Restoration Work

Narrator:

Near the potting shed door you can see a brick inscribed with the date, 1859, and the initials of an early head gardener, George Hyde. In 2009, Heritage Lottery funding paid for restoration work on the potting shed, a Peach House and the cold frames that once stood here. It was while they were carrying out research for this project that members of the E A Bowles of Myddelton House Society discovered the original drawings for the trellis panels on the nearby wall. Bryan Hewitt explains:

Bryan Hewitt:

There was not much left of the trellis at all, but the brick columns were still there and they were covered in a canopy of an old rose and an Akebia quinata from Japan, a climber, which had sort of crushed it and covered it over. And all this area was cleared and for a time we had these five stark red brick pillars with nice capping stones on and that was all. And in Mr Bowles’ scrapbook was found the plan that he’d drawn up himself of the beautiful design of the trellis as he had it in his time.

Narrator

The Society funded their restoration to these original designs.

The potting shed has been faithfully restored and now houses the gardening team’s rest room, a viewable potting area and an archive room.