A new tree was planted at Goldsborough Hall on Tuesday 28th February 2012 to celebrate the 90th anniversary of HRH Princess Mary’s wedding. Owners Mark and Clare Oglesby decided to replace the missing tree in the Lime Tree Walk, which was planted by Royalty in the 1920s, on Princess Mary’s wedding anniversary.
- Mark and Clare Oglesby planting a tree in the Lime Tree Walk
Private wedding venue and 400-year-old stately home Goldsborough Hall, near Knaresborough, was the first family home of Princess Mary, the Queen’s aunt, and her husband Viscount Lascelles, heir to the 5th earl of Harewood. They married at Westminster Abbey on 28th February 1922.
Owner Mark Oglesby said:
Princess Mary who is known as the ‘Yorkshire Princess’ lived at Goldsborough Hall from her marriage until 1930 when they moved to Harewood House following the death of the 5th earl.
She and her husband planted the very first Tilia x europaea – the Common Lime – on 28th December 1922 – perhaps to celebrate their arrival at Goldsborough Hall which had been extensively renovated for the princess.
Subsequent Royal visitors who came and stayed with Princess Mary continued to plant trees to create the Lime Tree Walk with ladies on the right and gentlemen on the left.
Mark Oglesby added:
The Lime Tree Walk is of huge historical importance and the vista gives an amazing insight into the Royal family and its friends in the 1920s,” says . The Lime Tree Walk boasts three Kings and two Queens including King George V and Queen Mary and in the spring it is lined with over 50,000 daffodils.
As the Lime Tree Walk holds such history, we thought it would be a wonderful way to remember Princess Mary by replanting a tree on her behalf on the 90th anniversary of her wedding.
All the trees have plaques on them but there was one tree missing from the far right hand side – the ladies side. Sourcing the tree, however, proved a challenge in itself. The plaques give the variety of lime as Tilia europaea var Handsworthensis, supplied back then by a company called Fisher, Son & Sibray Ltd of Handsworth Nurseries in Sheffield who held the Royal Warrant to supply ‘Trees and Seeds’ to King George V. This company no longer exists so Goldsborough Hall’s new lime comes Barcham Trees in Cambridgeshire – a firm which currently hold a Royal Warrant from Her Majesty The Queen.
