Hunting for a new home for Audley End model
Display space sought for Bedford student's model
English Heritage’s education team is looking for a new home for a stunning model of Audley End’s Victorian kitchen garden, created by an 11 year old student from Bedford who was inspired to create it following a visit to the Essex mansion.
Robert Blake spent eight months researching and creating his model, which is a scale model of the walled kitchen garden at Audley End, as part of an independent study project that helped the youngster achieve an A* GCSE short course.
“When I started, I didn’t have any idea of how involved it would be,” says Robert. “Now that it is complete, I realise that I’ve actually covered seven different subject areas – gardening, history, science, modelling, maths, ICT and even literacy!”
Home-schooled Robert visited Audley End several times to keep checking his model against the real garden, spending some time with the head gardener, Mike Thurlow. Robert then spent hours painstakingly recreating the garden and all its components, from the fences to the vegetables, flowers and vinery. Each fence panel took around five to ten minutes to create – and there were 25 in the finished design!
The model was on display in the Vinery at Audley End throughout the summer, but essential maintenance works at the site have inspired English Heritage to look for a new temporary home for the miniature recreation. “The detail is fantastic and accurate, so this would be a great way for a Victorian house or museum to show its visitors how a kitchen garden would have been laid out. Sadly, we don’t have room to keep it on display at Audley End House at the moment, but it seems a huge shame to lock this remarkable piece of work away,” comments English Heritage’s head of education and interpretation, Sandra Stancliffe.
Robert’s parents, Ruth and David Blake, have approached a couple of museums to see if they would be interested in displaying the model, but have so far had no success. English Heritage hopes that the model might be of interest to one of the many Victorian, childhood or model museums around the country, inspiring other children to visit historic sites for ideas for school projects.
“Admission to English Heritage sites is free to all education groups, whether home schooled, scouts, guides or even University of the Third Age (U3A), which meant that Robert could visit as often as he liked to check out the ‘source material’ for his research,” adds Sandra Stancliffe. “We know that these visits help inspire many students in their studies, but it is quite rare to have such a visual reminder as Robert’s model.”
For more details on free education visits to any of English Heritage’s sites, please visit www.english-heritage.org.uk/education
Anyone interesting in offering a home for Robert’s model should contact Lucia Crothall, English Heritage’s education marketing manager on 01793 414972
ENDS
For further media information, please contact:
Jay Commins – PRO English Heritage (Education)
Tel: 0113 251 5698
Mob: 07810 546567
Email: jay@fim.org.uk
