Walled Kitchen Gardens

The Walled Kitchen Garden.

Walled kitchen gardens are an important part of our history, yet are now largely neglected and little understood. In the last century, most large country houses had a walled kitchen garden. They were highly productive places: food, herbs and flowers for the family, staff and guests of the big house.

They were like an early version of supermarkets. Nowadays, our food system is global. Food is flown in from far away, which is widely regarded as unsustainable. Walled kitchen gardens succeeded in growing this food at home, all-year-round. By developing techniques and technology that we rely upon today, walled kitchen gardens were intensive food factories that spearheaded our industrial food system.

Large walled gardens relied on very labour intensive techniques and invariably had a very large staff of gardeners, overseen by the head gardener. In the  "upstairs, downstairs world of domestic service the head gardener held almost god like status along with the butler. inevitably with changing economic and social conditions most walled gardens fell into disuse during the post world war 2 years, some becoming commercial nurseries and garden centres but the majority disappearing under a canopy of bramble and undergrowth or falling victim to post war development and urban expansion. 

The gardens usually consisted of extensive glasshouse ranges which included:  peach houses, vineries, display houses, fig houses and melon - pineapple frames. There would also have been large amounts of cold frame space as well as the open quarters for general crops 

                                             

The walls were utilised not only to provide shelter but to grow a range of trained top fruit such as apples, pears and cherries and where heat could be provided on a south facing wall peaches and nectarines would have been grown.

Naturally all of this horticultural paradise required an extensive infrastructure of sheds, out buildings, boiler houses and offices usually located outside the walls.

This is the sadly lost world of the estate kitchen garden.