The Sweltering Summer of ’57: Horace Walpole’s Garden Woes

July 10, 1757

On this day, dear readers, we find ourselves transported to a time of sweltering heat and wilting gardens.

The year is 1757, and the esteemed Horace Walpole, that prolific letter writer and arbiter of taste, has put quill to paper to describe a most extraordinary circumstance to his friend, John Chute Esquire.

Picture, if you will, a Europe in the grip of an unprecedented heat wave.

The mercury in Paris and across the fair fields of England has risen to heights never before recorded. One can almost feel the oppressive weight of the air, heavy with moisture and the scent of drooping roses.

Our dear friend John Huxham, that astute provincial physician known for his study of fevers, noted with growing concern the myriad health issues sprouting like weeds in this hothouse of a summer. One can only imagine the discomfort of our forebears, bereft of the cooling comforts we now take for granted.

From his verdant retreat at Strawberry Hill, Walpole penned these words, dripping with the very essence of the season:

I say nothing of the heat of this magnificent weather, with the glass yesterday up to three quarters of sultry. In all English probability this will not be a hinderance long; though at present... I have made the tour of my own garden but once these three days before eight at night, and then I thought I should have died of it.

Can you imagine, dear gardeners, the trials of tending to one's blooms in such oppressive conditions?

The wilting petals, the parched soil, the desperate need for shade and cool respite!

Yet, even in his discomfort, our dear Horace could not help but recognize the historic nature of this scorching season.

He concluded his missive with a prediction that would prove all too accurate:

For how many years we shall have to talk of the summer of fifty-seven!

Indeed, Mr. Walpole, indeed.

Here we are, centuries hence, still marveling at the great heat wave of 1757.

As we tend our own gardens in these changing times, let us spare a thought for those who came before us, braving the elements with nothing but a fan and a sturdy constitution.

Perhaps, as we water our drought-resistant plants and seek shade under our carefully placed trees, we might raise a cool glass to Horace Walpole and his fellow sufferers of that long-ago summer.

For in their discomfort, they have given us a window into the past and a lesson for the future.