Following our focus on the Lily Pond, we were delighted to have some terrific photographs of it in happier times shared with us. Ken Osborne kindly directed us to these photos in his collection that show the pond in the 1950s.

In one, children take advantage of the open access at the west end to go pond dipping under the care of a couple of adults resting on the parapet wall; it certainly seems to have been a popular activity for a sunny afternoon. A notice attached to the lodge warns “action will be taken against any person found fishing or throwing litter in the pond”. We imagine the children will have got permission for their little ‘fishing’ even

We’ve managed to splice a few of these into a long panorama showing the view from Napier Miles Road, and the fruit trees still trained across the back walls in glorious fan patterns. Some of these trees still grow today, a delicious couple of pear trees have become unruly, but still fruit in abundance.

The gardens around the pond were noted for the abundance of their crop, and the excellent conditions they offered for even delicate fruit. An article in The Garden magazine in July 1900 remarks on the hardiness of fig trees here. Again, some of these survive in the grounds, and were noted then for “individual fruits attaining to a very large size and ripening perfectly”. The author writes that “there are few gardens in which figs thrive and continue productive over so many years” and that they were “enviable to visitors whose ambition in fig culture cannot be satisfied to anything like the extent which obtain here under the most simple rules of culture”.