nurserymen, £ll/l/6d; 1782, Greenwood & Co. for flower seeds, £l/3/6d.

Some information on the estate around 1800 comes from Farey's "Agriculture and minerals of Derbyshire", published in 1813. He mentions plantations within the last 50 or 60 years at Shipley, tells us the "Larches and Spruce Firs at Shipley, North-West, were fine" and there were "Oaks in Groves and Avenues". Although Farey comments on agriculture in Ilkeston and Heanor, he found nothing worthy of note on farming at Shipley, except that there was a Bone-mill (a hammer formerly worked by the engine pump-rod) at Shipley Colliery.

A map made around 1800 shows that the village on the northern side of the Hill had been removed and that the fields surrounding the Hill had been opened up to give extensive Parklands lying outside a distinct inner hilltop estate.

The Greenhouses

"An encyclopaedia of gardening" was published by J.C. London in 1822 (2nd edition, 1830). This has a brief description of Shipley - "The house is modern and elegant, the grounds very well disposed and wooded, and the gardens celebrated of late for their orange-trees". He writes specifically on there being "very fine large orange and lemon trees grown in borders and in boxes".

The estate account books for 1782 recorded that Thomas Bonetril was paid £121/3/0d, "for painting all the Pales, gates and the stove greenhouse"; and Edward Panton was paid £97/7/4d, "for glass and lead for the hothouse".

Much more information is to be found in an article in The Transactions of the Horticultural Society for 1820. Mr. Richard Ayres, gardener to Mr. Edward Miller Mundy MP, wrote a lengthy article in which he describes the greenhouse and conservatory at Shipley, in which citrons, oranges, lemons and limes were grown very successfully. Many of the trees had been brought from Malta by Captain George Mundy, Royal Navy, for his father in 1814. Other plants in the hothouses were grapes and a pomegranate. In 1818, the citrus trees had yielded 278 dozen ripe fruit!

Further improvements

Edward Miller Mundy, who owned Shipley from 1767 to 1822 and employed Richard Ayres, was the first of the family to bear the name "Miller Mundy". On his death in 1822, his son, Edward, who died in 1854, succeeded him. These two Edwards spent much money sinking what proved to be very profitable new coalmines. They were followed by a third Edward, who was sickly, never married and spent much of his time living at Chaddesden or in warmer climates, dying in Barbados in 1849. We know little of those 15 years and perhaps there was a period of decline at Shipley. Edward's brother, Alfred, returned from South Australia to Shipley and he embarked on improvements to the gardens and grounds.

The Head Gardener at Elvaston Castle, Derby, from 1850 to 1865 was William Barron. On the death of the 5th Earl of Harrington, Barron set himself up in business at Borrowash (Derbyshire) and rapidly built a major reputation as a landscape gardener. His specialisation was in the planting and moving of trees and he carried out work at Shipley in the years 1872-73-74, including the moving of very large trees in 1873.

We next read of gardening activities at Shipley in "Cottage Gardener", July 1876. A short note by "A Visitor" tells us of a large intermediate house planted as a rustic or natural fernery. Scores of varieties of all the finest ferns were growing luxuriantly, especially Adiantum farleyense, with large beautiful green fronds drooping over the miniature ledges of rock. The same volume reports Mr. Wallis, gardener to A.M. Mundy Esq., had won prizes at the Royal Horticultural Society Summer Exhibition for displays of six varieties of fruit and for bunches of grapes. According to the 1874 account book, £1800 had been spent on the "New Vinery" (or Glass Corridor, as it was later called).

Alfred Edward Miller Mundy, the last "Squire", who owned Shipley from 1877 to 1920, devoted much time and money to the estate. "Gardening World" in 1885, had a guided tour of the gardens and greenhouses by Mr. William Elphinstone, "the clever gardener at Shipley". We learn of Mr. Elphinstone's home - "what a charming residence he inhabits....a gardener's cottage worthy of the name, replete with every convenience, near the gardens and most pleasantly situated". This must have been "The Gardens", which still sits on the hill and is dated 1882. In total 21 greenhouses are described, plus the fernery, the conservatory and the glass corridor. The variety of plants is enormous; there are ornamentals, such as Lapageria, Tropaeolums, Orchids including Calanthes, palms, Tree Carnations, Fuchsias, Azaleas, Begonias and many others. Fruits cultivated included Peaches, Nectarines, Grapes, Strawberries, Tomatoes, Figs and Melons. Curiously, there are no Citrus left.

The landscape around the Hall, what the Victorians called the pleasure grounds, was "more like a park than a garden" in 1900. There were no flowerbeds but a smooth well-kept lawn of natural contours with specimen trees and clumps of ornamental shrubs. Presumably this owed much to the work of Mr. Barron. An 1837 map shows the line of a ha-ha, perhaps laid down by Emes, but this had been lost by the First Series Ordnance Survey 25" Map of 1880 and the stone ha-ha which is still visible today had been established.

The Final Glory

The summit of the development of the Hall, the gardens and the grounds came in the early years of this century. A detailed and fascinating description appeared in "Gardener's Magazine" in 1902 and a shorter but useful article appeared in "Gardeners' Chronicle" in 1903. The earlier articles, together with one in "The Garden" in 1900, told us something of the specimen trees in profusion; the magnificent Beeches, Oaks, Ash trees. Hollies, Yews, Limes, Elms (now sadly lost), Conifers and understorey bushes, especially Rhododendrons and Azaleas in profusion. In May, the American Garden, running through the belt of trees on the north, Heanor, side of the Hall must have been a riot of colour.

To meet an increased demand by Mrs. Miller Mundy, for cut flowers for indoor decoration, a new partly-walled kitchen garden, some 150 yards by 50 yards, was created in the fields across the road from Home Farm, with plantings of Pears and other fruit, trees. In 1902, soft fruits were still grown in part of the old kitchen garden on the 18th century site but work was underway to construct the newly-fashionable pergola and to expand the beds of herbaceous plants.

By 1900, Mr. J.C. Tallack had succeeded Elphinstone as the Head Gardener at Shipley. Tallack, who was well known and wrote many articles and a book, "The Book of the Greenhouse", stayed until his death in 1909. Under Tallack's direction, the flower beds included a long border of Roses, large quantities of Sweet Peas (for cut blooms) and conspicuous lines of Montbretias. Along the walls were Cherries, Plums and similar hardy fruit trees. A number of the earlier span-roofed greenhouses, which ran east-west, had been torn down and replaced by a set of houses running north-south. Particularly noteworthy was the Orchid collection and a large span-roofed house with a great variety of Anthurium specimens. The conservatory at the head of the glass corridor was filled with palms and from it a door led to the indoor -fernery of earlier fame.

The British Architectural Library has records of work done by Walter Tapper, who became the consulting architect at York Minster, and these show that he was active at Shipley in the 1900 's. Photographs in Tapper's albums show the pergola, wrought iron gates and the terrace fountain, with a lead statue by Derwent Wood, which were features of the expanded garden. Other works done by Tapper were the two Lodges, known now as Derby and Nottingham Lodges (his album calls them Mapperley and Ilkeston Lodges), with the stone wall which links them and the new porch for the Hall. 

Fairly new in 1903, there was a lily-pond on the eastern side of the lawn. This had a margin of tufa and surrounding groups of bog and other hardy plants.

By the time of the O.S. 25" map of 1915, a tennis court had been made the east of the pond and a brick ha-ha had been built farther out on the southern edge of the hill-top. The latter formed part of an area left clear of trees for a vista of the Nutbrook Valley, The Trent Basin and the Leicester hills.

At some point in the next decade, the large span-roof fernery and conservatory must have had to be replaced as the last greenhouse at the head of the glass corridor contained a large lily tank, the remains of which exist today. With the death of The Squire in 1920, the Miller Mundy family soon left Shipley and all serious gardening and upkeep of the grounds ceased before 1925. After over fifty years of neglect, it was with the creation of Shipley country Park, under the ownership of Derbyshire County Council, that something of the former glories started to re-appear.

Artist's impression of Shipley Hall and the gardens, ca 1905

HEAD GARDENERS

Mr. Richard Ayres; 1814 (Heanor Parish Register as father of William Ayres); 1820 author of article on citrus growing).

Mr. David Taylor; 1857 (White's Directory).

Mr. Wallis; 1876 (named as prize-winner in RHS Summer Show report).

Mr. William Elphinstone; arrived by 1881 (Census, aged 28, from Flindon Hall, Sussex) when he lived in one of the two gardeners' cottages that were alongside the old road, now Beggars' Walk. His home clearly was more impressive in 1885 and this must have been "The Gardens", built in 1882. He left or died around 1899 (Tallack's obituary).

Mr. John Cragoe Tallack had taken over by 1900 (mentioned in article) and resided in "The Gardens" (from headed note paper). He wrote a weekly article on "The Flower Garden" for "Gardeners' Chronicle" in 1903. An obituary, published on his death at Shipley in 1909, described him as a "first-rate gardener".

Mr William Henry Goodman; 1912 and 1916 (Kelly's Directory)

Mr Arthur J. East; 1922 (Kelly's Directory)

Kelly's Directory for 1935 reports Shipley Hall as "now unoccupied" and gives no Head Gardener and no occupant for "The Gardens"; in 1932 it lists "The Gardens" as the home of Capt. D.S. Mackay, Estate Agent for The Shipley Colliery Company.

This information is derived from various sources, e.g. articles on the gardens, census records, parish records and estate papers. Most of the dates given are when a date occurred in one of the sources; letters of appointment, etc., are not known for precise dating of any man's employment at Shipley.

REFERENCES

Miller Mundy family papers, Derbyshire County Record Office, Matlock.

Transactions Horticultural Society, 4, 506-514. (1820). On Citrus growing at Shipley, with illustration.

J.C. Loudon. An Encyclopaedia of Gardening, 1830 edn.

Journal of Horticulture and Cottage Gardener, 31, pp 49 & 265. (1876).

TheGardening World, 1, 760-762. On "Shipley Hall, Derby", illustrated. (1865).

The Garden, 58, 455-454. On "The gardens, Shipley Hall, Derbyshire". (1900).

The Gardeners' Magazine, for 1902, 287-291. Illustrated feature article on "Shipley Hall and its Gardens".

The Gardeners' Chronicle, 33 & 34, (1905). Many items including a weekly column on "The flower garden", by J.C. Tallack, and an article on "Shipley Hall, Derby" (pp 44-45).

Gardeners' Chronicle, 44, (1909). Obituary on J.C. Tallack, p 551, and items on pp 72 and 455.

List of Principal works carried out by William Barron & Son Ltd. Includes listing of work at Shipley in 1872-73-74.

D. Jacques. Georgian Gardens. Batsford, London, 240pp. (1985).

M. Tapper. Unpublished memoir on the works of Walter Tapper. Includes listing Shipley Hall. Also Office albums of Walter Tapper. Available at The British Architectural Library.