Cordelia and her hyacinth vases

This is the time of year that I set off on my bicycle to enjoy the beauty of Cordelia Hall’s display of hyacinth vases. Her home is situated on one of the many side streets that link the two arterial thoroughfares out of Oxford to the north, the Woodstock and Banbury Roads. As I approach, I get a taster of what is to come. For being a clear sunny day and the front garden south facing, the light falls directly on her bay window. Here on both levels of the sill and the sash, are lined an assortment of coloured glass vases, each filled with a single hyacinth flower. And as if the sight of tinted containers and flourishing florets in a variety of hues aren’t enough to satisfy the senses, as I pass over the threshold, I am hit by the intoxicating fragrance of the hundred or so blooms she has nurtured for this final show. I am bewitched.

I like to think that Cordelia is Oxford’s answer to Madame de Pompadour, the 18th century French aristocrat and confidante of Louis XV. It is she who is credited with popularising the use of vases to grow these imports from the Ottoman Empire. Never mind tulip-mania, this was the era of hyacinth-mania. George 111’s wife, Queen Charlotte was known to have filled her private rooms with the things. Those were the days, with as many as 2,000 different varieties to choose from.

Cordelia has been inviting guests to view her collection for 14 years now so I am hoping she is leading a revival. Loading the kitchen table with an assortment of delicious sweet and savoury coffee accompaniments, she clearly delights in the moment, when after months of preparation, the bulbs are ready at last to be admired.

Here Cordelia explains how it all began.

‘I was first given a hyacinth vase with a bulb in it for my 5^th birthday. I’ve been enchanted ever since. I never spend more than the price of a hardback book on a vase, so never more than £25 but most I buy for under a fiver from charity shops. Some of them have turned out to be worth much more. I’ve got some from Denmark, Germany and America, places I have visited. And people give them to me too. There’s an unusual pink one over there given to me by an old friend, and the dark maroon one was a gift from my son so is very tender to my heart.

I really like the tall thin bluey green glass ones. They date from the 1820’s when the empire line was all the rage. The mid 19^th century ones are more curvaceous and crinoline shaped – they followed the latest in dress fashion. I like colour but not so much colour that you can’t see the roots. The handsome deep Bristol blue ones are less satisfactory because you can’t see what’s in them.

In Victorian times people were preoccupied with having greenery in the house in winter. They used to grow crocus and acorns and all sorts of things in glass containers. I stick to hyacinths. It’s really the only thing that works in the vases I have.

There’s only one hyacinth grower left in the UK now so most of the bulbs I buy are from Holland. I’ve tried many over the years, but I always return to the older varieties. But some are becoming more difficult to find – I haven’t been able to get one of my favourites ‘Ostara’ a very, very dark blue with a sort of purple stem for a long time. I like ‘Woodstock’ and ‘Jan Bos’ very much. I buy ‘Blue Jack’ and ‘Peter Stuyvesant’ for my blues. I never buy Delft Blue because they smell so unpleasant when they are going over. I used to be rather suspicious of the yellow ones – ‘City of Harlem’ but now I’ve decided I was too snooty. I really have no business despising a yellow hyacinth.

I have learned not to put them in a cupboard because if you put too many in the same space, they over-heat and you don’t get a good result. You can save ones which aren’t doing well – you get them out, wash off all the mould and rot, and you’ve got about a 70% chance that if you dry them and start again you can make them work. You fill the vases so the bulb can sniff the water but is not touching it. I put mine in the cellar about the end of October beginning of November and top them up about twice.

I am ruthless. I want to get rid of Christmas and get the vases up as a vision of Spring. So they come upstairs at Epiphany pretty much ready or not. This year they were very over ready and some of them had just flowered in the dark. It was unusual as it’s been so mild. They looked extremely ghost like and rather beautiful. I was quite taken aback.

It was after I asked my friend Clova to paint a picture of my hyacinth vases with the hyacinths in bud and I was so delighted with the result that I had a little party to launch the picture surrounded by the hyacinths.  It was such an agreeable occasion that I resolved to do it annually. And just as I was about to send out invitations the following year the Haitian earthquake took place in 2010 so I changed my email to say Hyacinths for Haiti, and by the end of the morning I found I had more than £400 in my bowl. And it made me realise it was a wonderful fundraising opportunity and I’ve done it for every year since (except for Covid). And sometimes when the world is in a happier condition, I might ask the most recently widowed person in the street to nominate their husband’s charity and we have a picture of the deceased, and everyone reminisces and that’s very nice. And sometimes we are more global and this year with the terrible position in Gaza we are doing the UNICEF Gaza appeal.

It’s quite a special thing isn’t it. Some bulbs haven’t quite come up yet that are still going to do something, and others must be removed as they go over. It’s that time in the journey. I quite like the retreat –and it happens in strict routine – sweeping through the rooms, the table-tops, the window sills. The last to go is the mantlepiece. And then I am very pleased to see everything back up, as I haven’t seen my usual mantlepiece stuff since the beginning of December.‘

And before long it will be time to look at bulb catalogue’s for next year’s offering. I can’t wait.

This charming poem was written by the Sufi poet, Mosliff Eddin Saadi in the 13^th Century. The sentiment still remains true.

If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,

And from thy slender store two loaves alone to thee are left

Sell one, and with the other dole

Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.

Portrait of Cordelia (above) courtesy of Rachel Crowther

This year’s ghostly offerings, just up from the cellar.

And a couple of weeks later in full technicolour.

The hyacinth vase picture of Cordelia’s window sill by Clova Stuart-Hamilton. It was this that inspired the yearly celebration.

And Clova’s latest painting from 2024

An embroidery by one of Cordelia’s lodgers hangs on the kitchen wall.

Cordelia’s rag rug which she designed and made herself based on her collection.