Page 17 - D:\cn\art\Overview -art\exhibition projects\The Art of Living\gallery presentation\curated collections compositions\Remaining Studio canvases\

The painting takes in two main gardens at Packwood, The ‘Carolean’ or ‘South Garden’ and the Yew Garden. The two borders that
frame the composition are known as the Main Borders but have long been known as the Yellow Border, this being densely planted
with herbaceous- perennials in riotously mixed colours, typical of Packwood’s planting style - a mingled style with emphasis on
flowers over form. The style was described by the eminent garden writer J.C. Loudon in his 1822 Encyclopaedia of Gardening and
has been continued to this day at Packwood.
The middle distance and far distant Yew Garden seen through the wrought iron gates, is visually connected by a flight of steps that
finish on the Terrace Walk. The planting is repeated in the same style as in the Main Border. The Yew Garden was set out by John
Fetherston between 1650 and 1670. The garden has an arrangement of yews and particularly 12 great yew trees now known as
‘The Apostles’ with four very large specimens in the middle known as ‘The Evangelists’. Crowning the mound is a single yew tree
named ‘The Master’. This tree and the twelve trees on the terrace formed part of John Fetherston’s original plan’.
th
Packwood was purchased on 30 June 1904, by Alfred Ash. The auction was held at The Grand Hotel, Colmore Row, Birmingham
and sold as Lot 5, which was described as ‘An old- fashioned country residence’. Country Life Magazine had carried an article with
photographs of ‘Packwood House’ in their issue of January 1902, describing it as ‘a true old garden of England’. It is said that
Baron’s father, Alfred Ash purchased the property because his son wanted it. At the time Baron, born in 1889, was 15.
The wealth of the family initially started when Joseph Ash (born in 1824) to Thomas Ash, (a chemist and druggist in Stafford Street
Birmingham) , who at the age of13, after being educated at King Edward School joined the zinc business his father had established