Belvoir Garden on TV

Well this is a first... one of our clients gardens is to be filmed on More 4 tonight.  16th September 2015.

With the discovery of the Capability Brown's unfinished plans at Belvoir, and his tercentenary in 2016, Belvoir became the spotlight for a TV series.  Belvoir was one of the last designs Brown did, and sadly it was never finished in his lifetime.

Martin and I were lucky enough to see this plan a couple of years ago and it is something to behold.  The most astonishing thing is its size.  Probably 6' x 9'' (in old money).  Every tree has been hand painted with the shadow drawn in.  At the same time the archivist showed us logs in the diary when Brown visited the 4th Duke.  These diaries are beautiful kept and written 'Date of Arrival, Name,  Date of departure, in wonderful scroll.

  We both both felt very privileged.

The landscape is not really on our patch - we just look after the small gardens (26 acres!).  But it was fun having the filming crew round us.  

At one point we were pruning the roses in the rose garden and suddenly heard a drone camera hovering over us.. the noise was like a swarm of bees.  "Don't look at the drone, it spoils the effect", says the director,  so of course all you want to do is look at the drone!

The Duchess has moved heaven and earth - literally - (thousands of tonnes of it), to put into place more of Brown's ideas.  It has been a Herculean task, and the finished effect is quite spectacular.

The final planting before the last TV production.