Within five days of Jack’s hiring, work commenced on the uphill task of clearing the land. Bulldozing was kept to an absolute minimum. It would have been the quickest and simplest method but by and large it was out of the question since there was no way of knowing what was buried underneath the rampant mass of bramble, ivy, laurel, impossibly tangled vines and fallen trees.
Teams called ‘bramble bashers’ did a lot of the preliminary clearing work. The nickname had survived from the Heligan days. Working in pairs, under the watchful eye of a gardener lest they should start hacking away in the wrong places or at plants that were to be saved, one ‘basher’ would slash away at the dense growth with a machete while his mate cleared the hacked-out debris with a long rake. Chainsaw crews were at the ready should they hit fallen trees. Once an area was cleared, a dumper truck would appear to cart away the debris.
Extreme care had to be taken not to destroy anything above or under the ground that might be a remnant of the former gardens. It was Kingston’s hope, indeed, expectation, that they would be able to salvage all kinds of plants, shrubs, and garden treasures that were entombed under the sixty-plus years of rampant vegetative growth. While various pieces of mechanical equipment were employed for some of the heavy-duty work, most of the clearing was done by sheer hard labour.
Once it was completed, a comprehensive survey of the site would be undertaken. First, all the landscape features: the pathways, steps, walls and rock areas like the grotto would be established on the map. Next the structures and garden features that had been unearthed would be catalogued. Then, finally, the most labour-intensive of all, identifying and marking the precise location of every tree and shrub. These would all be tagged and numbered and entered into a computer database.
The hope was—although, rather slim—that later, if plans of the original gardens were found, the new plan could be figuratively superimposed over the original, thereby establishing the evolution and development of the garden through to the present day.
The early stages of the restoration process would have taken months longer were it not for the help of Gillian Thomas. An amateur historian, she worked at the library in Bridgwater. Gillian had volunteered to conduct historical research and to compile an official record, written and photographic, of every stage of development on the estate. As a start, she had undertaken a thorough search of the vaults of the Somerset Record Office in Taunton and other public record offices. Three weeks into the task, she unearthed two detailed plans of the estate drawn in the early part of the nineteenth century. Later she procured an 1840 Ordnance Survey map and an 1852 tithe map of Wickersham. These documents were invaluable in forming the foundation for the new design.
One of the first priorities had been to raze the grounds immediately surrounding the house. This done, the house took on a much more pleasant aspect. Opened up to the skies on all sides, it seemed to flourish in its new environment, assuming an even grander mien, looming larger than before. For Jamie—and she made no secret of it—progress was unbearably slow but as every day passed, nature grudgingly surrendered piece after piece of the puzzle. Victorian and Edwardian garden features, structures, ornaments and artifacts, abandoned long ago, were salvaged, photographed, catalogued and subjected to critical scrutiny by Kingston and his crew.
Some discoveries were not of great significance—like that of a derelict potting shed entombed in a sarcophagus of nettles and blackberry. It surrendered hundreds of terracotta pots, a stockpile of glazed Victorian edging and a trove of vintage garden tools. Another find provided much-needed clues to the botanical history of the gardens. In a derelict, fern-shrouded structure, built up against a high brick wall—Kingston thought it might have been a peach house—several wooden crates, too rotted to even lift, contained a hundred or so old zinc plant markers. Back in the days before the war, a gardener had had the foresight to wrap them in oiled paper and tie them in neat bundles. Not only were they beautifully preserved, each bore the name of a plant variety that had been planted or was about to be planted in the gardens. As he read off the Latin names like Lychnis chalcedonica, Campanula lactiflora, Nigella damascena, Astrantia major, Kingston’s eyes lit up. ‘Better than digging up a box of gold coins,’ he declared to Jamie. Over the last weeks, the lack of plant information had become a recurring topic. Surprisingly, up until now, not a single work ledger, planting layout or sales receipt had surfaced. Now, at the very least, they possessed the beginnings of a list that would enable them to start planting.
On two occasions over more recent days, work had come to a complete halt. A jubilant shouting had signalled these events, bringing everybody within earshot running to the scene. These were important finds. The first was unearthed after a full day’s hacking away at a fifty-foot stretch of house-high bramble. All these years the impenetrable mass had mothballed the rotting remains of a large Victorian greenhouse. Most of the algae-stained windows were still intact and its shiny cobbled floor was none the worse for its incarceration. Gillian had snapped off at least three dozen digital photos that afternoon.