Backhouse Rossie. Photo: © Caroline Thomson.
An unsung history
Rebecca Hardy talks to Caroline Thomson about the newly launched Quaker Garden Trail
Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens near Penzance is a magical spot, even on a cold, wintry day. Canopies of trees glisten with frost. Dark green conifers cluster against a bare metallic sky. Home to an impressive array of sculptures – including work by David Nash, Richard Long and Tim Shaw – it is also where one of Quaker James Turrell’s ‘skyspaces’ sits: ‘Tewlwolow Kernow’, an underground domed ellipse, best viewed at dusk.
It is fitting, then, that the garden in Cornwall, which opens again in February, was one of the first places to sign up to the ‘Quaker Garden Trail’, the inspiration of Quaker Caroline Thomson, who is director and co-owner of the Backhouse Rossie Estate in Fife.
‘Tremenheere really is a very special space,’ she says. ‘The people who run it told me they have always felt a connection with that piece of land, and when it became available they decided to buy it. The owners are not practising Quakers themselves, but they are descended from Friends, and everything about them is so “Quaker”; you still get that sense from them. I was so pleased when they came on board. That was the start. Everything developed from there.’
By ‘everything’ she is referring to her fledgling but ambitious project that seeks to link up houses and gardens throughout the UK with a Quaker connection, and ‘put them on the map’. Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens – with its shady woods, bamboo and wild flowers; its palm trees, giant ferns and lush valleys – was one of the first to sign up in a list, so far, of eleven. And Caroline Thomson is actively looking for more.
‘I first thought of the idea for the Quaker Garden Trail two years ago when I was researching my family history in Friends House Library in London,’ she says. ‘I’m descended from the Backhouse family, the Quaker botanists and bankers. Some were well-known horticulturalists, best known for their rock gardens in Kew Gardens, Chelsea Physic Garden, RHS Wisley, and dame Ellen Willmott’s garden. Some also bred daffodils that changed daffodil hybridising forever and formed the basis for Britain’s success in the daffodil trade. We honour their legacy with Scotland’s Daffodil Festival on 13-14 April, now in its third year. Some also trained gardeners at their nurseries, who became head gardeners at “Great Houses” open to the public today.’
During her research at the Library, which played a pivotal role, Caroline discovered receipts for plants that the Backhouse family had bought from other ‘Great Houses’. This led her to discover many other families and gardens linked to her ancestors. ‘Researching family history brings you into contact with other families,’ she says.
Soon, she set about contacting other gardens and houses, and inviting them to take part in the trail. Her idea was to make the trail a celebration of the ‘unsung Quaker history of horticulture’. ‘Because it’s very much unknown Quaker heritage,’ she explains.
Perhaps inevitably, there have been both successes and disappointments. Some gardens declined, while others, she discovered, did not have the Quaker connections she first presumed. ‘We thought the Penn House in Buckinghamshire would have a link with William Penn,’ she says, ‘but that turned out not to be true.’ Others are no longer in existence: one house turned out to be the site of a Sainsbury’s car park.
Overall, she says, she is looking for gardens with a connection to Quakerism, either current or past. ‘It might be because of its history, or the people who lived there. Or maybe it was Quaker-made money that created the garden. We’re looking for those interwoven Quaker-related ideas and plants, so social history is involved as well.’
So far, the gardens include: Milton’s Cottage in Buckinghamshire, Ackworth School in West Yorkshire, Swarthmoor Hall and Kendal Tapestry Museum in Cumbria, Rockliffe Hall in County Durham, Peckover House in Cambridgeshire, Bristol University, Glendurgan Garden in Cornwall, and Burtown House in County Kildare in Ireland. The latter, she tells me, ‘was a real job to find. It is steeped in history. But the gardens don’t have to remain in aspic – we move on’.
Inclusiveness is important to her, and the trail is designed for everyone, not just for Quakers. ‘I felt that taking a step back from our busy lives is as important now as it was for workers in big factories years ago; to have time in public gardens on a Sunday afternoon. It would be a good, relevant and important thing to offer – that quiet and peace again; a moment to breathe.’
‘There’s something about plants and nature,’ she elaborates. ‘We know the science that shows people with Alzheimers become different people in a garden. They smile, their faces become more alert, they remember more. We notice it in our garden when we’re visited by a nursing home – a lady who normally doesn’t speak pointed out the flower she liked. There’s something in their faces that lights up. It feels very special.’
This drive for inclusiveness lies behind much of Caroline Thomson’s approach; in a bid to engage with young people, she holds music and photography competitions. ‘It’s so important to us that there’s this thin line, this thread, that connects to the children, and that stops them from falling away from nature completely. It’s terribly important.’
So far, the project is in its early stages. The website went live this month. They have approached Red House in Bexleyheath, London, which was once the home of William Morris, who rejected Quakerism, but have yet to hear back from them. ‘He was from Quaker ancestors, but his family were very anti-Quaker, so most of his work was rebelling against Quakers,’ Caroline Thomson says. She has also been in conversation with the owners of Charles Darwin’s Down House in Kent. ‘Charles Darwin was married to Josiah Wedgwood’s daughter,’ she explains. ‘Her family were Quakers.’
Whoever comes on board, it is clear she feels the project has plenty of potential. ‘There’s so much more that needs to be talked about,’ she says.
