After a very busy summer season and the late rush of Autumn Glory during the October half term, it has suddenly become very quiet in the Bird Garden and Farm. Zucchini and Zebedee the alpacas have moved to a field on the Estate to give their enclosure on Farm a break. The pygmy goats have also moved with them.

Despite the lack of visitors and Farm animals, the workload has not decreased as we have now entered the busy closed season where we have begun our winter projects. This starts off with clearing all the leaves which have fallen onto the paths, paddocks and even in the penguin pool! No small task.

Several of the aviary sheds and roofs are being repaired or maintained and two aviaries are being completely replaced. We are going to extend the farm animal paddocks onto the South Front which is the large field below the Terrace to allow the farm animals extra room, the rabbits and guinea pigs will be getting new larger outdoor pens and the Chilean flamingos will be getting a new lakeside fence. All in all, there is much work to be done this winter!

If you visited us in the summer holidays you would have met our two young donkeys Lady and Max, who are our two most recent arrivals to the Farm. Since arriving they have settled in well and have become very friendly (although much of that is down to food I suspect!), allowing us to groom them, put them into head collars and lift their front feet for cleaning. We are still working on the back feet!

Another big character you might have already met is Molly our Moluccan cockatoo. Molly is actually a boy, but was originally thought to be female by his owners who very kindly donated him to the Bird Garden earlier in the year. He can be found in the aviary opposite the donkeys where he keeps visitors highly entertained by imitating their laughter and talking to them, as well as showing off his salmon coloured crest.

This year we have had a reasonably good breeding season with another Palm cockatoo chick fledging in October. This species is part of a European wide breeding programme and Harewood Bird Garden is one of the few collections that is successfully breeding them, a fact we are very proud of. It’s down the skill and care that the team and I provide which makes this possible.

The Eurasian eagle owl chicks are now are now the same size as mum and dad and I am currently in the process of finding new homes for the three of them. This species is in fact one of the world’s largest owls with a wing span up to 188cm (6ft 2 in)!

Our pair of brown lorys also laid their first eggs this year and although the chick sadly did not survive it was a promising start for them.

We will have a few new arrivals in the Bird Garden for the upcoming season including two Satyr tragopan, a Nepalese pheasant that will go into our Himalayan aviaries, a female Bali starling which his critically endangered will also be on show. We’re happy to report she has already paired up with our male. I hope to bring in a few more new species in the New Year.

As a licenced zoo, Harewood has a responsibility to support research, education and conservation. Earlier this year we have welcomed two students from Leeds University who carried out a study on the Humboldt penguin colony. They studied the bird’s behaviour and then introduced feeding puzzles containing the penguin’s favourite food (sprats) to assess their foraging capabilities and whether birds learned these skills from one another. They have now finished their study and we are eagerly awaiting the write up and subsequent findings.

Olivier Nesengimana, a Rwandan vet visited Harewood Bird Garden in August and gave our visitors, staff and volunteers an inspiring talk on his project ‘Saving Rwanda’s Crowned Cranes’. We have recently started supporting this project which aims to rescue crowned cranes that have been illegally poached from their native habitat in Rwanda and then rehabilitate them back into the wild. It truly is a fascinating and humbling project. To hear about how one man has made it his mission to conserve and protect this majestic bird is something we will never forget. His drive and determination to motivate the Rwandan people and the authorities is immensely inspiring and we look forward to supporting this project further in 2017.
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We hope to team up with Leeds University again and look at other ideas that might help Olivier in his work, such as eco-tourism trips to see wild cranes in Rwanda. Olivier was recently in London for the prestigious Tusk Conservation Awards for which he was a nominee. The event is highly regarded in this field and was attended by the likes of Prince William and Sir David Attenborough. A justified accolade for this project.

Science and technology are not topics typically associated with historic houses or their inhabitants. They are often well known for their fine furnishings and great works of art, but it is perhaps quite unusual, and unexpected, to think of them as thriving hubs of technological advancement.

New research undertaken at the University of Leeds has focused on the unique relationship between country houses and the history of innovation and experimentation. With inhabitants who could often afford to invest financially and socially in new and somewhat mysterious technologies, country houses became some of the earliest venues for the installation of electrical appliances. They also exposed its householders (sometimes reluctantly) to the enormous social change and development that these innovations brought with them.

Harewood House Trust, in collaboration with Dr Michael Kay from the University of Leeds, has recently been awarded a grant of £5000 from The Culture Capital Exchange to research and explore the little known story of electrification at Harewood House. Initial research has established a basic timeline of electrification and has already revealed some fascinating stories: from the intriguing routine of Harewood’s Lamp Man to the curious practice of employing electricians to ‘stand by’ during dinner parties.

The first phase of the House’s electrification took place in 1901, commissioned by the 5^th Earl of Harewood. Archival evidence shows that there was seemingly fierce competition between early electrical contractors to obtain the job, and the merits and weaknesses of utilising hydropower was carefully considered. The installation of electricity was continued in the early 1930s when the 6^th Earl of Harewood and his wife, Princess Mary, moved into Harewood House. The Princess Royal made a specific request for electric lighting in her new dressing room along with other modern conveniences, such as the installation of a lift and the purchase of a Hoover vacuum cleaner was made.

Dr Kay’s interesting research will inform a number of workshop events at Harewood House and the University of Leeds, featuring a short drama performance exploring the story of electrification from the perspective of staff and servants.

Join us on the 21 August at Harewood for a day of illuminating activities that will explore the theme of electricity within the House.  You will be able to try your hand at making cup and string telephones in our crafts activity, and also have a go at a new technology trail. Our family friendly drama performance, taking place in the Steward’s Room, will be followed by an opportunity talk to the characters and ask them questions. Participants will then be able to handle some early electrical equipment with Dr Kay and Harewood staff. There will also be a special display of Harewood’s historic light fittings and related archival documentation, both Below Stairs and on the State Floor, as well as a 10 minute Discovery Talk focusing on Dr Kay’s research.
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Similar workshops will also be taking place at the University of Leeds on 11 August for Year 5 and 6 pupils from the IntoUniversity charity‘s summer educational programme, and 11 September as part of the Heritage Open Days programme.

The Himalayan Garden at Harewood is a marvelous place to explore during spring. The bright colours of the rhododendrons, the fresh green leaves in the trees create a wonderful atmosphere which is a complete contrast to the formal Terraces which Harewood is best known for. It’s a place which includes a massive variety of naturalised planting which has matured since it’s creation in 2007. Here are a few highlights visitors to the garden can enjoy now.

Harewood in the 21st century has become quite a complicated place. Most of you will know it as a place to visit. You might come to feed the penguins or watch the kids play on the Adventure Playground. You might come to enjoy Harewood House’s magnificent 18th century interiors or to attend the innovative and stimulating contemporary art exhibitions. You might come to stroll peacefully through the gardens, crossing the Terrace on your way round the Lake, getting caught up in the magic of the Himalayan Garden before reaching the Walled Garden with its vegetable plots and fruit trees.

I hope you do, because Harewood is somewhere for everyone to enjoy. But what you see is the just the tip of an iceberg. Harewood today is a network of businesses, all supporting each other, all designed to keep this most beautiful part of England’s most beautiful county looking good, as alive and as relevant as it has ever been through its 250 year history.

Explore the great outdoors

The bit you will see when you visit – the House, the gardens and grounds immediately around it – has been run as an educational charitable trust since the 1980s. This means that any income generated – entrance fees, gift aid, donations, grants and so on – has to be ploughed back into the charity’s activities. We have a dynamic and prize-winning programme of educational events for schools, but we take our educational remit much further than that. You’re never too old to stop learning! We get around 200,000 visitors a year and their support is absolutely vital if we are going to be able to continue to keep it all going.

Surrounding Harewood House Trust is the Harewood Estate, made up of several different businesses. The days of a country estate just being somewhere for a privileged few to stroll around and enjoy the views are long gone. Now, we let cottages in the village, offices in the converted farm buildings and provide the location for the outdoor sets for ITV’s long-running tale of Yorkshire country folk, Emmerdale. We have a farming company, managing the land in partnership with neighbouring farmers.  Most recently, we have invested in a major green energy project, which uses wood chip from our own trees to heat buildings across the estate and now Harewood House itself. This makes good business sense and it’s good for the environment too. All this – the buildings, the trees, the waterways, the many miles of public footpaths that criss-cross the estate – needs looking after: windows re-painted, woodland thinned, grass cut, footpaths properly maintained and the rest of it.

Lancelot “Capability” Brown

Each year we look at what we do afresh, especially at what happens within the Harewood House Trust, what is available for the paying public. This year’s big theme is the landscape. 2016 is the tercentenary of the birth of England’s most famous landscape designer, Lancelot “Capability” Brown and we are delighted to be part of a nation-wide celebration of his extraordinary work. Astonishingly, Brown and his team created over 100 landscapes, four or five a year during his working life, though he can have only seen a few of them reach their maturity. Harewood is one of his finest, still unchanged since the 18th century, somewhere that is designed to be enjoyed, whether you are looking across it from the Terrace of Harewood House (The Terrace, a Victorian addition, was actually built several decades after Brown) or walking through it and catching glimpses of the House through carefully contrived vistas. As well as exhibitions about Brown and his visionary working methods, we have asked several contemporary artists to respond to this landscape in their own way, something we try to do whenever we can, bringing the historic and the present day together. And we’re re-launching the boat (called The Capability aptly enough) to give you long views from the Lake back to the south side of the House, as I’m sure Mr. Brown would have wished.

This winter we are undertaken the first phase of a major re-furbishment of the Bird Garden, an ongoing project that will take two or three years to complete. This has involved clearing and re-landscaping, taking down of some unsightly fences and the introducing new bird species as well as creating better views of some old timers. Everybody’s favourites, the penguins, have a handsomely re-decorated pool, with six new arrivals from Cotswold Wildlife Park joining the colony. We are also introducing for the first time a Farm Experience, with pigs, alpacas, pygmy goats and giant rabbits.

Something for everybody we hope, young and old, newcomers and long-standing season ticket holders. Over the summer we will give you more detailed insights into what goes on behind the scenes, the inside track from the real specialists. This is just a taster of the ever-changing, multi-faceted world of Harewood 2016.

Come and enjoy it!

David Lascelles, Earl of Harewood

Simon in the guise of John Jewell

‘I was held…!’
‘The addition of the ghost was wonderfully atmospheric’
‘We were lucky to see a Stag appear as if on cue too – it was brilliant!’

Some of the comments following artist Simon Warner’s latest Theatrical Tour as part of on-going Medieval Harewood events this Summer…

Medieval Harewood Theatrical Tours

Simon Warner is a Yorkshire based photographer and performance artist. Simon will be conducting unique walking tours of Harewood’s medieval history enhanced with an audio experience, a real experience of Medieval Harewood!

Theatrical Tour dates: 17th July, 1st August, 14th August & 3rd September.

There’s still time to book for Simon’s last Theatrical Tour on 3rd September, book now to avoid disappointment!

Read more and book…

This summer, explore Medieval Harewood with us…

Find out more on our Medieval Harewood webpages…