Summary
Walled kitchen gardens, associated with Bishopthorpe Palace, residence of the Archbishops of York since 1241. Completed in 1767 for Archbishop Drummond with a heated wall added by 1785 for Archbishop Markham between the larger garden and a smaller garden to the south-east. A canalised stream and lean-to buildings are either late 18th century or early 19th century, with 20th century internal alterations to the buildings. A lean-to shelter at the east end of the brick lean-to buildings in the larger garden and timber sheds, lorry container, glasshouse and polytunnel in the smaller, south garden are not of special interest.
Reasons for Designation
The walled kitchen gardens completed in 1767 for Archbishop Drummond of York, with a late-C18 heated wall added by Archbishop Markham, and associated late-C18/early-C19 lean-to buildings, are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Historic interest:
* built in the late C18 for Robert, Archbishop of York, as part of extensive improvements to his residence and further invested in by his successor, who added a heated wall for the propagation of fruit trees. Its significance is evidenced by the records of tours given to discerning visitors to the palace.
Architectural interest:
* a good example of northern English walled garden design, notably the orientation of the long walls of the larger, rectangular garden slightly west of south to receive maximum afternoon sun, and the use of wing walls to both gardens to deflect the wind;
* the good quality construction of the brick walls, mostly in expensive Flemish bond with stone copings, express the social standing of the Archbishops;
* the canalised stream is an unusual example of the effective provision of water for the plants growing in the walled gardens;
* important evidence remains of the heating systems of the garden, including a double furnace in lean-to buildings on the north side of the main garden and segmental-arched flue vents in the heated wall.
Group value:
* the walled kitchen gardens have historic and functional group value with Bishopthorpe Palace, the residence of the Archbishops of York since the C13.
History
Bishopthorpe Palace has been the residence of the Archbishops of York since 1241.
Robert Hay Drummond (1711-1776) became Archbishop in 1761, undertaking extensive improvements and new building to the designs of Thomas Atkinson. Pleasure grounds and walled kitchen gardens were completed for Drummond in 1767, the latter placed on the opposite (west) side of the road from the palace and pleasure grounds.
In an early development of these gardens, William Markham, Archbishop between 1777 and 1807, “built an exceedingly good and convenient pinery [for growing pineapples], and a flued wall [heated to protect blossom and assist in ripening fruit] 181 feet in length”, which was present by 1785. By 1818, the kitchen gardens were described as occupying about seven acres and containing “extensive hot-houses, fruit walls, store-ponds for fish, and every other requisite accommodation”. Prince Hermann von Puckler-Muskau, a renowned German landscape designer, visited in 1827 and noted the extent and quality of the gardens, their produce and management, describing the kitchen gardens and hot houses as “remarkably fine. They were as neat as the most elegant drawing-room ".
Robert Cooper’s Map of the County of the City of York (1832), shows the general layout of the principal part of the large, rectangular walled enclosure aligned roughly east-west but angled slightly to the southwest, as walled gardens in the north of England often were, to receive maximum sunlight during the afternoons. Water was provided by a stream which was canalised the length of the garden, crossed by two bridges (now built in engineering brick), and culverted beneath the road to Warren Pond in the pleasure grounds. The heated wall built by Markham is shown as a continuation of the line of the main south wall, separating the main garden from the smaller walled garden to the south-east. A long building is shown on either side of the long south wall, which the 1:2500 OS map surveyed in 1891 identified as the brick lean-to work sheds (on the north side, surviving) and glasshouses (on the south side, demolished). To the east, against the heated wall's north side, was a small, rectangular building, perhaps a furnace shed. A small, free-standing, rectangular building is also shown in the area to the south of the smaller walled garden, along with paths and slip gardens stretching southwards and encompassing a gardener’s cottage. The furnace shed had gone by 1891, and a group of glasshouses with a small brick building had been added close to the lean-to glasshouses. A couple of small wood or iron buildings were shown outside the walled gardens, one abutting the outer, south-west corner of the main garden, where there is now a wide opening in the wall. Paths were also simplified into a more grid-like layout, with an orchard to the west side of a path leading down to the gardener’s cottage. A contemporary description noted “within the garden walls are extensive hothouses, fruit trees, vineries, in which fruits and flowers and vegetables for the palace are reared”.
Use of the garden by the Bishops declined through the C20 and the cultivated areas reduced. By 1967 only the walled enclosures remained, with the surroundings ploughed up and in use as open farmland.
Since 2010, the walled gardens have been leased to an organic plant nursery. Both are cultivated and brick work sheds have been partly converted to a mess room, kitchen and WCS, with the rest used as a workshop and store. Two timber sheds, a lorry container, a glasshouse and a poly-tunnel have been placed within the smaller walled garden to provide facilities to assist with running the site.
Details
Walled kitchen gardens, associated with Bishopthorpe Palace, residence of the Archbishops of York since 1241. Completed in 1767 for Archbishop Drummond with a heated wall added by 1785 for Archbishop Markham between the larger garden and a smaller garden to the south-east. A canalised stream and lean-to buildings are either late-C18 or early-C19, with C20 internal alterations to the buildings. A lean-to shelter at the east end of the brick lean-to buildings in the larger garden and timber sheds, lorry container, glasshouse and polytunnel in the smaller garden are not of special interest.
MATERIALS: the walls and lean-to buildings are built of red handmade bricks, with stone coping to the wall and pantile roofs to the lean-to buildings.
PLAN: the large, rectangular garden has the long walls aligned slightly south-west with a deflecting wing wall at the north-west outer corner and a canalised stream running slightly off-centre along much of the length of the garden. On the north (inner) side of the south wall is a range of lean-to, single-storey work sheds, the larger containing two furnaces for a heated wall, the rear of the smaller shed also apparently flued (originally with lean-to glasshouses on the south (outer) side). A heated wall (Archbishop Markham's 181ft flued wall) forms the dividing wall between the two enclosures. The smaller walled garden is approximately rectangular with deflecting wing walls projecting southwards from the outer corners.
DESCRIPTION: the walled gardens stand close to the west side of Bishopthorpe Road, with Bishopthorpe Palace and pleasure gardens located between the east side of the road and the River Ouse.
The garden walls are around 12ft (3.6m) high and built of handmade brick, mostly in Flemish bond, with regularly spaced piers and stone slab coping.
The east (roadside) wall of both gardens has brickwork which courses through with two closer piers marking the junction between the two. At the left-hand end the brickwork courses through to a stepped wing wall. The smaller garden has a segmental-arched pedestrian doorway with a panelled, timber door (painted blue) to the left (garden’s south-east corner), and the large garden has a wide gateway with a chamfered and stopped timber lintel and plank and batten double doors (painted blue) close to the piers' junction (garden’s south-east corner).
The south wall of the smaller garden is flanked by the projecting wing walls; a change in the brick colour to the left wing wall indicates that the upper part has been rebuilt or raised to the height of the garden wall. In the centre is a segmental-arched pedestrian doorway (now the main entrance to both gardens) flanked by two piers. The doorway is rebated to the inner side with a stone pintel block and plank and batten door (painted blue); a modern, metal grille gate is attached to the outer side of the doorway.
The slightly-angled west wall of the smaller garden has a bricked-up, segmental-arched pedestrian doorway to the left (garden’s north-west corner).
The long, north wall of the large garden has a coursed-through wing wall at the right-hand corner projecting westwards. There are no doorways and the brickwork on the exterior has a less regular bond (the inner wall is regular Flemish bond). The stone coping is missing towards the right-hand end, resulting in some loss of brickwork.
The west wall of the large garden is also of less regular brick bond to the exterior (with regular Flemish bond to the interior) and is missing some stone coping. There is a bricked-up, segmental-arched pedestrian doorway to the left (garden’s north-west corner) - with a panelled timber door on the inside. Adjacent to the right-hand corner is a full-width, full-height opening, with a ramped outer corner.
The long, south wall of the large garden abuts the north-west corner of the smaller garden. The external wall has piers at the left-hand end and a wide gateway with a timber lintel adjacent to the lean-to buildings on the inside of the wall. The wall thickens here on the inside face, forming the back wall of the lower, lean-to building. To the exterior there is evidence for a former lean-to glasshouse with disturbance to the brickwork including a vertical scar at each end patched with modern brick and between a high row of soldier bricks and a partial lower row, perhaps relating to a raised bed, with patching at the left-hand end and a low, stone lintel for a furnace or flue vent. To the right the wall is raised the length of taller, lean-to building, wrapping round the west corner and with two flues on the inside face for the furnaces within the building. To the left of the flues is a pedestrian doorway with a timber lintel and frame and a modern, domestic timber and glazed door. Mid-height to the doorway on both sides is a line of stone flags set into the brickwork. At the right-hand end the wall returns to the same height as elsewhere.
HEATED WALL: the dividing heated wall continues the line of the large garden's south, outer wall. It is around 9ft (2.7m) high with a bricked-up, segmental-arched pedestrian doorway at its east end. Straight joints in the wall at the west end indicate that originally there was a corresponding doorway also at this end. It is built in irregular English garden wall bond with Flemish bond around the doorways. The whole wall seems to have been raised subsequently to 12ft (3.6m) by the addition of extra courses of brickwork, also of irregular English garden wall bond. An inserted doorway to the centre has a concrete lintel. The thicker, flued wall projects on the north side and has stone coping, the line of coping stones visible set into the brickwork on the south side. The south side has a spaced row of iron wall-tie pattress plates and the north side has a number of bricked-up, segmental-arched flue vents.
WORKSHEDS: the range of single-storey, lean-to work sheds comprises two buildings both built of handmade bricks in English garden wall bond (5:1), with segmental-arched, gauged brick lintels to original openings and pantile roofs. The larger building to the left is shallower with higher eaves and roof-level. From the left is an altered or inserted window, two doorways, an inserted window, an altered doorway, an inserted or altered window, and an original window. The left-hand return has a blocked doorway and small window above. At the right-hand end the smaller building projects forward with a steeper, pantile roof with four small rooflights. It has a central doorway with two windows to each side. The right-hand return has a large timber lintel beam over a door and window.
Inside, both worksheds have replacement timber roof trusses, purlins and joists. The larger shed has piers to the rear wall and a double furnace with paired, bricked-up, round-headed fireplaces, a brick hearth floor, and two chimney breasts. The smaller shed has fourteen regularly-spaced vertical channels in the rear wall, a bricked-up flue vent with stone lintel to the upper part of the wall, and lower-down, a square iron cover set into the wall behind which is an iron pipe through the wall (likely to be part of a heating system for the glasshouse).
"Pursuant to s1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 ("the Act") it is declared that the lean-to shelter at the east end of the brick lean-to buildings in the large walled garden and the timber sheds, lorry container, glasshouse and polytunnel in the smaller, south garden are modern additions and are not of special architectural or historic interest, however any works which have the potential to affect the character of the listed building as a building of special architectural or historic interest may still require LBC and this is a matter for the LPA to determine".
