Stately home’s owner tears up tenant’s garden to halt knotweed
WHEN stately home owner Roger Gawn spotted Britain’s most troublesome weed growing on a tenant’s land, he leapt into action.
Using a mini- digger, he uprooted plants, trees and shrubs to ensure he removed all trace of the destructive Japanese knotweed.
But the tenant complained the land had been left ‘like a bomb site’ and this week Mr Gawn, 70, found himself hauled before a court. He was accused of causing more than £3,500 damage to the garden that Robert Adams rents from him at the Coach House, part of the 17th century Grade I listed Melton Constable Hall in Norfolk.
Widower Mr Adams, 80, who has lived in the three-bedroom semi-detached house for 46 years, said he had not been warned that his garden would be dug up.
But magistrates cleared Mr Gawn on Wednesday after he explained that the knotweed would have caused widespread damage if he had not acted. He had intended to replant the area he dug up, he said.
After the hearing, property developer Mr Gawn, who bought the estate in 1986, said: ‘Justice has been done and I am very grateful that the truth has been seen. I have had difficulties with the tenant ever since I inherited him. This is just another in a series of incidents.’
The disputed area did not form part of the garden leased by Mr Adams, who pays £540 a month in rent – around half the market value – he claimed.
The row began in March last year. Mr Adams told King’s Lynn magistrates he popped out to the shops and returned to find the garden he had planted with his late wife had been destroyed.
‘There was nothing left in the garden, it looked like a bomb site.
‘The lawn didn’t exist any more, there were holes where the trees had been, there were lumps of earth and craters all over the place.’ He said ‘it would have been fair’ for Mr Gawn, who had often complimented him on how well he kept the garden, to have written stating his intentions.
Prosecutor Fred Sagoe said there was a difference of opinion about whether Mr Gawn was entitled to do what he did and whether it was reasonable.
Mr Gawn told the court he acted after he discovered a crack in a large brick-built potting shed that he was seeking to convert into a home for another employee.
‘My gardener and I started to clear away stuff and we discovered the Japanese knotweed within minutes,’ he said. ‘It became obvious that it was the knotweed which was destabilising the building.
‘I dug everything up safely with root balls intact and set aside the plants for replanting.’
Mr Gawn admitted he had not warned Mr Adams about the work. But he explained: ‘I had to deal with a real problem and I had to get on with it.’ He denied deliberately carrying out the work when his tenant was away.
Simon Nicholls, for Mr Gawn, said Japanese knotweed was a ‘pernicious’ plant that could cause serious damage and it was an offence to allow it to grow.
Presiding magistrate Nigel Stringer said Mr Gawn had ‘acted in a reasonable manner’ and ‘there was no criminal intent’.
Mr Adams was not available for comment last night.