The Great Storm by Bryan Hewitt

Narrator:

Bryan Hewitt is a senior gardener at Myddelton. He will tell us about the damage done to the garden during the night of the terrible storm, in 1987:

Bryan Hewitt:

…the huge old cedar tree that was in the middle of the stone bed … was well over a hundred feet tall and when it came down the roots knocked over the petrified tree, and it also knocked over, sadly, the old well boring … that came from Whitewebbs Pumping Station, dating back to about 1897 when they created the pumping station there. That got knocked over and that simply smashed. Being limestone I suppose it didn’t really have a chance....

… there was a vast poplar tree; it was a black poplar in the wild garden… and …that came down in the storm …There was a yew tree near the pond … quite a large one that came down. Another tree that got sent flying was the kalopanax tree, which was also on the drive; that was a good specimen. Fortunately a nut must have been swept up and that germinated and you can see that in the wild garden to this day. …