Thomas Johnes (1748-1816)
One of the finest examples of the Picturesque was produced by Thomas Johnes at Hafod Estate in Ceredigion.
The Picturesque Landscape was one that was deemed to possess qualities of a painting, and in the 18th century it became fashionable to design paths through the landscape that would make accessible “a series of carefully composed but seemingly natural scenes, using landforms and plantings to shape or ‘hide and reveal’ the view”.
(The Hafod Landscape. An Illustrated History and Guide by Jennifer Macve, 2004, The Hafod Estate, pp 12-13.)
Besides designing magnificent and inspiring landscape walks, Thomas Johnes produced beautiful gardens, conducted experiments in the breeding of cattle and sheep and the growing of novel crops, and planted vast numbers of trees, for which he obtained the Royal Society of Arts medal five times. He also encouraged others to improve their farming practices, and was “one of the chief supporters of the Cardiganshire Agricultural Society, founded in 1784”.
(Johnes, Thomas (1748-1816), landowner and man of letters, entry by Dafydd Jenkins, 1911 – 2012, in the Dictionary of Welsh Biography.)
A short extract from the book by Thomas Johnes, A Cardiganshire Landlord’s Advice to his Tenants, 1800, Biggs & Cottle gives an indication of its practicality:
HAFOD CHEESE
“Take 30 gallons of new milk and 3 gallons of ſweet cream, put to it the juice of a peck of marygold flowers clean picked, which mix with the milk and cream. Then put in as much rennet as will turn it, and an ale glaſs of ſack or canary wine. There ought to be a bag of cloves and mace in your rennet as will be ſufficient for ſuch a ſize cheeſe. When your cheeſe is come enough, break it very ſmall, and get out all the whey as clear as you can ; then put it into your cheeſe vat, and with a wet cloth cover it, and preſs it with your hands until it is as dry as poſſible ; then rub in as much ſalt as you think will ſeaſon it, and one pound of freſh butter newly churned; the butter and the ſalt muſt be ſo well mingled, that you cannot diſcern the butter to be in it. Then put it into your cheeſe vat, and lay a wet cloth over it, and preſs it with your hands as before: make it quite dry, and no whey remaining you muſt turn it, and wet your cloth in ſpring water, as it keeps in the cream: then put it under the preſs, and turn it every hour for four hours in wet cloths, then let it lie under the preſs in dry cloths. When you have preſſed it a day and night; then put it where it may have leſs weight on it, and preſs it for a week, turning it every day, then take it from the preſs turning it every other day.”
There is a Welsh translation of the book by William Owen Pughe (1759 – 1835).
Sir Thomas Hanmer (1612–1678)
Sir Thomas Hanmer was the second baronet of Hanmer, Flintshire, which he inherited following the premature death of his father in 1624. As a youngster he was a page in the court of Charles I from 1625 to 1627, and in adulthood he became Member of Parliament for Flintshire. However, he is most remembered as a horticulturist, among the most influential of his time, “being in the vanguard of those who sought to escape from the constriction and formalism of earlier garden design”.
(Hanmer, Sir Thomas, second baronet, (1612-1678) entry by John Martin in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.)
Extracts from the introduction by Eleanour Sinclair Rohde to The Garden Book of Sir Thomas Hanmer, published by Cyngor Sir Clwyd County Council Library and Information Service, 1991, originally written by Sir Thomas Hanmer in 1659.
GROWING NATURALLY
“There is no mention of topiary work in Sir Thomas Hanmer’s book, although this was the period when it was so fashionable, and I think it more likely that this great plant-lover allowed his trees and shrubs to grow naturally.”
DELIGHT IN BEAUTIFUL GARDENS
“The following passage, found by Sir Thomas’s descendant, John Lord Hanmer, amongst his ancestor’s MSS was obviously intended by the former to be the preface to his Garden Book. Herein one of the greatest authorities of his generation sets forth his opinions on the state of gardening… during the latter half of the seventeenth century:
‘As soon as peace hath introduced plenty and wealth into a country men quickly apply themselves to pleasures, and by degrees endeavour to improve them to the height. Amongst the innocent ones, persons of quality and ingenuity have in all ages delighted themselves with beautiful gardens, whose chiefest ornaments are choice flowers, trees and plants’. ”