(originally written 17/06/10) Rycote Park – a stroll through England’s history

THE historic gem that is Rycote Park, near Thame, is not normally open to the public but recently a lucky few were privileged to be given a tour of the 350 acre Capability Brown park by the present owner, Sarah Taylor.

The tour, which included 15th century Rycote Chapel, was part of Perennial, the Gardeners Royal Benevolent Society’s special events for 2010, to see the restoration work carried out to the park, the greenhouses and the walled garden under the stewardship of Mr Bernard and Mrs Sarah Taylor.

RYCOTE – A DESTINATION FOR ROYALTY

The recorded history of Rycote is pretty well documented and includes visits by Henry VIII, Elizabeth I (both as princess and queen), James I and Charles I, who came to Rycote when the plague in London drove Parliament to Oxford. He also visited twice during the Civil War.

For the people of Thame, Rycote is inextricably connected with one of its former owners, Lord Williams of Thame, who was the young Princess Elizabeth’s guardian and the founder of the Thame school that bears his name. His descendants continued to own Rycote right up until 1911.

Visit: http://www.thamehistory.net/places/RycotePalace.htm for more historical information about Rycote.

THE PERSONAL STORIES

However, for the visitors, who included the editor of ThameNews.Net, the history of Rycote was given flesh by the anecdotes and stories associated with the people connected to the place, that Sarah Taylor herself had picked up along her 10 year journey of discovery whilst getting to know her new home and lovingly restoring it to its present glory.

Among the more poignant facts we learned from Sarah was that Robert Dudley, Queen Elizabeth’s closed friend and, many assume, her lover, wrote his last letter to her just six days before his death in 1588, from Rycote.

Tragedy of another sort hit the then owners, the Bertie family, when in 1745 their ten year- old son and heir, James Bertie, died in a massive fire that destroyed much of Rycote mansion. The Berties rebuilt and Georgianised the mansion, but this, together with an expensive life at Court, gambling and poor management, led to a ruinous decline in their fortunes.

It was during the ownership of Willoughby Bertie, in the 1760s, that Capability Brown oversaw the landscaping of Rycote Park but it seems that the fourth Earl never visited the works in person. In 1779, deeply in debt, Willoughby was forced to sell his string of race horses, stock and the entire contents of the house – including the chamber pots.

DEBT AND DEMOLITION

After a sad period of neglect, during which the house was reported to have been inhabited by just a farmer and his under-tenants, Montagu Bertie succeeded as the fifth Earl of Abingdon (the family title since 1682) in 1799 but just eight years later, the majority of the house was pulled down and the building materials and fixtures sold at auction. It was at this time that many of the larger houses in Thame acquired magnificent fireplaces and doorways from Rycote, many of which still adorn some of these properties today.

Finally, in 1911 the seventh Earl sold off the whole estate in ten lots, Rycote Park with the farmhouse, chapel, cottages, farm and lake (Lot two) being sold to Alfred St George Hammersley MP, who had the remains of the stable range adapted into a Gentleman’s residence for his own occupation.

THE ARTISTS CONNECTION

Twenty four years later, it was bought by Sir Max Michaelis for his son Cecil whilst he was up at Oxford. Cecil was an artist who worked with glass and ceramics, and a great philanthropist who was especially generous in encouraging crafts and design. He founded the renowned Rycotewood furniture college in Thame, which has since transferred to the Oxford and Cherwell college in Oxford.

Cecil Michaelis mostly lived in France and latterly only spent Christmas at Rycote, later giving it to his two sons who lived there up to 2000, when they apparently fell out, and Rycote was bought by Bernard and Sarah Taylor.

Passing a small pool in front of the house during the tour, Sarah recounted that Max Michaelis had disabused her of the thought that it had been a carriage pond and revealed that it had been built by his father as a swimming pool. Since Cecil had a number of bohemian artist friends, including Picasso, one could imagine some quite lively swimming parties!

DRUGS AND SPIES

As we passed the Old Bakehouse, one of the few surviving buildings from the great fire (now the home of the Housekeeper and the Head gardener), Sarah related a most extraordinary story.

Apparently, while working for SOE (Special Operations Executive) during the war, Cecil Michaelis was in France when he received a warning from his controller, Colonel Leslie Beck, (p180) that he was about to be betrayed and should get out of France as soon as possible. Michaelis was apparently so grateful to Beck for potentially saving his life, that he allowed him to live out the rest of life rent free in the Old Bakehouse.

According to Max Michaelis, Beck’s role was to interrogate Russian spies when they were caught, which he did in the cellar of The Old Bakehouse, where he would apparently use hallucinogenic drugs to loosen their tongues. To help them further, he planted a small wood of birch trees around the house to resemble a Russian forest, which in combination with the drugs, made them feel as though they were at home in Russia, and reveal to Beck all he wanted to know.

THE GARDEN TOUR

Among the stock that graze Rycote Park is a beautiful herd of ornamental, light brown sheep, known as Castlemilk Moorit, which provide the wool for exclusive Rycote rugs which are sometimes available to buy – a breed apparently not much admired by Rycote’s own stockman who apparently describes them as being “hard to catch and having hardly any meat on them!” Sarah added though that what meat there is, is delicious.

RYCOTE CHAPEL

The first stop on our tour was stunning Rycote Chapel which stands on the site of a small Benedictine chapel of around 1100. The current chapel was consecrated and dedicated to St Michael and all angels in 1449, having been built by Richard Quartermayne who had married Sybil de Ricot. The sumptuous fittings it is famous for, are indeed very impressive, and the restored ornamentation of the royal canopied and domed pew, and the family pew, include a blue painted sky with clouds and guilded stars. A magnificent new, carved organ sits above the entrance door, build by John Mander in East London, with a wonderful tone as illustrated by Sarah herself who delighted us all by playing a simple piece on the instrument most ably. The opening to the crypt, containing the remains of many illustrious previous owners of Rycote stacked up in their lead sarcophagi, was recently found using radar and a new opening formed in the tiled floor.

AWAY WITH THE OLD FASHIONED AND IN WITH THE NEW

The gardens swept away by ‘Capability’ Brown, had been designed by Inigo Jones and in her turn, Liz Banks, who will be the next Chair of the RHS, has planned the current restoration which has included removing thousands of tonnes of silt from the lake. As the lake is spring fed and has no natural flow, several unsuccessful attempts to populate it with fish have resulted in the installation of giant aerators but blanket weed cutting is a perennial problem and a regular job for the special flat-bottomed boat in action during our tour.

Our guided walk included the garden in front of the house, protected by a wall on two sides, where traditional flowers like Roses and Delphiniums sat perfectly in harmony with a bowl-shaped modern water feature (actually a sundial) tinkling in the background and the remains of an original Tudor tower. Looking up at the house, a mason was restoring a buttress using old stones found around the grounds. The Taylor’s head gardener was on hand to answer the questions of the gardening enthusiasts among us about purple podded peas and how she dealt with pests like squirrels, rabbits, moles and muntjac deer.

No expense seems to have been spared to make everything aesthetically pleasing as well as functional in this working garden, from the very ornate strawberry cage to the beautiful terracotta tiles on the restored barn, because Sarah hates corrugated iron!

RICOT, RYCOTT OR RYCOTE?

I asked Sarah about the variety of spellings of the name Rycote, Ricot etc which seems to have been spelt in a variety of ways throughout its history, and learnt that the name probably derived from ‘Rye cottage’ as the house and gardens are set in a natural clay bowl making it ideally damp for the growing of rye.

THE ‘TREASURE OF RYCOTE’

Although the magnificent yew tree by the chapel, planted in 1135 to commemorate the crowning of King Stephen, was impressive, for me the piece de resistance was the ‘Treasure of Rycote’, an incredible specimen of the Oriental Plane tree, reputedly one of three surviving from a seventeenth century plant- hunting expedition to Turkey. Not wanting to raise its “head” above the house into the prevailing wind, the tree has continued to spread its gnarled, arm-like boughs covered in pale, flakey bark, across approximately 50 metres of parkland and is still producing the characteristic burr-like fruits which Sarah is trying hard to cultivate.

This is the tree whose shade Xerxes sits under and praises, in the famous Largo from Handel’s opera.

After a stroll in the greenhouse where huge, plump grapefruits, oranges and lemons, figs and other tender fruits rubbed pots with other exotic plants, gifts from friends and family, a walk around the lake and the ‘birthday glade’ on its shores, again full of plant donations from friends, a stroll past the apple orchard planted by Cecil Michaelis (the fruit is sent to Waterperry for bottling), the knot garden of box in front of the house, we finally arrived back at the beautifully restored barn for a very welcome splendid picnic lunch.