ALL gardens go through change, but those surrounding the Mill House in Balcombe, West Sussex, have survived an impressive cycle of highs and lows. In the 1930s, the gardens were renowned for their exuberant borders and understated meadows. The then owner, Maude Haworth-Booth, was a friend and disciple of William Robinson who lived and gardened at nearby Gravetye Manor. Her book, My Garden Diary, which contains a foreword from Robinson, describes dense plantings of hardy perennials mixed with shrubs, climbers and native plants to create a naturalistic-looking garden scene of the sort that Robinson championed.
When Graeme and Alison Musker acquired the property in 1998, the garden’s glory days were long past, choked by bindweed and smothered with ground elder. The Muskers sought the help of local gardener Alex Bell and, since then, they have nurtured, cajoled and, sometimes, strong-armed the garden back into being a place of beauty and tranquillity.
‘The first year, the garden was left fallow,’ says Mr Bell, ‘and we simply started digging out weeds, including about 70 self-sown alders.’ Planting began the following year in the parts of the garden closest to the house, three mid-18th-century former millers’ cottages that have been joined to create a single home. Skirting the house is a terrace built of huge slabs of Horsham stone and looking as old as the cottages—although, in fact, it was laid recently—which leads to an impressive mixed border, nearly 40 yards long.
Denne historien er fra September 08, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra September 08, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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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.
