C O N T E X T 1 3 1 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 3 47 Director’s cut Martin’s garden and David’s ducks at the skills school Among the many highlights of the IHBC’s 2013 Annual School, for me the most unexpected was our visit to Lowther Castle, where delegates met with Martin Ogle, the head gardener responsible for some 130 acres there. The gardens are a critical part of the Lowther estate, not least as the setting for Robert Smirke’s magnificent ruined gothick castle (or rather, castellated) fancy. The estate as a whole has a remarkable history, including recent work to restore it as a viable economic resource and a cultural one. That is surely one of the meatiest of challenges for any regeneration conservation project. I was at Lowther because, sadly, Alan Gardner – the only speaker at the school to offer the redoubtable John Grundy a run for his money – was unable to lead the tour. Gardner would have been perfect, having led so much of the clearing and consolidation work on the castle ruin. But, as is so often the case in this erratic economy of ours, he had to bow out of the day for work, and I was volunteered to coordinate the visit. As is usual in the remarkable organisation that is the IHBC, other volunteers, networks, contacts and knowledge were soon offering and being offered.Within days we secured as new guides both Stan Airey, the former head mason for the works there, and Stuart Eve, a surveyor in private practice who had been around Lowther with Alan Gardner – and, I am delighted to say, probably a new recruit to the IHBC. Also among the delegates on the day were other senior IHBC officers well able to lend a hand as volunteers and information sources, including our past president, David Lovie, who had already presented a spectacularly insightful talk on community engagement skills at the day school in Carlisle. With all that informed knowledge around, in the end I was there mostly to shepherd delegates and monitor times. Our guides spoke of the process of clearing the ruin, of some spectacularly silent interventions by Gardner, and of the elegant new, if unfinished, design work from the offices of Feilden Clegg Bradley. But the biggest surprise was Martin Ogle, the head gardener. Ogle showed delegates around his territory, including the impressive and continuing work of restoration and regeneration that engaged him daily. This included such features as the Alpine Garden, and his work on reviving the Japanese Garden and the Iris Garden, and the new orchard he was developing. He walked us to see the spectacular views across to the valley from the western escarpment, where the blasts of winds are headed off by what appears to be a very early shelter belt of trees. These are some of the heritage resources, old and new, encompassed in the ‘400 years of fine garden design, including an elaborate series of 20 Edwardian pleasure gardens with 18 pavilions… almost inaccessible and buried in vegetation’, referred to in Lowther’s heritage impact statement. The critical point in the tour came when Ogle explained that, for the ambitious realisation of the restoration and revival of the complex and rich gardens of this vast estate, he was not only the head gardener, but the only one employed. Assisted by 20 or so volunteers, all of whom need management too, of course, each day he sets about doing something productive in the grand scheme of Lowther’s restoration. He is already thinking creatively about improvements, including the orchard. Keeping that big picture in perspective, while also having the determination to carry on with the little things that would make a difference in the long run, was Ogle’s greatest skill, admired by all. It was that capacity in Ogle that brought to mind David Lovie’s ‘ducks’. Lovie describes a critical skill for working with communities – and in conservation generally, it should be said – as ‘activity and resource programming skills’, or more prosaically, ‘getting the ducks in a row’. As Lovie notes, even when communities can articulate what they need, they often find it difficult to structure how to approach the huge range of challenges to be overcome.You need to help them set the ducks in a row before dealing with them one by one. Ogle has ‘in spades’ the skills to set the duck in a row. For me it was a lesson our 2013 school for skills delivered in the most unexpected fashion. As conservation professionals, we also need to set our ducks in a row. We have a technical tool for that: our Corporate Plan for 2010–15 (CP10 to those in the know – see www.ihbc.org.uk for details).We use that to line up our ducks across the five key IHBC committees responsible for oversight of our activities: resource management; membership and standards; policy; and education and communications. Pretty much any of the vast array of tasks that we try to undertake can be set inside those remits for us to target and for our trustees to monitor. If you have any suggestions for us to add to our list of things to do, please let us know. Do not think them too much to challenge us with.Where agreed, we will add them to our next corporate plan, which is currently evolving. Rather like Martin Ogle, we might at first be a little slow to say when something will happen, at least until we have the detailed plan in place. But once we get going, we might surprise everyone: our current Corporate Plan is hitting about 80 per cent of its ambitious targets. Seán O’Reilly, director@ihbc.org.uk
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