Vines in 17th century Albury!

(c) Trustees of the British Museum

We just discovered this amazing etching of Albury from 1645 in the British Museum archives, which shows vineyards in the background!

Albury; stump of old tree in the foreground at left, with wooden fence behind and swans swimming in the lake beyond; vineyards, arched building and seven persons walking by the water in the background; first state, before '8' added to lower right. c.1645 Etching

The Albury Estate tell us that the etching was done by Wenceslaus Hollar and shows the Park prior to the work of John Evelyn before Henry Howard, later 6th Duke of Norfolk in the 1660s and 70s. There is an entry in Evelyn's diary of September 23rd 1670 in which he says:

"to Alburie to see how that Garden proceeded, which I found exactly done according to the Designe & Plot I had made, with the Crypta through the mountaine in the parke, which is 30 pearches in length, such a Pausilippe is no where in England besides: the Canals were now digging, and Vineyards planted".

Thank you so much to Dominic Crolla at The Surrey Explorer for finding this gem of information. Think we might put this etching on the wall in our visitors' barn...