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Chestnut Sunday
Horse chestnut trees are one of the most magnificent sights in the gardens at Waddesdon. Discover why May is the month to enjoy these spectacular trees and learn about the Victorian tradition of Chestnut Sunday from our Director, Pippa Shirley.
One of the great glories of the gardens at Waddesdon are the magnificent horse chestnut trees (Aesculus hippocastum), and May is the month to enjoy them. For a short time, they are laden with creamy white or pink pyramids of blossom, the famous “candles”. Horse chestnuts come into leaf earlier than many trees, with five or seven leaflets on each large leaf, and the candles follow soon after. Later in the year, they produce their seeds in the form of conkers, wonderfully glossy, large brown nuts, encased in a spiky green husk.
The origin of the name is mysterious, but it may refer to the fact that conkers were used for horse medicine. Or that they resemble the eye of a horse. In the USA, chestnuts are called “buckeyes”. Although not edible, the nuts were highly prized and hunted down by children for playground games of conkers. If you were born before about 1980 you may remember fierce battles, when you tried to smash your opponent’s nut, strung on a piece of string, with your own.
Chestnuts have a special place in many of our hearts – so much so, that the Victorians invented Chestnut Sunday, on the Sunday closest to 11 May, to celebrate the blossom. Crowds would gather to admire the spectacle and London Transport even produced posters to publicise it. It still continues in Bushy Park in London.
Many of our chestnuts are around 150 years old and were planted by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild when he was laying out the gardens at the Manor. He was knowledgeable about trees and included different species to create masses and accents of colour and contrast in the landscape. Limes (Tilia europaea) with their intensely sweetly scented, pale yellow flowers, and Beech trees, both common (Fagus sylvatica) and, more dramatically, Copper beeches (Fagus sylvatica f. purpurea) were also favourites.
We need to do all we can to preserve these wonderful trees, because climate change is creating challenges for them, as for so many others. Chestnuts are susceptible to a fungal infection, Phytophthora bleeding canker, which can kill them. Another growing threat is the larvae of the Leaf Miner Moth, which burrow into the leaves and turn them brown, diminishing the levels of chlorophyll so that the tree cannot make the nutrients it needs. Left untreated, it weakens the tree. The Gardens Team hang hormone traps in the branches, which helps to control the moth population.
This May, the horse chestnuts at Waddesdon are looking glorious laden with thousands of “candle” blossoms. Why not come and enjoy them on a visit to the gardens?
The gardens at Waddesdon are open 10am-5pm, Wednesday-Sunday.
By Pippa Shirley, Director of Collections, Historic Properties and Landscapes.