MICHAEL and Anne Heseltine bought Thenford House in 1976 and immediately set about creating its garden and arboretum. They did so with an energy and passion that continues unbounded today. The story is thrillingly narrated in their book Thenford: The Creation of an English Garden (2016).
Lord Heseltine is an enthusiastic and knowledgeable plantsman, with a special interest in trees and shrubs. His collection amounts to an arboretum, within which are many self-contained gardens and architectural features. These include an array of stone troughs planted with alpine plants, a spectacular cascade of water known as the Rill and Lady Heseltine’s splendid sculpture garden. But it is the trees—more than 3,000 different species and cultivars—that offer the greatest horticultural interest. The presence of water—lakes and streams—has added immensely to the possibilities and the beauty of the display. ‘Water is the making of the garden,’ says Lord Heseltine.
Much of the tree planting has been carried out within the thin and neglected woodlands that surrounded the park in 1976. The Heseltines have received advice and help from many distinguished experts over the years— including Sir Harold Hillier, Roy Lancaster and Keith Rushforth—but the driving force behind making the arboretum has always been Lord Heseltine himself.
This story is from the October 05, 2022 edition of Country Life UK.
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 October 05, 2022 edition of Country Life UK.
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
Give it some stick
Galloping through the imagination, competitive hobby-horsing is a gymnastic sport on the rise in Britain, discovers Sybilla Hart
Paper escapes
Steven King selects his best travel books of 2024
For love, not money
This year may have marked the end of brag-art’, bought merely to show off one’s wealth. It’s time for a return to looking for connoisseurship, beauty and taste
Mary I: more bruised than bloody
Cast as a sanguinary tyrant, our first Queen Regnant may not deserve her brutal reputation, believes Geoffrey Munn
A love supreme
Art brought together 19th-century Norwich couple Joseph and Emily Stannard, who shared a passion for painting, but their destiny would be dramatically different
Private views
One of the best ways-often the only way-to visit the finest privately owned gardens in the country is by joining an exclusive tour. Non Morris does exactly that
Shhhhhh...
THERE is great delight to be had poring over the front pages of COUNTRY LIFE each week, dreaming of what life would be like in a Scottish castle (so reasonably priced, but do bear in mind the midges) or a townhouse in London’s Eaton Square (worth a king’s ransom, but, oh dear, the traffic) or perhaps that cottage in the Cotswolds (if you don’t mind standing next to Hollywood A-listers in the queue at Daylesford). The estate agent’s particulars will give you details of acreage, proximity to schools and railway stations, but never—no, never—an indication of noise levels.
Mission impossible
Rubble and ruin were all that remained of the early-19th-century Villa Frere and its gardens, planted by the English diplomat John Hookham Frere, until a group of dedicated volunteers came to its rescue. Josephine Tyndale-Biscoe tells the story
When a perfect storm hits
Weather, wars, elections and financial uncertainty all conspired against high-end house sales this year, but there were still some spectacular deals
Give the dog a bone
Man's best friend still needs to eat like its Lupus forebears, believes Jonathan Self, when it's not guarding food, greeting us or destroying our upholstery, of course
