West Green House

36 the countryman april 2016 37 The best of British gardens Andrew Baskott goes exploring an eighteenth-century garden in Hampshire, and discovers how it has become a celebration of flora and music A garden to sing about Hampshire near the village of Hartley Above , the house from the walled garden, Wintney, not far from Hook. and top left , the Alice Garden Hawley’s descendants were to live at ieutenant General Henry Hawley However, despite his notoriety, one West Green until 1898, when the Play - much of the twentieth century West Lwas not a well-liked man; indeed redeeming feature of his life was the fair family became the new owners. Dr Green was the home of Evelyn, Dowa - few had a good word to say about him. building of West Green House. Built Playfair was the Royal physician, and ger Duchess of Wellington and her He had earned a fearsome reputation around 1720, this elegantly propor - he commissioned renowned Scottish younger cousin, Yvonne Fitzroy. The for his brutality shown during the tioned manor house in the typical architect, Robert Weir-Schultz to re- house was actually bought for Evelyn 1745 Rebellion, especially at Culloden, early 18th century style of red brick model the north front of the house by Sir Victor Sassoon, and it was Sir and gained the nickname, ‘Hangman and tile roof, stands tucked away and transform the gardens. The Play - Victor who left West Green to the Hawley’. amongst the green folds of north fair family didn’t stay long, and for National Trust in 1957. With Yvonne’s 38 the countryman april 2016 39 death in 1971, it finally became a Trust Below , inside the Walled Garden, and right , property. the Moon Gate West Green’s very first tenant was Lord Alistair McAlpine. With each nobody was hurt, but damage to the new arrival the gardens had under - house was so extensive, that the gone some element of change and, in National Trust seriously considered keeping with his family’s construction demolishing it. heritage, Lord McAlpine embarked on In the end, the Trust decided it a mini-building spree. With designs by would repair the fabric of the Grade architect Quinlan Terry, he set about II-listed house, but seek someone else filling the garden with an eclectic mix willing to tackle the interior and of garden follies and neo-classical restore the gardens. And so, in 1993, it ornaments. One impressive piece is was Marylyn Abbott who purchased the Nymphaeum fountain, forming the 99-year lease, and took on the part of an Italianate garden entered challenge of West Green House. through an earlier Victorian moon Marylyn’s journey to Hampshire gate, which also frames the garden’s had begun on the far side of the world steps and rill. in Australia. Having already created As treasurer to the Conservative one of Australia’s most visited gardens party, Lord McAlpine was a promi - at Kennerton Green in Mittagong, nent figure within political circles. New South Wales, she had headed to Unfortunately this prominence made England in search of a new garden in a him a terrorist target. In 1990, his ten - kinder climate. ancy at West Green House was nearly What she really wanted was “some - garden in which to grow a “proper Visiting West Green House at an end when the IRA detonated a where old and in need of a bit of love” herbaceous border”. Her search had West Green House, Thackham's Lane, bomb in the forecourt. Fortunately and, perhaps most importantly, a ended at West Green House, and it near Hartley Wintney, Hook, Hampshire would certainly need all the love it RG27 8JB. could get. After almost 300 years, the Admission fee. NT members free. Open: garden had slipped into a state of neg - Wednesday through Sunday (including lect and become lost beneath a tangle Bank Holidays) until Sunday 30th of brambles and ivy. The lake now October 2016. Telephone 01252 resembled a marshy swamp and The 844611; www.westgreenhouse.co.uk Mews remained a bomb site from the damage sustained in the IRA attack. to play with, she could see that the Marylyn quickly realised it wasn’t just gardens of West Green House pre - a lot of love the garden would need, sented an opportunity where both her but money too! passions could be indulged. Marylyn had a passion for music Using Weir-Schultz’s design frame - and, having worked for the Sydney work as a starting point, restoration of Opera House, opera too. With 10 acres the garden began. Most of the follies 40 the countryman april 2016 41 by Quinlan Terry were rebuilt, and it took four years of soil improvement before anything could be planted. Planting in the walled garden was one of the early projects. Here they planted box hedging, only to see all 75,000 plants succumbing to box blight. The whole area was replanted, this time with standard box plants they had grown from cuttings, which seemed immune to blight. During all this hard work and frus - tration, Marylyn was still running her garden in Mittagong – albeit through a hosts various opera and classical lot of late night phone calls. However music performances during the sum - this nocturnal garden management mer. West Green House even boasts its came to an end in 2007, when the own orchestra. gardens at Kennerton Green were sold. Eventually The Mews area was Perfect for picnics, Lakefield, above, with Walled gardens of the 1700s It wasn’t long before the sound of restored and so too the lake. No longer the interlocking pools of the Paradise Wallington House, Wallington, music reverberated throughout the resembling a marshy swamp, the Lake Gardens, top left , and Nymphaeum, below Northumberland. NE61 4AR. The walled garden. To the west of the house is an Field has become the idyllic setting for garden was once the kitchen garden and enclosed terraced lawn and it was torch-lit picnics before musical per - edged with box and topiary spheres. nestles deep within East wood. here, with its theatrical setting and formances, with the island and its dec - The herbaceous borders are planted Rode Hall, Scholar Green, Cheshire. ST7 natural acoustics, that the first concert orative wrought-iron pavilion linked with old-fashioned roses, and there is 3QP. Has an early 1700s 2 acre walled was held. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it by a gently arched wooden bridge, as a potager too, where fruit, flowers and Kitchen garden, plus park and formal had an antipodean flavour led by the the lake’s centrepiece. vegetables grow in harmony. While gardens designed by Humphrey Repton. Australian Chamber Orchestra. Traditional style still flourishes at more contemporary designs can be Lydiard Park Walled Garden, Lydiard Since then the Theatre Lawn, as it’s West Green House such as the Alice found in the Paradise Garden, with its Tregroze, Wiltshire, SN5 3PA. A restored now called, has seen the addition of a Garden’s chessboard parterre, or the fountains and interlocking pools and garden from 1740, and now in the care stylish glass-sided auditorium and Walled Garden with its gravel paths the Dragon Garden, with two brightly of Swindon Borough Council. painted Chinese dragons and oriental- Geilston Gardens, Cardross, style pagodas providing interest. Dumbartonshire, G82 5HD. The walled West Green House has seen changes garden dates from 1797 and has its almost as dramatic as some of the original potting shed and a 100 foot operas it stages and become a garden Wellingtonia. very much worth singing about. n Helmsley Walled Garden, Helmsley, North Yorkshire, YO62 5AH. A 5 acre Next month: battling the harsh Northumbrian walled garden dating from 1759 sits elements to create a magical garden from beside the ruins of Helmsley Castle. scratch – Herterton House..

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