ALAN POWER: Welcome to the National Trust podcast.

I'm Alan Power Head Gardener at Stourhead.

Gardener, Lover Of Nature, everything outdoors and

generally curious mind.

In this series, we'll be exploring the Trust's amazing

spaces delving into stories and characters that make each place

so special.

We'll be traveling all around the country from hilltop to

seaside. We'll tread sandy paths and the polished wooden floors

of country homes.

Delight in bird song, sublime views and exceptionally good

cream teas. So join me on this journey and immerse yourself in

the wonders of the National Trust.

Today I'm in Northern Ireland and I'm driving towards one of

the most astonishing gardens in the UK, Mount Stewart. I'm about

13 miles east of Belfast.

So not far away from the largest city in Northern Ireland. But

what I can see out of my window in the car is worlds apart from

the hustle and bustle of that busy city.

On the right hand side, this amazing lough appears called

Strangford Lough. Now, Strangford Lough is an inland,

salt water lake with a tiny, tiny exit point into the Irish

Sea and the tide rushes in and out.

I worked at Mount Stewart many, many years ago. So sitting in

the car, I'm very excited to get to see the garden again.

The garden here at Mount Stewart has been thriving ever since it

was established by the rich and powerful Stewart family who made

their money from selling fine fabrics like linen.

They bought the estate originally in 1744.

The property was passed into the care of the National Trust in

the late 1950s. One of the characters we're going to hear a

lot about today is Edith Lady Londonderry, whose imagination

and passion shaped this place in the 19 twenties.

In the late 19th century, she married the eldest son of the

Stewart family, Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart and

cemented her position as one of the most high profile society

women in Ireland.

She brushed shoulders with the likes of Winston Churchill, Lady

Astor and Harold Macmillan. And she was often the subject of a

little bit of gossip and scandal in the newspapers.

But away from the politics and the parties, Edith used the vast

gardens at Mount Stewart as a place of peace reflection and

self expression. Today, the garden still bear the hallmarks

of the design Edith started almost 100 years ago.

Wow, it's quite a dramatic entrance to the garden. You

leave this massive expanse of water behind huge, huge skies

and then all of a sudden you're utterly encompassed by an

already unusual plant collection. I'm walking past

kind of giant Pittosporum you know, they're, they're huge

plants that would normally just grow to 10 or 15 ft.

But these are, these are almost like trees and I always kind of

think of Mount Stewart as a little bit of a scratch and

sniff garden and a lot of Pittosporum have a lovely scent

to it. And if you squash the leaf and smell it, it's a really

lovely citrusy smell.

The garden is a fanciful feast for the eyes formally clipped

hedging laced with luxurious colourful planting. It's

astonishing. There's plants from all sorts of exotic climbs.

Brazil, Australia, Burma, just to name a few.

And of course, proudly presiding over these spectacular gardens

is Mount Stewart House a grand affair. It was Edith Lady

Londonderry's family home in the early 20th century and today its

doors are open to the public who are invited to enjoy its charm

and splendour.

Now, one of the first impressions you get of the

garden at Mount Stewart is that there are very formal elements

to it. So I'm meeting up with Lisa Risse-Robertson who is a

gardener in the formal garden at Mount Stewart to learn a little

bit more about it. Hi, Lisa, how are you? [Alan and Lisa Talk

over each other]

It's brilliant to think you're standing in a garden like this

surrounded by the amazing plants that we can see today that you

know, you do have to start with research. You do have to start

with getting the facts right and making sure that I suppose what

you do as a gardener here is true to what Lady Edith did you

know, back in the 1920s and 1930s.

LISA RISSE-ROBERTSON : Yeah, I have to do it because what we

do, we want to keep the garden close to what Edith has done.

And I think that is quite nice for me as a gardener because I

can walk in her shoes for a wee while. And that's what I like.

I try to get into her thinking. So what Edith has planted in

here? So I can look in the books and see what she had in there.

But mainly I have to work with the colour scheme Edith left us

and of course, it has to be exotic. If it's possible.

ALAN POWER: You have a lot of southern hemisphere plants here.

Mount Stewart, don't you? Do you focus primarily on the southern

hemisphere when you're looking for some of the plants for the

garden?

LISA RISSE-ROBERTSON : No, I focus on every plant, every

plant which would fit into the colour scheme and give me

everything I wanted for this garden like fragrance and hide,

it goes in. So try it. We have a lot of plants to play with, why

not playing with it?

ALAN POWER: Lisa, We're very far north-

What is so unique about the microclimate at Mount Stewart

that allows you as a gardener here to play with the plants the

way you do.

LISA RISSE-ROBERTSON : We are here on the Ards Peninsula. So

we are more or less enclosed with water. So we have at the

south side Strangford Lough where we get, believe me or not,

a lot of sunshine. Although this is Ireland! Ireland is always

regarded as a rain hole! We get a lot of sunshine here.

And at the other side, we have the Irish Sea and the Gulf

Stream. It makes it quite- quite nice and warm. But our

microclimate really comes from the shelter built we have around

here. You have to think about Mount Stewart as a big duvet

where the garden is sitting in the center and this big duvet is

lying over us which are trees around us.

ALAN POWER: So I'm just about to catch up with Neil The Head

Gardener at Mount Stewart and he's gonna tell me a little bit

more about another compartment in the garden.

Morning, Neil. How are you doing?

NEIL PORTEOUS: Very good. Thanks.

ALAN POWER: Neil, We've only really got time to catch the tip

of the iceberg today in a couple of the compartments at Mount

Stewart. But could you give us an overview of the rest of the

garden?

NEIL PORTEOUS: Well, there are about seven formal compartments.

Each one has a theme. We're in the Mairi Garden then on to the

Italian Garden. And then you go around to the west of the house

with the Sunk garden, which is all about scent and contrast of

strong colours, blue, orange, and other hot colours like red

and yellow.

And then on to the Shamrock Garden, a garden which expresses

Edith's love of Irish and Scottish mythology.

And around the outsides of those are much more informal areas

like the Peace Garden where all the family pets are buried. And

then into lily wood, which was for her love of scented oriental

lilies. She used to make potpourri out of these petals.

So it was a great theme for her.

ALAN POWER: And we're right into the Mairi Garden a very

different feel and much less formal than the compartments

that we've just seen. And right in the middle of this garden is

an amazing statue of a young girl with bells and cockle

shells, dripping water into a fountain.

And that is Lady Mairi Neil, isn't it?

NEIL PORTEOUS: It is. Yeah. In 1920 Edith suddenly found in the

summer that she was pregnant age 41. And so this fifth and last

child was very special to her because she just really moved to

Mount Stewart and invested in Mount Stewart making it her

principal home.

So this was a real gift, you know, to have a young child. It

was also a slight reconciliation. She'd managed to

get her husband Charlie away from his mistress in London and

it was a great triumph.

But on top of that, there's a- sort of Tudor Rose, a stylized

Tudor Rose in the shape of the five tear shaped beds. Edith was

a suffragist. She believed that women should have the vote and a

job and a career just like a man.

By January 1915. You did realize that the war, World War One,

this is, wouldn't be over by Christmas. So it sort of

galvanized her.

And in early January, she started the Women's Legion,

which for the first time, initially got women working on

the land. But very soon after that women were allowed into the

armed services working in the obvious things of those- in

those days, things like the catering corps, the nursing

corps. But soon women were doing a wide range of roles that men

had previously done to allow men to get off to the front.

So by the end of World War One, it's estimated about 80% of the

work in Britain was being done by women that men had done

previously. And the Women's Legion was just one of many

organizations that used the crisis to sort of get women into

the workplace. And of course, by 1920 women over the age of 30

were given the vote for the first time. So she felt very

proud that she'd pushed things along.

But isn't it lovely that you've got Lady Mairi, Edith's last

youngest daughter sitting in the middle of the emblem of the

Women's Legion, sort of hope for the future really. So it's a

very optimistic garden.

We try and use lozenges of blue, roughly blue and purple and

white, maybe with a bit of pink, not too fussy and allow it to

luxuriate. And as you can see that it does become a bit chunky

towards the end of the season. And what we'll do- because the

soil is so poor every five years, we have to take it out

and start again.

We use chaos to give us changes each year, you know, but when

things come and go, we just sort of, basically plant it with us

by the seat of our pants with new things and it looks like

we've done something new.

But this gives you this constant innovation. Edith was somebody

who never went back to an idea once she'd put it in once. So it

gives that impression that we're kind of gardening it the way she

did.

ALAN POWER: I grew up with a superstitious mother from Bandon

in Cork and I know that Edith was quite superstitious as well

and believed that there were certain things in the garden

here that helped or hindered.

NEIL PORTEOUS: Yeah. I mean she wrote at times that she thought

it was the Seelie, the fairies that were helping the plants to

grow here at Mount Stewart and by not cutting down the lovely

hawthorns, the fairy trees and the domain this had sort of, you

know, kept things growing and I don't think she really believed

it 100% but it, it was a lovely thing to write, very romantic

thing.

And then, you know, Mairi herself as a young child is

almost sort of Elf like.

Elfin child. So maybe, you know, on some level, she probably

thought that Mairi was a gift from the garden.

ALAN POWER: Neil, We're standing on the Dodo terrace and correct

me if I'm wrong. But 1915 was the year that Edith Lady

Londonderry was involved in founding the Ark club. What was

that all about?

NEIL PORTEOUS: Yeah, that was in, Jan- End of January 1915 and

she used the attics of their park lane house, Londonderry

house as a meeting place for the honourable Order Of The Rainbow.

The idea of it was to raise morale in their coterie of

political friends.

Basically, there was good food, good drink, singing, dancing,

you know, poetry, just a laugh really to raise morale.

And people were invited to join, they had to take on a rhyming

appellation.

So sort of a really famous people like Winston Churchill

were "Winnie The Warlock" or Neville Chamberlain, "Neville,

the Devil", Nancy Astor, "Nancy The Gnat"

Charlie who was never very faithful to Edith, he was "

Charlie the cheater" over there. And so, you know, it's kind of a

bit of fun and her own name in the Ark club was Cersei the

sorceress, this rather naughty goddess.

ALAN POWER: Just at the top of the steps on the Dodo Terrace.

There is, there is an ark with a couple of rabbits either side

and then it's fantastic where we're standing silhouettes of

what looked like dodos.

NEIL PORTEOUS: Well, the dodos are a bit of fun really. For

Edith's father, Lord Chaplin, who wasn't it fair to say the

most dynamic MP in the world.

So he was satirized as a dodo in 1903 by the Westminster Gazette.

And so she's just poking fun at her father by putting the dodos

on top it in joke. Really?

ALAN POWER: Now, from weird and wonderful animals to plant

preservation that Mount Stewart plant propagator Alan Ryder is

working hard to preserve some of the amazing plants here.

So we're standing in the middle of one of the propagation units

in the nursery at Mount Stewart Alan is standing across from me

and we're under this multicoloured light. It's almost

like we're at a disco and the lights are whirring away in the

background. Alan, what's going on?

ALAN RYDER: Well, we're just supplementing the light levels

in here and this light you're looking at here is multi

spectrum. So it's- it's assisting the growth where the

light levels are a little poor.

ALAN POWER: There's all sorts of weird and wonderful things

growing in here. You must have to apply some very strange

propagation techniques and kind of encouragement for the plants

and the seeds to take. What's the weirdest thing you've had to

do recently?

ALAN RYDER: Well, we've grown a lot of plants from South Africa

and to grow that we- we're having to replicate where the

plant would grow and plants in that area generally will- the

dormancy, the inhibitors in the seed is broken by smoke. So the

result of a, of a bushfire and the seed becomes viable as a

result.

So, what we're doing is we're doing what they call smoke

propagation. And we set up a little tin can and a little

metal dish and we bubble smoke through some water to get the

essence of the smoke in the water. And then use that as a

pre soak for the seed and that is breaking the inhibitors in

the seed.

And I think that's probably the weirdest thing.

So really, it proves that, you know, propagation is all smoke

and mirrors, you know,

I mean, I'm standing here and I'm quite envious at some of the

kit that you've got, you know, apart from these beautiful

lights and the amount of greenhouses and polytunnels that

you've got.

We're inventive and the lights that are whirling away in the

background we got from the local police department, they were

confiscated, shall we say from a local grower who was growing

Cannabis!

And this has been a really good source of material. The police

are delighted about the fact that it's, it's stuff that was

used for ill is now being used for good and it's a good- it's a

good story for, for everybody.

ALAN POWER: Really, this place truly is fascinating from the

Mad Science of the nursery. I'm now searching for something a

little wilder and a little more unusual. I'm headed through the

garden past the lake and I'm on my way to the Temple Of The

Winds.

I'm getting to the top of the hill here, on this quite breezy

day and this amazing view of the lough is slowly unfolding in

front of me.

I know exactly what's at the top of this hill and it's the Temple

Of The Winds, a beautiful, beautiful feature.

But I'm hoping Andrew Upton is going to be there and he's the

coast and countryside manager of this fantastic place. And how

appropriate to be meeting Andrew at the Temple Of The Winds on

such a windy day.

Hi, Andrew, how are you doing?

ANDREW UPTON: Hi, Alan. All the best.

ALAN POWER: It's a bit breezy up here today. Why, why are we up

here?

ANDREW UPTON: And this is a very prominent location. So from

here, you can see vast ways of Strangford Lough. Strangford

Lough is internationally important for wildlife. And at

any time of the year, there's always something important to

see out there.

So during the winter, as you mentioned, you've got the Light

Bellied Brent Geese which breed in Arctic Canada, they then

migrate through Greenland, through Iceland and then in

September, October, they arrive on Mass On Strangford Lough and

we can have up to 90% of the global population on Strangford

Lough.

And most years you're talking about 25,000 birds. But some

years we can have as many as 38,000 birds. And it really is

one of the wildlife spectaculars, in Northern

Ireland.

ALAN POWER: And your job, yourself and your team staff and

volunteers. It, it's part of your job to look after their

habitat, isn't it?

ANDREW UPTON: Yeah. Our job is twofold.

One is to actually manage the habitats these birds either feed

or breed in, but it's also to monitor their numbers.

And only by doing that will we know whether the species are

doing well, whether they're struggling and then we can adapt

the management to hopefully bring the numbers back up

To really appreciate and get into all the nooks and crannies

of Strangford Lough.

You really need a boat. And I'm very fortunate in one of my past

time is kayaking and I get out, I really appreciate Strangford

Lough. We have a canoe trail on Strangford Lough which members

of the public can really come and enjoy. There's various

launch points around the lough.

ALAN POWER: Do you have one outstanding memory or a few that

when you've been out in your kayak on your own that you

always reflect on and think that was a great day or a great

moment?

ANDREW UPTON: Yeah, I mean, what- one that stands out is

seeing the Harbour Porpoises just breaching very close to the

boat.

ALAN POWER: Andrew. I've never seen a harbour Porpoise. You

know, it must have been a real treat. Can you, can you describe

to me what they look like?

ANDREW UPTON: Porpoises are part of the wider Cetacean family.

And that includes whales and dolphins. So porpoises are

related to all those creatures. They're quite small. I mean,

they're about the size of a seal and they've got very triangular

fins.

So they're very common around the British Isles in sort of in

short waters. So if you go to any parts of the coast, you're

likely to see porpoises, but they only come out of the water

very briefly.

So all you'll really see is sort of a dark grey creature with

this sort of small triangular fin.

One of the most important features of Strangford Lough is

the islands. And we have to graze those.

If we don't graze them, they'll turn to woodland eventually. And

this unique landscape that we have will quickly disappear. All

the habitats and species that rely on those islands will

vanish.

What we've tried to do on Strangford is to actually learn

from the people who manage the lough. So the people who live

and the communities that are around the lough.

There's so much to learn from them. They've been here for

centuries. One of the things we've been doing, particularly

with some of the people who are getting on is to actually do an

oral history project to capture some of those stories and those

traditions.

So, there's like- some of the people here would have, remember

the days when they used to swim cattle out to the islands to

graze. Nowadays, the National Trust has a boat which we

transport animals out to the islands.

But in those days, it was done much more sort of basic but- and

the whole community would have come out to help.

So it was fantastic. You know, people remember sort of grannies

coming out, children, everyone helped with this activity and we

sort of lost that. But what we need to do is just capture some

of those stories.

ALAN POWER: We're coming to the end of the day now. But the

warmth and charm of the fabulous Mount Stewart house is beckoning

me inside.

So I'm off now to meet John Kerr, who's the property manager

at Mount Stewart and has seen the property through this

restoration.

It's amazing to see what has been achieved in the house here.

You know, I saw it 15 years ago, pre restoration and it's, it's a

real treat.

JOHN KERR: When I first started here at Mount Stewart, the house

was in a very sad condition. It felt like it felt it was like

the ghost of something once great. And I think what we have

really captured now is the spirit of Lady Edith.

What we set out to do was actually create a house that she

would recognize if she were restored to full health and came

back to Mount Stewart.

She would feel absolutely at home. And I think that's what

we've done.

Talking of Edith. There was one room in the house that was more

important to Edith than any other, her sitting room.

And there you see the two desks, the one that she had her

official correspondence sort of created on and the desk that she

created all of her plans for the grounds of Mount Stewart. So if

you want to come with me.

This is Lady Londonderry's sitting room. This was her inner

sanctum and this is where all the most important things to her

actually are right?

So on the wall, you see her youngest daughter, Lady Mairi

and around her, the books that she drew inspiration for the

amazing gardens at Mount Stewart.

Her desk is just sitting in front of us and you can see

family portraits, you can see little toys that the children

have bought her as presents and you can see her diary and here

in this little basket, just to the right hand side, you can see

her garden diaries and this is where she collected her

inspirations and then created her, her amazing sort of

watercolours and plans for what the garden was going to be.

ALAN POWER: You can really get a sense of what she was like just

from the way everything's displayed, you know, hundreds

and hundreds of little journals and books tied together with

ribbon organized and their shoes and walking sticks.

And the most important thing in this room, I think for me, John

is the fact that she can see the garden.

JOHN KERR: Absolutely. And when she was here, every window would

have been wide open. The other side of each of these wonderful

windows in this amazing bay which looks out onto the Italian

Garden. There are little stone steps and this, she talks about

the garden rooms and what she meant is that this is not the

end of the house.

The house continues out into the garden and vice versa. Actually,

there is- they are inseparable to her. It was all just one part

of this magical Island of Mount Stewart that she created.

ALAN POWER: John. I'm gonna ask you a big question now because I

know how sensitive these environments are. Do you mind if

I just sit at Lady Edith's desk for a minute?

JOHN KERR: We've just had it restored. So it should be in

good enough condition for you to sit in it. Absolutely. Be my

guest.

ALAN POWER: I'm sitting in a little bit of silence, but it's

quite, it's quite moving because I am surrounded by her personal

artifacts. You know, I've been through her garden this morning,

walks through the family home.

I suppose the real thing that makes me tingle is the fact that

her handwriting is right in front of me. And to have that

kind of real tangible link to the woman who created this

magnificent place is really, really moving.

I wish I had longer here. But unfortunately, that's it for me

this season of the National Trust podcast, the next three

main episodes will be about National Trust Walks and these

will be presented by Kate Martin, one of our west coast

rangers.

I've really enjoyed taking you with me on my tour of some of

the National Trust most beautiful Gardens and can't wait

to do it again in season three.

But for more information about Mount Stewart, you can visit

their website at nationaltrust.org.uk/mount-stew-

art.

For our next full episode, Kate will be in Kinder scout in the

peak district. That episode will be available in a couple of

weeks, but don't worry, there will be a mini episode available

next week.

We'll be exploring the power, poisons and pleasures of the

colour purple through the incredible flowers at Mount

Stewart.

To make sure you never miss another episode, subscribe on

iTunes or your chosen podcast app and please do let us know

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You can also email us at podcasts@nationaltrust.org.uk.

So for me, Alan Power, until next season, it's goodbye.