By Paul Homewood
Here we go again!
Nestled on the banks of the Thames in Richmond, south-west London, the National Trust-run 12-acre garden is threatened by floods, extreme weather and unpredictable rainfall.
While summer temperatures in some of the historic rooms soar to 95F (35C) so they have to be shuttered from visitors.
Head gardener Rosie Fyles and her team tend the grand estate meticulously but its waterside location makes it vulnerable when the Thames floods.
Rosie said: "There are big issues about how we manage the space for nature, for the environment…given that predictions suggest that those flooding incidents will happen more frequently and more severely.
"It has implications for how you manage the trees and what trees you might plant. The trees that we might pick today that will thrive today aren’t the trees that necessarily will thrive [in 100 years]. We’re thinking decades out."
Rosie knows the 120,000 yearly visitors hope to enjoy on the same splendid sights first seen after King Charles I leased it to his childhood friend William Murray in 1626.
The Grade-I listed mansion of "exceptional national importance" was transformed by the courtier and later by his tenacious daughter Elizabeth, the Duchess of Lauderdale, into today’s imposing spectacle.
Rosie said there were major issues, such as replacing more than a mile of hornbeam hedge in a wilderness garden which is responding "quite badly" to modern-day extreme weather conditions: "If were starting again tomorrow, I would not be making these planting choices because we’d know they were unsustainable.
"There would still be period historic plants we could choose but it wouldn’t be these."
Her team planted a climate-resilient apple orchard in the Ham kitchen garden.
Other measures to mitigate against weather risks include irrigation systems run from the house guttering, placing visitors’ benches in the shade and moving plants to areas that suit them better.
The three-storey mansion holds notable paintings, tapestries and furniture that are also at risk due to humidity, high heat and to water finding its way in.
Some south-facing bedrooms hit 95F in the summer, forcing the Trust to bar visitors from them.
Megan Tanner, general manager, said sensors check water vapour levels: "We try to control extreme fluctuations in heat, humidity and damage from pests, diseases and dust. We are constantly fighting a battle against the sun.
"We want visitors to be able to see what’s in here but we also don’t want things to be damaged."
The basement has suffered severe damage from damp. Summer flooding, plus increased rainfall in recent years, made Trust chiefs consider if the historic downpipes and gutters are enough.
Water cascading from gutters and pouring down the walls of historic houses during heavy rain shows how climate change is affecting our heritage.
Traditional downpipes, gutters and hoppers coped when the houses were built but today are often overwhelmed.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/1557742/climate-change-Ham-House-National-Trust
A climate-resilient apple orchard! The mind boggles!!
But what about all this supposed extreme rainfall, that they never used to have in the past? The claimed “increased rainfall”, for instance:
Or more extreme rainfall?
https://www.ecad.eu/indicesextremes/customquerytimeseriesplots.php
In other words their claims are a pack of lies. But we get to the real story in this statement by Rosie Fyles:
“There are big issues about how we manage the space for nature, for the environment…given that predictions suggest that those flooding incidents will happen more frequently and more severely”
Predictions! And where might these come from?
The London Borough of Richmond has recently updated its “Strategic Flood Risk Assessment”, something I suspect most local authorities have to do:
https://www.richmond.gov.uk/flood_risk_assessment
And planning rules dictate that the impacts of climate change must be taken into account:
Hence we get gobbledygook like this:
The authors make no attempt to quantify changing risks based on actual data. They simply assume that flooding will get worse because the Environment Agency says so.
Meanwhile the National Trust can blame all of its problems on climate change.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
January 31, 2022 at 05:12AM
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