The Generous Ghosts at Benton End, Spiritual Home of Garden

ald Blythe, who described how, as a shy young man, he was bewitched by the place. Once, 10 years ago, I stopped by the roadside to famous peer over the wall but the haven friend I was with called: Benton End in “There’s nothing there. Just Suffolk; Cedric the walls”. It was not until re- Morris’s Flowers cently that I realised how in Feering, right wrong he was. For this spring, the ghost of Morris’s garden stirred back to life, thanks to a gardener hired by the Pinchbecks to cut back the undergrowth: on the last day before lockdown, Corydalis bul- bosa ‘Alba’ was revealed under the medlar tree, also the widow iris that Morris loved to paint, and double- headed Fritillaria pyrenaica. Morris and Lett-Haines acquired the house in 1940 and ran it as the East An- glian School of Painting and Drawing – an art school famous for its links with the young Lucian Freud and Maggi Hambling. It was also a social hub: in the kitchen, Lett-Haines’ cousin, the food writer Elizabeth David, could be found at the stove, childrens’ author Kathleen Hale handed around platters – and, yes, the marmalade cat of her stories looked on – while Lett-Haines mixed martinis and told stories of tiffs with Hemingway in 1920s Paris. To Blythe, then a shy young librar- ian, the atmosphere was “out of this world so far as I had previously tasted it. The generous ghosts at Rough and ready and fine mannered. Also faintly dangerous.” The sloping garden combined Mor- ris’s artist-bred irises with perhaps the most interesting collection of plants in post-war Britain. And propped up in Benton End, spiritual the beds were the students’ easels. It was while filming a television show on Lucian Freud that gallerist Philip Mould first discovered Morris. Mould went on to research (and collect) Morris and in the spring of 2018, the home of garden art Garden Museum and Mould’s gallery put on a joint exhibition. “When Philip gave his lecture on Morris,” recalls Bridget, “he mentioned that Benton End was for sale. As an aside. I sat musing about the possibility REBIRTH of the Garden Museum owning a place wo years ago I wrote lecture by art dealer Philip Mould at in the country where people could A Suffolk garden and an article for this the Garden Museum in spring 2018. gather to garden and paint.” It so hap- newspaper fantasis- The occasion was the opening of the pened that the then-owners of the artists’ haven of the ing about time travel first major exhibition of Morris’s work house were also in the audience. to gardens of the past. since his death, a joint effort by Philip “The sale particulars showed a very My favourite trip, I Mould’s gallery and the museum. pretty Suffolk timber-framed house,” 1950s could become wrote, would be a Listening to the story of Benton End, recalls Bridget. Research revealed that T May afternoon in the Bridget Pinchbeck had a sudden desire it was built in the 1520s as a manor a country outpost of 1950s at Benton End, in Hadleigh, Suf- to recreate the art school which Morris house for the leading clothier in Hadle- folk: to the garden created by artist and and his partner Arthur Lett-Haines had igh; later owners included a judge who the Garden Museum. plantsman Cedric Morris (1889-1982). once run inside the creaking Tudor signed the death warrant of Charles I, a Soon, you and I might just be able to manor house, and to replant the garden botanist (the Rev Buddle, after whom visit Benton End again, thanks to a which enthralled a generation with the buddleia was named), and the son By Christopher miracle of philanthropy. Inspired by rarities collected by Morris on his reg- of the founder of Sainsbury’s. Morris’s life and work, last year Rob ular winter journeys to the sun. And we “But we didn’t want another house,” Woodward and Bridget Pinchbeck bought the – that is, the Garden Museum, of which admits Bridget. However, there fol- property and its three acres of walled I am director – now have the chance to lowed a series of serendipitous prompts garden. But not to live in themselves. work with the Pinchbecks. that ended with the Pinchbecks buying The Pinchbecks, gardeners, art col- I first fell in love with Benton End Benton End to be a house open to all: lectors and philanthropists, attended a through the words of local author Ron- Bridget asked the designer of her own garden, Arne Maynard, what he thought of Morris – he was a fan (see box, right). Rob Pinchbeck turned out to have the same birthday as Morris. The buyer at the head of the queue dropped out. And, when Bridget took Hugh St Clair, biographer of Morris and Lett-Haines, to lunch, “I randomly suggested Boul- estin’s [in St James’s]. It turned out, ac- cording to Hugh, that this was Cedric’s favourite restaurant. He illustrated several of the cookbooks”. RIX; MMGI; CHRIS RAWLINGS MARTYN TYERMAN; AUDREY / BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; IMAGES © CHRISTIE’S FRitillaRia A wide range of fritillarias have survived in the grass, including F. imperialis, F. persica, F. pontica and F. pyrenaica. Morris had a penchant for speckled flowers and fritillarias featured in many of his paintings. MusCaRi CoMosuM, white FoRM In 1951, Fred Chittenden, editor-in-chief of The Royal Horticultural Society’s Dictionary of Gardening saw this plant at Benton End (below) and remarked “this plant has no right to exist; it’s not in my new dictionary”. Amazingly it is still growing, and very PLANTS AT BENTON END uncommon. Even with only a little Rosa ‘CedRiC MoRRis’ aneMone pavonina knowledge of Morris and The original seedling was Jewel-like flowers in his gardening style, it is found by Morris at Benton shades of red (above), pink, impossible to visit Benton End (below). The fragrant purple, mauve and white. End without feeling his flowers are followed by Morris gave some to Beth touch is still there, as is the small, round orange hips. Chatto; plants are still influence of his botanist available at her nursery. friends and the huge range of plants he sourced and FRitillaRia Rosa Foliolosa grew. Many were pyRenaiCa The only known introduced to British ‘CedRiC MoRRis’ specimens in three other horticulture by Morris and A very rare double-headed gardens are cuttings from are therefore of historic form (top right) with deep this plant. A surprisingly interest. Rupert Eley of the brown, bell-like flowers. large number of shrub Eley Arboretum identified One of these appeared in roses survive, many as yet many trees and shrubs; the grass in 2019, popping unidentified. Morris Sarah Cook and Lucy up in the dappled shade of exchanged his iris for roses Skellorn the bulbs. trees and shrubs. with Vita Sackville-West. CEDRIC’S PEOPLE FRanCie see him pulling Mount, out the wrong ex-benton plants. gaRdeneR “He liked “Cedric was flowers of a charming, a cupped shape. good listener. He told me that He had the as green was a manners of an mixed colour, Edwardian not a primary, it gentleman. could be placed “[When] his next to other eyesight began colours. He to fail… it was liked orange, too upsetting to but not yellow.” John MoRley time, it seemed, aRtist & ‘You’ve just galantho- missed John’ phile [John Nash, the “I was first artist and taken there by plantsman, who Elizabeth Smart. lived at Worm- Yes, the novelist ingford]. As you (By Grand walked through Central Station I the garden Sat Down and Cedric didn’t Wept). I’d drop tell you any- by to walk thing. You just through the said ‘What’s garden. Every that?’” aRne It has remained MaynaRd a favourite of gaRden mine ever since. designeR “Another “My earliest favourite is the memory of bright narcissus Cedric Morris is ‘Cedric Morris’ when my which flowers godmother used early and is so to say ‘Come cheery to bring and have tea into the house with Cedric’ and in pots for we’d sit Christmas. It admiring the only survived Papaver through orientale cultivation at ‘Cedric Morris’. Benton End.” MaRtyn Rix Fritillaria botanist conica and authoR flowering. A “I went in April very rare one 1980, too early from the to see his irises. Peloponnese. Then I had a “He said he one-track mind was trying to for fritillaries. make the soil At a time when better drained others cosseted by adding ash them in pots, he from the Aga. I was growing took a photo of several in the the corydalis open garden, under the and I remember medlar tree.” St Clair is often asked to compare On Morris’s death in 1982 Chatto ter Cedric died did so little to the gar- Benton End to Charleston in Sussex, wrote: “It is impossible to say what he den. They left it.” In the upper garden which also has its garden and artistic has meant to me. He influenced me in the original seedling of Rosa ‘Sir Cedric set. He says: “Benton End had food, but so many ways, made my life.” In 1990 Morris’ is still rampant; he was one of was spartan. Charleston had fancier she returned for the unveiling of a the first to rescue old roses. furniture, but not such relish for food. plaque but felt “cold and sad inside to If Benton End had been bought by And I always imagine that Charleston find only the husk of Benton End”.

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