Customer Reviews

Merry Hall

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Nichols, by turn reverent and bitchy, is an engaging writer. The book nicely catches the atmophere of England in the 50s with all its social mores. Compared to today it seems to hang in a place out of time.
The story of the purchase of the Hall and the conversion of its garden moves along well aided by some very funny moments. Terrific characters appear in all their eccentricity.

A wonderful book to read by the fire with a glass of sherry in an attempt to evoke the period.

Just as Trollope passed the literary torch to Angela Thirkell, so did E. F. Benson pass his to this good fellow! Mr. Nichols' trilogy about Merry Hall is so entertaining, even though at times he comes across as a bit "twee". As you get to know him and his neighbors through the books, you come to realize that yes, some things are more important in your own blinkered surroundings than in the big wide world. I would recommend these books to anyone who loves gardening (on a grand scale), gossip, and the minutiae of life.

I first read Merry Hall over 30 years ago, and having recently re-read it I was impressed by how much an impression it had made on me. Many a time I have unknowingly quoted from the work, thinking the quote apocryphal!

You must read for yourself how to deal with an overgrown holly hedge, and how to plant hundreds of trees without buying them, and what berberis can do for you, and why you should cultivate periwinkle...

I'm sure you'll be delighted with the finely drawn sketches of the real people populating the story: the characters of gardeners, society ladies, and men who work for the government in a clearly covert and somewhat sinister capacity. You'll enjoy the cats, the lilies, and how to create an English country garden from a neglected and ill directed site.

The gentle humor reflects the gentler times before the horrors of World War 2 brought violence, destruction, and death into the hearts and homes of most of Britain.

This book is a keeper!

Beverly Nichols, author of MERRY HALL says the love of gardening involves the love of art, the love of love, and the love of death. Following his experiences in WWII, Nichols retired to the English countryside to restore himself mentally, physically, and spiritually. He doesn't inform the reader directly of his background (I know this from having read some biographical material from other sources), but he had another life before he bought the house and grounds describes in his trilogy beginning with MERRY HALL. He was a journalist and writer, and during WWII he spent some time abroad in His Majesty's Service.

To the unknowing, Nichols narrative may seem a bit too cheerful, frivolous, or shallow, but his book is intended to entertain the reader--this is gardening mind you not the aftermath of war. To the extent he able to do so, Nichols kept the events in the DAILY MAIL out of his gardening books. As a result, some readers today can mistakenly think him an English prig who had no concern for life outside his own back yard.

MERRY HALL begins one afternoon when Nichols and his 'man' Gaskin stumble across a derelict Georgian manor house and it's grounds. Nichols is overcome with a desire to restore the house and rebuild the grounds. He has been living in London and until that fateful day was more or less settled, but now he wants to "move beyond the Tudor world" and into the world of the Georgian Manor House. He buys Merry Hall and thus begins his adventure.

MERRY HALL was written about six years into the project. By that time Nichols had undertaken the restoration of the foul smelling pond just off the music room and won the support of the able Oldfield, the gardener who came with the house and grounds. The book is an interesting mixture of personal anectdote, observations about the various neighbors who have their own opinions of what Nichols ought to restore the house and grounds, insights into elements of garden design, practical advice about various bulbs, shrubs, garden ornaments such as urns and benches, and observations about greenhouses and cats.

It's wonderful that Bev is at last being remembered for his timeless, hysterical stories. This particular book is best remembered by me for the holly hedge burning episode & reminds me of many of my own champagne enhanced escapades! His books are appealing to anyone who remebers the forties in Britain, gardeners, house buyers & general lovers of gentle observational comedy.

I grabbed this one from the New Books Shelf at the library pretty much because I liked the cover and the dustjacket said something about gardening. Beverley was an English gentleman who wrote popular fiction during the 40's. This one is the first in a series of books he wrote about living in Merry Hall, a run-down Georgian mansion that he bought after the war. I loved this little book, and now I'm going to read the whole trilogy. You should, too! At times you might find him irritating, but isn't that to be expected from an egotistical Englishman writing about himself? Besides, he's very funny in that droll way Englishmen have, and he even has two cats named "One" and "Four." How can you not love that? Here's a bit from it: After breakfast I went along to the music-room, to spend half an hour on the waterfalls. By spending half an hour on the waterfalls, I mean practising the double descending cadenzas in Chopin's Third Scherzo. It is perhaps the most superbly 'pianistic' piece of music ever written; to be able to play it properly must give to any pianist a sense of almost god-like power... a feeling of floating on wings over a sea of roses. I do not feel at all like that when I play it; I feel as if I were stumbling, with bare feet and with considerable pain, over the sharpest pebbles of Brighton beach. So, no doubt, do my listeners. But I have been practising it for nearly ten years, and I shall go on practising it, flat by flat and sharp by sharp and natural by natural, with an increasing hatred of the fourth finger of my left hand, which has Communist tendencies.

I howled with laughter till I cried. It's a book worth it's weight in gold, or at the very least, in fertilizer. I'm ordering the remaining two books of this trilogy, plus anything else this author has written (be it a book or a shopping list).

My wife and I took turns reading this delightful book out loud to each other. Several passages made me laugh so hard I had tears in my eyes. I recommend it highly.

Merry Hall by Beverly Nichols is a delightful book that should appeal to gardeners as well as others. The author's wit and humor are great. He is the Peter Mayle of gardening. The book tells of his purchase and renovation of an old English manor house, but he focuses on the garden instead of on food.

Must-read for British gardeners, or those who enjoy British dry wit and humour...not new (written during WWII)...but timeless and refreshing. A bachelor writer's account of buying an old house and bringing its gardens back to vibrant life with the help of his two cats, One and Four.