THE GARDENS AT WARLEY PLACE 371
The most notable feature added by Miss Willmott was with-
out doubt the Rock Garden, which extended in all to an area of
about 3 acres. The main part consisted of a deep ravine, follow-
ing the natural contour of the land in a southerly direction. It
was fed by a stream and on the banks were embedded huge
boulders of rock and stone. There was a bridge over it and below
this was a grotto or fern house, covered with very thick glass in
which grew Filmy Ferns. In the rock garden grew thousands of
plants from many parts of the world and later on these were
under the care of Jacob Maurer, a Swiss gardener with a prodigious
knowledge of plants.
A Wild Garden was made, in which were introduced rare and
unusual plants of Essex and other parts of the country. These
were allowed to grow naturally and freely, but few of them remain
to-day. There was also a Well Mead Garden, in which were
grown wild and ancient roses for study. The old orchard, a herb
garden and the walled garden laid out by Evelyn were improved.
The sunken garden bordering Dark Lane was built about 1900
at a cost of several thousand pounds. As it was at the foot of
slopes it was necessary to build a retaining wall, otherwise the
road would have been flooded, not to mention the loss of water.
The huge girders and baulks of timber are still visible from Dark
Lane. On the inside large banks of earth were made on which
trees and shrubs were grown; this also helped to keep the gardens
private from prying eyes, a foible of Miss Willmott's. Water
flowed down from the pond higher up and was pumped back for
continual use.
Two years ago I met Mr C Button, then 81 years of age, who
worked at Warley from 1893 to 1914. He told me that he was
one of over 50 gardeners employed at that time. The wages were
18s. 3d. a week and the hours 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on week-days and
6 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays. Things were very different in 1929,
as Mr A. W. Smith of Shelley tells me. He was then one of five
gardeners employed at that time and some of the gardens had
already started to fall into decay. It is interesting to note that
it took him and Jacob Maurer three weeks to prune all the roses
and shrubs once a year, and to cut the lawns and paths with a
motor mower, including trimming the edges, took them three
days.
Miss Willmott was an acknowledged authority in many
branches of horticulture and a good botanist, but these were only
two facets of her character. She was an artist, an accomplished
violinist and she made ornaments by turning wood and ivory.
She had a fine collection of old musical instruments, and the
herbarium consisting of some 15,000 sheets of dried plants, which
she eventually gave to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. As a
rose specialist she was responsible for that superb production The
Genus Rosa, published in two volumes (1910/1914) with coloured
plates painted by Alfred Parsons, R.A., and the text by Miss
Willmott.