{"id":26871,"date":"2025-01-25T06:05:36","date_gmt":"2025-01-25T11:05:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=26871"},"modified":"2026-04-03T01:34:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T05:34:52","slug":"episode-1207-edward-freeman-head-gardener-at-eywood-country-estate-herefordshire-england-1898-1906","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=26871","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 1’207: EDWARD FREEMAN, HEAD GARDENER at EYWOOD COUNTRY ESTATE, HEREFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND — 1898-1906"},"content":{"rendered":"
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 episode  1’207:  EDWARD FREEMAN, HEAD GARDENER at EYWOOD COUNTRY ESTATE, HEREFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND —  1898-1906 
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alan skeoch<\/div>\n
January 25, 2025
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SEARCHING FOR EYWOOD IN 1960<\/p><\/div>\n


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Not much time.  Three days to find Eywood in Herefordshire, England.  I had just<\/div>\n
finished a wonderful job in Ireland.  Mining equipment all crated up and sent <\/div>\n
by ship back to Canada.  I was 22 years old.  A history student at the University<\/div>\n
of Toronto.  I would be a bit late but might never get another chance to find Eywood,<\/div>\n
the grand 1500 acre country estate my grandparents had left in 2006 to migrate<\/div>\n
to Canada.  <\/div>\n

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Granddad, Edward Freeman, had been the head gardener at Eywood from 1898 to 1906.  <\/div>\n
On winter nights grandma and granddad often talked about Eywood.  As a teenager the<\/div>\n
Ewood estate became a fairyland akin to that found in the Wizard of Oz.<\/div>\n
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In winter they had only one room that was liveable in their Ontario farmhouse\u2026made so<\/div>\n
by a large cast iron cook stove.  Ancient photographs of Eywood hung here and<\/div>\n
there in large hand made black varnished frames. (see episode 1,209) A narrow couch beside the stove,<\/div>\n
a small foot pumped organ, a kitchen table, a large sideboard cupboard for anything grandma<\/div>\n
thought valuable and four chairs.  Wallpaper featured a twisting grape vine.<\/div>\n
Two cracked cups and mismatched cutlery and dishes\u2026and a woodbox stuffed<\/div>\n
with hand split maple blocks and splintered cedar.   <\/div>\n

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When we were there the room was full and conversation was constant.  Letters from<\/div>\n
England were read and reread.  Eywood letters from Polly Griffiths.  Her son<\/div>\n
Cyril farmed Oatcroft, a 500 acre farm at Eywood.  <\/div>\n

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In 1954 word came that Eywood was up for sale.  The 1500 acre estate was<\/div>\n
broken into pieces..sold to highest bidders.  A disaster for the hired help of<\/div>\n
Eywood, the servants.  No one seemed  to want the big house\u2026the heart<\/div>\n
of the Eywood estate.  The rest had new owners.  I was  16 in 1954 and<\/div>\n
never expected to ever see Ewood so did not listen closely<\/div>\n

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Then in 1960 I was sent to Ireland for two months and at the end of the job had three precious days<\/div>\n
to find Eywood.  Disaster had happened.  I should have listened more closely in 1954.   The<\/div>\n
shock would not have been as bad.  Then again If I knew what<\/div>\n
had happened to Eywood in 1954 I might have been even more fascinated.<\/div>\n

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WHAT HAPPENED TO EYWOOD? \u2026 THE 1954 FALLOUT<\/div>\n

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Finding Eywood turned out to be easier than I expected.  All I had to find was<\/div>\n
Lower Wooton Farm.  A banker at the Hereford train station noticed I was lost<\/div>\n
and said he would drive me there.  Turned out to be Cyril Griffiths’ banker.<\/div>\n
When i arrived I was startled to discover they expected me.  Mom had sent a <\/div>\n
note to Aunt Polly and the whole family were waiting for me to arrive\u2026Cyril, Nancy, Polly<\/div>\n
and young David.  Supper was ready\u2026a bed was ready.<\/div>\n

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CYRIL Griffiths with the sheep that thinks it<\/div>\n
is a cow and arrives at milking time<\/div>\n
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Lower Wooton Farm was an adventure\u2026an historic site<\/div>\n
dating back to the 16th century… not be modernized.    Cyril Griffiths had farmed Oatcroft,<\/div>\n
one of the Eywood farms.  Probably it had been sold at the auction and Cyril was <\/div>\n
offered Lower Wooton Farm as an alternative.  <\/div>\n

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Next morning Cyril drove me to Eywood.  Did The estate exist unchanged since my<\/div>\n
Grandfathers days as Head Gardener 1898 to 1906?  Not quite so.  The big house<\/div>\n
on Eywoood estate was a pile of red bricks and four stone columns where there was <\/div>\n
once a grand entrance.  All else was intact including the rookery where young pigeons<\/div>\n
were captured and eaten on fancy dinners.  Disgusting\u2026I believe they were a delicacy<\/div>\n
called squabs.<\/div>\n

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Cyril knew I wanted to see the great walled garden where granddad and his 8 employees<\/div>\n
laboured to provide food and flowers for the Gwyer family.  <\/div>\n
We treaded a grass trail enclosed by rotodendrons in full bloom.  Uphill to the head gardeners’<\/div>\n
cottage and then into a two acre brick enclosed garden.<\/div>\n

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The  gardening staff at Eywood circa 1900\u2026all ages\u2026Edward Freeman with his<\/div>\n
beard which makes him look older than a young man in his twenties.<\/div>\n

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This is the head gardeners’ house at Eywood\u2026where my mother<\/div>\n
Elsie Freeman was born in 1901.   The house is part of the<\/div>\n
walled garden whose purpose was to retain heat and thereby<\/div>\n
grow plants normally grown where soil temperatures were <\/div>\n
warmer.   Such as peaches for example.<\/div>\n

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My brother Eric, five years later is standing in an Eywood glass house<\/div>\n
where a peach tree is thriving.  Attached to the espaliered tree is a wooden<\/div>\n
tag marked \u201cE. Freeman\u201d and a date.  unfortunately I have misplaced<\/div>\n
my picture of the tag.  See the peach on the left? Or was it a nectarine?   Head gardeners were<\/div>\n
expected to grow exotic plants.  In the 19th century English plant<\/div>\n
hunters searched for new plant species for head gardeners to<\/div>\n
plant in these walled gardens.  The most famous was the rubber<\/div>\n
tree seeds hijacked from the jungles of Brazil and propagated<\/div>\n
in London\u2019s Kew garden.  Rubber is essential in modern<\/div>\n
civilization.  Without natural rubber jet planes could not take off or land. Is that true?<\/div>\n

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View of Eywood garden from inside the high brick wall.  Edward Freeman\u2019s<\/div>\n
house in the centre, glass house on left supported by the high brick wall.<\/div>\n

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Glass house was not quite so pretty on closer inspection.<\/div>\n
Edward Freeman had a gardening staff of 8 men and boys.<\/div>\n
In 1960 there was 1 man, Percy (whose name I have lost \u2014<\/div>\n
he worked as a gardener for my grandfather and bought<\/div>\n
the Eywood gardens at auction in 1954.  Nice man. Gave<\/div>\n
us one of the large clay flower pots as memento of better days.<\/div>\n

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NOTE:  NEXT EPISODE WILL FEATURE \u2018THE BOTHY\u2019 AT EYWOOD<\/div>\n

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 episode  1’207:  EDWARD FREEMAN, HEAD GARDENER at EYWOOD COUNTRY ESTATE, HEREFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND —  1898-1906  alan skeoch January 25, 2025 SEARCHING FOR EYWOOD IN 1960 Not much time.  Three days to find Eywood in Herefordshire, England.  I had just finished a wonderful job in Ireland.  Mining equipment all crated up and sent  by ship back to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}