RHS Journals

The Garden
July 2001

Sir Richard Carew Pole

Ursula Buchan meets the new President of the RHS, who is looking forward to the challenge of leading the Society during his term of office

If there is such a thing as a gene for public service, then Sir Richard Carew Pole, Bart, the new President of the RHS who takes over the reins from Sir Simon Hornby, must surely have inherited it.

‘Each generation of my family for the last 300 years has been in politics in one form or another, usually in an independent capacity,’ he told me, when I visited him at Antony, his ancestral home set on a bluff overlooking the River Lynher, near Torpoint in east Cornwall. He could have gone back even further than three centuries for, in the days of Queen Mary i, Sir Peter Carew raised a force in the West Country to join Wyatt’s revolt in 1554, while the Pole baronetcy, of which Sir Richard is the 13th holder, was granted by King Charles i in 1628.

Latterly, however, regional politics of a rather more pacific nature have been the focus of his family’s attention; his parents served on Cornwall County Council for many years, and he followed them for a 20-year stint from 1973 to 1993, which included the chairmanship of various committees, most notably Planning. He has also lent his support to several other worthy organisations and charities, in Cornwall and elsewhere, including the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Countryside Commission.

He was elected to the Council of the RHS in 1999 and sits on three committees: Floral ‘B’ Committee, which advises on hardy trees and shrubs; the Gardens Committee, which agrees plans for the development and maintenance of the RHS gardens; and Finance and General Purposes Committee, which advises Council on the Society’s financial affairs. He was a member of the Lawrence Banks working party which was set up recently to consider the future governance of the RHS.

Sir Richard’s career to date offers valuable experience for any President of the Society, but he is also a keen and knowledgeable gardener and plantsman. Antony, a handsome 18th-century house, and the surrounding formal garden were given to the National Trust by Sir Richard’s father Sir John in 1961. However, 20ha (50 acres) of gardens including the valley garden and woodland planted by Sir John, together with a similar area of more natural woodland, are still owned by a family trust. In the valley garden are mature camellias (including a National Plant Collection of C. japonica), rhododendrons and - Sir Richard’s favourites - magnolias. The basis of this collection was a pre-war gift to his father of two wagonloads of camellias and rhododendrons that arrived unexpectedly one day from Sir Lionel Rothschild of Exbury, Hampshire.

Each generation of the family has set its own stamp on the garden. His ancestor, Reginald Pole Carew, called in Humphry Repton to advise in 1794, and there is a ‘Red Book’ extant at Antony which shows Repton’s trademark ‘before’ and ‘after’ drawings. (Landscape architect Humphrey Repton presented his clients with plans and sketches of the area to be developed, together with overlays depicting his design proposals, in slim, bound volumes he called 'Red Books'.) However, the owner in the end took little account of the recommendations and instead went his own way. Thus this important garden was almost entirely developed by the family that owned it - a comparatively rare occurrence.

Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3

Ursula Buchan, writes for The Spectator, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph and specialist garden magazines

e;">back to The Garden contents page