Slow Life has been in suspended animation for the past eight months whilst I’ve been writing a dissertation for my MA in garden history. The 33,000 words which I would have written for Slow Life in that time have gone into the dissertation instead. One of the subjects which I’ve been researching has been the houses which the owners of large estates provided for their head gardeners. The one pictured here is at Levens Hall, whose formal gardens, which are full of topiary, are one of the biggest tourist attractions hereabouts. The gardener’s house was built in 1701 for Guillaume Beaumont, a Frenchman, who had trained under Le Notre at Versailles, before coming to England to work for James II at Hampton Court. Beaumont created the gardens at Levens Hall which by some miracle escaped the attention of vandals such as Capability Brown to survive today.
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