Cheery Boston ivy league of creeping invaders

SIR – Your lovely picture of St John’s College, Cambridge, clad in Boston ivy (October 9) lifted the spirits with its beauty.

At Hartland Abbey, it has also been growing for 170 years. Our annual, almost daily, task from July onwards is trimming its tentacles, which this year have grown at such a rate that, despite our best efforts, it managed to invade the library windows, much to the amusement of our visitors. By October, if nothing was done, the windows would have disappeared completely from view.

But we love it at this time of year and it is probably holding the house together.

Angela Stucley

Hartland, Devon

Boston ivy spreading its tentacles over the Meadow Building of Christ Church, Oxford