Snowdrops at Godstow

I have often wondered whether I may have rubbed shoulders with Colin Dexter who has immortalised the famous 17th century hostelry in his Inspector Morse novels.

C S Lewis (1898-1963 ) often met his friends there and Lewis Carroll (1832–1898), better known in Oxford as Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, also visited the famous riverside inn.

Last year I went back, slightly warily, to visit the revamped Trout Inn. I found the atmosphere was still convivial and warm in the now open-plan inn.

However, I was not there to sample the beer or food. I was going to look at a colony of snowdrops on the island opposite the inn following a telephone call from Dennis Fogden of Eynsham.

Dennis has looked after the grounds of the Trout Inn for 30 years and been a customer for 57. More than 100 years ago, the Trout Inn was a hotel and guests were free to cross the bridge and sit in the gardens on the island opposite, an arrangement that lasted right up to the 1920s at least.

There was a jetty, and pleasure boats used to pick up guests so that they could enjoy river trips on lazy summer afternoons. Anyone boating by could also stop on the island and order afternoon tea from the hotel. It is still possible to make out the remains of the formal garden and I wished that I could sample the genteel delights of a leisurely high tea. However, these days the island is out of bounds to the public, but Dennis unlocked the gate and led me across the rebuilt wooden bridge to discover the Trout’s snowdrops.

Ordinary single snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis) carpet large areas of the overgrown island, enjoying their waterfront position. These diminutive bulbs were once thought to be British natives. Recent research (looking at pollen grains in soil samples) has now concluded that they were introduced.

However this native of western, central and southern europe was definitely growing in British gardens by 1597, although G. nivalis was not officially recorded in the wild until 1778.

The largest colonies of G. nivalis in this country are usually found close to abbeys and other religious institutions. The remains of the 12th century nunnery at Godstow can clearly be seen opposite the island, and this snowdrop colony probably dates from the era when nuns of the Benedictine order owned all the surrounding land. The abbey and nunnery were split away from the island and its snowdrops when the lock cut was built on the Thames at Godstow in the 1790s.

Snowdrops were important to the church. They symbolised the purity of the Virgin Mary and they were picked and displayed on church altars on the Holy Day of Candlemas, February 2nd. This Christian festival, set midway between the Winter Solstice and The Spring Equinox, hints at a pagan origin. Walsingham Abbey in Norfolk, Anglesey Abbey in Cambridge and Welford Park near Newbury, are religious sites famous for their large snowdrop colonies. Many churchyards also boast good colonies.

The Trout Inn and the island are said to be haunted by the ghost of Rosamund Clifford, the long-term mistress of Henry II. She retired to the nunnery at Godstow and was buried there circa 1176.

Henry and the Clifford family paid for her tomb in the church and it became a local shrine until Hugh, the Bishop of Lincoln, ordered her remains to be removed to the bleak nun’s cemetery in 1191. Perhaps this act prompted ‘The White Lady’ to wander and many Trout regulars recount feeling distinctly cold — even in the warmth of summer. But perhaps that is just the nroaml British summer weather!

The Abbey became Godstow House following the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539 and was occupied until 1645. However it was badly damaged in the English Civil War and the stone was quickly plundered by local villagers. You’ll find bits of the old abbey in the walls of older homes in the village.

But they left one building intact as a shelter for animals on Port Meadow. This is now the remaining ruin.

In the more formal areas of the garden I was able to identify two distinct snowdrops that could not have been planted by the nuns.

The first, Galanthus elwesii, is a much larger bulb than G. nivalis. It has glaucous leaves more reminiscent of a narcissus, with strong stems holding full single flowers. The claw-shaped, long outer petals conceal an inner set of two bold, dark-green markings — a rectangular square set above a broad upturned v-shape.

However these marks on G. elwesii are very variable. It is the bold grey-green leaves that mark this handsome snowdrop out. They indicate a preference for a little more sunlight and better drainage than most snowdrops need.

Galanthus elwesii was named after a prominent plant collector called Henry Elwes (1846-1922 ) who resided at Colesbourne Park, near Cirencester. His family still hold the estate and the garden is often referred to as ‘the greatest snowdrop garden in England’.

This snowdrop grows naturally in Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Ukraine and the former Yugoslavia. It is the second most common snowdrop grown in gardens. The first bulbs were exported from Turkey in 1874 by Henry Elwes. The ones on the island were probably planted in the later years of the 19th century.

I could also see another large-leaved snowdrop with much greener leaves. On closer examination the outer margins of the leaves were folded back into a small pleat at the base.

This diagnostic ‘plicate’ feature is found on Galanthus plicatus, a snowdrop named by a German botanist in 1919 from specimens collected in the Crimea in 1808.

This easily grown snowdrop is found in woodland in its natural habitat. But it has also naturalised in grassy areas. This snowdrop was being cultivated in Britain in the later years of the 16th century. But snowdrops had a golden period of popularity in the mid-19th century and many bulbs were sold then.

One of the best G. plicatus colonies found in the wild is on the grassy top of Wandlebury Hill near Cambridge.

The yellow-marked ‘Wendy’s Gold’ was discovered in 1974 by the warden, Bill Clark, and is now on sale. Wendy is his wife. There are also two other yellows, ‘Bill Clark’ and ‘Wandlebury Ring’. But these remain rarities.

The light was fading fast and the temperature was dropping so Dennis and I retired for a warming cup of hot chocolate — and thankfully Fair Rosamund didn’t join us.

In its Victorian heyday the Trout had a lovely garden with choice rarities. It was once cherished and loved — and the two choice snowdrops I had seen were survivors every bit as haunting as Fair Rosamund.