The Pavilion Gardens. Interview with head gardener, Robert Hill-Snook

Description of the Pavilion Gardens in Brighton and interview with head gardener, Robert Hill-Snook.
Conversation about the design of the gardens, history and changing purpose of the garden from Regency times to the present.

Transcript

Hi, I’m Kitty Fisher with another podcast about Brighton. This time I’m focusing on the Pavilion Gardens, and  interviewing the head gardener, Robert Hill-Snook.

 As someone who has lived in Brighton most of my life I have experienced the town through the eyes of a child, teenager and adult. And I remember Brighton in the 1970s, 80s, 90s and beyond.

For any Brightonian, The Royal Pavilion is part of the backdrop to life. It’s taken for granted and its architecture and interior consciously and subconsciously inspire creativity.

But writing this podcast has made me look at the Pavilion more closely and I’ve started to appreciate   what is maybe obvious to a non-local: this building is unconventional, over-the-top and eccentric. If it were a person it would stare you in the eye and challenge you to pass comment, and what you said would  reveal more about you; are you prim? square? conservative? Or are you unphased? open-minded and ready to party?

To anyone looking for escape from the ordinary, the Pavilion seems to be screaming out ‘Yes you can!’ That’s great, but the gardens surrounding the Pavilion are a different story. Where the Pavilion is brash and in your face;  the gardens are subtle and calming. Like a tasteful frame, they enhance the onion domes and minarets of an opium inspired romantic fantasy. 

The Pavilion Gardens are many things to the people who use the town: a place to meet friends, a picnic spot, somewhere to go for your lunch break or a cut through on a journey to somewhere else. One thing that the recent lock down has done has been to make people look at their surroundings more closely. With the shops shut and the crowds gone, it feels like the wig, false eyelashes and stilettos have come off and what’s underneath is really not that bad...in fact, it’s better than that...it’s gorgeous.

But it’s understandable that for many of us, the Pavilion Gardens are taken for granted. The original Regency design was intended to replicate nature; many of the plants are native species and the focus is on conserving and restoring the garden rather than introducing eye-catching novelties.

Robert Hill-Snook has been head gardener here for 25 years and is used to giving talks, sharing his wisdom with volunteers and nurturing the plants here. For this podcast I spoke to him about his role and found out just how much work goes into making this garden look as though it were just part of the English countryside.

Although he was a brilliant  interviewee, his wealth of knowledge about the garden left me with  even more questions. What birds and plants can be seen? What species of trees are there? How were the plants chosen for the garden and so on. 

There are a lot of amazing resources online and probably even more in the Pavilion itself so I’m just going to describe the garden and share the interview here as there’s no point in me reproducing the existing information.

The interview was recorded by the gardeners’office on Church Rd. This means that there are quite a lot of background traffic noises but you can also hear bird song and a few cheeky seagulls in the background.

The garden wraps itself around the Royal Pavilion with clusters of shrubs positioned asymmetrically around the lawns. To the west, paths wind through the gently sloping grass areas and shrubs and flowers border them in irregular, naturalistic beds. There are also a few unusual trees: several with branches that form an umbrella-like canopy. Each month different flowers are in bloom and the pigeons and squirrels are glossy coated and well fed.

But being a garden that is open to the public 24 hours a day in the centre of a city brings its own problems. No doubt it would be easy to put up fences and lock the gates at night but as Robert says in the interview, whilst this is a fully restored Regency garden its role is constantly evolving to serve the needs of the people who visit. The mental health benefits of the garden need to be considered too. What you experience here that can’t be captured in a podcast or interview are the instantly calming smells of the plants and the sense of escape from traffic noises and pollution.

So, I’m very grateful to Robert  for taking the time to tell me about the garden  and I would like to apologise in advance for the traffic noises which were a result of social distancing because we needed to record with the doors open. I’ve edited them out wherever possible.

Transcript of the interview:

The sign in the garden says that it’s based on the original Regency design, so perhaps you can tell me a little bit about that.

Erm yes, this is the only fully restored regency garden of this period left in this country and it comes in a period of garden history where it hadn’t been about plants. It had been more about landscape, or formality. So there was a great period in our British garden history where, you know, Italianate gardens, French gardens, about structure, hard features, canals, not really about plants...and then the other side of it of course was the great landscape gardeners such as Capability Brown, and that was about wonderful vistas and landscapes and lakes, in the late 1700s and early 1800s. And they were looking at the Picturesque and it was the time of Wordsworth and Jane Austen and the poets. So the inspiration was really the countryside. This garden is referred to as ‘nature assisted’ and the picturesque...and the Reverend Gilpin wrote a lot about this period. It’s all about thickets and areas like the New Forest...and that’s what they were trying to imitate really. So it’s all very natural, very irregular in shape, no formality.

The gardens closer to the Pavilion are more flowery and as you go towards the boundries it becomes less flowery and it becomes more wild and more natural, as if you are going into the countryside, that was the whole idea, and i suppose it harks back to, the town in those days was a new idea wasn’t it? People were country people.

So that’s one side of it. Natural, native plants harking back to the countryside, but of course the other side, which is the more sophisticated side of horticulture is the plant hunters were beginning to bring new things back. What of course they called exotics are now things that we are very used to; things like peonies and poppies and phormiums and many many many from Asia, China, India...and of course it links in with the Pavilion.

Yes, palms. I noticed that and I thought, Well that’s not really countryside but is that something new or is that...

No, that’s not really, that’s a little bit of a blip.

But it looks good; Its very Brighton.

It looks good. And they kept them because they were a gift. They were actually planted in 1955. They came from the Channel Islands. But they’re not within the date...we do have a cut off date which is 1826.

People wouldn’t have been used to those kind of plants in the Regency period.

We try not to have anything that was introduced after that so it’s a bit like a Regency Museum of plants.

I think that the Prince Regent would have loved that because he’s got palm trees in the kitchen.

He would have loved that. Yes of course. An a garden evolves. And we mustn’t forget that when they came to restore it back in the 1980s, there were already things here. Trees...there’s a walnut, palms, a few other things.

And there’s a lovely one that hangs over.

That’s a weeping witchell yes. But some of them are out of our date. But in conservation you cn’t go chopping down a tree just because ...So an historic garden does evolve through the ages so there are a few things that aren’t historically correct.

Can I ask you something that might then be disturbing...the Astroturf.

Yes, well one mustn’t forget that this is a very popular destination.

It’s worn really well.

and it’s  a case of maybe not necessarily having the right facilities.

In the last ten years we’ve seen an increase in foreign students and they come in great groups. And there’s nowhere inside for them to wait and all these groups are timed so...

Ah, they’re waiting to go into the pavilion.

And where do they wait? When it was grass, that is where they all waited and the grass just looked so dreadful. Constantly we returfed it.

Ah, it makes complete sense.

There were other options...we could have paved it. So against my better judgement, because in an ideal world we wouldn’t have wanted that...we thought...let’s get some Astroturf. I don’t think it’s going to be there very long but they’ve got to think of a way of sorting out the problem. At least it looks green. But environmentally it’s not good and aesthetically I would not have wanted that.

As far as Astroturf goes, it’s quite natural.

Well it’s been down there quite a few years. It did have a bit of a thatch in it. And what’s quite incongruous is that our grass is not over manicured. In some places it’s more like meadow grass. And it’s in keeping with the style of the garden. If you’ve got a natural garden, you’re not going to have very formal lined grass; the two don’t go together so it is kept longer in keeping with Regency times and the edges are not clipped. And of course it’s not to everybody’s taste. People think it looks scruffy, and sometimes it does. But that’s the historical correctness of it.

I was wondering about the pathways because the pathways are tarmac and practical. What would they have been like in the Regency Period? Would they have been dusty?

There are these two wonderful aquatints inside the Pavilion, around 1826 or 27 and you can see all these tracks. And there would have been a turning circle exactly where there is a turning circle now. And the carriages would have come in...

Oh, Yes, It must have been amazing.

And it’s very accurate in that respect to how it would have been in George the Fourth’s day.

I wanted to ask you about, I suppose, what kind of functions they have here...’cos I know they have weddings, and I know that they maybe have those inside the building and maybe photographic. Do you have people doing photographic sessions and modelling and that sort of thing?

Yes, we have whole wedding functions in the Red room, in the Pavilion and a lot of photographs are taken in the garden of wedding parties. I know you know, the Paviliuon is used for all sorts of things...the music room...they have a whole series of music events, talks, thetre (when we’re not in lockdown!) It’s a very busy place.

I should imagine that’s fun but...that might be an exciting part of the job...I suppose, as long as it doesn’t interfere too much, but you must have other things which are a little bit difficult, like for example litter and maybe people having impromptu parties here...buskers might be a good or a bad thing ...I don’t know.

I never know quite how to answer these questions because...I think how I’ll answer it is...that we are in a very place, that is the Pavilion and the Gardens. I mean especially now in modern Brighton. And it is of course part of the cultural quarter; but i think to have a building like this, of historical importance, and a garden which also is important, totally open to the public, (I mean the building isn’t open to the public) but the gardens are totally open to the public 24 hours a day, in the middle of a city, you know, it’s going to have its problems. And I think we have created a haven for people to come to...it’s the nature of the garden...because it’s quite natural, quite shrubby and surrounded and protected. Basically a lot of green, shades of green, it attracts people. People feel safe...it’s quite a spiritual garden in many ways at certain times of the day and of course it is very successful and that brings all the problems so yes, we do have a litter problem; we do have an over-use problem...and ...needs to maintain it ...with the amount of people we have.

Because I’ve seen lots of people feeding pigeons, feeding seagulls,  feeding squirrels, and it’s kind of lovely because a lot of these people look like, you know, obviously it’s a free, or very reasonable activity to feed some birds, and very calming...

Yes, it’s their back garden really.

But, er, the squirrels, do they cause problems to the plants?

Yes, they can do...and to the building.

Oh, okay, yeah...

It can be a big, big problem. And of course, people bring their food in...lunches, and we do have  problems with rodents and that sort of thing...it’s not easy managing a site like this because it’s multi-faceted. But at the same time, it’s a wonderful, wonderful resource.

I would imagine that you would also get people that would love the pavilion and want to volunteer or clean litter or help with things.

Well, I have had people want to help with the litter. I have got volunteers, I’ve had volunteers this morning. They’ve been going for over 25 years, the voluntary group...right from the word ‘go’ when it was restored. I’ve only got a few back now. After Covid it’s a bit tentative but they are coming back. And again, it’s a great two way activity. Because they help us...and I would be lost without their help. And they get something out of it, they’re learning, they love being in the garden...

And I guess socially...

Socially it’s good. And I mean it’s a huge resource. I mean, we’ve got flats all round, elderly people...

Yes, of course.

Some of the elderly come and volunteer...they’ve volunteered over the years.

Yes, it’s lovely isn’t it.

It’s very important. A very important green space.

Erm, I was going to ask you also about how your job has changed. If it has changed over the years, if the kind of  planting has become more, I don’t know, if it’s more organic, if you’ve been more involved in the management or less involved at times?

Well, I’ve always been involved, all of my 25 years. And of course I am retiring in 6 weeks time...

Oh, really! Lucky I caught you isn’t it!

Yes, I’ve been here 25 years and it has changed. Of course we’re now managed by a trust. All the museums in Brighton now...so we’re looking forward to a new phase...which I think is going to be exciting and of course the exciting news is that we’ve just won the first phase of a Heritage Lottery.

Oh, okay.

Which is an exciting new phase for the garden, and hopefully, new things will be done. But the basic, Regency, historical design won’t change. It will be improved on, and areas that perhaps weren’t restored before will be restored and hopefully there will be, perhaps there will be more community based things.

I think maybe there is just one more question I had on here. I heard that there was once an ice-house...

Yes...

And I could imagine, you know, like, the Prince regent getting some ice for a sorbet...but apparently this ice had come from various rivers, and I just thought...eur...fancy eating some ice cream of sorbet, and you’re the king...but it’s actually come from somebody’s old river or...Was there an ice hose here?

There was an ice house. You know where the old phone box is...

Yeah,

In that area. And there was an original ice box...ice house, I should say. That doesn’t exist now.

And have you ever found any interesting artifacts. I mean, you’re digging in this garden and there must have been people losing money, jewellery?

Not really, I mean I always remember, i hadn’t been here very long and there was a wedding, and they were having a photo-shoot on the King’s lawn and the next thing I heard is that a lady had lost a very expensive ring. So i still to this day don’t know where...

Nobody ever found it? Oh, how interesting.

All I can say is that we find amazing things in the garden...amazing things! Toys and things that we’ve kept...

Oh yes, this lion...was he lost in the garden?

Yes, children’s toys. And upstairs the volunteers collect all sorts of little trinkets. But nothing super valuable.

Because they excavated the tunnel didn’t they?

I don’t know when that was... I don’t know if anything was found. But I know one of your questions was interesting about how the garden would have been used in George the Fourth’s day and I should imagine...you know, he did a lot of entertaining and I should imagine that when he had guests, courtiers, they would have just liked to ramble through the gardens (as they did in Regency times...you know, Jane Austen...pointing at things and nature, the latest flower and just chattering away, and just looking at all the greenery and nature. And that would have been very enjoyable for them.

I suppose the big difference would be..e.I mean I heard that the fishermen used to use the Steine, and I don’t know if tis is in Regency times or later, and then it was fenced off and they were all very angry because they used to take their boats there. And I suppose in the same way, this would have been very private, because it was a private garden. Ordinary townsfolk would have been looking in and seeing these parties.

Well of course, it would have been more secure in those days. There were gates. And I think that is why Queen Victoria, in 1850, she was queen befor that, but it was 1850 when she decided to sell it. It wasn’t to her taste at all.

Well everyone can see you can’t they?

Brighton was too, too in-your-face really, and that’s why she and Albert went to the Isle of Wight. I think Albert designed a lot of Osbourne House, because he was a designer.

Wow, it’s been great, really good.

Well that’s the end of the interview. In the next podcast I’m planning to speak to some of the people who live in high rise blocks around the city. Thank you for listening and if you haven’t listened to my other podcasts, please look them up.