The restoration of the Walled Garden here at Dunsland has started and what a job it is. We are making new discoveries every day.

Dont make em like they used to. Watering can is at least 40 years old and has been buried in overgrowth for over 20

Treasures are being literally unearthed every day. We have discovered a 10metre cold frame and boy did they build to last back then as it is in perfect condition except for some damage done to one of the walls by a rogue Ash tree which decided to grow out of the wall.

The soil is perfect and all the better for being broken down by the exceptionally cold weather, it is like powder and I cant wait to get planting.

But most interesting and exciting of all is the glasshouse. We always knew there was a glasshouse up there, indeed I worked up there as a child and it was one of the places where my interest in gardening developed as a child. But in those days it was used primarily to propogate Camellias and as a packing shed for fruit, strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants etc, any amount of fruit you could imagine. Dunsland was famous back then and up to the mid 1980s for potato and fruit production. It had been lost to the ravages of time and the wilderness that grew up around and inside it. However now that we start investigating around it and excavating nearby we are making magical discoveries, it really is like unearthing a living past.

Arches rising from the ashes. One of the biggest discoveries so far in the restoration project. These were probbly used in some way for the heating of the glasshouse but I’m still trying to put the whole jigsaw together

Walls, arches and even bones are being discovered daily under the ground.

The originl tiled floor of the glasshouse exposed to the elements for over 20 years weed, trees everything had been growing over it and still it remains in perfect condition

A pig or a goat maybe? Dead and buried in the walled garden since when?

I am trying to piece the discoveries together and make sense of the jigsaw but I’m not there yet. I have contacted UCC Archealogical Society and hopefully they may be able to shed some light on the mystery.

In the meantime enjoy the photos.

Can you really believe this was all under the ground for decades, thank God we have found it. But how dd it work. See the limestone piece, was it a doorstep? was that the floor level of inside the glasshouse?

Terracotta pots bought from an auction in Limerick by my mother in the 1960s. Lost in the wilderness for over 20 years and now unearthed, looking better than ever

I’ll keep all updated on the progress

One of the walls which we have discovered underground in the walled garden

More developments 12/03/10

This week has seen a lot of progress in the Walled Garden @ Dunsland. Most of the groundworks are now finished and grading and levelling is nearly copmplete.

The kitchen garden is progressing apace with raised beds, gravel and stone paths beginning to emerge.

More mysteries crop up every day and at this stage people are hearing about it and some people who remember the gardens in the 40s and 50s have been sharing their memories of how the garden looked.

It seems that neices of Joeseph Pike – who built Dunsland- used to grow all types of fruit and veg in the Walled Garden. A neighbour of mine recalls buying apples from these ladies and receiving free Nectarines if you dont mind- Nectarines growing in Dunsland in the 30s and 40s, ahead of their time or what.

Being able to grow exotic species of fruit was seen very much as a status symbol at the time.

I have also had feedback from the interview I did with Neil Prendeville on 96FM during the week with people who used to work here in the 60s making contact.

The entrance to the Walled Garden @ Dunsland as it is. Note the damage to the wall on the right of the opening. We are repairing it at the moment.

15/03/10

Many people have been wondering if it is ok for them to come up and have a walk around during the restoration and the answer is yes of course. I would love anyone who has an interest to feel free to come up and watch the work in progress.  There wont be another chance until I am long departed and somebody in 3 or 4 generations time decides to restore it and figure out the jigsaw from the 21st century. That is of course provided the curators of our heritage don’t allow 45 townhouse or similar to be developed on the site.

20/03/2010

The volunteers from Acara House Build Project in Lesotho were up today to build two keyhole gardens. After weeks of good dry cold weather the garden has been great to work in. However, of course over the last two days we have had rain, rain and more rain and they ended up working in a mudbath. Still, not to be deterred they managed to get all the materials into the site and got the two gardens built and they look great.

This is what the Acara volunteers had to face before they built the two fantastic keyhole gardens