THE second of two special guided tours of Ham House, Richmond, went ahead successfully on 13 September. It was organised for Friends of Cannizaro Park following last February’s guest lecture by garden conservation expert Peter Clark. He led both the latest guided tour and the earlier one in May. 

The illustrated lecture at Cannizaro House had drawn a full turnout. Peter, a former horticultural officer for English Heritage, has been restoring gardens for more than 30 years and now runs educational programmes as well as maintaining the Ham House garden for the National Trust.

At the lecture, he showed how the garden changed between a plan drawn up in 1609 and the start of restoration in 1975. Using original charts as well as modern slides, he explained how work undertaken since then has restored features such as the cherry garden, while substituting hornbeams for elms, planting lavender in parterres, replacing statuary, and introducing hibiscus and others for summer colour. This follows a 300-year tradition of vast numbers of bedding plants.