The Pulham Family and Their Work in Essex by Tina Rowland
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THE FORMER JAMES PULHAM & SON FACTORY SITE IN BROXBOURNE
James Pulham and Son of Broxbourne were one of the most important firms of landscape designers in the 19th and early 20th centuries. They produced a brand of artificial stone known as ‘Pulhamite' used in the creation of water gardens and rock gardens - building cliffs, ferneries and grottoes - as well as a terracotta material used in the manufacture of pre-cast vases, urns, sundials and other garden ornaments. James Pulham I set up the business in 1834 and it was developed in turn by the eldest sons, all called James. On his death in 1838 the business was taken over by his eldest son (James II) who moved with his family to Hoddesdon.
James Pulham III joined the firm in 1865, from which time it became known as James Pulham & Son. It was during his tenure that the firm, operating from the Broxbourne manufactury was at its busiest and by the mid 1870s, their landscaping business was thriving.
PULHAMITE AT AUDLEY END
Probably Pulhams’ best known work in Essex is the picturesque rockery at the southern end of the Pond Garden at Audley End, together with the Otter Pond and the Fish Pond constructed in 1868 for the sixth Lord Braybrooke.
Pulhamite at Audley End
Other less well known Pulham commissions in Essex included work for members of the extended Barclay/Gurney/Buxton family of Leyton and Woodford. In the 1870s they constructed a “cliffs for plants to grow on” for Joseph Gurney Barclay (of the banking dynasty) at his home at Knotts Green House, Leyton. The house was demolished in 1961.
James Pulham & Son ceased to operate at the end of the Second World War.
Tina Rowland is a Volunteer Researcher with the HGT Research Group and her research projects have included two Pulham gardens in Hertfordshire; Presdales in Ware - the Presdales mansion is now an academy school where the Pulham garden made way for new school buildings in 1963 - and High Leigh in Hoddesdon where, garden features believed to be by the Pulhams, were installed in three phases in the 1850s, 1870s and 1890s. Amazingly all of these features still survive. She has given several guided walks and talks around the High Leigh grounds for interested groups and HGT members and their friends.
The snippet’s primary sources were from the 2008 HE booklet Durability Guaranteed, Pulhamite Rockwork – its conservation and repair, and The Pulham Family of Hertfordshire by Kate Banister which is Chapter 8 in the HGT book Hertfordshire Garden History – A Miscellany, also published in 2008. Additional information was gained from the London Garden Trust’s website.
