Hoyle Court and the Head Gardener Viney
Question from Denise:
Hi, You refer to “old Viney” at Hoyle Court in one of your articles who I believe must be Smith Viney my Great Grandfather, I wonder if you have any photos of him or the gardens he worked on? My Grandma has fond memories of living in the game keepers cottage & would love to see anything from about that time. Hope you can help.
Answer from Pat:
What an amazing email from you! I remember Viney very well indeed. What a lovely man he was, small, thin and wirey, strong, and highly intelligent. He was very kind to my elder brother John Fisher-Smith and me.Though he had a Yorkshire accent, he spoke to us very clearly. He had daily meetings with my grandfather which were often held in the greenhouses which Viney maintained with impeccable taste and cleanliness. Late in the day he brought the vegetables to Cook in the kitchen so they were just picked and at the peak of flavor for our dinner. Out in the vegetable garden, he would often shell peas into our out-stretched palms so we could eat them. One of my earliest memories is of watching him fill pots with compost in which he planted cuttings. My grandfather, mill-owner Sam Ambler, would pick ripe tomatoes in the greenhouse and give them to us to eat. Viney also kept goldfish in big tanks in the greenhouses and let us feed them. He dipped his watering cans into the water and watered the plants. John and I often watched Viney work in the potting shed. I was perhaps five years old. My nose came up to the bench. My brother John was about eight and asked him incessant questions which Viney answered in a patient and kindly manner. John led me on adventures such as crawling along on the cinder paths that cut my knees in order to “steal” and eat Viney’s gooseberries and currants. We’d eat one or two and then John would laughingly pop up so Viney would see us marrauders. Then Viney would morph into Mr. McGregor chasing Peter Rabbit and waving a rake chase us in mock anger around the formal paths of the vegetable garden and shaking his fist at us shoo us out the gate, but all in fun. This was our earliest introduction to gardening and we are both avid gardeners to this day.
Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Viney lived in what we called “the Gatehouse” at the bottom of the curving chestnut-tree-lined driveway that led up the hill to the courtyard at the back of Hoyle Court. When I was a child at Hoyle Court in the 1930’s, the gardens were lovely and extensive and Viney had several assistants. We never talked to them but we saw Viney daily. He also arranged all the flowers in the house. In 1949 when I was 19, John and I returned to England by ship to visit our family after the War. Viney was still there. By then I could appreciate that he was very artistic and talented not only as a gardener but as a flower arranger. I was deeply touched by the magnificent bouquet of roses and garden flowers he had fixed for my bedroom and stood on the wide window sill where they were simply breathtaking against the typical Yorkshire view of a green hill and black stone walls. On one occasion when my Uncle Jack gave a cocktail party for us out on the terrace, Viney arranged flowers for the event and did it so magnificently that I was simply bowled over. My grandfather, who had just died, had been a great collector of antiques and on each side of the hallway that led outdoors onto the terrace, he had a pair of stunning Louis XI glass urns standing on two matching 6 or 8-foot tall black wooden pillars that looked like onyx. The day before the cocktail party I watched Viney bring in a step ladder and a helper; after the war he only had one helper. Viney used a large pitcher to fill both urns with water. Then he and his assistant brought in several 8-to-10-foot long sprays of fragrant pink climbing roses and arranged them in the urns so the sprays cascaded almost down to the floor. Their perfume filled the entire front hallway. Guests went out to the terrace by walking between these urns. Not one of them failed to stop and admire those roses. I was totally struck by the romantic effect of this stunning arrangement. At that time I had never seen anything like it.
One of my memories of the Viney’s as a couple is when there was a walking race on the Old York Road and John and I and my nurse, Norah, and several of the servants went down to the foot of the drive to watch it. Mrs. Viney was there too. Most of the walkers simply zoomed by without stopping but one man who was the sweatiest thing I ever saw in my life. He stopped for a moment and asked for a glass of water. Mrs. Viney ran into the house at top speed and came dashing out with a tumbler of water, but instead of drinking it he threw it over his head, and Mrs Viney exclaimed “Well, I never!” and everyone laughed. I have included some stories about Viney in a book I wrote called “All My Edens”. One can find used copies on the Internet. I also mention Viney in a book I am writing now and that is not yet published but slated to be called “Grief and the Gardener: a Love Story.” This is about my life with my husband Judge Louis M. Welsh, a lawyer when we first met. It is about love, loss, grief and recovery and I hope will be inspiring to many people. I also weave in stories that involve gardening and life from childhood up.
Please tell me more about yourself. How did you find me? And where do you live? I am sending you one rather fuzzy aerial photo of Hoyle Court and more will follow within a few weeks. I will try to find photos of Viney and of Hoyle Court. The photos of Viney are not very good. Yes, I have some of the gardens that Viney kept up. Several are in the book mentioned above.
Aerial photo of Hoyle Court taken when the property was put up for sale c.1952. During the war the garden became overgrown since all the young men were overseas during the war and Viney had no help. It became like the enchanted castle in Sleeping Beauty. The bluebells that had grown in the wood became shaded out and died out and the two orchards went wild also. Some of the lawns became meadows and wildflowers grew in them. Note the greenhouses and large walled vegetable garden on the right, the remains of the topiary behind the house. You can vaguely see the farmer’s house at top left, one quarter down from top. All the fields in the photo belonged to my grandfather and were part of the farm. My mother wanted to sell the place as a school and that would have been so much better than what actually happened, but unfortunately Uncle Jack wanted to sell it for more money and it became 5 Masonic Lodges and a condominium complex, so the lovely hay fields and sheep pastures all became filled with houses, though fortunately they are built of stone in the Yorkshire style and Hoyle Court still stands but it is nothing like it was. The double line of walls at the top are on each side of the sunken railroad tracks, built in the 19th century, where steam trains ran when I was a child and electric trains or deisal trains today. Baildon Railroad station is just above the gates to Hoyle Court and the old chauffeur’s houses, that were rented to help when I was a child. (My grandmother used a chauffeur from the mill, if necessary, and my grandfather, Sam Ambler, commuted to his mill by train and always came home for lunch and a nap.) The chestnut-lined driveway I mentioned is curving down the hill on the left. The Gatehouse (I note you call it “the Game Keeper’s Cottage”) was at the bottom. That cottage was small but had a charming design with gabled windows in the slate roof and was built of stone matching the house.
Hi Pat, I came across your site while researching the history of Hoyle Court. I had heard from a former steward at the lodge that there was a book about your family’s former home in Baildon. I would like to put some information on our lodge website regarding the history of the building as well as some old pictures. I was hoping you could point me in the right direction. I also noted one of your readers wanting to grow rhubarb in southern California. It’s a fantastic vegetable and I grow it myself with no problems what so ever. But then again I live in Idle which has an ideal climate for it. Kind Regards Michael Craven
Please provide me your postal address and I will mail you a copy of my book, “All My Edens: A Gardeners Memoir,” which is now out of print but I have some used copies. Due to pressure of work I cannot send you photos right now but perhaps in future. I will see what is already in my computer and send those.
Regarding rhubarb. It’s an excellent vegetable in the right climate, but does not grow well in climates that lack winter chill and/or are too hot in summer, in which case it often rots during the summer months. I advocate growing the things that grow well wherever one lives and planting and growing them at the correct times of year for each. In other words I believe in working with nature and not against it. Some gardens in Southern California embody micro-climates where rhubarb grows well, but most do not.
How did Hoyle’s Court get its name?
For many years, perhaps since the Middle Ages—though I am not sure—there was a farm on the south side of Baildon, Yorkshire, on the Old York Road, called “Hoyle Farm.” Early in the 20th century, my grandfather, Sam Ambler, owner of Jeremiah Ambler and Sons, Mohair Spinners in the town of Bradford, bought the farm. On the hill in the middle of the property he built Hoyle Court, a grand home in the Queen Anne style, with formal gardens, overlooking the valley. Further up the hill he planted two orchards and kept the small wood which was carpeted with bluebells in spring. He surrounded the whole property with a high wall, built a gatehouse down at the bottom where Mr. and Mrs. Viney lived, and kept the farm buildings and several farm fields on the west which he continued to run like a farm with a farmer in charge of a cow or two, pigs and some sheep. Inside the wall on the west side were several hay fields for the animals. East of the house was a huge walled vegetable garden with 4 or 5 greenhouses and a potting shed. The Ambler family moved into the house in 1910. This is where I lived for a few years with my grandparents, Emerson and Ruth Fisher-Smith lived after my parents lost their home after the 1929 crash, the year when I was born. After he built Hoyle Court, my grandfather was called “Squire Ambler” by the locals.
Another interesting note on the name Hoyle Court: Hoyle is a Yorkshire surname used, for example, in the phrase “according to hoyle”, meaning according to sporting rules decided by a man called Hoyle. The origin of the surname Hoyle derives from the Old English (pre-7th century) word “hohl”, meaning a hole or hollow in the land. The name Hoyle dates from the Middle Ages and earlier when people’s names were often derived from the places where they lived. Doubtless a man whose family name was Hoyle founded Hoyle Farm. When my grandfather bought the property, built his house and named it, he kept the place name “Hoyle” and added the word “Court”, most likely because the house had a court yard. Today the place is home to 5 masonic lodges and is rented out for weddings. It’s still beautiful on the outside, but nothing like it was in its heyday.