Leyland Cypress - History

History

In 1845, the Leighton Hall, Powys estate was purchased from the Corbett family of Shropshire by Liverpool banker Christopher Leyland. In 1847, he gave it to his nephew John Naylor (1813–1889) as a wedding present, who then proceeded to rebuild the house and estate at a reputed cost of £275,000, plus an additional £200,000 on the industrial farm technology.

Naylor commissioned Edward Kemp, a pupil of Sir Joseph Paxton, to lay out the gardens, which included Redwoods, Monkey Puzzle Trees and two disparate Pacific coast North American species of conifers in close proximity to each other in the estates Park Wood:

• Monterey Cypress, Cupressus macrocarpa (syn. Callitropsis macrocarpa) from California
• Nootka or Alaskan Cypress, Cupressus nootkatensis (syn. Callitropsis nootkatensis, Xanthocyparis nootkatensis, Chamaecyparis nootkatensis)

The two parent species would not likely cross in the wild as their natural ranges are more than 400 miles apart, but in 1888 the hybrid cross occurred when the female flowers or cones of Nootka Cypress were fertilised by pollen from Monterey Cypress.

As John Naylor died the following year, his eldest son Christopher John Naylor (1849–1926) inherited Leighton Hall from his father in 1889. Christopher was a sea captain by trade who commanded a ship known as the I.S.S. Enterprise. In 1891 he inherited the Leyland Entailed Estates established under the will of his great-great-uncle, which passed to him following the death of his uncle Thomas Leyland. On receiving the inheritance Christopher changed his surname to Leyland, and moved to Haggerston Castle, Northumbria. He further developed the hybrid at his new home, and hence named the first clone variant 'Haggerston Grey'. His younger brother John Naylor (1856–1906) resultantly inherited Leighton Hall, and when in 1911 the reverse hybrid of the cones of the Monterey Cypress were fertilised with pollen from the Nootka, that hybrid was baptised 'Leighton Green.'

The hybrid has since arisen on nearly 20 separate occasions, always by open pollination, showing the two species are readily compatible and closely related. As a hybrid, Leyland Cypress are sterile so all the trees we now see have resulted from cuttings originating from those few plants. There are over forty forms of Leyland Cypress, and as well as 'Haggerston Grey' and 'Leighton Green', other well-known forms include 'Stapehill', which was discovered in 1940 in a garden in Ferndown, Dorset by M. Barthelemy and 'Castlewellan', which originated from a single mutant tree in the Castlewellan estate arboretum in Northern Ireland. This form, widely propagated from the 1970s, was selected by the park director, John Keown and was named Cupressus macrocarpa Keownii, 1963. Other forms include 'Douglas Gold', 'Drabb', 'Emerald Isle', 'Ferndown', 'Golconda', 'Golden Sun', 'Gold Rider', 'Grecar', 'Green Spire', 'Grelive', Haggerston 3, Haggerston 4, Haggerston 5, Haggerston 6, 'Harlequin', 'Herculea', 'Hyde Hall', 'Jubilee', 'Medownia', 'Michellii', 'Moncal', 'Naylor's Blue', 'New Ornament', 'Olive's Green', 'Robinson's Gold', 'Rostrevor', 'Silver Dust', 'Variegata', 'Ventose' and 'Winter Sun'.