February 2024

Knebworth House Gardens have looked as good as they’ve ever looked over the last few years, and for that we have our excellent Head Gardener Kevin Hilditch to thank, together with his fine full-time team of Dan, Adam and Eliana, alongside seasonal staff Liz and the volunteers.  Kevin retires this month, having joined us seven years ago from The Swiss Garden at Shuttleworth in Bedfordshire, originally as our Deputy Head, then Head Gardener.

Kevin says it is an impossible choice to choose his favourite part of the Gardens, but in the late winter it is the daffodils. “Just a couple of hours of cutting back brambles in the Wilderness Garden revealed the most amazing display of daffodils that were already there but couldn’t be seen.”  For the spring he singles out the two trees, the Cornus Kousa and the Snowdrop Tree, as “just stunning”.  In summer, “it really has to be the rose garden, that’s always a bit of a battle, a lot of time and effort, but the roses have been looking really good for the last few years.” Late summer into autumn, “my favourite area would be the Kitchen Garden. I think it has come on leaps and bounds, and Eliana and Liz have been amazing with everything it produces.”

“The Team are good people.  They are on the quiet side, but they know what they are doing.  It is the quality of their work that gives us the kudos and, when we are open, people saying how lovely the gardens are.  The satisfaction, on a daily basis, is to go home knowing that you have made part of the garden look better than it did in the morning.  We’ve done that day in, day out, week in, week out, and for long enough now that the place looks nearly as good as I’d like it too.”

We wish Kevin the very best for his retirement.  We shall miss him.  “No you won’t,” he says, “I have signed up to work part time as a House Steward.  Can’t stay away from the place!”

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

Posted in 2024 | Comments Off on February 2024

January 2024

Many years from now, someone is going to be rummaging through the Knebworth House Archive and find this forgotten old sketch.  “Ah yes – this was a vain fantasy at the beginning of the 21st Century responding to years and years of village consultations that consistently identified traffic congestion and a backlog of road infrastructure as the No.1 concern of Knebworth residents.”

“You see,” the AI Knebworth House Archivist will say, “when Knebworth Garden Village was planned at the beginning of the 20th Century, lots of connecting routes were envisaged but, as the village grew, not a single one of the planned new roads was put in.  The old medieval lanes – Deards End Lane, Gipsy Lane and Swangleys Lane – that had existed to serve three old farms, were expected to serve the 2600 homes that came to comprise Knebworth Village.”

“When the extra 600 of these homes were built, in the late 2020s, and a final opportunity presented itself to replace these old medieval lanes, it still never happened.  The fashion at the Highways Department at that time was that nobody should use cars – they should bicycle their groceries up the hill and walk their children to school through the wind and the rain before finding their own way to work – which in those days you could often only get to by car.”

“Of course there are plenty of reasons why this very old fantasy sketch – which imagined replacement routes to the old lanes – could never have worked.  Third party landowners, widening an old tunnel under the railway… all much too expensive.  Back then, all the money generated by new developments was needed to pay for arguing about them.  Shame, though, that nobody at least tried to solve the problem…  Can I walk you back to your jetpack?”

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

Posted in 2024 | Comments Off on January 2024

December 2023

Two images from St Mary’s Church taken in the last couple of months, which to me offer a positive thought at this Christmastime of dreadful, seemingly unresolvable, conflict in the world, particularly in Gaza and Ukraine.  The first, a tribute to my great-uncle John, part of Alan Williamson’s very special and evocative display on Remembrance Day of the stories of the Knebworth men lost in conflict.  John, the 17th Generation of the Lytton family to live at Knebworth House was lost to us in a terrible and senseless war with our neighbours the Germans 80 years ago.  The second image shows my son Edward, the 20th Generation of the Lytton family to live at Knebworth House, entering a lifetime union with his German bride Helena, married by our Priest-in-Charge, Charles, himself married to a German partner, Anke, at a service beautifully conducted by Charles in both the English and German language.  Seemingly unresolvable conflicts do pass, through the sacrifice of the brave, and the world does move on, and will again become a beautiful place.

Happy Christmas.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

Posted in 2023 | Comments Off on December 2023

November 2023

Knebworth House’s Sherlockian Archivist Jill Campbell just happened to be reading the newspaper the other day – the newspaper from Saturday 25th September 1909 (as you do) – and came across this photo and caption which resonated.  This is my great-grandfather Victor Lytton explaining to his neighbours his plans – drawn up by his brother-in-law Edwin Lutyens – for a new development around Knebworth Station, to be called Knebworth Garden Village.

His “remarks were listened to with great interest.”  I bet they were.  I can imagine just how his audience felt about building all over the green fields at Deards End Farm, Gun Farm and Swangleys Farm.  I am pleased for him he was carrying a big stick.  Those sharp-edged boaters look like they could be formidable weapons at short range.

At some point over the next couple of months, I shall be doing something similar.  I shall be trying to explain to my neighbours how new development up the hill from Knebworth Station, initiated by the Local Plan, might not be as bad as it sounds if we can persuade County Highways and North Herts Planning Officers to allow us to do it well… and how we’ve consulted on as a village for 27 years.  That’s not a given without our politicians’ support, so I rather fancy carrying a big stick too, to deflect any sharp-edged boaters frisbeed from the front row.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

Posted in 2023 | Comments Off on November 2023

October 2023

The responsibility of Knebworth House and Country Park is not a job for one.  Whoever takes on the golden handcuffs had better find a partner willing to commit their life to its treasures and its troubles.  I only needed to get one thing right in my life.  Reader, I got it right.  I married the perfect partner in dripping Alabama heat 36 years ago.  My father David married the perfect partner in whipping North Devon rain 62 years ago.  My grandmother Hermione married the perfect partner in driving North Hertfordshire rain 93 years ago.  As I write, the forecast for the wedding of my son Edward next Saturday is for more driving North Hertfordshire rain.  If it is so, I hope it carries with it all the good blessings that these previous wedding days did.

Like his great-grandmother Hermione (below left), Edward is getting married in St Mary’s Church.  The life partner he has found is the very special Dr Helena Meyer-Johann from Bielefeld in Germany.  How serendipitous that our Priest-in-Charge, Rev Charles King, is fluent in German, so the service can be conducted in both languages.  Martha and I wish them much serendipity in their life, and all the best good fortune in all weathers.  Through sunshine and rain, treasures and troubles, may it be the perfect lifelong match for these two lovely people.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

Posted in 2023 | Comments Off on October 2023

September 2023

How important to Knebworth is Lutyens?  Very, I say.  The eminent Edwardian architect is behind the 1909 plan for the creation of Knebworth (see the background of the diagram below) – then ‘Knebworth Garden Village’ – planned as history’s second Garden community after ‘Letchworth Garden City’.  To Lutyens, Knebworth owes its wide, airy streets – like Stockens Green, St Martin’s Road and Oakfields Avenue – with recessed build lines leaving room to park cars behind green hedges, keeping streets free of parked cars.  Lutyens even foresaw – at a time of few cars – that we’d need more local vehicle routes, although none of these were built.  Four of his neighbourhoods, however, were built, forming the shape of modern Knebworth, and until infilling began in the 1950s, Knebworth was still very much ‘Knebworth Garden Village’.

Evidence is that you agree on Lutyens’ importance, and value our Garden Village heritage.  After many years consulting on design preferences should further Local Plan development take place, The Knebworth Neighbourhood Plan concludes that “Lutyens’ Garden Village concept still has a significant impact on the culture and style of the village” and states as an Objective, “Retain the existing architectural character of the Garden Village, conservation areas and other heritage assets.”

NHDC’s ‘Design Review Panel’ for the KB4 planning application, however, disagrees with you:  “We query.. the extent to which Lutyen’s (sic) historic plan for Knebworth should be used as a design driver.. this was only ever implemented in very small parts…  Deep plots are proposed which may result in all car parking being located in front gardens.. (whereas) parking could be integrated into courtyards and on-street…  Due to the proposed width of the avenue.. there is likely to be a considerable distance across the street from building line to building line.  The street will appear wider, suburbanising the character of this place and reducing opportunity for building a sense of community.”  What nonsense, I say.

So, who does NHDC listen to?

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

Posted in 2023 | Comments Off on September 2023

August 2023

“When the number of charming residential localities that exist around London is taken into consideration, it is a remarkable fact that so many thousands of people are content to reside in those monotonous, dreary streets of uninspired houses that constitute the average suburban district.  It is the more remarkable that they spend their lives in deprecating the suburban spirit, yet never essay to wander a little further afield and seek out for themselves one or other of those innumerable delightful estates that are springing up on the outer fringe of the Metropolis, and which offer to the town-tied man and his family the peace and tranquility of the country village.

One of the most delightful of such places is Knebworth, so near to London as to be easily accessible, yet so far away as to be quite removed from the ceaseless activity and baneful influences of city life.  It is quiet, but never dull; and has in it, or near it, such facilities for education, sport and pastime, and so much of good housing accommodation that the City man would needs confess to a grievous fault if he did not, at some time or other, give it his earnest consideration.”

(From a pamphlet “Knebworth Estate And Golf Course” published in 1928)

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

Posted in 2023 | Comments Off on August 2023

July 2023

What a wonderful event Knebworth Twinning Association’s Open Gardens Day was on the beautiful sunny day that was Sunday 11th June.  Our village looked its very best, and the love and hard work that had demonstrably gone into all of the beautiful gardens on display was inspirational and, no better word for it, awesome.  Stepping behind the houses of Knebworth, and feeling the breadth and greenery of our village it is reassuringly clear that in the great majority of our neighbourhoods we remain the Garden Village that we were originally intended to be.

Thank you to all who opened their gardens and thank you to the KTA for organising such an inspirational afternoon.  By the time you read this, the next KTA event will be me – current KTA President – giving a talk on the evening of Thursday 6th July in Knebworth House’s Banqueting Hall.  I can promise a beautiful setting, but not that a lifelong teetotaller talking about beer will hold up to Open Gardens Day in awesomeness.  But we’ll have some fun, and some laughs, talking Cobbold Ales & Tales… which I promise will cover a number of subjects of interest other than beer.  Ask Agatha Christie, you don’t need to commit murder to write about it.  Nor do you need to drink beer to talk about it.  In fact, in both cases, it’s really rather better not to do either prior to speaking in public about it.

Tickets are available via KTA’s Facebook page or by emailing knebworthtwinning@gmail.com.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

Posted in 2023 | Comments Off on July 2023

June 2023

A column with perennial themes that I’ve been writing every month since 2005 is bound to repeat itself on occasion, so excuse me this month – in response to the sad news of the death of ‘Wocko’ Watkins on 24th April – for republishing this piece I wrote for the September 2014 edition: 

I don’t remember when Wocko came to Knebworth.  He joined us as a woodman sometime in the early 1970s, one of a team of five.  He would say he could make anything out of riven timber except a decent living.  There are no full-time foresters now.  But Wocko has always been here, keeping the Knebworth Park deer, the fences, the spirit of our beautiful countryside alive in our increasingly city-influenced community.  Whether you know him from summer shows in his straw hat, weaving willow or hornbeam into sheep hurdles; or playing his accordion or ukulele in the Lytton Arms, for the Morris Dancers or as part of the legendary Nup End Mountain Men; or singing cheeky songs at the Estate Christmas Party or as Master of Ceremonies at Music Hall evenings at the Village Hall; or telling wonderful stories at the Cricket Club bar, or to me and my children on Sunday afternoon walks to explore hidden corners of the Knebworth Woods…  Wocko has become part of the wood of this community of Old Knebworth.  But all things come to pass, and this month Wocko and his lovely wife Jan retire to Market Rasen in Lincolnshire.  He would say that this split is along the grain as opposed to sawn, but a wonderful man is thus riven from us.  We say goodbye with love and great gratitude for all that he has left us, not least the familiar echo that will forever be heard in the halls of Old Knebworth, “Sing along in the chorus, folks!”

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

Posted in 2023 | Comments Off on June 2023

May 2023

Not my ticket to the Coronation – that clearly got stuck in the post – but a beautiful papercut designed as a Valentine card by the remarkable Georgian polymath Elizabeth Cobbold (1767-1824), matriarch of the third of nine generations of Ipswich family brewers.  The detail in the paperwork is extraordinary.  It must have taken many hours to create.  It is one of hundreds that now live at Knebworth House as part of the Cobbold Family History Trust, a charity that has assembled a unique collection of Cobbold family history and heirlooms as a resource for historians and genealogists.  The collection moved to Knebworth House last year and, as it is catalogued, is revealing a treasure trove of stories of the other side of my father’s family.

The Lytton family have been in Knebworth since the 1400s.  The Cobbold family only moved to Knebworth in the 1940s.  Growing up in Knebworth House, I have been surrounded by Lytton family history, but know very little about my Cobbold ancestors.  Because of the Cobbold Family History Trust, that balance is now being redressed.  To reflect this I am giving a talk in Knebworth House on the Cobbold family on Thursday 6th July to benefit the Knebworth Twinning Association, of which my father was long term president.  It is a good moment to reflect on the history of the Cobbold family, as this year marks the 300th anniversary of the Cobbold Brewery in Ipswich.  Sadly Tolly Cobbold beer is no more, so I won’t be serving you Cobbold ales, but I do have tankard full of fascinating and fun Cobbold tales.  Tickets – which I trust the KTA will be papercutting as elaborate as this one – are limited, so dispel any disappointment if you’ve not received a Coronation invite, and pick up the second best ticket of the summer.

Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH

Posted in 2023 | Comments Off on May 2023