On reflection
Country Life UK|September 22, 2021
Hidden by gentle neglect and revealed by research, the remarkably intact 18th-century garden of Chettle House, Dorset, has been brilliantly reinterpreted by landscape designer Pip Morrison, reveals Christopher Stocks
Christopher Stocks
On reflection

TOM and Rosamond Sweet-Escott liked Chettle so much they almost bought it twice. This beautifully eccentric early-18th-century house came up for sale in 2015, having been owned by the same family for the previous 400 years. The Sweet-Escotts put in an offer but were pipped to the post, only for the buyers to have second thoughts and sell it to them after all. The tale of its long and painstaking repair has been detailed by John Martin Robinson in COUNTRY LIFE (November 18, 2020), but the gardens of Thomas Archer’s Baroque edifice have proved to be as fascinating—and enigmatic—as the history of the house itself.

Chettle was built in about 1715 for George Chafin, shortly after his marriage to a local heiress and his election as an MP for Dorset a position he was to hold for the next 40 years. It stands on the edge of the pretty village that shares its name, on the glorious chalk uplands of Cranborne Chase, a vast medieval hunting ground that remains remarkably wild and woolly to this day, crisscrossed by Roman roads and peppered with prehistoric earthworks. The house was long a puzzle to architectural historians, with documentary evidence for Archer’s authorship only coming to light in recent years, but its mystery was as nothing compared with the grounds. Gardens there must surely have been to frame such an ambitious house, yet not a single sketch, plan, or early description has ever been found.

Diese Geschichte stammt aus der September 22, 2021-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.

Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.

Diese Geschichte stammt aus der September 22, 2021-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.

Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.

WEITERE ARTIKEL AUS COUNTRY LIFE UKAlle anzeigen
Save our family farms
Country Life UK

Save our family farms

IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.

time-read
1 min  |
November 27, 2024
A very good dog
Country Life UK

A very good dog

THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.

time-read
1 min  |
November 27, 2024
The great astral sneeze
Country Life UK

The great astral sneeze

Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why

time-read
3 Minuten  |
November 27, 2024
'What a good boy am I'
Country Life UK

'What a good boy am I'

We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton

time-read
3 Minuten  |
November 27, 2024
Forever a chorister
Country Life UK

Forever a chorister

The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death

time-read
4 Minuten  |
November 27, 2024
Best of British
Country Life UK

Best of British

In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.

time-read
3 Minuten  |
November 27, 2024
Old habits die hard
Country Life UK

Old habits die hard

Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves

time-read
4 Minuten  |
November 27, 2024
It takes the biscuit
Country Life UK

It takes the biscuit

Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them

time-read
3 Minuten  |
November 27, 2024
It's always darkest before the dawn
Country Life UK

It's always darkest before the dawn

After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat

time-read
4 Minuten  |
November 27, 2024
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
Country Life UK

Tarrying in the mulberry shade

On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.

time-read
3 Minuten  |
November 27, 2024