The Walled Garden
Edward Austen Knight had the idea to build a new walled garden during his sister Jane Austen’s lifetime: in 1813, She wrote to her brother Frank:
“He (Edward Austen Knight) talks of making a new Garden; the present is a bad one & ill situated, near Mr Papillon's; — he means to have the new, at the top of the Lawn behind his own house.”
Today, Edward Austen Knight's original walls are mostly still intact. The restoration programme for this area is vast, and requires funding and the support of volunteers as it is the intention to rebuild the glasshouses and potting sheds that have long since fallen into disrepair. The central space is used for the production of vegetables, soft fruits, herbs and flowers. Chawton House is registered with the Soil Association, and is now certified as an organic producer. Everything grown in the walled garden is for use by the Library, with any surplus being sold locally in aid of the charity. The gardens are being restored using Edward Austen Knight's original planting scheme. The walls of the garden still require repair and re-pointing, and work is being done to restore the glasshouses in the near future.
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Famous quotes containing the words walled and/or garden:
“Hell isn’t merely paved with good intentions; it’s walled and roofed with them. Yes, and furnished too.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“A garden is like those pernicious machineries we read of, every month, in the newspapers, which catch a man’s coat-skirt or his hand, and draw in his arm, his leg, and his whole body to irresistible destruction.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)