The Keep

Tea in the Garden,

Lindsey Tydeman from The Keep in Falmer has been delving into local history and discovered that tea and cake at Newick Park was once a very formal affair

If we ever needed a lesson in how to take tea, this must be it. In the centre of this delightful image (ref AMS/5643/10/19), and in her rightful place behind the silver teapot, sits the mistress of Newick Park, Elizabeth Sclater. Friends from Norway – Dora and Fru Geilmingden – are on each side of her, and their black mourning dresses suggest a visit in the days or weeks following the death of a family member.

The two tea tables are covered with impeccable linen tablecloths and the tiered cake stand has been decorated with brightly coloured ribbons. A large jug containing milk or cream sits behind the embroidered tea cosy on the table. Perhaps the cosy has been left off the teapot deliberately so we can appreciate the silver as well as the embroidery. Two large cakes – one fruit, one iced – are waiting to be cut. Two members of the party are still to come; their seats and china cups and saucers are ready.

Today, sitting in a garden with friends would mean relaxation, but in their corsets, high-necked dresses and hats, these Victorian ladies can do little else but sit erect. Their formality, and that of the tea table itself, provides an unusual contrast to the ‘rustic’ bench and outdoor environment.

When this photograph was taken, Newick Park had been in the Sclater family for over 80 years. James Henry Sclater had bought it in 1816 and immediately set to work to turn what was already a well-known park into a horticultural

gem with ornamental planting and rare specimens. Just one part of the garden, ‘The Dell’, a narrow valley containing ‘the nobler hardy ferns’, needed the attention of 16 gardeners in the 1860s. His son James Henry and grandson Francis continued to maintain Newick’s increasingly costly gardens. The Reverend Francis

Sclater was also a keen amateur photographer and doubtless he was behind the lens and setting for this image. Elizabeth Nielsen was his second wife and he was ultimately to marry three times, each time choosing a Norwegian wife while visiting friends in his favourite part of the world. The Keep’s collection of Sclater family documents tell us what happened to Francis and his wife. Elizabeth had four sons but lost the eldest, six-year-old James, to diphtheria, contracted from the drains at Newick Park in

May 1906. Elizabeth herself died from the same cause the following year, two months after giving birth to her son Arthur. A family photograph album collated by Elizabeth as a tribute to her son has a heart-breaking final page. It shows James standing on a step ladder beside her, outside the house. She has written, ‘The last photographs ever taken of James, five weeks before his death, May 31st 1906.’ l For more information visit www.thekeep/info

A family photograph album collated by Elizabeth as a tribute to her son has a heart-breaking final page