No, this is not the Tish Farrell ancestral pile, although my young aunt (standing) and my grandfather do look very much at home here. They are in the garden of Redhurst Manor, Surrey, where my grandfather, Charles Ashford was head gardener during the 1920s and ‘30s. My Aunt Evelyn was born in the gardener’s cottage on the estate, so you could say, in a way, that Redhurst was their domain – at least for a time. Grandfather certainly ruled the garden and the men who worked under him. He was fastidious in his gardening discipline, and much else besides, and expected the same from others; a true Victorian then.
And given his sense of propriety, I think one can be pretty sure that this particular Ashford family gathering, with Grandmother Alice Ashford (nee Eaton) sitting so comfortably on the lawn (she’s the one in the dark frock, busily chatting) would not have been happening if the Major and his lady had been within.
When I was editing this photograph, I thought about cropping off a good deal of that velvet smooth lawn. But then I thought, no. The fine state of it was down to Grandfather and his team with the horse-drawn mower. I also know that when Evelyn was small her mother used to smack her legs for rolling down that bank and getting her Sunday silk frock all green and grassy. Not the sort of the thing the very proper young lady in the photo would be doing. She was very tall for her age, so was probably only fifteen or sixteen when captured here.
I gathered from family stories that Grandfather’s employer was an Anglo-Irish cavalry man who had been burned out of his home in Ireland during the troubles. He had another house up in Yorkshire, where he and his wife would often go.
Sometimes Grandfather accompanied them if they were going up for the shooting season. He had the reputation for being a fine shot. Even so, however you look at it, this was a most uncommon situation: a gentleman inviting his head gardener to a shooting party. My mother always said the Major’s lady was rather keen on Charles Ashford, and would invite him into her boudoir when he came to present her with the first peaches from the hot house. She would be dressed only in her silk negligee, reclining invitingly on a chaise. Mother could have made this up of course. In any case, Charles Ashford would have chosen not to notice such a state of shocking déshabillé in the presence of a member of the outdoor staff.
All the same, I do know he would take her sprigs of winter jasmine, arranged in little silver vases provided for him by Johnny the Butler, and selected specially by Grandfather from Johnny’s Butler’s Pantry. I also have a postcard sent to Grandfather in early March 1937, after he had left Redhurst and the Major moved permanently to Yorkshire. A touch of Lady Chatterly light?
“Thank you so much for the lovely violets which arrived beautifully fresh. Hope you are all well. T.B.B.”
On the reverse side is this photo of what I assume is T.B.B.’s Yorkshire home. I am touched to think of Grandfather carefully packaging up the first spring violets to send to his former employer. I imagine him wrapping the stems with damp moss, adding swathes of paper to protect the flowers and placing all in a sturdy cardboard box, then taking the parcel to Cranleigh post office.
Here are my grandparents at around the time the postcard was sent. They are in the garden of their house on Mount Road, Cranleigh. Just look at those delphiniums. They were Grandfather’s favourites, along with heleniums. At the manor he had cultivated a big herbaceous border of mixed delphiniums and heleniums, using them to create a stunning screen between the walled kitchen garden and rest of the grounds. Such a planting scheme – spires of blue soaring through the golds, reds and oranges of heleniums, surprises me somehow; it sounds very modern – very nouveau garden designerish.
The kitchen garden was walled on three sides, and about half an acre in size. This was where Grandfather had his command post, and the reason I know this is because one of the treasures inherited from Evelyn were the notes of her talks given to her local gardening club. Charles Ashford was very much a feature. As a small child she followed him around, taking in everything he did, although he expected her to work too. Here is her description of her father’s work place. It reveals much about the man:
Imagine that we are standing in the holy of holies, my father’s potting shed. It was not all that large and the space was taken up with deep shelving on three sides of the shed. There was a door into the kitchen yard and another into the garden itself. On the back of one door were three large coat hooks to take the jackets that my father needed and also his green baize apron. On the other door hung his clean alpaca jacket which was worn when he went into the house, a dust coat to be used in the fruit room and his leather pruning apron with its thick, left-handed coarse leather glove sticking out of the pocket. These garments comprised his head gardener’s uniform; there was almost a ritual about putting them on for the various tasks.
My father’s own tools were hung in neat and spotless order on hooks to the left of the garden door. He insisted on clean tools and, after every task, the men had to be sure to wash, and then rub dry on old sacking any tool that had got even the slightest bit dirty. A little spot of oil was rubbed into the spades and trowels and forks until the metal shone. Wooden handles were treated with linseed oil which was thoroughly worked in. Only then could the tools be stored away. That is why, to this day, I am still using a well worn spade and fork that belonged to my father. There have been times when, if in a hurry I have hung my spade up dirty, I have gone scurrying back to give it a ‘a lick and a promise’. I can almost hear my father saying, ‘That won’t do, miss. Dirty tools make bad workmen.’
Reading these notes, I wish I had known him. I only remember meeting him twice. After Grandmother died, he lived with my aunt down in Wiltshire, and we lived miles away in Cheshire. But this next photo suggests that my father at least made one effort to visit him.
. 
I’m about two years old here, and I’m guessing that this was Grandfather’s eightieth birthday. I have my own distinct mental snapshot of him. Before lunch he was out in the vegetable garden in his shirt sleeves, sifting the stones from the soil in a big garden riddle. I remember being fascinated by this strange activity. My other snapshot is when he came to stay with us in Cheshire at Love Lane House. It must have been summer for I see him sitting in the sunshine outside the front door, shelling peas into a colander. I remember too, that he bought me a very beautiful little sailing yacht with a coffee coloured hull and ivory sails. I don’t think we had much luck sailing it though. But although I did not know him, and grew up mostly with my father’s tales of Grandfather’s monumental temper, I do often think of him -when I’m up at the allotment digging and weeding and seed sowing. I know he would be pleased to see me gardening, but I also know he would have some sharp words to say about my sloppy gardening habits.
copyright 2015 Tish Farrell
P.S. There will be more walled garden tales to follow
Tish Farrell 
Congratulations, dear Tish!
I have nominated your blog for the 3 Day Quote Challenge.
A new award for me, and maybe for you as well.
Read more about this nomination at
https://dearkitty1.wordpress.com/2015/09/18/3-day-quote-challenge-thanks-again-erika/
Thank you, Petrel41. I’m pondering on this 🙂
And you know, no need to hurry, as this is for helping bloggers, not for hurrying them 🙂
Delightful. And like my grandfather, always with a tie.
A fascinating journey into the past Tish. I have relatives from a similar period who look exactly the same as your grandfather – it’s the silver tash that does it.
Yes, instantly impressive, isn’t it. The hats add something too.
I admired these sepia photos and the meaningful images….
Splendid post !
Thank you.
A great pleasure to ‘virtually’ meet your grandfather, Tish, and learn a bit more of your history.
I’m just happy you could come along to ‘meet’ him, Shimon. Wishing you a good weekend.
Lovely post – I know Cranleigh, it is beautiful.
I’ve never been there, but the old photos of it are indeed lovely. I’m glad to hear that it still is. My father, as a young man, was part of the organizing group that fund raised to build the village hall. He also played a lot of cricket there, followed by much apres-cricket that Grandfather did not approve of.
Delightful. Yeah, Grandad’s.
The look you are giving your Grandfather is somewhat apprehensive, almost to the point that the next moment you were demanding to be set down.
That sounds more than likely. I think this was the first time I’d met him.
Granddad Joe ( Mum’s father) had two sheds in his garden. I loved them and never forgot the smell.
Yes, it’s amazing how evocative shed smells can be, and very particular to their owners.
A virtual pleasure…..
Fascinating photos and family stories – and now we know from whom you have inherited your considerable talent for gardening.
That’s a lovely thought, Kate. But I’m just a dabbler compared to Grandfather Ashford. He knew all about grafting fruit trees and growing peaches, and how to rescue a rose pergola gone wild. Heaven knows what he’d say about the contents of my polytunnel, or indeed the state of my shed. Hey ho.
It’s obviously in your genes Tish. I love the scenes from the big house.
Hello, Jo. Indeed Redhurst could be a likely setting for Howard’s End or similar. We’ve been trying to find it by the usual googling. But our suspicion is that it has been demolished and is a housing estate. Plus ca change etc.
Shame! Got my dancing shoes at the ready. It’s a wet one but we’ll still have a lovely wedding x
Lovely, Tish. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you, Melissa.
What wonderful history, Tish. Your grandfather was so distinguished looking. 🙂 You haven’t changed much, Tish. I mean I can make your out even from that two year old little girl. LOL! 🙂
Aw, thank you, Celestine. How are you,my dear?
😀
How serendipitous this post of yours is as I was only discussing family members with my daughter this morning which sent me scurrying to my scanned image folder to dig out old black and white shots of my mother and grandparents. Interesting that we have a surname in common – my birth surname was Eaton. But my branch were coal miners from Yorkshire. We can see where you get the gardening gene from 🙂
We have Eaton in common then, Jude, how intriguing. Grandmother’s family lived in Streatham, but I don’t think they had been there many generations. I got a bit lost trying to get further back than her parents. I might have another go at it, as I remember wondering if they came from the north originally. So many families migrated to the city from the 1830s onwards, one member attracting others to follow.
Wonderful old pictures of a world that’s pretty much vanished. Thank you!
The pictures are arresting. I felt a bit like Alice through the Looking Glass when I started enlarging them, and looking at them properly. The stance of my aunt in that first photo particularly fascinates me. And the way her father is almost facing her across the lawn. There’s some kind of question here, and the scene looks like something out of a novel. Oh, I am so very nosy, wanting to pry into peoples’ lives!
Tish, this closely parallels my husbands family experience in Sussex and Yorkshire; out of interest, it seems it is possible to stay in Elvington Hall in York http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g186346-d4092915-Reviews-Elvington_Hall-York_North_Yorkshire_England.html – very interesting post!
Hi Nexi, thanks for this. I haven’t amended it because the link is interesting anyway, and somehow all part of the story of change, and the fascinating byways that family history leads you down – many dead ends of course.I’m fascinated that there parallels with your husband’s forebears. This is where the real history is of course – the ‘what happened’ to ‘people like us’.
Amend the last comment – it appears the place has been sold, but has not amended its booking details.
What a marvelous story, Tish. I remember a little bit of my great-grandfather and quite a lot about my grandfather. Makes me think of writing some of these memories down.
janet
Wonderful story. Old family photos are so special and help stir the long forgotten memories.
It’s interesting too, Marie, that when you scan them, often you see things you never saw before, which can set off all sorts of whys and whatevers.
Some real history – great images.
What a great post,Tish. I thoroughly enjoyed it. And now I understand where your gardening skills come from 🙂
Thank you, Tiny. I think there might be more walled garden stories 🙂
What a delight to meet Evelyn again and the other members of your family the post title is a beauty, and You are so lucky having photos, stories and memories – and the capacity, of course to turn them into a great piece of prose.
You are so encouraging, Meg. Thank you. I’m brewing another post, thanks to Evelyn’s notes.
I was enthralled with this story of Grandfather Ashford. What an upstanding, Victorian character. I have a vivid picture in my minds eye of him changing from outfit to outfit as befits the job he was doing in the garden. The descriptive notes from Evelyn’s journal paint a living picture. Have I got it right, was Evelyn your mother? If so I can see were your flair for words came from and obviously the gardening gene has been passed on. One thing I noticed was the $2 for a donkey ride. Back in the 1940’s I can remember paying threepence or sixpence per ride on the donkeys at the seaside. The different price was for either the short or long ride. Looking forward to more walled garden memories Tish
I’m glad you enjoyed meeting Grandfather A. Evelyn was my father’s ‘little sister’. And yes she had a flair for writing. I have some of the school exercise books with her essays in them. And also copies of some of her wartime letters. At 17 or so, she had her own war effort going, writing to every serviceman who had billeted in Cranleigh (they were Desert Rats). She sent them cheering words, news of home and pix of herself. I’ve done a few posts about her. She was also the youngest local Womens Institute President of her day, and appeared on Woman’s Hour. And a great WI-er into her 80s.
What amazing and strong people you have in your ancestry. You are fortunate that so much historical material has been preserved
So gardening is well an truly in your blood Tish. These are lovely nostalgic photos 🙂
It may also explain the ever dirty finger nails which I’m not too proud of 🙂
Something so magical about old photo’s – like time travelling without the ‘tardis’ – very nostalgic – love these post’s Tish.
Dan
That’s a great image – time travel without the tardis. I shall ponder on that as I write the next post from the walled garden, which might be any minute now…
The family at Elvington Hall were the Bury-Barrys. Major James Robert Bury-Barry was born in 1875 and inherited Ballyclough (Co. Cork) from his great-uncle in 1910. In 1906 he married Judith Isabel Ringrose-Voase, who came from a gentry family at Anlaby House (Yorks), so I imagine Elvington came from her family. They had two daughters: Nesta (b. 1909) and Felicity (1913-48). The signature on the postcard is ‘J.B.B.’ not ‘T.B.B.’ and so it comes from Mrs. Bury-Barry, who died in 1946. Hope this helps!
Thanks very much for taking the trouble to pass this on, Nicholas. I had been much confused by a note left in an old diary by my aunt which said the Redhurst estate in Surrey was owned by the Naumann family (ex coffee growers in Brazil) which did not seem to fit with grandfather’s account of the Major being ‘burned out of Ireland’. But your info gives rise to a likely explanation. Major Bury-Barry could have been renting Redhurst after leaving Ireland. In the Depression the Naumann family were then forced to sell up (which would account for that part of the family narrative and grandfather retiring from the estate). The B-Bs then decamped to Elvington. Alternatively, my grandfather might have been sending violets to someone who had been a frequent guest at Redhurst.