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Bickering blooms in a queen’s garden

AN ambitious £3m reconstruction of a garden built for Elizabeth I by her favourite courtier has been hit by squabbles over its authenticity, cost overruns and a year of delays - all captured on camera for a fly-on-the-wall documentary.

The saga of the garden at Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire, will be shown in a series about the work of English Heritage made at the invitation of Simon Thurley, its chief executive. His wife oversaw the restoration project.

Thurley hoped the BBC2 series - called English Heritage - would be a showcase for the achievements of the organisation. But viewers will see the quango fighting about developments, preoccupied with petty conservation rules and wasteful in its spending - at a time when the government is cutting its budget, now £126m.

Some in the organisation are asking whether it would be better to spend what money there is on basic restoration of the crumbling properties in English Heritage’s custody instead of big new projects.

Each of the four instalments in the series, which begins on April 24, examines a different project run by English Heritage, including the recreation of the garden at Kenilworth.

Thurley, who for his 40th birthday party in 2004 dressed as Charles II, was married last year to Anna Keay, properties preservation director at English Heritage. She was given the go-ahead by her husband to become “the new queen” of the castle at Kenilworth.

Her plan was to recreate a garden built by Elizabeth I’s favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, to welcome her on a visit in 1575, complete with an ornate fountain, aviary and arbour. The 19 days of festivities held for the visit were named the “princely pleasures”.

Keay faced one serious problem - there are almost no surviving descriptions of the garden which was probably dismantled shortly after the visit. Robert Laneham, a courtier, wrote of “the magnificent pageants” but there is little else to go on.

Asked in the television programme why so much money was being spent on the garden, Keay replied: “I suspect larger sums are being spent every day on things which don’t have such an impact.” She also admitted that the evidence for a complex fountain she is recreating - at one point featuring two seminaked men - “may be circumstantial”.

At a public meeting in late 2006 to discuss the proposed garden, participants ask: “Why is English Heritage spending money on a garden of which there is so little evidence?” Two digs were carried out to look for evidence of its layout, but nothing was found.

Once the building work starts there are arguments over materials. At one point, despite the insistence on the use of only authentic components, stainless steel is used in the construction of the aviary. The carpentry contractor calls Kenilworth “the project from hell”. At least the garden is now ready to open next month - albeit a year late.

The future of another building in the TV series, Apethorpe Hall in Northamptonshire, is far less certain. Thurley is shown as a recession-hit “homeowner” having to cut £500,000 off its asking price in an effort to find a private buyer.

Apethorpe, first built in the late 15th century, was remodelled between 1622-4 for James I, who used it to entertain some of his young male lovers. It was bought in 1904 by the Brassey family, who made their money in railways. They sold it in 1949 and it became an approved school before ownership passed to a Libyan businessman.

In the 1990s a compulsory purchase order led to English Heritage buying the house for £3m. Four years ago it decided to renovate and then sell Apethorpe, which has been a location for the television series Porterhouse Blue and the film Another Country, which starred Rupert Everett and Colin Firth.

The care - and, some might say, excessive money - lavished on Apethorpe is shown in one scene where only a specific type of roofing tile, Westmorland slate, is permitted. This insistence comes despite the near-exhaustion of supplies and their high cost.

So far English Heritage has spent another £4m on the renovations, but whoever buys Apethorpe must fork out a further £7m on improvements and decoration.

Initially there was a £5m asking price, but that was reduced last year to £4.5m. Even at that price there have been no interested buyers.

Thurley also faces a tricky problem with the neighbours. The Brassey family, who now live next door, have planted 100 leylandii in an effort to screen their former home.

Sir Roy Strong, who refused to allow in a television crew when he was director of the Victoria & Albert Museum, said of Thurley: “He certainly was a golden boy. I don’t think he and new Labour are friends any more. You let the cameras in at your peril.”

News item posted on 8th May 2009

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