The Old Vicarage, Clun

About The Old Vicarage, Clun

When we arrived here over 30 years ago, we were quickly made aware by local people that The Vicarage Garden was a feature of Clun life. The last incumbent, the Reverend Ernest Buckley with the help of Ruth, his wife, followed a tradition of gardening vicars, knowledgeable about plants and wanting to share the garden with their congregation for church fetes, concerts and parish productions. This garden had even featured in the recently published “English Vicarage Gardens”. We were aghast! There were clearly certain expectations, but by now the garden had become two-and-a-quarter acres of weeds. Brambles rendered gooseberry bushes invisible. This is what happens when a property is left empty for nearly two years…

Slowly a journey of retrieval and recovery revealed a wealth of exciting features and many of the shrubs and flowers chosen by plantsmen vicars still feature in the borders. The buddleia globosa continues to fascinate bees, butterflies and visitors and those glorious oriental poppies bedazzle the passer-by. And then there is ‘The Tree’, an enormous Leyland cypress which has the fifth biggest girth in the world and is of an unknown clone. Alan Mitchell, the tree expert who provided all this information carried off a spray and had it analysed. Now, its clone resides at Kew!

New ideas have inevitably influenced the lay-out of our garden and these days there is a clearer definition between one room and another. Tall hedges define them, and a series of clipped yews outline border edges and provide a division between formal, the double border for example, and less formal zones.

The lower lawn is edged by a beech hedge, railings that allow a view to the hill beyond and a path which hugs the wall-border where clematis thrive and perennial plants including peonies and violas take their turn as the season progresses. Beside the lawn is ‘the cloister garden’ featuring a covered walkway and a ‘font’, planted with annuals which leads you to the enclosed courtyard with the ‘lion tank’ and an array of planted pots beside the green-house.

As you walk up the garden it becomes less formal with an orchard, a soft fruit garden and at the top a woodland walk with rhododendrons. Perhaps the most dramatic feature of our garden is a formal wisteria allee underplanted with alliums, a symphony of mauve and purple
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