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Denise Henry
In a Cheshire Garden
In a Cheshire Garden
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In a Cheshire Garden
Natural History Notes
By
Geoffrey Egerton-Warburton,
_Rector of Warburton_.
[Illustration: The Flower Garden.]
LONDON
SHERRATT AND HUGHES
Manchester: 34 Cross Street
1912
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
CONTENTS
Preface.
These Notes appeared from April to June this year in _The Warrington Guardian_ and afterwards came out in a de-localised form in _The Staffordshire Weekly Sentinel_.
I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. P. Ramsdale, of Heatley, for the photographs of The Old Church, The Yew-tree, and The Flower Garden (as it was some years ago).
My thanks are due also to Mr. Garrett for kindly allowing me to use his very interesting photograph of The Two Nests referred to on page 94.
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTORY.
Although much of the neighbourhood has become semi-urban and any idea of rural seclusion is destroyed, at least in summer, by the crowds that find their way to it from Manchester and other large towns, yet the Cheshire village of Warburton in which this garden is situated is a real country place still. How long it will remain so is another thing. One salt works has been set up at Heatley about a mile away and we are now (1912) promised another, while there is every prospect of land being let for works in Warburton itself. Who knows, in a few years perhaps the whole place may be reduced to the desolation of another Widnes. Then, when it has become a rare thing to find even a blade of grass on the dreary black waste or to see any bird but a grimy sparrow, a record of what was once here may be strange reading.
The garden itself about which I write is quite on the northern boundary of Cheshire, in old days divided from Lancashire by the Mersey only. The soil is light and sandy, not far from the rock in places and in places with water at a very little depth below the surface. It is well suited to hollies and rhododendrons, both of which grow abundantly and luxuriantly, as also do yews. There are a good number of ordinary deciduous trees, chiefly on the old bank of the river, such as oak, sycamore, chestnut, birch, beech, and alder, but no conifers of any age except one or two Scotch firs. There is one flourishing deadara which I planted myself and a few young Austrian pines that seem to be doing well.
A spruce fir that I once planted behaved in an extraordinary way; instead of growing straight, it shot up in a zigzag fashion, the leading shoot one year going off at an angle of 60 degrees or so, and the next year harking back and starting in the opposite direction at about the same angle.
Few of the trees can be more than 80 years old. I think most of them would have been planted by my father, who was rector from 1833 to 1849. There is however a remarkable old yew in the adjoining churchyard. The half of it, just below where the branches spring, measures nearly nine feet round. The other half has entirely gone, so has practically the whole of the substance, the wood of the trunk, and what is
(Continued...)
Natural History Notes
By
Geoffrey Egerton-Warburton,
_Rector of Warburton_.
[Illustration: The Flower Garden.]
LONDON
SHERRATT AND HUGHES
Manchester: 34 Cross Street
1912
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
CONTENTS
Preface.
These Notes appeared from April to June this year in _The Warrington Guardian_ and afterwards came out in a de-localised form in _The Staffordshire Weekly Sentinel_.
I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. P. Ramsdale, of Heatley, for the photographs of The Old Church, The Yew-tree, and The Flower Garden (as it was some years ago).
My thanks are due also to Mr. Garrett for kindly allowing me to use his very interesting photograph of The Two Nests referred to on page 94.
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTORY.
Although much of the neighbourhood has become semi-urban and any idea of rural seclusion is destroyed, at least in summer, by the crowds that find their way to it from Manchester and other large towns, yet the Cheshire village of Warburton in which this garden is situated is a real country place still. How long it will remain so is another thing. One salt works has been set up at Heatley about a mile away and we are now (1912) promised another, while there is every prospect of land being let for works in Warburton itself. Who knows, in a few years perhaps the whole place may be reduced to the desolation of another Widnes. Then, when it has become a rare thing to find even a blade of grass on the dreary black waste or to see any bird but a grimy sparrow, a record of what was once here may be strange reading.
The garden itself about which I write is quite on the northern boundary of Cheshire, in old days divided from Lancashire by the Mersey only. The soil is light and sandy, not far from the rock in places and in places with water at a very little depth below the surface. It is well suited to hollies and rhododendrons, both of which grow abundantly and luxuriantly, as also do yews. There are a good number of ordinary deciduous trees, chiefly on the old bank of the river, such as oak, sycamore, chestnut, birch, beech, and alder, but no conifers of any age except one or two Scotch firs. There is one flourishing deadara which I planted myself and a few young Austrian pines that seem to be doing well.
A spruce fir that I once planted behaved in an extraordinary way; instead of growing straight, it shot up in a zigzag fashion, the leading shoot one year going off at an angle of 60 degrees or so, and the next year harking back and starting in the opposite direction at about the same angle.
Few of the trees can be more than 80 years old. I think most of them would have been planted by my father, who was rector from 1833 to 1849. There is however a remarkable old yew in the adjoining churchyard. The half of it, just below where the branches spring, measures nearly nine feet round. The other half has entirely gone, so has practically the whole of the substance, the wood of the trunk, and what is
(Continued...)