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Thursday 4 December 2008

The Spectator's Notes

Charles Moore's reflections on the week

In her marvellous talk on parsonage gardens to the Rectory Society last week, Mary Keen challenged this column’s assertion (19 January) that Jane Austen is inaccurate, in Emma, in describing an orchard in blossom ‘at almost Midsummer’. According to Mary, there is an apple called Court Pendu Plat, cultivated since 1613 and known as the ‘wise apple’ because its late blossoming escapes the frost. It flowers on about 10 June in Kent, and therefore might, said Mary, do so a week later in colder (?) Hampshire. At the end of the talk, a woman with both literary and horticultural knowledge came up to me and said that I must be right because the entire orchard would not have been composed of Court Pendu Plat and so Jane Austen’s distant prospect of a midsummer orchard in blossom was mistaken. She was so in awe of Mary Keen’s learning, however, that she declined to throw down the gauntlet, or gardening glove, in public. The critic John Sutherland offers the ingenious theory that the contentious passage with the ‘orchard in blossom’ is really referring to Abbey-Mill Farm in all its seasons: as well as mentioning the ‘rich pastures’ of summer, it also conjures up ‘spreading flocks’, which suggests lambing in the spring, and ‘a light column of smoke ascending’, more associated with winter. Who’s right? Being up against Jane Austen and Mary Keen, I need some help.

Mary Keen also quoted, to good effect, modern official church guidance to clergy about parsonage gardens: ‘The permanent planting of low-maintenance ground cover is encouraged, as clergy and their families may be reluctant to contribute a great deal of effort to maintaining their gardens when faced with many other calls on their time and energy.’ It is certainly true that the hard-pressed clergy have much to do, but it is infinitely depressing that they are actually officially advised to have dull gardens. Will the diocesan authorities look askance at them if they grow labour-intensive vegetables or lots of bedding plants? It comes as no surprise that a proposal before the General Synod of the Church of England next week will deprive vicars and rectors of the rights which they currently possess over the buildings which they inhabit.

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