Report on June activities.

My comparatively quite summer produced more activity than planned with 20 post in the month despite the fact that I took a holiday in Devon and had the problems of a "minor accident." (To complicate matters further the courtesy car was scrapped by another car when properly parked - but as the culprit and an independent witness left notes on the windscreen my insurance should not be affected,). All this meant that I had to shop round for a newer car in a hurry. The result seems to fit all our requirements - of which having comfortable seats was an important requirement when you get older and stiffer. The only problem is that the tailgate of the estate is too high for a short person to be able to close.

The Japanese Garden at Cottered

One post during the month caused a lot of activity - and there was marching activity on the main web site. On 21st June the BBC TV programme Gardener's World included an item on the Japanese Garden at Cottered, I had earlier been approached to see if they could use the c1930s old post card I had on the web site showing the garden so I watched - and within half an hour of the end of the programme I posted The Japanese Garden in Hertfordshire. Within half an hour there had been 60 hits rising to over 250 within 24 hours - and over 1000 within the week. There were over 800 hits of the Cottered page on the main site, possibly because my 1930s picture came out top on the relevant Google images page. The total page views on the site in June was 6,372 and the total number of visitors to the main web site was 23,456.

I am thinking about the long term plans for this web site, and I feel the priority must be to document areas where I have original, unpublished material in the "queue" and also to get the support library in better order - and possible sell of unwanted items on ebay to try and clear some space.

The Japanese Garden in Hertfordshire

Herbert Cooke (1865-1937) began developing a 6-acre garden in Cottered in 1905 after a visit to he made to Japan in that year. Japanese garden features were imported and the design was developed over the following 30 years. In 1923, Japanese designer Kusumoto Seyemon was engaged to complete the design, incorporated a lake, streams, cascades, stone work, buildings, gates and arches with maples, azaleas, wisteria, bamboo, iris on dwarf conifers. Kusumoto worked periodically over the next three years. The Japanese-style garden still occupies 2.5 hectares with additional ornamental garden and woodland of 2 hectares. The house is on the English Heritage Register (GD1545). 

Cottered Japanes Garden

Cottered

This garden was featured on the BBV TV programme Gardeners' World earlier this evening and will should be available to view on the BBC site for about a week. The garden is private and not normally open to the public, but will be opening on Sunday (June 23rd) from 11.00 am – 4.00 pm as part of the Cottered Village Festival. 

The BBC approached me to see if they could use the above picture of the gardens in about the 1930's, from my Cottered page, but finally decides to use a somewhat earlier newspaper cutting.

Did Jerome Ltd (photographers) produce any Hertfordshire photographs?

Cottered

The Japanese Garden at Cottered

A recent query drew my attention to the Cottered page and this photograph of the Japanese Garden which was started in 1906 with further developments in 1923.

Post Cards, Etc

I wanted to check the date and the back of the card had the name Jerome Ltd. The company had a wide number of shops throughout Great Britain between the wars, and up to the 1950s - but most of their output seems to have been portrait photographs. A check of trade directories between the wars failed to show any shops in Hertfordshire and it may be that this picture, and another, currently on sale on ebay, showing a hut at High Leigh, Hoddesden, may have been taken by someone else and Jerome Ltd simply produced the prints. So have you ever come across any post cards, or other pictures linked to Hertfordshire by Jerome Ltd?

A Dateable Family on CDV - Maynard of Cottered

John Maynard, died 1876

Photographers

 While  it is possible to make some conclusions about the dating of single carte de visite of unknown individuals the ideal situation is to find a collection of named photographs, by known photographers, with negative numbers, and where dates can be at least approximately ascertained.

I recently acquired five cards of the Maynard family - who turned out to be farmers at Cottered. Two were taken by George Avery of Hitchin, one by T. B. Latchmore of Hitchin (who took over George Avery's business), one by Arthur Elsden of Hertford, and one by an unknown photographer. For details of the Maynard family, and the CDV dating, see Maynard, Cottered, 19th century and the photographer pages.

The Cream of Curiosity by Reginald Hine

Reginald Leslie Hine (1883-1949) wrote many important books on the history of Hitchin and for this reason I was interested to discover one of his earliest books The Cream of Curiosity, which was published in 1920. It includes two illustrations by the famous  William Heath Robinson. It is an account of various historical and literary manuscripts in Hine's personal collection, none of which appear to relate to Hertfordshire. 

However the book includes a chapter on memorial epitaphs and includes a goodly number of Hertfordshire epitaphs, such as this one from Cottered:

What to vain mortals can a pleasure be

When no one part is from consumption free;

The head, the hand, the knee a palsy shakes,

The blood runs chill and every member quakes.

Death will the end of all my sorrows be,

And then I launch into eternity