Historical Gardens

While the chainsaws roar in large parts of Elswout as a result of an intensive tree assessment session last Autumn, plans are presented for other parts of the garden. The house has been in restoration over the past years. One of the results was that the area in front of the house became part of the building area, where materials were stored, etc.
Google maps currently shows how a large building site hut has occupied the forecourt over the past years.

The forecourt in the circle. Note especially the big group of trees in the southwest section of the forecourt (the lower left part of the circle).

The plan was presented by a special purpose foundation (Stichting Plein Elswout) that is supposed to maintain the forecourt and organize events there and on other location in the large park:

The presentation drawing. All trees at the southwest corner are left out.
Or planned to be cut?

The central part with the oval lawn seems to fit historical developments: this section appears to have been unchanged over the past 200 years. The empty areas between the walls and the water do not seem to be in line with historical developments, nor are they consistent with the current situation. The large trees that are currently there -visible in the lower left part of the circle on the aerial view- are not shown on the presentation of the plan.
One can only hope the trees are left out of the presentation drawing for reasons of clarity, not because there is no place for them in the new layout. A drawing of the house and forecourt dated circa 1810¹ already shows thick planting outside the walls:

Elswout circa 1810. The area outside the walls is planted like a forest.

The total cost of the operation is estimated at € 1.2 million. The organization received funding commitments from the estate’s owners and stakeholders, but is still looking for financial support. They expect to be able to realize their plan within the next two years.

1. Source information: TU Delft [back]

This very weekend Staatsbosbeheer, its owner, will start an emergency felling of trees on the grounds of Elswout and neighbouring Duinvliet. This is the result of an extensive review of the health of many trees on both estates. The survey was initiated by the unexpected collapse of an old tree in August 2011.

The current felling follows extensive restoration works carried out in Elswout over the past year, which mainly concerned its pavilions and bridges.

The work has started today, as the situation appears to be too critical to wait till after the holidays. First up will be trees along a public cycling path, on the grounds of Duinvliet. Staatsbosbeheer expects the investigation of potentially dangerous trees and -when necessary- felling of more trees will last through the first half of 2012.

Counting rings?
I just hope someone makes the effort to count growth rings on the older trees, as parts of nowadays Duinvliet are remnants of one of the oldest landscape gardens in The Netherlands: Sandenhoeff in Overveen. In my article on the subject I make a case for that claim, by pointing out that although we know very little of the actual layout of the garden at the time, the fact that plants from the New World are purchased for it as early as 1756, can only mean an attempt was made to create an English garden in the dunes west of Haarlem.¹

In letters to his friend Jacob Boreel, Sandenhoeff’s owner Cornelis Backer exclaimed that he very much enjoyed the layout of those gardens, although he had admittedly never seen one for real. While Boreel was in Engeland during two tours on behalf of the Dutch government (1759/1760 and 1761-1762), he was constantly pressed by Backer to send home drawings and prints of gardens in England, as well as plants he had heard about. In the mean time Backer sent fruit from Boreel’s garden (Beeckestijn) and grapevines to England, in order that Boreel could entertain his guests during meals and have some gifts ready for people who he might want give one.

Let’s just hope that the current cutting of trees can confirm the early landscape layout I have discerned from Backers letters and cash register…

1. H. van der Eijk, “Sandenhoeff: een vroeg landschappelijke tuin?”, Cascade 18 (2009), nr. 2, p104-110. He called them ‘Americaansche boomen’ and paid for the complete package of getting trees from the other side of the ocean: retrieval, freight, transport and -not the least- provision.
   At the time, Dutch gardens were still laid out in a traditional manner, full blown landscape gardens did not appear till the 1780s. One of the first was Elswout itself, by the way, initiated by a member of the Boreel family. [back]