The BBC has reported on the Victorian kitchen garden at Florencecourt Co. Fermanagh which is being revived to 1930’s splendour with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).
BBC Northern Ireland writes:
You may not have heard of cardoon, but more than a century ago, it regularly graced Victorian dining tables. Now, it graces the kitchen garden at Florencecourt, as part of a project to return the space to its early 20th Century glory. David Corscadden, the head gardener at the National Trust property said: ‘Three years ago, this garden was a two-acre field. We’ve been trying to restore it to how it would have been in the 1930s. We’re trying to make it attractive for visitors so they’ll want to come visit time and time again.’
The garden would have been in its heyday during the Victorian era and up to the World War Two. Mr Corscadden said: ‘Flowers and fruit would have mingled with the regular dinner table vegetables and now it’s just the same. said Mr Corscadden. We’ve got two acres of herbaceous border and fruit gardens and what we would call perennial vegetables, things like artichokes and rhubarb, which would be there all the time.
… glasshouses now are merely white shadows on the red brick wall surrounding the garden, but they’re not escaping the garden staff’s attention. Mr Corscadden said: ‘We are very happy that the Heritage Lottery Fund is working with us to restore and bring those two glasshouses back. We’re in the early stages, but we’re confident it will happen and that will be a tremendous achievement here.’
The garden is both purposeful and pretty.
‘The garden in the past would have provided the food and the flowers for the house. But now we sell all our vegetables through the Visitor Centre,’ said Mr Corscadden.
And if you’re still wondering what cardoon is, the Visitor Centre is where you can buy some to try. Apparently it’s like celery, although you cut and boil it before eating.
