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Spetchley Park Gardens, Spetchley, Worcester, WR5 1RS

Email: enquiries@spetchleygardens.co.uk

Tel: 01905 345106

©2016 Spetchley Park Gardens | Spetchley Gardens Charitable Trust - charity no. 1061063

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Saturday 23 January 2016

Spetchley Narcissus

Spetchley Park Gardens connection with the Daffodil is a long though largely unsung story.  



Over a hundred years of collecting by three generations of the Berkeley family has created a catalogue any collector would envy.  Yet with the garden opening to the public in April, visitors often only get to see the tail end of the season and the extent of the collection is often unappreciated.  

Last year’s visit from Carol Klein and Great British Garden Revival Team, hit the television this January and has peaked much new interest in Spetchley's daffodils.  

The Berkeley family have been building a large botanical collection at Spetchley for over 4 hundred years, although the serious daffodil collecting began in the early 1900's by Rose Berkeley, sister of eminent Victorian plants-woman Ellen Willmott of Warley place.  Ellen was a prolific narcissus grower, on the R.H.S. Daffodil committee and one of the first woman, alongside Gertrude Jekyll, to be awarded the R.H.S. Victoria Medal of Honour.  Rose like her more famous sister was an enthusiastic, knowledgeable gardener and collector.  Rose marrying Robert Berkeley in 1891 and came to Spetchley where she began to expand the already large garden.  

Large plantings of Narcissus were made around the house, gardens and soon spread into the surrounding Spetchley Estate properties.  Bulbs were planted in their thousands with several of the Backhouse hybrids, including 'Emperor' and 'Empress' clear favourites amongst other well-known historics.  Rose also raised plants for sale as cut flower and as bulbs, selling not only through local markets but also nationally.  Rose and Ellen also raised their own hybrids including Narcissus 'Great Warley' and N. 'Spetchley'.  The latter as far as we know never having been grown outside of the Gardens.  

Rose died in 1922 leaving her son Captain Berkeley to run the garden.  

In 1938 the sale of Ellen’s Garden at Warley also brought plants to Spetchley along with some Ellen’s Victorian label collection, numbering over 5000 labels, hundreds of which are Narcissus.  

The true extent of Ellen’s collection at Warley place may never be known though many can still be seen still at Great Warley now run as a nature reserve by Essex Wildlife Trust.  Despite a reduction in the gardening staff through and after the war much of the original planting has remained intact despite minimal attention.  Cut flowers were still being sold from the Spetchley gates as late as the 1960's and Captain Berkeley continued to take interest in new varieties.  Narcissus cyclamineus 'John Wall' being named after the Spetchley Head Gardener.  

The current owner, John Berkeley, took over in the 1980s and has continued to add to the collection every year.  We now have a large variety of historic, species and modern hybrids spread over 30 acres of gardens.  

The gardeners are currently working on cataloguing the collection as well as trying to identify some of the unnamed older varieties.  Spetchley Gardens open on the 25th March, though a limited number of daffodil tours will be available and advertised on the website in February.