Embroidered in Theatre and Romance

ADRESFIELD COURT is an improbable place: a house, Embroidered in theatre garden and estate straight from the pages of a Disraeli Mnovel. It’s an ancient seat, lived in by the and romance same family for the past 900 years, but received a comprehensive makeover during Madresfield Court, Madresfield, Malvern, Worcestershire the 1860s, with many delicious aftershocks of decoration since that time. It would come Steven Desmond applauds the vision and fine details that have created a remarkable as no surprise to catch a whiff of cigar smoke and hear the click of the croquet garden over the decades and centuries, where high Victorian romanticism is stylishly mallet in such a place. blended with modern ideas on herbaceous planting The architect hired to cloak the ancient fabric in its new magnificence was Philip Photographs by Marianne Majerus Hardwick, who began his work here in 1865. He was an unlikely choice, best known for his railway stations, including the famous and lamented Euston Arch. Here, he willingly played the theatrical romantic, investing the whole house with a mixture of Walter Scott-like embroidered history and a series of wonderful set-pieces, including a great hall complete with sensa- tional timbered roof and minstrels’ gallery. The yew structures remain, like a sort ‘of giant showroom of antique topiary The grounds were subject to a parallel campaign of comprehensive improvement. William Cox, one of the premier head’ gar- deners of Victorian England, took charge of a range of new features, each on a grand scale. Great avenues pushed out from the house towards the lodges, including one of cedars of Lebanon, now magnificently over- mature, with great fans of foliage sweeping to the ground. In just such a setting, the weekend guests in Disraeli’s Lothair were treated to a picnic of lobster sandwiches washed down with Chablis. Nearby, in a quiet dell, is a Pulhamite rock garden. The rocks themselves are made of an artificial material, essentially cement smeared over a core of brickbats and clinker. The result should be appalling, but is always, as here, entirely convincing, so that a detailed search always has to be made to find a corner of brick protruding in an obscure location. As in so many of these fascinating crea- tions, there is a fernery pool and a great primitive arch, featuring, in this instance, a nicely balanced rock overhead to add a frisson of agreeable terror. The mighty royal fern, Osmunda regalis, a native ➢ Roses and herbaceous flowers arrest the foreground, but the old park swathed in mist beyond is captivating Country Life, April 11, 2018 89 Above: The circular steps and yew hedging are best seen from an aerial viewpoint. Opposite: Munstead Wood roses and a box fleur-de-lys in front of the ornate wellhead species that bears its spores in flower-like of the family, Jonathan and Lucy Chenevix- tufts held aloft, rather than on the backs of Trench, moved here in 2012. Working with the fronds in the conventional way, looms Lucy’s mother, Rosalind Morrison, they over the pool. Although we’re only yards wanted to emphasise its special signifi- from civilisation, this is clearly the entrance cance as part of the elaborate layout and to a lost world in which Prof Challenger decoration of the house and called in Tom might stumble upon a sleeping iguanodon. Stuart-Smith to advise on its transformation The house itself is set, as we might expect, into something richer and more theatrical. within an ancient moat. It confers a desir- This is always a tricky brief in such able atmosphere of mystery on the house, a context, obliging the designer to steer with wings, gables and turrets pushing out a delicate course between the twin dangers in unexpected directions, just as one would of feeble pastiche and intrusive modernity, wish of a place the origins and evolution of but Mr Stuart-Smith has been wise and which are lost in the mists of antiquity. skilled here. The whole scheme, within a con- Immediately outside the moat, the lead- fined and awkwardly shaped space, is ing Edwardian garden designer Thomas grouped around the marvellous wrought- Mawson laid out a garden of elaborate yew ironwork of a wellhead dated 1897. This buttresses framing panels of seasonal bed- ingenious feature has all the character of ding. These latter are replaced, at least for a medieval Gothic finial, though none of now, by turf, but the yew structures remain, the detail is actually Gothic. vast and complex, like a sort of giant show- It forms an irresistible focal point, with room of antique topiary. The present head the additional charm of allowing the house, gardener, Andrew Tawse, spends much of the moat and the distant coverts of the his year shaving and shaping these and the immense park to be seen through it. The many other stretches of hedge and arbour decoration incorporates the family motto, in the grounds. Fortuna mea in bello campo, which, like so Looking in from all this complexity across many of its kind, can be variously interpreted. the moat, a garden on a modest scale can Mr Stuart-Smith has cleverly framed this be seen enfolded within the various wings wellhead in a broad, green, level lawn with of the house. This enclosed space, quite complex edge revealed from upstairs isolated from the rest of the garden and windows as the outline of a Tudor rose. only approachable from the various rooms Surrounding this elegant and thoughtful that give onto it, was a courtyard planted open space is a series of large-scale fleurs- with lavender when the present generation de-lys in box, the outer curls planted with ➢ 90 Country Life, April 11, 2018 Above: Green shade for green thoughts: a tunnel for quiet contemplation. Below: The rock garden: ‘essentially cement smeared over brickbats and clinker’, but entirely convincing shrub roses. The whole pattern evokes just outstanding plant offering form and that Victorian sense of longing for the colour across a long season. It looks very imaginary golden age of their ancestors. happy here. The detailed planting of the garden is an The herbaceous planting is rich and var- interesting mixture of big, stocky shrub ied and rewards examination. A bold roses and modern herbaceous planting of modern note is struck by the inclusion of the kind we have come to expect. The roses big tufts of Stipa gigantea, which looks are a mixture of golden oldies, such as the quite at home here and removes any doubt vigorous, peony-like deep-pink double Wild that this is a new planting scheme. Edric or the changeable hues of the floppy A restrained scheme of pale primary col- single Rosa mutabilis and the modern pro- ours draws the eye this way and that: ductions of David Austin. Among the latter Salvia and Eryngium, red and blue, are are the richly cerise double Munstead Wood cleverly underpinned by a sort of low cloud (handsomely enfolded in the curves of the of misty blue formed by Perovskia, a selec- fleurs-de-lys) and the towering, single- tion of cranesbills and the combined forces flowered white Kew Gardens. of Stachys lanata and Crambe maritima, Other shrubs giving substance to the the native seakale, its lovely sea-green mix include Hydrangea quercifolia, an leaves stretching elegantly out across the gravel as if it were on one of its preferred A view across the moat gives hints of the modern gravel garden contained within the moat shingle beaches. The wonderfully crinkled wall. The house, remodelled in 1865, appears ‘straight from the pages of a Disraeli novel’ Need to know white flowers of the Californian tree poppy l The estate stands on a plain between Romneya coulteri shoot up here and there. Spreading up the walls, adorning the to drape these handsome walls with its the Malvern Hills and the River Severn Magnificent though it is, I’m always a little ancient fabric, are several shrubs, the most noble leaves and fruits. l The soil is a clay loam, richly improved concerned as to where it might poke up evocative of which is the grapevine bearing Beneath the crowd of gables, finials and over the centuries by good cultivation next and frankly prefer to enjoy it in other the name Madresfield Court. coats of arms, this new garden confirms l The site is sheltered to the west by people’s gardens. This black muscat was bred here by our that new and old can come together in perfect the Malvern Hills The mixture is varied at the base of the old friend William Cox. It proved an imme- harmony. It is a model of its kind. l Two important Victorian head garde- house walls by big drifts of low evergreens diate and lasting success and was awarded Madresfield Court, Madresfield, Malvern, ners were successively in charge here: including hellebores and the native the desired First Class Certificate by the Worcestershire (www.madresfieldestate. William Cox from the 1840s to 1883 and Blechnum spicant, a neat ground-cover RHS in 1868. Its reputation is as good now co.uk; [email protected]; William Crump from 1883 to 1919 fern found in acid oakwoods in the wild. as it was then and it was an inspired choice 01684 573614) 92 Country Life, April 11, 2018 www.countrylife.co.uk www.countrylife.co.uk Country Life, April 11, 2018 93.

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