In 1903 William Wood and Son, horticultural specialists to His Majesty the King, placed an advertisement in The Garden magazine announcing two new introductions to their range. These were exotically named summerhouses: the ‘Resiance’ and its little sister the ‘Resianette’. The magazine also ran a feature in the same month (actually lifted from a Wood & Son circular), in which the writer announced that ‘we here present two pictures of distinctly novel structures which appear to be very much in advance of ordinary summer houses’.

Messrs Wood were based in Wood Green in North London, and had grown to become an important company which offered a full range of garden and landscape services: estate development, horticultural building, engineering and contracting and landscape gardening as well as supplying all horticultural requisites. Their literature proudly displayed their Royal Warrant as horticultural specialists to King Edward VII, and announced their many horticultural prizes and medals.

The Resianette was the smaller of the two new garden ornaments, and its alternative title makes clear its target market: The Ladies’ Bijou Summerhouse. Elevated above ground to protect from damp, it could also be enclosed with curtains to provide shade and had a terrace for taking tea and reading.

Whilst the ladies kept their pale complexions, the men could lounge about in the Resiance (an archaic term for a residence) which featured a ‘Sun Bath’. The upper storey rotated around a central column so that the open side faced the sun – so new was this idea that the article added a helpful ‘for sunbathing’ in parentheses. The upper floor might house a telescope and the lower floor an aquarium or fernery. The finishing touch to this ‘very picturesque adjunct’ would be roses and ramblers entwined around the pergola which encircled the building.

How many Resiances were snapped up is not known, but at least one Resianette was constructed and it went on display at the 1905 Royal Horticultural Society show at Chelsea. In honour of King Edward’s Queen Consort the building was described as the ‘Alexandra Tea or Summer House’.

The two buildings, as well as other ‘chalets’, were still being marketed in the company’s 1909 catalogue. By that date the wellbeing properties of the Resiance in particular were being promoted, with it described as ‘a temple of health and pleasure’ where one could sunbathe or sleep outdoors. With the buildings being offered for sale for 6 years by this date it must be assumed they were a success with the public, but the Flâneuse has failed to find any further record of these wonderful, if ephemeral, garden buildings. As ever, if you have further information please get in touch.

The work of Messrs Woods was featured in an article by Valerie Joynt in the current issue of Garden History, the journal of The Gardens Trust. A mention of the two garden ornaments set the Flâneuse scurrying into the archives and Valerie is thanked for sharing her research. Find out more about joining and receiving the journal here https://thegardenstrust.org

Thank you for reading. If you’d like to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas please scroll down to the comments section at the foot of the page.

The Folly Flâneuse is beginning to feel festive after a visit to Harlow Carr in Harrogate. The Royal Horticultural Society’s Yorkshire garden is bathed in colour on selected evenings until the end of the year, and of course a highlight for this particular visitor was the beautifully lit Folly.

Harrogate’s Royal Spa Concert Rooms, which had been ‘sinking into dereliction for many years’,  were demolished in 1939-40, just a little more than a century after they were built. Originally known as the Cheltenham Rooms, capitalising on that town’s reputation as a chic spa resort, the building was later renamed the Royal Spa Rooms. Harrogate Corporation did at least have the foresight to put the fine Doric columns and pediment that made up the building’s portico into storage, but it was some years before an alternative use was found. In 1961, the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, keen to preserve the masonry, presented it to the Northern Horticultural Society for incorporation into the expanding gardens which had been opened at Harlow Carr on the edge of Harrogate a decade earlier.

The directors of the garden initially intended that the entire portico would be rebuilt as a ‘Grecian Temple’. ‘After all’, the society’s magazine reported, ‘no ornamental garden of any pretensions should be without one.’ Seats were to be placed under the pediment ‘to give rest to the weary and joy to the lover of the classic Attic line embowered in a woodland setting’. After delays caused by minor issues such as planning permission, the columns were eventually set in place as an eye catcher at the end of a long vista in 1964, ‘and a beastly inconvenience it was to the staff trying to create a garden’ wrote a former Honorary Director of the gardens, in slightly less poetic mode.

Unfortunately putting up the columns proved more expensive and arduous than expected and a combination of lack of funds, and worries about the safety of erecting the pediment, meant that it was never added. But whilst there is no shelter, the colonnade perfectly fulfils its role as a garden feature. The masonry from the pediment seems eventually to have been used to build the retaining wall behind the columns.

In the late 1990s plans were announced to build a new Exhibition Centre in Harrogate and, controversially, it was suggested that the Harlow Carr columns be returned to the central Harrogate site to support a modern glass pediment. Cutting a long story short, replica columns were used and Harlow Carr got to keep its folly.

Harlow Carr is not the only garden to make use of recycled columns. To pick just two of many potential examples – the feature known locally as ‘Matthew, Mark, Luke and John’ in Barnsley’s Locke Park (above) began life as part of the Post Office and was moved to Locke Park in 1879.

And in Manchester’s Heaton Park a considerably more ambitious relocation of part of the redundant early 19th century Town Hall was erected in 1912. Sadly it is now in need of stabilisation and has been fenced off for a number of years.

Glow at Harlow Carr can be seen on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays until 28 December 2019. The Folly can be viewed across the gardens, but for health and safety reasons can not be visited during the illuminations. It is however freely accessible during normal opening hours. Full details here https://www.rhs.org.uk/gardens/harlow-carr/whats-on/glow-winter-illuminations

Locke Park and Heaton Park are public parks and can be visited during daylight hours.

Thanks to the Curious Confidante (and beautifully coiffed daughter) for alerting me to this event, and for their cheerful company. And to Bettys for the excellent, and very welcome on a chilly evening, coffee.