From the BBC Website, 20th February 2005

Castle's medieval papers on show


Documents dating back to the Middle Ages stored in archives at Arundel Castle are being put on display.
The permanent exhibition is being set up in the Waiting Room at the West Sussex castle, which overlooks the River Arun and the south coast.
The room where visitors waited before visiting the duke will now be used for exhibiting the documents, portraits, pictures and illustrations.
A spokesman said the private collection was "one of the finest in the country".


Maritime connections
She said the Waiting Room, once used as a store room, had been specially restored for the exhibition.
The oak parquet floor has been re-waxed, new lighting installed, the stonework cleaned and the walls repainted.
The castle is highlighting the connections of the building and the family with the sea this year, to mark the bicentenary year of the Battle of Trafalgar.
The 15th Duke of Norfolk's grandfather, Lord Lyons, was an Admiral and Commander of the Mediterranean Fleet during the Crimean War.
His godfather was one of Nelson's officers at Trafalgar, and some of the items now going on display include Nelson's orders in the years leading up to the event.

Below is a small selection of old postcards of Arundel Castle, from my collection.

From the Daily Telegraph Magazine, 7th April 2007

Out of the ruins

Ten years ago, the Duchess of Norfolk took the neglected kitchen garden at Arundel Castle under her wing. Today the patch has been restored to its former Victorian glory, and is even earning its keep.

The kitchen garden may be only one of a succession of developments at Arundel Castle driven by the Duchess of Norfolk, but it is of special interest in that its progress shows her approach to gardens and gardening. Testifying to her keen respect for historical detail and a preference for the organic approach, the project has given her an opportunity to create a new attraction at the castle. It has also made use of her eye for colour and design - Georgina Norfolk, now aged 45, worked at Colefax and Fowler as a paint specialist before her marriage.

These considerations aside, she says, “I really enjoy digging in the garden and planting things myself. This year we’re extending the kitchen garden, but before we started, we had to have an archaeological dig”, she says. “It revealed a medieval Maison Dieu, the layout of streets and houses in Victorian Arundel - and a well, right in the centre. Very appropriate because water is going to be an important feature in our plans.”

Begun 10 years ago while she was still Countess of Arundel (the Earl of Arundel succeeded his father Miles Stapleton-Fitzalan-Howard as the 18th Duke in 2002), the kitchen garden had to take its place in her priorities. She and her husband, Edward, moved into the east wing of the castle when they got married in 1987 and, as she observes, “there was a lot of work to do, as it hadn't been occupied since 1945.”

Enclosed by high walls, near the stables and bounded on one side by Arundel's pinnacled, 19th-century cathedral and the town itself, the present kitchen garden covers one acre on level ground. Gerry Kelsey, ex-RHS Rosemoor and the head gardener at Arundel since 1994, takes up the story. “The garden was rather neglected. There were lawns, a shrubbery, lots of trees, and a substantial rubbish dump. Our first project was the renovation of the Vinery, an original Victorian glasshouse. It still has arches in the walls at ground-level so that vines can be rooted in the border outside and then trained underneath for the fruits to grow and ripen inside. We plant ours inside today, though.”

When the Vinery was replanted, the original Victorian varieties were traced through the Castle's archives, and Reads of Norfolk was approached to provide modern equivalents, an instance of Georgina Norfolk's detail. Today, varieties of red and black grapes with such intriguing names as 'Buckland Sweetwater', 'Lady Downe's Seedling' and 'Mrs. Pince's Black Muscat' will display heavy clusters of fruit through the season.

The rich, red skin of the curious, doughnut- shaped peach, Prunus persica 'Flat China', shows up against the white walls of the Vinery. 'Flat China' was first shown to the Horticultural Society in 1819. Other varieties of peach are also grown - some espalier-trained. Buddleia nicodemia grows in the borders beneath the fruits, geraniums fragrance the air and the ledges are covered with colourful gourds and squash destined to decorate the cathedral and church on feast days.

During the restoration of the kitchen garden, they also came upon some original Victorian asparagus pits, complete with a plaque of 1874, and the foundations of a second Victorian greenhouse. Now known as the Victorian Greenhouse, exotic fruits and vegetables are grown here, including bananas, pineapples and yams. They also grow such curiosities as loofah gourds. Figs, lemons, oranges and other citrus fruit are also harvested, as well as passion fruit, chillis and peppers.

What about the outside crops? Kelsey explains that these are grown potager-style on a four-year cycle in consultation with the castle's chef, “but we also want to satisfy visitors' expectations of a decorative garden”. He attributes much of their design's success to the Duchess, pointing out that she “'had contributed significantly, from the overall design to details such as the topiary 'lollipop' bay trees (Laurus nobilis), the low, espaliered, step-over apples and the decorative lead fountain.” In fact, she had wanted a much more ornamental kitchen garden than the original Victorian one, but this decorative aspect had to be married with practicality. “'Everything grown here has a practical purpose and application - whether it's fruit and vegetables or flowers.”

All the crops are seasonal. “We will send up a selection to the house and menus will be planned around this. In terms of what to grow, there's always room for experimentation. Anything that's a bit different which we have grown successfully is always welcomed.”

The vegetable garden is at the western end of the plot, with low yew hedging (Taxus baccata) used to define different areas. Box (Buxus sempervirens ‘Suffruticosa') has been grown from cuttings to edge the individual beds. Neat rows of vegetable and salad crops are made more colourful by occasional plantings of annuals, making the whole appear like an illustration from Beatrix Potter.

Wrought-iron pergolas supporting espaliered apple trees extend along the central path each side of the fountain. They are a mass of colour in summertime with cosmos, tanecetum and verbena at their base and ipomoea climbing carelessly among old-fashioned apple varieties such as Ashmead's Kernel' and 'Peasgood's Nonsuch'.

The Cut-flower Garden is centrally positioned before the Vinery with yew and box again used to define the paths and borders. Displays of tulips give way to cosmos, nicotiana, statice, helichrysum, rosa, Ricinus 'Gibsonii' and dahlias (including Dahlia 'Black Knight'). These not only make spectacular displays when growing but can also be put to good use by the floristry team.

Clever design makes the layout of the kitchen garden seem larger than it really is. Juxtapositioned 'compartments' and parallel paths lead between herbaceous borders, flower borders, soft fruits and the potager. There is a sense of space and distance. Espaliered fruit trees cover the east-facing wall. Fruit bushes and rhubarb grow beneath the north-facing wall. Tall raspberry canes and asparagus are near the centre, where structure is provided in the summer by immense wigwams for runner beans, pumpkins and sunflowers.

The garden seems to have matured very quickly. Why is this? Kelsey considers. “First, the double digging we carried out at the start. I'm a great believer in double digging. You can be sure you'll get organic matter right to the roots. If you use a rotavator, you can easily create a hard surface and the roots can’t penetrate and spread so easily. And with double digging, you can be sure of good drainage. The other important factor is the first-class muck we dig in each winter. Lots of really good organic matter. Some 60 tons go into the vegetable garden and a similar amount to the flower garden and borders.”

Isobel McKinley, the assistant head gardener, who came to Arundel in 2002 from the National Trust Waddesdon Manor, explains that the Duchess would like to be completely organic on the estate. “We're always trying to find ways to achieve this; we call it ‘gardening with nature’,” she says. “For example, we plant nasturtiums to attract the caterpillars - so crops stay clear of them. We also have plenty of shoo-fly plants which do just what their name says! We use nematodes and companion planting in the garden and the glasshouses, and encourage natural predators, such as hedgehogs.”

Gerry Kelsey and his team share with Georgina Norfolk a huge enthusiasm for their work. A new garden, adjacent to the present one, is scheduled for next year and will draw on Inigo Jones's early 17th-century designs for the 14th Earl of Arundel's 'Renaissance' garden at Arundel House, London. Water and architecture will feature strongly and there are plans for formal terraces with pleached allées, fountains and a labyrinth. As Georgina Norfolk says, “Everything we do here at Arundel brings history to life.”

Three more old postcards of Arundel Castle, recently purchased.
The third one has a postmark of 1936.

From the Shoreham Herald, 30th April 2008

Prince of Wales to open garden at Arundel Castle

The Prince of Wales will open the new Earl's Garden at Arundel Castle in West Sussex on May 14. The new garden, based on a 17th-century classical design by Inigo Jones, is in memory of the Collector Earl, Thomas 14th Earl of Arundel, who was the first great English collector of art.

The original drawings were updated for a timeless look by well-known garden designers, Julian and Isabel Bannerman, who also designed the famous stumpery at The Prince of Wales's home, Highgrove. During his visit to Arundel Castle, which is the ancestral home of Edward William Fitzalan-Howard, 18th Duke of Norfolk and Earl Marshal of England, The Prince of Wales will declare the gardens open by switching on the fountain in Oberon's Palace.