Sunday, 6 January 2008
ART SUNDAY - FOLLIES 4
James Pulham and Son were eminent landscape gardeners and creators of follies of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and are now most widely remembered for the spectacular rock gardens they created in many country estates around the United Kingdom, including the Royal Estates at Sandringham and Buckingham Palace, and the RHS Gardens Wisley. James Pulham obtained his first Royal commission in 1868. Mr Broderick Thomas, the Prince of Wales' Head Gardener at Sandringham, had dug out two artificial lakes, and contracted Pulhams to build 'Waterfalls, rocky stream, and cave for boat house' on the bank of the largest one, near the house.
There must also be a possibility that Pulhams did the actual construction work on the lakes themselves, since this is exactly what they did at Dunorlan Park, in Tunbridge Wells, for Henry Reed, a few years earlier, but no confirmation of this is available.
This is a picture of the main lake, with the boatcave, and 'The Nest' folly in the background. The lower layers of the boathouse rockwork are locally quarried carstone, but the massive blocks above are Pulhamite.
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