The Irish chef and TV presenter Clodagh McKenna has always cooked with the seasons, but now, ensconced in Broadspear cottage in the grounds of Highclere Park with her fiancé, the thoroughbred racing manager Harry Herbert, she is learning to grow according to them.
In the two years since the couple took on the cottage, in the northern end of Herbert’s family estate (better known as Downton Abbey), they have spent much of their time outdoors. They have created, what McKenna calls, a sustainable working homestead from the 60-acre property, which includes an 18th-century walled vegetable garden inherited by Herbert. The garden took priority for McKenna. “For me, it was, like, we’ve got to get growing,” she says.
Their first jobs were to unblock the views obscured by laurel hedges, remove dead black ivy from the house and garden wall, and clear fallen trees. Only then could they start on the walled garden. After creating a wisteria-laden pergola at the garden’s heart, McKenna says that “from the beginning of April this year, we’ve never cooked or eaten inside”.
Around the pergola, with the help of GA Butler & Sons, local arborists, the pair constructed ten raised beds, which they planted with organic crops of corn, broad beans, squashes, unusual species of cucumbers, heirloom rainbow carrots, artichokes and salad leaves. “We haven’t had to buy a vegetable since probably May,” McKenna says. An elegant, willowy ancient apple tree, once almost dead, now fruits generously, “making fantastic apple juice”, and wormeries sit alongside the red and blackcurrant bushes that climb the old garden walls.
Being able to pick her own produce every day certainly fired McKenna’s imagination when it came to writing her latest cookbook. During lockdown she began to post Instagram videos and when she started to receive hundreds of messages a week asking for “ideas for simple, quick and delicious weekday suppers”, she compiled her favourites based on produce she was growing. As well as dishes such as baked eggs (“but made more current with gruyère and ham, like a fabulous soufflé”), she has created recipes for coconut cauliflower curry, plus a harvest salad of kale, apple, beetroot and grilled halloumi.
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In between planting veg this summer, the pair have also created a cutting garden with his and hers beds: fragrant roses for him and colourful dahlias, cosmos, cornflowers and peonies for her. Next year, McKenna hopes, they will take on some woodland pigs and Hereford cows. “In the past, I thrived on doing 20 things in one day, but here I’ve learnt to slow everything down and just do one thing at a time, really well,” she says.
At the back of the house the woodlands cleared of saplings have revealed a magical world of towering trees, including a magnificent iridescent lime under which Herbert proposed to McKenna in October. On a dry day they lug out a firepit and blankets to lunch under the verdant canopy or McKenna indulges in a spot of forest bathing. “You lie back, look up and start breathing in with the silence. It really works.”
However, what most delights McKenna is that they have managed to establish a thriving ecosystem in such a short space of time. The composted spring leaves are being mulched into the garden soil to keep it nourished throughout the winter. Bees in the buzzing hives are helping to cross-pollinate the orchard, which is planted with pears, apples, apricots and plums. The six newly arrived Burford brown hens (Tina, Goldie Hen, Yolko Ono, Saoirse, Henneth Paltrow and Eggy Pop), homed in their “Peckingham Palace” chicken yard, are laying half a dozen fresh eggs every day.
“I’ve always talked about the importance of being sustainable, but now I’m actually doing it,” McKenna says. “It’s hard work, but it really makes me live every day in the present. Besides, I wouldn’t enjoy cooking a dish with ingredients flown infrom everywhere. That’s why what we’re doing here feels so important.”
Clodagh’s Weeknight Kitchen: Easy & Exciting Dishes to Liven up Your Recipe Repertoire is published by Kyle Books; clodaghmckenna.com
