Little Moreton’s gardener hangs up his shears

Alan Middling is to retire after spending 28 years ‘putting the clock back’ as the gardener at Little Moreton Hall.

When Alan began working at the Tudor manor house near Congleton in 1998, the gardens were laid out with a wide variety of plants and shrubs, selected because they could be maintained with minimum effort.                                                                                                                                         Over the years Alan, assisted by a small team of volunteers, has replaced ‘modern’ shrubs, such as rhododendrons, with the vegetables, herbs, fruit and flowers which would have been growing in Tudor and Jacobean times.

Alan said: ‘The garden, orchard and grassed areas now help to give people a better idea of what the hall and its surroundings were like when the Moreton family lived here.’

Rachel Thomas, the National Trust general manager in Cheshire and Wirral added: ‘At Little Moreton Hall, as well as giving people a good day out, we try to provide a real taste of life in Tudor and Jacobean times. Year after year, Alan has made an invaluable contribution to that.’

Another big change to the Hall’s surroundings came two years ago when flower borders in the beautiful knot garden were replaced with gravel paths and seating. Visitors can now enjoy the peace and tranquillity which the knot garden offered in the 1600s.

But Alan’s personal memory of that part of the garden will not centre on peace and quiet. Every autumn he has given the knot garden’s 250 metres of box hedges their annual ‘short back and sides’, using old-fashioned hand shears. It means spending 80 hours bent over the hedges, which are just 30 centimetres tall.

He says, ‘In the interests of my back, I have always split the work into sections and spread it over a month.’                                                                                                                                                                He once tried to switch to power shears, but quickly decided they would not produce the same immaculate result.

‘I am really going to miss this lovely, quirky old house and its grounds when I finish work on December 31^st,’ he says. ‘I know I will have a lump in my throat when I walk away. But the thought of not having to trim the knot garden hedges again will balance things up a bit.’

Little Moreton Hall is open Fri, Sat, Sun 11am – 4pm until December 18. For more information visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk/littlemoretonhall or call 01260 272018.