MICHAEL and Sue Prideaux bought Selehurst from Robin Loder in 1976. It had been built by Mr Loder’s great-grandfather William Egerton Hubbard in 1889 as part of the Leonardslee estate at Lower Beeding, now famous for the rhododendrons bred by Sir Edmund Loder, Hubbard’s son-in-law.
Selehurst is now an outstanding garden in its own right. The house itself is no architectural gem: its glory lies not in its design, but in its situation on the edge of the Sussex Weald, surrounded by springs, overlooking a meadow that slopes very gently down towards oak woodland in the middle distance. The property is splendidly open to the south-west, so that the eye is then drawn 10 miles further to Chanctonbury Ring on the distant blue escarpment of the South Downs. ‘A garden should have a view,’ Mrs Prideaux’s mother had declared when they were househunting 50 years ago.
The house was fairly run down when the Prideaux took up occupation. Moreover, the garden around the house had all but disappeared after the neglect that began with the Second World War. But the property came with some 80 acres, which encouraged the Prideaux to design and plant their garden on an expansive scale. Their understanding of the history, values and unique quali- ties of Selehurst came quickly. They noted that the soil was sandy, with innumerable small springs that trickled out from the underlying clay, a geological formation that has been the making of the garden. Fine plantings were already in place, too—trees and shrubs planted over some 100 years by Hubbards and Loders—including several massive Eucalyptus gunnii that dated to the 1880s. One is now the tallest in Sussex at more than 100ft high.
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
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.
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.
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
'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
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
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.
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
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
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
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.