Chesters
Chesters has recently signed up to the 10:10 campaign, aiming to reduce emissions by 10% in 2010. And right now, you could win yourself a Country House Hideout stay here just by answering a few simple questions. All you need to do is visit the 10:10 website: http://www.1010global.org/uk/win-1010-holiday-country-house-hideout
Clearing old Christmas trees from the Walled Garden
The garden here at Chesters is an epic project. Its slow decline into dereliction had happened over many years, and we had never quite known where to start with it. But the structure was all still there, and over the last 12 months or so, we have gradually got stuck in, making rapid progress towards returning it to its former glory.
The major job was to get rid of the overgrown Christmas trees in the Walled Garden. They were probably planted back in the fifties, and dominated the bottom half. We gradually felled them and then had to grind out all stumps and remove the debris. We used the mini-digger in the picture to scrape back the surface and bury all the rubbish. It also gave us some valuable top soil.
The beautiful little potting shed, too, had fallen into complete disrepair, so we have re-roofed it and got it back on its feet again.
And we’ve managed to dig the top quarter of the Walled Garden ready for our vegetable planting. So hopefully, this year, the place will start to perform its original role again, providing food for the house and our guests … and acting as a wonderful space in which to relax and soak up the summer!
Before ...
... and after!
Burying old tree roots
Ellie and I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who visited, browsed, purchased, donated and and enjoyed the recent Nomad’s Tent exhibition at Chesters. We both had a great time hosting it, and Jo Heaney and her front-of-house team ensured that it ran like clockwork. We even managed to raise a considerable sum for Macmillan Cancer Care, which has got to be a good thing.
But, of course, there was also the chance to win a fantastic bottle of champagne … and the winner of that bottle is Louise Stewart!
So will we do it all again next year? Definitely … and we hope we’ll be running more events like this in the future.
It’s been a summer of waiting here at Chesters, but we now have a beautiful baby daughter – Liliana, or Lily for short. Children certainly have a way of putting things in perspective, and Lily’s arrival has only made us more determined than ever to make the right decisions for the future of Chesters. Speaking of decisions, we’re also waiting on the results of our brewery grant application. We’re now assured that we will get an answer by the end of the month, and if the project gets the go-ahead, we should be brewing by the beginning of next year. So there’s a lot going on at the moment, especially with our upcoming Nomad’s Tent exhibition and the return of Country House Rescue!
There is no better place for Autumn salmon than the Tweed Valley, and the River Teviot is at its best between October and November. It’s our first year of renting the fishing out commercially at Chesters, and we still have availability in both months. And if you need help finding somewhere local to stay, we’re more than happy to help. Our stretch of river can take 4 rods and averages just under 20 salmon a year, although it hasn’t been fished much in recent years.